Atheists: If God existed would God……

[Trailblazer]

If God is good, and if my belief that he exists is relevant to my well-being, then God would *want* to convince me of his existence. if God is all knowing, he would know HOW to convince me, and if he is all powerful, then he would be able to convince me.

So I can conclude either
1. My belief in God's existence isn't relevant to my well-being OR
2. God is not good OR
3. God is not all knowing OR
4. God is not all powerful OR
5. God does not exist.

I find 5 to be the most convincing.

God does not want to convince you of His existence, He wants you to convince yourself.
The reason you are not convinced is because you are waiting for God to convince you, but that train never even came into the station because it does not exist.

You can believe whatever you want to about God but it will not change reality. If God wanted to convince everyone that He exists He has all power to do so, so He would have done that by now.

It is axiomatic that an omnipotent deity only does what He wants to do so we can conclude that the deity doesn't want do convince you that he exists. If the God wanted to make everyone into a believer everyone would be a believer, since an omnipotent deity can make everyone into a believer. This is logic 101 stuff. It is also what Baha'u'llah wrote.

“He Who is the Day Spring of Truth is, no doubt, fully capable of rescuing from such remoteness wayward souls and of causing them to draw nigh unto His court and attain His Presence. “If God had pleased He had surely made all men one people.” His purpose, however, is to enable the pure in spirit and the detached in heart to ascend, by virtue of their own innate powers, unto the shores of the Most Great Ocean, that thereby they who seek the Beauty of the All-Glorious may be distinguished and separated from the wayward and perverse. Thus hath it been ordained by the all-glorious and resplendent Pen…”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 71

In the context of the passage above, If God had pleased He had surely made all men one people means that God could have made all people believers, but IF God has pleased, implies that God did not want to make all people into believers, verified by the fact that all men are not believers. The passage goes on to say why God didn’t want to make us believers... In short, God wants us to make an effort and become believers by our own efforts (by virtue of their own innate powers).

According to this passage, God wants everyone to search for Him and determine if He exists by using their own innate intelligence and using their free will to make the decision to believe. God wants those who are sincere and truly search for Him to believe in Him. God wants to distinguish those people from the others who are not sincere, those who are unwilling to put forth any effort.

If God proved to everyone that He exists then it would not be possible to distinguish between people and how much they really care about believing in Him.

 

[ACEofALLaces]

Totally inefficient, and no wonder so many people get things wrong.

And an almighty God can't manage to dumb down communication with humans to provide a little guidance?

What?....and put all those messenger-believing Bahais out of business?.....not a chance

 

[Trailblazer]

How does it affect me if this imaginary entity recognizes or ignores me or any other atheist?

It would not affect you if it was only imaginary.

 

[F1fan]

God does not want to convince you of His existence, He wants you to convince yourself.

How can a mind convince itself without evidence, unless it is delusional?

 

[Trailblazer]

So give your evidence, as long as it's better than what you have presented thus far.

I have given you all I have, sorry.

 

[F1fan]

What?....and put all those messenger-believing Bahais out of business?.....not a chance

How many have there been? I'm not sure if Jesus and Muhammed are included or not. Joseph Smith and the guy who wrote the Urantia book are excluded. Is that fair? Who decides who is a messenger?

 

[F1fan]

I have given you all I have, sorry.

Which has been grossly inadequate for critical minds. So, delusion?

 

[ACEofALLaces]

How many have there been? I'm not sure if Jesus and Muhammed are included or not. Joseph Smith and the guy who wrote the Urantia book are excluded. Is that fair? Who decides who is a messenger?

Well, if I didn't KNOW any better, I'd suggest it would be TrailBlazer <grin>

 

[Trailblazer]

That's it? 15,000 pages? I read that in a year. And I read far less now than I did when I was a kid.

I said 15,000 tablets, not 15,000 pages, and the tablets all vary in length.
He wrote a lot more than that but they were tossed into the Tigris River.

“A vast, and indeed the greater, proportion of these writings were, alas, lost irretrievably to posterity. No less an authority than MírzáÁqá Ján, Bahá’u’lláh’s amanuensis, affirms, as reported by Nabíl, that by the express order of Bahá’u’lláh, hundreds of thousands of verses, mostly written by His own hand, were obliterated and cast into the river. “Finding me reluctant to execute His orders,” MírzáÁqá Ján has related to Nabíl, “Bahá’u’lláh would reassure me saying: ‘None is to be found at this time worthy to hear these melodies.’ …Not once, or twice, but innumerable times, was I commanded to repeat this act.” God Passes By, p. 138

 

[F1fan]

Let's apply Occam's Razor.

That is: the most simple and likely answer tends to be the correct one when there is a lack of evidence for a given proposition.

Trailblazer admits God can't contact people, so it can't offer evidence, yet people have to decide for themselves. Well, is it an objective thinker who wants to be the most accurate? Or someone motivated to believe?

 

[ACEofALLaces]

I said 15,000 tablets, not 15,000 pages, and the tablets all vary in length.
He wrote a lot more than that but they were tossed into the Tigris River.

And you're STILL denying the REASON why he wrote all that stuff while being holed-up in that nasty prison all those years, is to simply keep from going STIR CRAZY, right?

 

[ppp]

I said 15,000 tablets, not 15,000 pages, and the tablets all vary in length.
He wrote a lot more than that but they were tossed into the Tigris River.

Unless the tablets are a size of a building with 12 point font, it is still well within my scope.

 

[F1fan]

I said 15,000 tablets, not 15,000 pages, and the tablets all vary in length.
He wrote a lot more than that but they were tossed into the Tigris River.

Destruction of official documents? He must have been ashamed, or interpreted wrong, or was making it up, or something else.

If you are getting messages from God you don't throw them away. This new revelation smacks of some fishy business. Why would he destroy writings from God?

 

[Trailblazer]

The key words here are WHY SHOULD God do something as sensible as communicating to whomever needs to be communicated TO. And I keep coming with the same answer....of WHY NOT?

The salient question is WHY, not why not. If God was going to do something there would have to be a good reason. There is NO REASON why God would ever communicate directly to everyone, and that is why God never did it.
I have told you why not and you do not accept it.

Hmmmmm, it seems to me that the ONLY reason you say you don't NEED to prove that, is simply because you don't HAVE any proof!~ But, yes, of course, you have "evidence"......been down that rabbit hole a number of times with you....and each time, come up empty-handed....no evidence of any value.

Not of any value TO YOU. What about that don't you understand? I ma not you and you are not me.

 

[F1fan]

And you're STILL denying the REASON why he wrote all that stuff while being holed-up in that nasty prison all those years, is to simply keep from going STIR CRAZY, right?

In prison? I did not know that. Not exactly the sort of thing a believer brags about of his leader. Of course Hitler wrote Mein Kampf while in Spandau prison, so influential works do get produced.

 

[ACEofALLaces]

Destruction of official documents? He must have been ashamed, or interpreted wrong, or was making it up, or something else.

If you are getting messages from God you don't throw them away. This new revelation smacks of some fishy business. Why would he destroy writings from God?

Mmmmmmmmm, maybe they really WEREN'T from God, ya think? Either that or he simply got tired of lugging all of them around, with no particular destination in mind at the time?

 

[Trailblazer]

I can't imagine why 15,000 tablets would be necessary. Moses only had two.

The reason why so many were required is because the world had progressed a lot since the days of Moses so humanity has many more needs.

 

[ACEofALLaces]

The salient question is WHY, not why not. If God was going to do something there would have to be a good reason. There is NO REASON why God would ever communicate directly to everyone, and that is why God never did it.
I have told you why not and you do not accept it.

You're not GOD.....that's why not!~

 

[F1fan]

Not of any value TO YOU. What about that don't you understand? I ma not you and you are not me.

This is the real conundrum here in this debate forum. Yo come here to debate with other people with weak evidence that is good enough for you, but not good enough for others, and you think others are at fault.

That's like you insisting that God not being able to communicate directly with humans is the fault of humans. I think this parallel is interesting. Perhaps it is a metaphor.

 

[Trailblazer]

There would be no NEED for God to do that. Each individual would have their own specific needs, which this God COULD (if it felt like it) address, directly.

Why should God address people's individual needs? We are grown-ups. We do not need a sky daddy.

IF you'd only think about it...what makes you think that whatever the "message" God gave to this so-called messenger, would, could, SHOULD apply to each and every human being on this planet? That itself is stupid.

Since you do not know what is in the message, how can you say?