Atheists: If God existed would God……

[Trailblazer]

But you literally just said that believers don't consider what they'd expect to see if (their) god existed.

No, believers don’t say what they would expect to see if God exists because we believe that what we see is what we would observe in a world where God exists, since we believe that God exists.

That depends on the believer. There are loads of different definitions of gods (I'd argue one for each and every theist who ever existed). Many people (including many other theists) find elements of those definitions inconsistent with observed reality.

For example, I personally don't think a being deemed to be omnipotent and omniscient can also have anything we'd recognise as needs or wants and could never be mistaken or change their mind.

I fully agree. I do not believe that God has any needs or wants, is ever mistaken, or ever changes His mind.

I believe that whatever is in God's mind (whatever God knows) is what He has always known since God knows everything without regard to time since God does not exist in time. The essential knowledge of God surrounds the realities of all things, before, during, and after their existence in this material world.

There are also people who describe their god as having created the world 6000 years ago or flooded it 4000 years ago and plenty of people consider that as inconsistent with observed evidence.

I am one of those people, since I believe that anything that is inconsistent with known facts is superstition.

No. I think some of the definitions of gods presented by some believers would carry the implication and so, given the lack of evidence for such consequence, that suggests that specifically defined god doesn't exist.

Again, the key point is that gods are defined by theists, not atheists. Atheists assess all the different proposed gods they're aware of and, if no definition has convinced them, they remain atheist for the time being.

No, given the lack of evidence that any God has ever communicated directly to everyone, no such God can exist.

Thanks for explaining how you think atheists reason and come to their conclusion that none of the gods proposed by believers exist. In my extensive experience posting to atheists regularly on various forums for about eight years, the only reason atheists have ever given me for their disbelief is lack of evidence for God.

If a God was defined that made sense to you do you think that would make a difference or would you retain disbelief owing to the lack of evidence or proof that God exists?

That is really evading my question; What exactly is it about your specific type of religion that renders it specially immune to scientific study in a way that absolutely nothing else is (note that human inability to access or understand is not that same as something being beyond science).

For one example, I believe that every human has a rational soul that survives the death of the body. the human soul is not an entity that can be studied and understood by science since it is immaterial. We can only know it by its signs.

I didn't say you were necessarily doing it consciously.

That is why this kind of discussion needs to move entirely away from faith, belief and religion to focus entirely on fact and reality, including recognising and accepting out limitations and weaknesses (like faith, belief and religion

).

It is true that much of what humans so is unconscious, since more than 90% of human thought resides in the unconscious mind. That means we all have many unconscious thoughts driving our behavior that we are unaware of.

How do you think that a discussion about religion can move entirely away from faith, belief and religion and focus entirely on fact and reality?

That is your belief. You've not even tried to establish that inability as truth.

Are you saying that you think that it might be possible to know God through observation, inquiry, or information?

Out of interest, do you believe this limitation only applies to the god you believe in or does it apply to all the other gods different people believe (or did believe) in, including all the ones that would directly contradict the existence of yours?

As Baha’i, I believe that there is only one true God, the God that was revealed by various Messengers of God throughout all of human history. The reasons there are many different conceptions of God is because (a) God was described differently in the scriptures of the different religions, and (b) religious believers have misinterpreted what is written about God in their scriptures.

To answer your question, since I believe there is only one true God, I think that this limitation applies to that God. I believe we can only know about God through the revelations of the Messengers of God, not through observation, inquiry, or information.

 

[ppp]

This is just a personal belief, but the probability of people learning is not doing what you are doing right now with Policy. I have traced this argument back a little ways. At least he is arguing. I now remember that he expressed sympathy on an occasion. So there may not be hard feelings. He is human, not just a criticism machine. But he is not learning. How many people are following this long thread this far? That's also a consideration. You don't know who's learning, but you can make an educated guess.

In order to educate someone there has to be some basis for demonstrating to them that you know and are capable of knowing the subject on which you are speaking. Otherwise, when it's not educating others, but merely preaching.

 

[Sheldon]

I disagree, it is the height of ego to say that you know that there is no divine agency involved in our existence.

I doubt it, but since I have never made such a claim it's a straw man anyway.

I do not assume I know, so it is not about me. I believe that Baha'u'llah knew.

Which is a subjective assumption, as you cannot demonstrate anything approaching objective evidence, only subjective anecdotal claims.

My faith in Baha'u'llah is the polar opposite of ego, because it is about another person, not about me.

No it isn't, I realise that is the way religions is often sold, and people fall for it, but it is so obviously not true. No one is or an be devoid of ego, since it is an inherent part of human nature, However the idea we alone amongst living things are the reason a deity created the universe, is all about ego, and the fear of death or one's own mortality. There are some seminal works on the subject if you were interested in gaining a better understanding of the subject.

 

[Sheldon]

..depends on what one considers the meaning of life to be.

What objective evidence can you demonstrate that life has any meaning, beyond what we choose to attach to it?

 

[PureX]

Certainly, it's not a surprise. In fact, it rather says -- to those of us who are atheists -- that this is precisely what we should expect if we are correct. You see, we think everything to do with religion is made up by we humans

Then those of you who are atheists aren't very good at thinking logically. Because the fact that our human projections fail to manifest does not logically tell us anything at all about the nature or existence of God, except that it does no appear to fit some of our projections.

 

[PureX]

We know just how theists are doing all the good in the world while blaming all the outsiders for all of the mess. Real noble of you to point that out, always nice to have a scapegoat handy.

I am not suggesting that theists do all the good in the world. I am saying that the good they do is because they are theists. And they are theists because they want to do good. For theists, these are one and the same ideal. To live in a theistic worldview is to idealize the good and reject the evil. We don't have to adopt a theistic worldview to accept this idealization, but the overwhelming majority of humans do.

 

[muhammad_isa]

What objective evidence can you demonstrate that life has any meaning, beyond what we choose to attach to it?

You can attach whatever you like

If you think all that you see is in vain, you have another think coming.

 

[Sheldon]

There can be no objective evidence for God,

There can be no objective evidence for any non existent thing, so again this sweeping claim is not argument for an extant deity.

there is objective evidence for Messengers of God.

No there isn't, you have failed pointedly to produce anything but bare subjective claims, and bare subjective assumptions about those claims. Like all other religions.

As I just pointed out in my previous post, there are facts about Baha'u'llah and I consider that objective evidence.

There are facts about Spiderman and Harry Potter, this doesn't make the powers they are assigned real.

 

[Sheldon]

I am not suggesting that theists do all the good in the world. I am saying that the good they do is because they are theists. And they are theists because they want to do good.

A circular reasoning fallacy of ever there was one.

For theists, these are one and the same ideal.

They can't do any good without divine diktat, or from pure altruism? That's a very damning indictment.

To live in a theistic worldview is to idealize the good and reject the evil.

Those are subjective concepts, most religions come with a huge amount of archaic baggage, much of which is pernicious, if one were to believe this was divine diktat that could and is often problematic, and religious would be good despite much of these doctrines, and not because of them.

We don't have to adopt a theistic worldview to accept this idealization, but the overwhelming majority of humans do.

Argumentum ad populum, and you are again implying theism is a single demographic, rather than thousands of different deities and religions, often competing through brutal conflict throughout human history, and even now in countries that are ostensibly free, competing in a market place as the late Christopher Hitchens once put it:

“Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”

Well quite...

 

[F1fan]

There are no claims at all. Get a dictionary.

Just denial, denial, denial.

How can there be any honest debate when you deny the very observations others make?

Dunning-Kruger on steroids.

 

[F1fan]

In order to educate someone there has to be some basis for demonstrating to them that you know and are capable of knowing the subject on which they are speaking. Otherwise, when it's not educating others, but merely preaching.

I think theists have a very blurred and distorted motivation to promote their beliefs as IF it is knowledge. We often see them mix fact with their beliefs/dogma which puts pressure on skeptics to sift through the statements are separate out the fact from claim. I think it becomes a sloppy habit by theists. I think it is a sloppy habit in life for many of us.

The thing is when we are in debate there are some who can sift through the facts and knowledge from dogma and personal belief. Theists seem to be learning how to avoid this, not learn how to separate their belief from fact.

Trailblazer is an interesting case because we see her posts vary from being somewhat reasonable and swing to full on denial about fact. How she denies making claims when her posts tend to be nothing but claims is an example of denial and self-deception, and this self-deception is an unforced error of bad habit. We see patterns among theists who retreat further and further into more irrational belief, and then the final redoubt of complete denial.

 

[Sheldon]

There are three claims in those sentences alone.

There are no claims at all. Get a dictionary.

Claim 1.
I have nothing to claim because I did not do anything claimworthy.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Claim 2.
You want to say I am making claims so you can say I have the burden of proof but it won't work.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Claim 3.
I have no burden of proof.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Claim 4.
Baha'u'llah had the burden of proof becaue He made the claims.
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Claim 5
And you consider yourself logical.
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You cannot even separate a claim form a belief.

A belief is the affirmation of a claim, if you assert a belief, that is the definition of a claim. You are just simply wrong about this.

 

[Polymath257]

As I think I told you before, it was not the Writings of Baha'u'llah that convinced me of who He was, it was the Baha'i Faith in its entirety -- the primary message and the teachings of the religion. Only much later did I connect the dots and realize that Baha'u'llah was speaking for God.

That reminds me of what I posted last April on a thread about facts within religious beliefs:
How important are facts within your religious beliefs?

OK, which facts convinced you that the Baha'i faith is correct? While I might agree with many of its goals, that alone doesn't mean it is correct.

That indicates that you have not really looked at them, what kind of people they were and what they actually taught.

But that question is about whether I like their views, and not whether they are messengers, right?

I don't see how you could have done any real research in such a short period of time.

Yes, it was cursory. But what I saw had an incredibly small signal to noise ratio: all sorts of rather meaningless claims about the specialness of the religion and nothing to actually support the claim that it is correct.

What is most compelling to me is the Writings of Baha'u'llah but also the history of the Baha'i Faith. It is also very compelling to me that He fulfilled all the Bible prophecies.

I think you would have to know something about these men in order to know why their claims are false. I wrote up a list of minimum criteria a true Messenger of God would have to meet and these men do not meet those criteria. Do you want to see the list?

Sure. I would also like to see why you think the list is necessary and sufficient.

I think you would have to dig a whole lot deeper in order to know that. Many religious people studied the Baha'i Faith for years before converting from their religion to the Baha'i Faith and you have a bigger hurdle to cross since you do not even believe that God exists.

Upon cursory glance, it looks like most mystical writings: a lot of rather meaningless babble and a few general claims that are trivial. pretty much what I expect from a man-made religion.

There are atheists who have become Baha'is though, a couple of them are on this forum. I would not say that I was an atheist before I became a Baha'i, all I can remember is that I never thought about God and I had no belief in God.

OK.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

No, believers don’t say what they would expect to see if God exists because we believe that what we see is what we would observe in a world where God exists, since we believe that God exists.

They can still - if they care about whether their beliefs are true - think about what the implications of their beliefs are, tease out any falsifiable claims fron them, and then look to see whether those claims are correct.

 

[lukethethird]

I am not suggesting that theists do all the good in the world. I am saying that the good they do is because they are theists. And they are theists because they want to do good. For theists, these are one and the same ideal. To live in a theistic worldview is to idealize the good and reject the evil. We don't have to adopt a theistic worldview to accept this idealization, but the overwhelming majority of humans do.

And therein lies the problem, everyone believes they are on the side of good in a theistic world of good vs evil.

 

[Polymath257]

There can be no objective evidence for God, but there is objective evidence for Messengers of God. As I just pointed out in my previous post, there are facts about Baha'u'llah and I consider that objective evidence.

Yes, they existed, were human, and made rather outrageous claims.

 

[Polymath257]

It is illogical to compare evidence that is admissible in a court of law to evidence that is proof of God.

Sorry, there is no forensic evidence for God, because God is a spirit being.

You are right. Legal evidence is much, much less than is required for actual knowledge. The law wants to get a judgement that works and proceed on down the road.

The legal restrictions would be the absolute *minimal* ones that should be required. So hearsay, unsupported claims, and biased assertions should be eliminated. But, more, we should demand extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims. We should insist on testability of any ideas presented. And we should be skeptical of grand claims that cannot be proven.

You claim that God is a spirit being. But you present no evidence to support the idea that there are *any* spirit beings at all, let alone one that has the qualities you attribute to God.

 

[Polymath257]

The former exists and the latter doesn't.

Prove it.

 

[viole]

IMO, we would not need them if everyone became a Baha'is, but since that is not going to happen for a very long time, we still need them.

Well, they could equally say the same. We wouldn’t need the other religions, if everyone were a Muslim. We would not need any of them if everyone were an atheist. And if you go to very secular places, like Sweden, then you will see how superfluous all religions can be.

so, what makes a messenger for Baha so much more compelling than a messenger from any other religion? What prevents me to make one up and be a messenger myself? How would you know I am not a true messenger of God?

Ciao

- viole

 

[ppp]

A belief is the affirmation of a claim, if you assert a belief, that is the definition of a claim. You are just simply wrong about this.

Five claims!