Atheist looking for religious debate. Any religion. Let's see if I can be convinced.

[ratiocinator]

As I said in my previous post, there IS objective evidence for God and that objective evidence is Baha'u'llah (and all the other Messengers of God such as Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad, etc.)

In what way are they evidence? Where is the objective path from these people (who contradicted each other) to a real god?

Omnipotence does not mean can do anything, it means all-powerful. God cannot provide direct objective evidence of His Being because God cannot be analyzed measured or observed.

Omnipotence does not mean can do anything, it means all-powerful. God cannot change His nature and make Himself verifiable because then God would not be God.

This is just silly. You are saying that a god created the world, and can send messengers into it, is "all-powerful" but is so pathetically impotent that it cannot manipulate the world in any way so as to provide proper evidence.

Why should He, just because you want one?

No, so as to not be an evil, trickster, unjust, uncaring monster.

God will never do that because in that case the wheat could not be separated from the chaff because everyone would believe God exists, including the people who don't deserve to know.

So the superstitious and overly credulous deserve to know, the rational don't, and those who never got an uncorrupted message, well, that's just too bad? And never mind about all those who suffered and died as a direct result of god playing silly, evil games of hide-and-seek.

Omnipotent + omniscient = omni-responsible. I have never heard anything that illogical in my entire life.

From the person who said that there wasn't objective evidence for god and that there was objective evidence for god...

God’s power and knowledge does not cause anything to happen.

As I explained, if god has a plan to create a world, and it has perfect knowledge of all the consequences, and decides to go ahead anyway, then it is obviously responsible for all said consequences because it could have prevented them from ever happening by either not creating a world or doing it differently.

Atheists always want to pass the buck to God because they don’t want to take ANY responsibility for their actions.

Atheists (by definition) don't accept that a god exists. This is just pointing out the absurdity of theist claims by working out their logical consequences. It's called reductio ad absurdum.

 

[Dropship]

I was a very wimpy little schoolkid, I hated school and all the false values they were pumping into us, and at breaktimes I sometimes used to lock myself in a toilet cubicle and cry my eyes out thinking "There must be more to life than this".
But when I entrered my teens I began to be drawn more and more towards Jesus and something clicked and I began getting stronger as his power downloaded into me bit by bit over the years and I became the strongest person I know..

"Our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with POWER.."-1 Thess 1:5
"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of POWER"- 2 Tim 1:7
"Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty POWER" - Ephesians 6:10

 

[samtonga43]

I suggest taking a break and making up your mind, once and for all, what you actually think about logic and evidence.

I totally agree. Tb, you need to get away from all these hours online and look after yourself. PLEASE consider doing this.

 

[samtonga43]

Did I forget to add that he is an atheist himself?

If you did forget, you forgot wisely.
Ehrman is not an atheist.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I was a very wimpy little schoolkid, I hated school and all the false values they were pumping into us, and at breaktimes I sometimes used to lock myself in a toilet cubicle and cry my eyes out thinking "There must be more to life than this".
But when I entrered my teens I began to be drawn more and more towards Jesus and something clicked and I began getting stronger as his power downloaded into me bit by bit over the years and I became the strongest person I know..

"Our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with POWER.."-1 Thess 1:5
"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of POWER"- 2 Tim 1:7
"Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty POWER" - Ephesians 6:10

Nothing else in your childhood that might have accounted for this - such as some parental behaviour?

 

[Dropship]

I was a very wimpy little schoolkid..

Nothing else in your childhood that might have accounted for this - such as some parental behaviour?

No, my parents were just typical parents and the only mistake (a well-meaning one) that they made was to send me to a snobbish grammar school in town, whereas I would have preferred to have gone to the secondary modern school just down the road with my mates.
My 2 years at GS were the unhappiest of my life, the teachers were no good and the whole place was oppressive and Dickensian.
Eventually my parents realised it was having a bad effect on me and contacted the school; and the headmaster called me into his study and said the sweetest words I've ever heard- "I think you'd be happier at another school".
So I transferred to the bright and breezy sec mod and joined my mates..

 

[samtonga43]

By the way, since scholars pretty much agree that Moses is fictional good luck.

Which scholars agree on this?

 

[Dropship]

..Bart Ehrman is a well respected biblical scholar. In this article he explains how we know that Nazareth existed during the time of Jesus and why it was a bad argument for atheism. Did I forget to add that he is an atheist himself?
Did Nazareth Exist? | The Bart Ehrman Blog

Ehrman wrote that in 2015, six years AFTER a dig found old Nazareth, so he knew he couldn't argue with the evidence.

 

[Dropship]

...But I will grant that it looks like Nazareth did exist. But as I pointed out I have never seen atheists use this argument...

Here's another one by a gay atheist-

 

[ratiocinator]

Here's another one by a gay atheist-

You seem strangely obsessed with this rather obscure claim - and what has this guy's sexuality got to do with anything?

 

[Dropship]

You seem strangely obsessed with this rather obscure claim - and what has this guy's sexuality got to do with anything?

Logic it out mate, of course most gays don't like JC which is probably one of the reasons they become Christianity-hating atheists in the first place.
Ironically JC NEVER SAID A WORD ABOUT GLBT's one way or another, not a single word..

PS- If Christianity is ever stamped out in Britain and America with the help of GLBT's and replaced by another religion, GLBT's will be in a world o' hurt-

Below: The midnight knock at the door by the Sharia Police- "All GLBT's will come with us, NOW!"

 

[SkepticThinker]

We check them out by looking at the evidence that shows who they were.

And what evidence is that? What evidence should we be looking for? And how do we know what evidence we should be looking for?

It still doesn't make any sense to say that people are "Messengers of God" when you've never shown that there is a God to begin with. They might as well be "Messengers of the Pixies."

 

[SkepticThinker]

And that is what is foolish.

How so?

All I have done is copy your argument and replaced "Messengers of Gods" with "magical pixies."

 

[SkepticThinker]

The burden of proof does not apply to me because I have no claims. Baha'u'llah made the claims and He supported His claims with evidence.

The claims of Baha’u’llah and the evidence that supports the claims of Baha’u’llah on this thread:

Questions for knowledgeable Bahai / followers of Baha'u'llah

Of course you have claims. Many of them.
This is getting silly.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I make no claims. I just state my beliefs.
I have nothing to claim so there would be no reason for me to make claims.

The reason you want to turn my beliefs into claims is so you can say I have the burden of proof. I was not born yesterday...
But again, I have no claims.

Ah so that's your game.
If you just say you believe it, and then make a bunch of claims about it, you don't have to back up those claims because you called them beliefs (or so you seem to think).
Very clever.

 

[SkepticThinker]

As I said in my previous post, there IS objective evidence for God and that objective evidence is Baha'u'llah (and all the other Messengers of God such as Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad, etc.)

Omnipotence does not mean can do anything, it means all-powerful. God cannot provide direct objective evidence of His Being because God cannot be analyzed measured or observed.

Omnipotence does not mean can do anything, it means all-powerful. God cannot change His nature and make Himself verifiable because then God would not be God.

Humans are responsible for all of that, God is not responsible anything humans do. It was not God’s plan, but humans have free will so they run amok.

Why should He, just because you want one? God will never do that because in that case the wheat could not be separated from the chaff because everyone would believe God exists, including the people who don't deserve to know.

Omnipotent + omniscient = omni-responsible. I have never heard anything that illogical in my entire life.

God’s power and knowledge does not cause anything to happen. God is not responsible for what He does not do. Humans are responsible for everything that happens in this world because they cause what happens in this world by choosing to make it happen. Selfish evil people are responsible for being selfish and evil because they made the choice to be selfish and evil. The only thing God is responsible for us what we do not choose, that which is beyond our control because it is predestined by God.

Atheists always want to pass the buck to God because they don’t want to take ANY responsibility for their actions. They blame God for everything and they expect God to do what they are responsible to do. It is a good thing that there is no objective evidence for God because you would not want to be a believer anyway since God expects believers to be responsible for their own actions as well as obeying His teachings and laws.

So we have free will most of the time, except sometimes when it comes to things (such as?) that are "predestined by God." Are those two ideas not contradictory?

And then God gave us logic to help us navigate the world around us, but this same logic doesn't apply to this God, but this God still expects us to do what we "are responsible to do." Somehow we're supposed to know what that is without exercising logic.
Sounds pretty convoluted to me.

 

[SkepticThinker]

If you did forget, you forgot wisely.
Ehrman is not an atheist.

He's an agnostic atheist.

Logic it out mate, of course most gays don't like JC which is probably one of the reasons they become Christianity-hating atheists in the first place.
Ironically JC NEVER SAID A WORD ABOUT GLBT's one way or another, not a single word..

PS- If Christianity is ever stamped out in Britain and America with the help of GLBT's and replaced by another religion, GLBT's will be in a world o' hurt-

View attachment 56158



Below: The midnight knock at the door by the Sharia Police- "All GLBT's will come with us, NOW!"

View attachment 56159

So his sexuality has nothing to do with it. You just wanted to call out gay people or something??

 

[ratiocinator]

Logic it out mate, of course most gays don't like JC which is probably one of the reasons they become Christianity-hating atheists in the first place.
Ironically JC NEVER SAID A WORD ABOUT GLBT's one way or another, not a single word..

Not only have you contradicted yourself, you seem to be having a fantasy that atheists hate Christianity, and you actually ignored the main point of what I said.

 

[KWED]

Hell if I can't. I suggest you take a course in logic before you say I can't.

Are all circular arguments invalid?

No. The circularity does not reduce the validity of these arguments in any way. That is, there is nothing inherently wrong with circular argument, although this does not mean that all circular arguments are valid and/or sound. It should be more clear now that this line of reasoning is perfectly valid.Aug 18, 2017
Circular arguments are perfectly valid - THE SKEPTICAL SCIENTIST Why is circular reasoning bad?

Circular reasoning (Latin: circulus in probando, "circle in proving"; also known as circular logic) is a logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with.[1] The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning

No, it cannot ever be established that God exists without a Messenger of God (who is also a Manifestation of God) and who is the only evidence that God exists and God's mouthpiece and God's representative on earth.

“The Person of the Manifestation hath ever been the representative and mouthpiece of God. He, in truth, is the Day Spring of God’s most excellent Titles, and the Dawning-Place of His exalted Attributes. If any be set up by His side as peers, if they be regarded as identical with His Person, how can it, then, be maintained that the Divine Being is One and Incomparable, that His Essence is indivisible and peerless? Meditate on that which We have, through the power of truth, revealed unto thee, and be thou of them that comprehend its meaning.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 70

Please do not misrepresent what I said. I never said that the fact that people claim that Jesus was god's messenger is evidence that Jesus was god's messenger.

Jesus was God's Messenger because Jesus was God's Messenger. The evidence is not the reason that Jesus is God's Messenger. Jesus is God's Messenger because God made Jesus His Messenger. Evidence is just what people want in order to know that Jesus was God's Messenger.

If a man committed a murder, he committed a murder, even if there is no evidence. Evidence is just what is needed by the prosecutor to prove that the man committed the murder.

Was this a serious reply or an attempt at satire?

So here is my perfectly valid circular argument:
If the premise Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God is true, then the conclusion God exists must be true.

That is not a circular argument, ai is just flawed because the first premise is unsupported.
However, it becomes circular if you assume the existence of god to claim that Ali was his messenger, which you then use to prove the existence of god.

Your problem is that you cannot prove Ali was a messenger of god without first proving there is a god for him to be his messenger of!

 

[KWED]

No, I do not have to first prove that God exists before I can believe that anyone is God's Messenger.

All I have to do is prove that the Messenger was sent by God and I have done so.

You have not shown that at all. You have merely claimed it.

How can you prove that you are from Magic Island if you can't even prove that Magic Island exists in the first place?
Merely saying "Of course it exists, I am from it" is just more circular logic.