Atheists: If God existed would God……

[Trailblazer]

If a God existed that cared about humans, had the power to communicate, and where the belief in that God was relevant for human well-being, then God *would* communicate.

The fact that no such communication has happened shows either no God exists, or there is a God that doesn't have the power to communicate, or that the belief in God is irrelevant for human well-being.

The communication did happen so that shows that or there is a God that has the power to communicate and that the belief in God is relevant for human well-being.

Trailblazer said: Who is to say what God should do, besides God?

Anyone who understands the concept of caring and goodness.

No, anyone who thinks they could know more than an all-knowing God regarding what God should do.

 

[Trailblazer]

But clearly God chose poorly because most people don't believe those communicators.

Wrong. Most people do believe in those communicators, as I pointed on on my previous post.

84 percent of the world population has a faith.

Because most faiths have a religious Founder or what I call a Messenger that means most people believe in God because of a Messenger. We know that Christians and Muslims believe in a Messenger and they comprise 55% of the world population. It does not matter if you call them a Messenger; they are holy men who founded the religions, so they are intermediaries between God and man. Sure, there are a few believers who believe in God but not a Messenger but that is not the norm. The point is that with no Messengers or holy men very few people would believe in God.

 

[F1fan]

Wrong. Most people do believe in those communicators, as I pointed on on my previous post.

84 percent of the world population has a faith.

Because humans evolved to believe and behave religiously.

 

[Trailblazer]

You did described it as loving in a human sense of the term. In other words, it's friendly and kind. Humans love more than anything else to make friends and interact with others and even with non-humans. If God is loving in a human sense and be everywhere at all time, he could basically be friendly towards all of humanity or at least a solid chink of it. To be loving in a human sense of the term, you have to do loving things and all loving things human do are socially interactive.

According to my beliefs God cannot do anything in human terms because God is not a human.
God cannot be socially interactive because social interaction is a human behavior.
That means that the way God shows love to humans has to be different than the way humans show love to each other.

According to my beliefs God is without peer or equal and does not associate with His Creation.
God is and has from everlasting been, one and alone, self-subsisting, occupying the Seat of transcendent majesty, of supreme and inaccessible glory.

 

[F1fan]

According to my beliefs God cannot do anything in human terms because God is not a human.
God cannot be socially interactive because social interaction is a human behavior.

No one is suggesting God have a beer with us at the pub, we are just questioning the wisdom of only (allegedly) communicating through a select few. Why wouldn't a God interact with those who need guidance, which is often those who think they don't need it.

 

[Trailblazer]

That's is not a valid and rational claim. Messengers are not trustworthy. That they claim they talk to God is nothing they can verify objectively.

Alleged Messengers may or may not be trustworthy.
No, it cannot be verified objectively, since it can never be verified that God spoke to anyone.
If you heard a voice who claimed to be God, how would you know it was really God?

 

[epronovost]

According to my beliefs God cannot do anything in human terms because God is not a human.
God cannot be socially interactive because social interaction is a human behavior.
That means that the way God shows love to humans has to be different than the way humans show love to each other.

According to my beliefs God is without peer or equal and does not associate with His Creation.
God is and has from everlasting been, one and alone, self-subsisting, occupying the Seat of transcendent majesty, of supreme and inaccessible glory.

Then he isn't loving, patient, just, etc. In a way humans can emulate and understand as you mentioned earlier. To be loving, just, patient, merciful and all that jazz in a way human can emulate and understand you have to be interactive with humans.

I knew this could be a problem since the deity you described is hilariously self contradictory and fraught with problems of logical compositions and paradoxes.

If your deity doesn't associate with its creation it cannot even be sovereign over it since that would require association and even a sense of duty to it.

 

[Trailblazer]

But let's say this is true, God surely didn't help humanity by letting bad theists do bad works. It should have talked to these bad actors because they are doing evil acts on God's behalf.

What other choice would there be except to interfere with human free will?
Evil acts committed by humans are no reflection on God.

God does what, talk to a few select people, many of whom no one has heard about? Bad plan. I could do much better than your God.

You could? What would you do?

 

[Trailblazer]

As you will agree your logic is not the same as the logic of other people. Hope you will provide some evidence of existence of this God.You do. Tell us as to why you believe so? What is your proof for it.

I have already done that dozens of times. Why would I do it again?

 

[Trailblazer]

Seems like a rather silly question to ask someone who has no reason to believe that any gods exist. But I'll play along and make up some god entity in my head and I'll say YES, the god entity I made up in head WOULD communicate directly to everyone or prove that it exists.

I said yes because I decided that's what the god entity I made up in my head would do.

What exactly have we accomplished here?

You probably did not see the beginning of this thread as it went so fast I could hardly keep up with it.
I was not trying to accomplish anything but admittedly these were kind of trick questions.

As I said in post #30.

This is an exercise in logic.

So, if God exists we can know certain things about how God operates, or should I say how God does not operate.

Is there any evidence that God has communicated directly to everyone?
Is there is any evidence that God has proven that He exists to everyone?

No, there is no evidence that shows that either one of those has ever occurred.

All we have to do is ask people if God has communicated to them directly in order to know if this is the case.
If people say that God has not communicated to them then we can logically deduce that if God exists God would not communicate directly to everyone...

Since atheists exist we can logically deduce that God has not proven that He exists to everyone.
That means that if God existed God would not prove that He exists to everyone.

 

[John53]

That is a very good question. The answer is that you should never believe what other people claim about God, you should only believe what you have independently researched and determined to be true.

Why would you choose this God? What would your choice be based upon?

Based on location mostly, the Worimi are the traditional owners of the land where I live. And they have some cool dream time myths that make a lot more sense than most religious myths.

 

[F1fan]

What other choice would there be except to interfere with human free will?

No more of an interference than your mother telling you not to put your finger on a hot stove. You'd probably do it anyway. Your free will. You'd learn to trust Mom.

But your God doesn't even bother to say anything to those who need guidance. God lets them round up and murder 6 million Jews, and stand by as the Allies die to defeat the Germans and Italians.

Evil acts committed by humans are no reflection on God.

Sure, God is just an innocent bystander (who could stop all evil acts with a little intervention. But free will is more important than young girls being raped and murdered. God just takes notes: don't create anymore serial killers. Ha, just kidding. More serial killers on their way.

You could? What would you do?

I would AT LEAST whisper to those ready to do horrible things. I wouldn't stop them, but I'd make them stop and think (assuming they were mentally sound). The mentally ill, well I'd whisper to law enforcement where they could find the criminally insane just before they could do real harm.

My idea of Me as God is vastly more moral than yours. And no free will interfered with. I'd just make it so criminals wouldn't cause too much harm.

 

[Trailblazer]

Exactly! I've none, you've none.

I do have evidence but you have none.

I live in a world that doesn't look like there's a god in it, you seem to see a god based on who knows what, because you would provide anything.

The reason that you say that you live in a world that doesn't look like there's a god in it is because what you would expect to see in this world if God existed is not what you see.

Then comes the next question: on what basis do you suppose there might be a dragon (or a god, or fairies, or whatever else you'd like to imagine)? And I say to you it is not based on anything outside of your own mind.

I see a God based upon what was revealed in the Baha'i scriptures.

 

[Nimos]

You raise some excellent points about what God would do according to scriptures but I was after a more generic answer since this was directed at atheists ho do not believe in scriptures.

This is an exercise in logic.
So, if God exists we can know certain things about how God operates, or should I say how God does not operate.

Is there any evidence that God has communicated directly to everyone?
Is there is any evidence that God has proven that He exists to everyone?

No, there is no evidence that shows that either one of those has ever occurred.

All we have to do is ask people if God has communicated to them directly in order to know if this is the case.
If people say that God has not communicated to them then we can logically deduce that if God exists God would not communicate directly to everyone...

Since atheists exist we can logically deduce that God has not proven that He exists to everyone.
That means that if God existed God would not prove that He exists to everyone.

That wouldn't work

Because this logical exercise as you present it here, only works under the conditions that everyone tells the truth and no one is wrong. But that is exactly the same problem we are facing with the regular religions today. So whether we use a God from a known religion or scripture, or simply invent a God for the purpose of this exercise doesn't make any difference.

To reach the conclusion that since atheists exist, then clearly God hasn't revealed himself or communicated with everyone. Because those that say that he has communicated/revealed himself to them also demonstrate that he have done the opposite and therefore both support the idea that this conclusion is true. But this ONLY works, as mentioned above, if we assume that everyone is telling the truth and no one is wrong about their interpretations of whatever experience they have had. And given that the atheists can't really be wrong in this case, unless they somehow deliberately hide an experience for whatever reason and KNOW that this was God, but refuse to acknowledge it as such, then you can't really say that atheists are wrong, because if you haven't had an experience then you wouldn't be able to assign it to anything. So the focus falls on those that claim to have communicated or experienced God to also show that they are:

1. Telling the truth
2. That they are not wrong/mistaken/misinterpreted... etc. their experience.

And therefore it is exactly as it is now, regardless of what God you use, scripture or no scripture. So the logical conclusion to this exercise is that, unless these people can demonstrate their claim to live up to these demands, then the answer is "I don't know" or "it is unknown".

 

[John53]

So do you think that God should communicate directly to everyone in order to accommodate for those differences?

I would if I were a God.

Why wouldn't there be another way for God to accommodate for those difference?

Communicate has a broad meaning, a God could do it in almost infinite ways I assume. If there is a one true God and it is possible for it to communicate with us it is not doing a very good job.

 

[Trailblazer]

No, you can't. You DO, but you can't. It's pure imagination based on absolutely nothing you can present or demonstrate.

God cannot be demonstrated but that does not prove that God is nonexistent.

As I've said before, you are permitted to believe anything you like, but you believing something does not make it reality -- to anyone but you.

I never claimed that my believing something makes it reality.
The same applies to you.

 

[F1fan]

Alleged Messengers may or may not be trustworthy.

All messengers are alleged. Thus far none offer compelling testimony that suggests they actually are in contact with any God.

No, it cannot be verified objectively, since it can never be verified that God spoke to anyone.

So we are left with our own reasoning, and it had better be exceptional in its performance. This is why if we are going to entertain claims of Gods then there had better be exceptional evidence. there is none, therefore we defer to not being convinced.

If you heard a voice who claimed to be God, how would you know it was really God?

If it was an actual God it would know to say things that would confirm to be it was an actual God. Alas, it doesn't happen.

 

[Trailblazer]

But you have no knowledge. Knowledge requires facts.

I never claimed to have any factual knowledge about God.

 

[Trailblazer]

Logical fallacy, appeal to popularity. As an example, about 72% of republicans believe that trump won the election. By your way of thinking they are correct.

Numbers are irrelevant to whether an idea is true.

What we were discussing was how many people believe in God given the way that God has communicated.
I did not claim that God exists is true just because most people believe that God exists.

In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so."
Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia

The converse of this is that if many or most people do not believe it, it cannot be so, and that is fallacious.

I know that numbers are irrelevant as to whether something is true. I point that out all the time when people say that the Baha'i Faith cannot be true since there are still very few Baha'is.

 

[Trailblazer]

How did God communicate to Jews to warn them of Nazism? Or did God not feel concerned for them?

I cannot speak for what God did or whether God was concerned. Only God knows that.