Atheists: If God existed would God……

[Trailblazer]

That is incorrect. There have been many religions with gods that are bad.

That does not man that God is bad. Those religions got it wrong.

 

[Trailblazer]

Twice you have said that we are done. And yet you keep talking.

Okay, now I will be done as long as I get no more posts from you.

 

[ppp]

That does not man that God is bad. Those religions got it wrong.

So you say.

 

[Trailblazer]

why wouldn't a deity speak to all humans?

because it doesn't want to.

 

[Trailblazer]

Maybe you're not really listening. There are lots of characteristics of various proposed gods that are commonly discussed in this context, but they're all based on the characteristics defined and presented by believers. Key ones I've seen in discussions involved omnibenevolence and omniscience but there are also specific things such as creation or direct communication with some people (as with your Messengers). They key question is typically whether these sets of characteristics are internally logically consistent in addition to being consistent with general observations and evidence.

Admittedly, I have heard atheists mention these alleged characteristics of God, but when they are talking about what God would do if God exists they focus on omnipotence.

They key question is typically whether these sets of characteristics are internally logically consistent in addition to being consistent with general observations and evidence.

Basically this amounts to being consistent with what atheists would expect to see if God had these characteristics so it is highly subjective, not objective.

So do you accept that your perceptions of how atheists actually think and perceive things could be simply wrong?

Of course I could be wrong. If they tell me that what I think and how they perceive things are different from what I imagine then I would believe them. I have no way to know how people think unless they tell me although I can go by what they are saying about certain subjects.

Fair enough, but that is only about the God you specifically believe in. You can't frame your OP question in that context because you've already defined your God as not doing the things you asked about.

My OP questions did not reflect my beliefs about what God would do because I already have a belief about what God does. My OP questions were seeking to discover what atheists think God would do if God exists.

Again, you are still fudging the distinction between a question of could such a god have existed and does such a god exist. You need to decide which question you're asking and stick to it. The answers to both are very simple ("yes" and "no" respectively), the only complication comes from your merging the two.

My question is not could such a god have existed, my question is does such a god exist that would do #1 and #2. So it is not past tense, it is present tense.

1. If God exists would the existent God communicate directly to everyone?
2. If God exists would the existent God prove that He exists to everyone?

Again, you're failing to get in to the atheist headspace. The idea of God not living up to expectations makes zero sense if you don't believe God exists. The only thing not living up to atheist expectations here are the proposed definitions of gods from believers. You can't spin this in to an attack on God.

I disagree. As soon as an atheist says that God should be doing x or y, they are saying that if God exists God should be doing x or y. It is all over this thread what atheists think that God should be doing if God exists. That would be like me saying if my husband loves me he should be doing the dishes. Maybe my husband does not love me (and maybe God does not exist) but the expectation is still there. Whenever atheists talk as if God exists they are assuming God exists in relation to what they are talking about, just like I am assuming that my husband loves me when I am talking about him doing the dishes.

Clearly, it is an attack on God when an atheist says that if God exists there should be no rapes or murders or childhood leukemia because God is omnipotent so God should prevent these. There is not get out of jail free card for atheists just because they say they do not believe that God exists. This is a cop-out. I see no atheists talking about what pink unicorns would do it they existed, it is always about God. Then when a believer tells them that God does not do these things and why God does not do them, they argue that God should be doing them because God is omnipotent.

God can hear their words and read their hearts and God does not care if atheists believe He exists or not. Calling God immoral and implying that God is evil does not bode well for them. Of course this is just my belief and they can blow me off if they want to. I am just trying to help because I care about their eternal destination. I do not worry about atheists who just don’t believe God exists and leave it at that, I am worried about atheists who constantly rank on God with hatred in their hearts. They have to blame somebody for all the suffering and evil in the world and God is a convenient target since He is not here to defend Himself. The fact is that humans are responsible for all of the evil in the world, so blaming God is an abnegation of human responsibility. I find it reprehensible. No court of law ever puts God on trial. Any rational person knows that humans have free will so they are fully responsible for what they choose to do.

You are proposing a God, and the fact you already believe that God is real makes no fundamental difference to the proposal in itself. I'm sure I've said this to you before but there is nothing special about the idea of gods and no reason to treat those ideas any differently to anything else. A hypothesis is a hypothesis regardless of how many people believe it is true or not. The whole point of a hypothesis is to move beyond subjective belief to objective fact.

So from an atheist perspective you are treating my belief as a hypothesis since I has not been proven true. Fair enough, but the problem is that a religious belief can never go beyond a subjective belief to objective fact, since it can never be proven as a fact.

Of course, if you believe God doesn't want his existence to be an objective fact but to remain a belief, there seems to be literally no point in this entire discussion.

Why do you say that? I did not realize this discussion was about that. No, I do not believe that God ever wants to be known as an objective fact. God wants everyone to know that He exists but not as an objective fact. There are other ways of knowing, and that is how God wants us to know Him. This is something atheists simply do not understand. They say I believe and I don’t know, but I do know.

 

[ChristineM]

Give it up as a lost is not hatred. I hate no atheists or anyone else. I just lose my patience sometimes as we all do.

After I have asked a question more than two times and I still do not get an answer I sometimes lose my patience. Go back and look at the questions I asked Policy and how he did not answer them. Ask yourself why he cannot answer such simple questions.

Right.
So maybe there is no answer. Or you will not accept the answer given.
I am not bothered about backtracking if tou are not bothered repeating the question.

 

[Trailblazer]

OK. That's not quite correct. I reject the claim that there is evidence for a tri-omni deity that wants to be known by mankind. If a deity exists, it either is incapable or unwilling to make itself known.

The deity is not incapable but it is unwilling to prove to humans that it exists because it wants humans to prove to themselves that it exists by looking at the evidence.

The problem here is the different ways we approach this matter. I go from evidence to conclusion. The evidence for a god is insufficient to say it exists.

You begin with an unsupported belief as premise and then look at the evidence, well, since God exists, that must be evidence of God.

I know you and all atheists consider the evidence insufficient.

No, that is not what I did. I did not begin with an unsupported belief as premise and then look at the evidence and conclude that it must be evidence of God. I looked at the evidence first and then I concluded that it was evidence for God. I had no God belief before I became a Baha’i, but the Baha’i Faith was sufficient evidence for me to believe that God exists. Initially it as not Baha’u’llah so much as all the other Baha’i Writings, the teachings and primary message of the Baha’i Faith. Only much later did Baha’u’llah become an important to my belief in God and that is when I became absolutely certain that God exists. Before that it was more of an assumed belief.

That's the same thing. You are starting with your god belief as a fact: It exists and sends messengers.

But as I said above, I did not start that way. I started with a religion which I believed was a true religion and I did not even think much about Messengers back then, because I did not even understand Baha’i theology as I do now.

I never thought of belief in God as a fact, I just accepted that a God must exist since there is a religion associated with it. Later after I studied Baha’i theology I realized that God sends Messengers and that is how religions are founded.

Reason. I have some experience communicating. I know how to be understood and what doesn't work. Sending messengers only works on people that are willing to believe the messenger, and no god is necessary for such people to exist or to hold such beliefs, so it will be ineffective with human beings that require more. That would be a method that only a god that wanted to be believed by faith or one who couldn't do better or doesn't care to do better would choose. How do I know that? Reason.

I think it is illogical to compare God to human communication to human to human communication. That is the fallacy of false equivalence because God is not equivalent to a human. As such the way God would communicate to humans would be unique and specific to what God is trying to accomplish. God not only wants us to know that He exists, He also reveals a message that contains His will for humans in the age in which the message is revealed.

Obviously Messengers will be ineffective for human beings that require more, but God is not going to accommodate every single person in the world and make sure they all become believers. Messengers are a method for a God who wants to be believed on faith, but that does not mean God wants blind faith, and that is why there is evidence that indicates that the Messengers are more than mere men.

When you say “do better” you mean a God who would provide proof so you will not have to have faith, but unfortunately for atheists that is not what God considers better, and if God wants our faith there is nothing we can do about that except refuse to believe. The irony is that once we are convinced by the evidence it becomes proof so faith is no longer necessary. This does not come easy for everyone and maybe some believers never achieve it. I can only speak for myself.

Agree, but that's an argument against a tri-omni deity that has a message for all of humanity existing, since the best method wasn't used.

You cannot say the best method was not used unless you know of another method that would be better, and you cannot know that another method would be better since no other method has ever been used. As such all you have is conjecture and a personal opinion.

Moreover, since you do not even know what the goal of the deity is you cannot know the best method to achieve that goal.

No, I am not. I have already acknowledged the logical possibility that a deity could exist that was unable to communicate effectively or wasn't interested in so doing. Such a deity would not be expected to produce compelling evidence of its existence nor effectively deliver its message. This is why most of the world does not hold your belief that your holy writings are from a deity.

I guess you missed what I was trying to say. You are assuming that it is important to the deity to be known by everyone but you do not know if it is important for the deity to be known by everyone. I do not even know that even though I have scriptures. Nobody knows the Mind of God. There are indications that the deity wants to be known by everyone but maybe the deity is patiently waiting for people to come around. The Old Testament prophets said that everyone will believe in God in the future and the Baha’i Writings also say that so I believe it, and God is patient.

The reason why most of the world does not hold my belief that my holy writings are from a deity has nothing to do with the method of delivery, it is because most people in the world are religious so they already have a religion with their own scriptures which were revealed by its Founder. However, it is true that Messengers of God are not recognized by many people when they first appear or for a long time after that. Christianity was very small, a mere handful of believers, in the first century.

And the messengers are not evidence of a god, so agnostic atheism is the only logical position. Any other position requires a leap of faith.

They are not evidence to you. A leap of faith is necessary to believe in a God.

There is nothing there that a human being could not have done, or that they haven't done repeatedly through history.

You do not know that.

Faith is a deviation from reason. If you can only believe something by faith, your belief is unsound. A chain of valid logic is like a footbridge, where each step is a valid inference. The critical thinker goes where the path of fallacy-free reasoning takes him. A leap of faith will take you where the path does not. It is a violation of the rules of reason, meaning it is a logical fallacy. It's the one called non sequitur, which means does not follow (from what came before). The conclusion leapt to by faith is not supported by reason, nor reasonable to believe.

That faith is a deviation from reason is just your personal opinion. You are welcome to your personal opinion but that is all it is, yet you try to make it sound like a fact. It is not. Faith that is supported by evidence is reasonable and the fact that atheists do not recognize the evidence does not deem it non-evidence. Again, it is only your subjective personal opinion that it is not evidence.

 

[Trailblazer]

Right.
So maybe there is no answer. Or you will not accept the answer given.
I am not bothered about backtracking if tou are not bothered repeating the question.

I let it go a long time ago. Me and Policy have come to the end of the road.
I am at the end of my road and I should not even still be here.
It is 1:30 am here and I have not even eaten dinner yet.
I pray to God that this thread dies down soon.
See you later.

 

[ChristineM]

I let it go a long time ago. Me and Policy have come to the end of the road.
I am at the end of my road and I should not even still be here.
It is 1:30 am here and I have not even eaten dinner yet.
I pray to God that this thread dies down soon.
See you later.

Just leave it alone, you don't need to argue.

 

[Sheldon]

God could not

Not an omnipotent deity then obviously.

 

[HonestJoe]

Basically this amounts to being consistent with what atheists would expect to see if God had these characteristics so it is highly subjective, not objective.

No just atheists, anyone. Loads of different people disagree with you on the existence or nature of God, not just atheists. Also, this principle applies to anything, not just the existence of specific gods.

My question is not could such a god have existed, my question is does such a god exist that would do #1 and #2. So it is not past tense, it is present tense.

Again, that not how you worded your OP question. The answer to the question of whether a god who directly communicates with everyone is an obvious and unconditional "No". End of thread.

That is an otherwise meaningless and pointless question though. What is the point of asking whether something exists which is directly contradicted by observable evidence?

The meaningful questions in this context are whether the various gods people do propose are consistent with observed evidence. That includes assessing what evidential consequences we'd expect to see from those proposals. So, if someone says "God wants X to happen" and "God can make anything happen", we we would expect to see that "X" to happen. If we don't see that "X" happening, it would support the conclusion that specifically defined god doesn't actually exist.

I disagree. As soon as an atheist says that God should be doing x or y, they are saying that if God exists God should be doing x or y. It is all over this thread what atheists think that God should be doing if God exists. That would be like me saying if my husband loves me he should be doing the dishes.

The problem with your example is that your husband exists and so there is someone real to reflect the perceived attack on.

A better example would be something we both agree doesn't exist. If leprechauns existed, we could find pots of gold under rainbows. Since we've not found any pots of gold, we conclude leprechauns don't actually exist. Would you call that an attack on leprechauns? Or what about our (presumably) mutual conclusions that the gods Odin and Zeus don't exist? Are we attacking Odin and Zeus by saying that?

I see no atheists talking about what pink unicorns would do it they existed, it is always about God.

That is because nobody asserts that pink unicorns exist, that we will face some punishment for not believing in them or that the religious rules laid down by pink unicorns should be used as the basis for our laws and societies.

So from an atheist perspective you are treating my belief as a hypothesis since I has not been proven true. Fair enough, but the problem is that a religious belief can never go beyond a subjective belief to objective fact, since it can never be proven as a fact.

No, from a human perspective I treat any belief as a hypothesis if it has not been progressed beyond that.

Your idea that there is anything special about religious belief that prevents it being treated like anything else is simply wrong. Calling a belief "religious" doesn't actually change it in any way at all. For example, belief in extra-terrestrials isn't religious in itself but some fringe religions are based around beliefs in extra-terrestrials in place of gods, so from them, the belief is religious. The exact same belief is viewed as religious or not simply based on context.

This is something atheists simply do not understand. They say I believe and I don’t know, but I do know.

If that is the case, what is to prevent me from simply declaring that I know God doesn't exist?

 

[Polymath257]

Depends who they are debating with.
Everybody is a theist. We all believe in something.

That is not what it means to be a theist. A theist is someone who has a belief in some deity.

Atheists, by definition, do not have such a belief.

We may well believe in many other things. But we do not believe in Gods.

 

[ChristineM]

That is not what it means to be a theist. A theist is someone who has a belief in some deity.

Atheists, by definition, do not have such a belief.

We may well believe in many other things. But we do not believe in Gods.

I rated winner only because i am not allowed to give a post 2 frubes, it also deserves an optimistic

 

[Polymath257]

Well it's pretty meaningless to me.
It could mean we believe in the flying spadhetti monster.

Yes, and those who believe in the divinity of the FSM are theists.

 

[Polymath257]

I am not going to argue about the difference between the words know and believe. Nobody can ever prove that God exists but that does not mean they cannot know it because proof is not why some people know. Moreover, proof does not make God exist. Proof is just what some people require in order to believe that God exists..

OK, you are clearly using the words in a *very* different way than I am.

Yes, proof is needed for *knowledge*, since knowledge is justified true belief. And the justification is the proof.

So, yes, if it cannot be proved, it cannot be known.

You are correct, proof does not make anything exist. It is the justification for believing that something exists.

You seem to think the existence of people calling themselves messengers of God is enough evidence to justify belief in a God. That means that you believe the messengers are proof of God (again, that is what proof means in this context).

What I require is justification that these people are, in fact, messengers from some God. That requires *first* justifying that there is a God and *then* justifying that these people speak for that God.

Otherwise, you have someone who may be a very good person, may have done many good things, and may even say many wise sayings. But that does not justify the belief that they are messengers from God. it only shows they are good, wise, people.

 

[Polymath257]

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.

On the contrary, I have looked at the evidence and NOT been convinced. If anything, I have been convinced that there are no Gods.

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.

You are correct, my belief doesn't change reality and neither does yours. We disagree as to whether there is a God. Those are our individual, personal opinions. I find the evidence for the existence of a God to be very weak and more easily explained by simpler explanations. You don't.

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.

Exactly. And if it was important for their well-being, a GOOD God would *want* to convince them. To be *good* means you want what is good for others.

“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).

The obvious conclusion is that God is not good.

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.

It sounds to me that this God likes to torture people. I don't consider that to be good.

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.

Why should people care about believing in him if he is not interested in demonstrating that he exists to them?

Again, this God just sounds evil to me. A torturer.

 

[Polymath257]

He certainly can take care of Himself, but I have been enjoined to take care of His Cause on earth.

So are you claiming to be a messenger?

 

[Polymath257]

I defend my position with scripture, you defend yours with emotion because you have indignation because of what you think God should be doing that He is not doing.

And you defend scripture with emotion as well. You seem to have indignation that anyone would question whether the Bahai faith is correct or not and come to the conclusion that it is not.

 

[Polymath257]

My OP questions did not reflect my beliefs about what God would do because I already have a belief about what God does. My OP questions were seeking to discover what atheists think God would do if God exists.

From my perspective, you asked us to imagine a different world in which God exists. That would be a different world because we don't believe God exists in this one.

Now, in that imaginary world in which God exists, we ask your questions:

My question is not could such a god have existed, my question is does such a god exist that would do #1 and #2. So it is not past tense, it is present tense.

1. If God exists would the existent God communicate directly to everyone?
2. If God exists would the existent God prove that He exists to everyone?

And we answered that, in that imaginary world in which God exists, we would *expect* to see direct communication convincing all people of the existence.

That universe is clearly NOT this universe. So the question arises as to why.

The most obvious answer, to me, is that no God exists in this universe, while one exists in that imaginary universe.

I disagree. As soon as an atheist says that God should be doing x or y, they are saying that if God exists God should be doing x or y. It is all over this thread what atheists think that God should be doing if God exists

Yes, in a universe in which an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God exists and in which belief in that God is important for human well-being, we would *expect* to see certain things that we do NOT see in this universe.

That would be like me saying if my husband loves me he should be doing the dishes. Maybe my husband does not love me (and maybe God does not exist) but the expectation is still there. Whenever atheists talk as if God exists they are assuming God exists in relation to what they are talking about, just like I am assuming that my husband loves me when I am talking about him doing the dishes.

If your husband loves you, he would help you in whatever way he is able and that helps your relationship. If you ask him to do the dishes, he would.

Clearly, it is an attack on God when an atheist says that if God exists there should be no rapes or murders or childhood leukemia because God is omnipotent so God should prevent these. There is not get out of jail free card for atheists just because they say they do not believe that God exists. This is a cop-out. I see no atheists talking about what pink unicorns would do it they existed, it is always about God. Then when a believer tells them that God does not do these things and why God does not do them, they argue that God should be doing them because God is omnipotent.

Yes, in an imaginary universe in which God exists and is omni, then we would *expect* to see certain things. We do NOT see such things, so we do not believe such a God exists in this universe.

In the same way, if pink unicorns exist, we would expect to occasionally see pink, horse shaped animals with horns that are attracted to virgins. We don't see those, so we don't believe pink unicorns exist in our universe.

God can hear their words and read their hearts and God does not care if atheists believe He exists or not. Calling God immoral and implying that God is evil does not bode well for them. Of course this is just my belief and they can blow me off if they want to. I am just trying to help because I care about their eternal destination. I do not worry about atheists who just don’t believe God exists and leave it at that, I am worried about atheists who constantly rank on God with hatred in their hearts. They have to blame somebody for all the suffering and evil in the world and God is a convenient target since He is not here to defend Himself. The fact is that humans are responsible for all of the evil in the world, so blaming God is an abnegation of human responsibility. I find it reprehensible. No court of law ever puts God on trial. Any rational person knows that humans have free will so they are fully responsible for what they choose to do.

And maybe we *should* put God on trial. Assume such a being exists and then hold a trial of that being. That sounds like a *very* good idea, in fact. Let's look at the characteristics of 'his' creation and see if that suggests a criminal mindset. I maintain that it does.

So from an atheist perspective you are treating my belief as a hypothesis since I has not been proven true. Fair enough, but the problem is that a religious belief can never go beyond a subjective belief to objective fact, since it can never be proven as a fact.

Yes, we are treating it as a hypothesis to see if it is justified enough to believe it. We look at the evidence and weigh it against other alternatives, using all the information available and relevant. Then we determine if we are convinced or not.

Why do you say that? I did not realize this discussion was about that. No, I do not believe that God ever wants to be known as an objective fact. God wants everyone to know that He exists but not as an objective fact. There are other ways of knowing, and that is how God wants us to know Him. This is something atheists simply do not understand. They say I believe and I don’t know, but I do know.

What other ways of 'knowing' are there?

 

[viole]

Did it ever even occur to you that God does not give a rip if He is known to humans?
Try to think about why an omni-everything God would ever need to be known by humans.

As you probably read, my arguments are all predicated on the premise that God wants to be known to humans.

good to know He is not interested.

ciao

- viole