Not really. If you'll only accept information you believe comes from God, you're obviously unwilling to accept any information that questions the existence of God.
I would accept any information that questions the existence of God if it made sense to me.
Honestly question their established beliefs. You want atheists to consider the possibility of God existing but aren't willing to consider the possibility of God not existing.
I can consider the possibility of God not existing just as atheists can consider the possibility off God existing but I see no reason why either one of us is going to change our minds. Nobody can prove that God exists or does not exist so it is really all a matter of what we each see evidence for and what makes sense to us. I see evidence that God exists and it makes sense that God exist; the converse if true for atheists.
From my perspective I have lost nothing
if God does not exist because I lived most of my life as if God did not exist even though I believed God existed all those years, since I did not do what believers do all those years and I did not pray or worship God or participate in Baha’i activities.
For many years I even hated God. Now I am trying to make up for a lot of lost time. I sacrifice a lot of my time talking about God on forums but I really don’t have anything that I think is more important to be doing and I cannot do much else right now anyway because of my life situation. However, maybe later if I want to I can enjoy life more like everyone else because there is nothing that precludes that in my belief system.
From my perspective it is the atheists who have something to gain by believing in God, and they have nothing to lose, but I understand that they cannot believe what they so no see any evidence for and I am not going to try to convince atheists that my evidence should be evidence for them. All I do is share it when asked and what people do with it is their own choice.
I don't see how that makes any difference. The logic is that omnipotence and omniscience would render the entire concept of "want" meaningless. It doesn't matter what the "want" relates to.
It's a bit like asking what you want to eat for dinner yesterday. Wants only apply to future events but omnipotence and omniscience elevates a being beyond the concepts of past and future, and therefore the concept of wanting would carry no meaning for them. There would only be what is.
God cannot be encapsulated by human logic, that is what I was trying to say before. The Baha’i belief is that God is a personal God who can feel love, so that means that God can have desires; not for Himself, because God has no needs or desires, but for the humans because humans have needs and desires.
While the Baháʼí writings teach of a personal god who is a being with a personality (including the capacity to reason and to feel love), they clearly state that this does not imply a human or physical form.[2] Shoghi Effendi writes:
What is meant by personal God is a God Who is conscious of His creation, Who has a Mind, a Will, a Purpose, and not, as many scientists and materialists believe, an unconscious and determined force operating in the universe
Read more:
God in the Baháʼí Faith
You are correct in saying that omnipotence and omniscience elevates a being beyond the concepts of past and future but humans live in this time-based world so what God desires (wants) for us applies to our life in this world.
I'm not sure that's true, even if you're not consciously aware of it. Why else would you bother creating threads like this one otherwise? Why care about the reasons atheists believe and whether they're logically flawed?
Of course people are not consciously aware of everything that is in their mind, as 95% of the mind is unconscious. However, I am aware that I care about people and I do not deny that I would be happy if an atheist decided to became a believer and I helped that along, but that is
very different from saying that I want to convince them. I firmly believe I free will and that people need to choose for themselves.
You know how to apply this logic to hypothesis about the existence or nature of gods. You just don't want to because you already know it won't give the definitive answers you want to believe.
Can you explain what you mean by that? Are you implying that I want to believe in God so I would not want to find something out that would refute my belief? If you want to refute my belief the only way you will be successful is if you can discredit Baha’u’llah, since that is what my belief is based upon. You would have to prove that He was deluded or a con-man. Good luck with that.
Do you really believe that you can prove that God does not exist with a hypothesis? How would you test that?
If there is literally no way of demonstrating it's existence, believing it does is irrational. Even the wildest religious beliefs have some basis in observation and experience, however flawed. If it is defined and can have any kind of observable effect though, it is within the scope of science by definition.
I understand that is how atheists think but I am not an atheist. I believe in the soul exists not only because of what my religion teaches but also because it makes logical sense to me. It also makes logical sense that it can never be proven to exist because it is a mystery of God.
The soul is synonymous with the human spirit. The human spirit and the mind are connected so the observable effect is on the mind.
“The human spirit which distinguishes man from the animal is the rational soul, and these two names—the human spirit and the rational soul—designate one thing.…
But the human spirit, unless assisted by the spirit of faith, does not become acquainted with the divine secrets and the heavenly realities. It is like a mirror which, although clear, polished and brilliant, is still in need of light. Until a ray of the sun reflects upon it, it cannot discover the heavenly secrets.
But the mind is the power of the human spirit. Spirit is the lamp; mind is the light which shines from the lamp. Spirit is the tree, and the mind is the fruit. Mind is the perfection of the spirit and is its essential quality, as the sun’s rays are the essential necessity of the sun.” Some Answered Questions, pp. 208-209
More clarification on this later if you are interested as it is late here.
No, I'd like an answer to my actual question; What features or characteristics are shared by all the things you're saying are beyond the reach of science that actually causes them to be? I'm not after countless examples, I'm after reasons.
God is beyond the reach of science because God is beyond the reach of human observation and study. The same applies to the spiritual world, what Christians refer to as heaven.
None of this supports the idea that you can "know" something yet be unable to demonstrate how you know it to other people.
Conversely, there is no reason to think that just because I know something I can demonstrate how I know it to other people, so the fact that I cannot demonstrate how I know it to other people does not mean I do not know it.
You have literally zero basis for making that statement though. It barely justifies being called a "belief", let alone "knowledge". If Gods essence is beyond human understanding, you couldn't understand that his essence is beyond human understanding. The very best you could say is that you don't know if Gods essence is beyond our understanding.
Hold on! The only reason I believe/know that God’s Essence is beyond human understanding is because Baha’u’llah wrote that it is beyond human understanding, and He explained why. God reveals His attributes and His will through the Messengers but God never reveals His Essence. Baha’u’llah also explained that not even the Messengers of God can ever understand the Essence of God. That is how hidden it is.
“The conceptions of the devoutest of mystics, the attainments of the most accomplished amongst men, the highest praise which human tongue or pen can render are all the product of man’s finite mind and are conditioned by its limitations. Ten thousand Prophets, each a Moses, are thunderstruck upon the Sinai of their search at His forbidding voice, “Thou shalt never behold Me!”; whilst a myriad Messengers, each as great as Jesus, stand dismayed upon their heavenly thrones by the interdiction, “Mine Essence thou shalt never apprehend!” From time immemorial He hath been veiled in the ineffable sanctity of His exalted Self, and will everlastingly continue to be wrapt in the impenetrable mystery of His unknowable Essence. Every attempt to attain to an understanding of His inaccessible Reality hath ended in complete bewilderment, and every effort to approach His exalted Self and envisage His Essence hath resulted in hopelessness and failure.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 62-63
