Atheists: If God existed would God……

[Polymath257]

Sorry, I left the If off my sentence. More correctly:

IF there is nothing that you understand about morality today that Bob in Jerusalem was not capable of understanding 2,000 years ago why did Jesus say the following?

John 16:12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.

Jesus said that He had many things to say (what He would liked to have said) but He did not say them back then because people living back then were not ready to hear what Jesus would have said.

What makes you think he actually said this? And if he did, what makes you think he was talking about morality and not something else?

 

[Polymath257]

Excuse me while I laugh. I do not believe the OT represents any of God's orders.

But other theists do. I agree with you, by the way. But I also would say the same about any other religious texts.

 

[PureX]

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

Humans are subject to the limitations of their humanity. Theism helps a lot of them to be better humans (to each other) in spite of those limitations. So what are you complaining about, exactly? That it doesn't help ALL of them? Or that it doesn't make them perfect? And what does atheism do for them? Turn their worldview into an empty, meaningless experience of random circumstances? Not exactly the kind of worldview that would inspire personal transcendence, is it.

 

[F1fan]

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.

I've pointed out this fact to her numerous times, using words with clear definitions, and a lucid, coherent explanation. She denies it is true nonetheless. I predict the same.

 

[Polymath257]

I said: There can be no objective evidence for God, but there is objective evidence for Messengers of God.

I did not say that the objective evidence proves that they were Messengers of God.

Which means you have objective evidence that there were humans that *claimed* to be messengers from God. That is not objective evidence of messengers from God.

Why should I do that? What would it mean to anyone else? Everyone has to do their own research and investigation if they want to know the truth.

And I have said the same thing -- it is irrelevant what convinces me as an individual.

It is good enough for me.
I do not care what is good enough for you because I am not responsible for you. I am only responsible for myself.

OK. You have the right to believe anything you wish. That doesn't mean others should take it seriously or believe it. It doesn't even mean you have a valid belief.

It just means you have convinced yourself of these ideas.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I have little use for religion. But I have much use for "God" ... for the great and divine existential mystery at the heart of everything.

You gave the mysteries a name. How is that useful to you? How is it better than simply acknowledging that there are unanswered mysteries? I suspect that if you find a god belief useful, it is for some other reason.

Their theism gives them a focal point for their gratitude, and for their desire to be more honest, and courageous, and forgiving, and kind. It's an ongoing and unremitting reminder of this quest.

They could do that better as secular humanists. The attitudes would then be endogenous. Who needs to be reminded to be grateful? Is that gratitude if it's not experienced spontaneously, if it needs a method to come back into consciousness?

Who is courageous because they think a deity exists? Where I live in Mexico, we see plenty of unsophisticated people who have the "courage" to face Covid unvaccinated because they believe that a god will protect them. But they lack the courage to take the vaccine. Because I don't hold such beliefs, it's the other way around for me.

Similarly with kindness. If it isn't in you without religion, it won't be there with it, either. You'll just have to do the same as the sociopaths who don't actually feel anything for others and put on the show.

It provides them with an ability to hope when nothing else does. It provides them with solace when nothing else can. It helps them see meaning in their suffering and loss, making it a little less horrible.

Holding their religious beliefs are why they need them. Without them, one learns to find hope without gods. One learns to deal with suffering and grief by simply experiencing them and recognizing that that is part of life.

But I know what you are referring to here. I've read quite a few brief, end-of-life biographies of people losing loved ones to Covid. They usually contain pleas to pray for them. And when the loved one passes, they say he's in a better place. Yes, that is comforting, but only because they have never outgrown the need to be comforted with reassuring fictions, which is where we begin in childhood.

You seem to see this as a gift from theism, but I see it as the opposite. The gift is to transcend those earlier needs by not indulging such comforting beliefs, or better yet, never holding them in the first place, but rather, to get to the business of growing up as intelligent, decent people without such ideas.

This is from an earlier post of mine, modified somewhat to reflect this discussion. This is what having to face reality godless allows one to do instead, and closer to what I call courage than what you are proposing derives from theistic beliefs:

Try standing up like the bipedal ape you were born to be, and look out into the universe, which may be almost empty, and which may contain no gods at all. And then face and accept the very real possibility that we may be all there is for light years.

Accept that you may be vulnerable and not watched over.

Accept the likelihood of your own mortality and finititude.

Accept the reality of your insignificance everywhere but earth, and that you might be unloved except by those who know you - people, and maybe a few animals.

Because as far as we know, that's how it is.

It's unpleasant at first, but be brave! Religion is comforting, but at a great cost. It's infantilizing, and costs you your only shot at an authentic existence.

A theist can never know the ineffable joy of doing good for goodness sake, with no expectation that anyone will ever know what good he did or reward him for it. When the atheist pulls over on a rural road to save a turtle crossing it, he know that nobody will ever know or care except him. That is authentic kindness, and authentic morality - goodness for goodness sake, and as close to a godlike experience as one can get.

So, it's worth making the effort to learn to face reality without god beliefs. Once you have faced the frightening, lonely, and bleak aspects of existence and learned to cope with them naturally, those feelings disappear, generally by young adulthood.
​

That's what I mean about theism creating the need for comfort through theism. And, of course, people never exposed to theism don't need to be told any of that. That is how they progress naturally.

 

[Polymath257]

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.

OK, that is your belief.

My belief is that no such soul exists.

 

[lukethethird]

Humans are subject to the limitations of their humanity. Theism helps a lot of them to be better humans (to each other) in spite of those limitations. So what are you complaining about, exactly? That it doesn't help ALL of them? Or that it doesn't make them perfect? And what does atheism do for them? Turn their worldview into an empty, meaningless experience of random circumstances? Not exactly the kind of worldview that would inspire personal transcendence, is it.

The religious fabric that unites a society is the very same fabric that divides it from outsiders and can even cause division from within. Your diatribe is a perfect example of how you feel towards those that live outside of your theistic tribe. You honestly believe that those outside of your tribe "Turn their worldview into an empty, meaningless experience of random circumstances." This is what religion has done to you, and you appear to be perfectly content with your view of so called others, and you no doubt wonder why there are those that avoid religion.

 

[HonestJoe]

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.

So you're not willing to even consider the possibility that the god you believe in doesn't actually exist, based on new evidence or observations?

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

The problem is that you said this earlier (my emphasis);

God wants everyone to know that He exists but not as an objective fact.

On of the fundamental issues in this field is that believers often don't have definitive and consistent definitions of the gods they're proposing, routinely shifting or fudging things in the face of contradictory evidence.

If there is a god who truly has no wants or needs, why would it matter whether any of us believed in him at all? Why would such a god send messengers or inspire religions? Why would they have anything to do with humans at all? (Note that an answer along the lines of "We can't know the mind of God!" is invalid unless you can support that assertion in any way).

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

Thanks for explaining how you think atheists reason and come to their conclusion that none of the gods proposed by believers exist.

You mean exactly the same way you do, as you stated in the previous quote? I think you (and a lot of other people, theist and atheist alike) need to shift away from the simplistic idea of theist vs atheist, believer vs non-believer, instead recognising that we're all just individuals, each with a unique set of beliefs and viewpoints that can't be simply generalised.

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?

An internally consistent definition could be the basis for a viable hypothesis that could then be tested. At that point, the hypothesis is neither supported or countered and would be treated as such. Note that nothing in that description is specifically about gods, these are standard principles that apply to anything.

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.

You're still just making empty assertions. What characteristic exactly renders souls immune to science? Why could they not be studied via their "signs" (or effects as it would normally be called), in the same way as we have with countless other phenomena that we can't (or couldn't at the time) directly measure?

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?

This isn't a discussion about religion, it is a discussion about whether any gods exist. Any question about whether something exists should focus on facts and reality.

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

I think anything which exists can be subject to observation and inquiry, though there are limitations to our abilities to practically apply that. I'd suggest that if you're claiming that anything is somehow fundamentally beyond any kind of study, you have a responsibility to explain why that would be, especially when it's something that you're then expecting people to accept as definition truth.

I believe we can only know about God through the revelations of the Messengers of God, not through observation, inquiry, or information.

So you just observing and inquire about the information in those messengers words then? You are still stuck on the blocker that there is something unique and special about your belief alone that means fundamental rules of logic and reality somehow don't apply to them. The irony is, of course, that you are far from alone in this.

 

[F1fan]

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.

Right, I use my ham sandwich analogy often.

If Jim claims he ate a ham sandwich for lunch it is believable and plausible since we all have knowledge that ham sandwiches actually exist, and people eat them. His claim is consistent with what we understand about reality.

But if Jim claims he ate a magic ham sandwich that God made himself, well, we can dismiss that claim for its fantastic and implausible elements. We need exceptional evidence for Jim's claim.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

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.

Yet, some of us, perhaps not "thinking logically" in your definition, continue to ask what seems to be a perfectly reasonable question: if we don't and can't know anything about the nature or existence of God, what the heck is the point of believing in it?

I can't tell you anything in the word about gribbles, including whether they exist and if they exist how they exist, what they're like, if they're dangerous or begign, if they're big or small, if they think or don't, if they have desires or don't -- nothing at all. Why, then, would I even entertain the notion that such a thing exists, except for the present purpose of showing how silly it is?

 

[F1fan]

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​

Yet, some of us, perhaps not "thinking logically" in your definition, continue to ask what seems to be a perfectly reasonable question: if we don't and can't know anything about the nature or existence of God, what the heck is the point of believing in it?

To my thinking the PureX quote is an ad hominem as it presumes there is something deficient about atheists that prevents them from special understanding (projections) about a God that would otherwise inform atheists about a God. This lack of special ability means their logic is flawed.

This is precisely what an ad hom does, it attacks the person, and doesn't focus on the claim, evidence, structure of the language, and so on. The phrase "human projections fail to manifest" means nothing in fact. It is a claim itself that is used to disqualify anyone (atheists) who doesn't accept it, and apply it. It's code speak for "faith".

This is the sort of tricky language we have to expose.

 

[F1fan]

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

Right. You could have your own beliefs, your own messenger who YOU think is evidence of a God, and then you post your beliefs in debate, but insist you're not making claims. I could do the same. Policy could do the same. Then what do we have, just a group of people who believe they have truth (which largely negates the others) and there is no openness to truly distill what is true or likely from the fantastic.

 

[PureX]

You gave the mysteries a name. How is that useful to you? How is it better than simply acknowledging that there are unanswered mysteries? I suspect that if you find a god belief useful, it is for some other reason.

It is useful to remember the wonder and magnitude of this mystery. And that it has a transcendent nature (and thereby a divine nature). These are complicated ideas and "God" is as good a term to use to represent it as any.

They could do that better as secular humanists. The attitudes would then be endogenous. Who needs to be reminded to be grateful? Is that gratitude if it's not experienced spontaneously, if it needs a method to come back into consciousness?

This is just selfish gibberish. You have no idea what's better for others or what other people need. And instead of asking them you're just stupidly presuming whatever serves your own bias.

Similarly with kindness. If it isn't in you without religion, it won't be there with it, either.

That is neither here nor there, nor is it anything you would have the capacity to know. It's just more self-serving gibberish.

Holding their religious beliefs are why they need them. Without them, one learns to find hope without gods. One learns to deal with suffering and grief by simply experiencing them and recognizing that that is part of life.

Again, this is all just selfish speculation. You have no idea what anyone else would be or do if they did not view the world as they do. This is all just nonsensical bias. Theism, and the advantages of engaging in it as an ideal are the same phenomenon. For the vast majority of humans these are not divisible.

But I know what you are referring to here. I've read quite a few brief, end-of-life biographies of people losing loved ones to Covid. They usually contain pleas to pray for them. And when the loved one passes, they say he's in a better place. Yes, that is comforting, but only because they have never outgrown the need to be comforted with reassuring fictions, which is where we begin in childhood.

You mean they haven't sacrificed their humanity to a soulless, meaningless, ideology based on random circumstance? How "immature" of them!

You seem to see this as a gift from theism, but I see it as the opposite.

I know you do, and that's why I feel so sad for you, and for the world if we humans are ever stupid enough to sacrifice our souls to a mindless, mechanical existence based on the glorification of physical functionality.

The gift is to transcend those earlier needs by not indulging such comforting beliefs, or better yet, never holding them in the first place, but rather, to get to the business of growing up as intelligent, decent people without such ideas.

This is from an earlier post of mine, modified somewhat to reflect this discussion. This is what having to face reality godless allows one to do instead, and closer to what I call courage than what you are proposing derives from theistic beliefs:

Try standing up like the bipedal ape you were born to be, and look out into the universe, which may be almost empty, and which may contain no gods at all. And then face and accept the very real possibility that we may be all there is for light years.

Accept that you may be vulnerable and not watched over.

Accept the likelihood of your own mortality and finititude.

Accept the reality of your insignificance everywhere but earth, and that you might be unloved except by those who know you - people, and maybe a few animals.

Because as far as we know, that's how it is.

It's unpleasant at first, but be brave! Religion is comforting, but at a great cost. It's infantilizing, and costs you your only shot at an authentic existence.

A theist can never know the ineffable joy of doing good for goodness sake, with no expectation that anyone will ever know what good he did or reward him for it. When the atheist pulls over on a rural road to save a turtle crossing it, he know that nobody will ever know or care except him. That is authentic kindness, and authentic morality - goodness for goodness sake, and as close to a godlike experience as one can get.

So, it's worth making the effort to learn to face reality without god beliefs. Once you have faced the frightening, lonely, and bleak aspects of existence and learned to cope with them naturally, those feelings disappear, generally by young adulthood.
​

That's what I mean about theism creating the need for comfort through theism. And, of course, people never exposed to theism don't need to be told any of that. That is how they progress naturally.

God! You sound like those 'futurists' back in 1930s Europe that were so drunk on the idea of science turning men into demigods that they lost all sense of humility and morality.

 

[PureX]

Yet, some of us, perhaps not "thinking logically" in your definition, continue to ask what seems to be a perfectly reasonable question: if we don't and can't know anything about the nature or existence of God, what the heck is the point of believing in it?

Or better still why are you still ASKING???

"God" is an issue of faith, not of what we do or don't know. That should have been obvious to everyone long ago. But for some reason, the atheists just can't seem to accept this.

 

[F1fan]

It is useful to remember the wonder and magnitude of this mystery.

Krishnamurti usd a good example of how religious ideas become valuable. He said if a person goes out and finds an ordinary rock, and then brings it inside and sets it on a table, and then the person worships that rock every day for years on end, at some point that rock becomes very valuable. The value isn't inherent, it is what the devotee has assigned to it. To anyone else it's just an ordinary rock. Objectively it is an ordinary rock. To the devotee it has an incredible amount of value.

Now imagine this devotee goes out and tries to convince people that this rock has value.

Theists adopt ideas for their social experiences and by the presence of these ideas they have been given significance and value, yet the person did not assign it deliberately or consciously. It is just a consequence of the familiarity of the ideas and how a person can use them to feel a certain way, connected, or that they themselves have meaning and value by acknowledging this agreed upon social value. It is a way a theist can feel a tribal connection to others which satisfied deep rooted fears and anxiety. The need to belong and the fear of isolation, can be huge subconscious motivations to accept irrational social constructs like religious ideas.

The theist knows they believe, they know it feels good to believe, but they can't explain how they arrived at a place in life that they decided a God exists.

And that it has a transcendent nature (and thereby a divine nature). These are complicated ideas and "God" is as good a term to use to represent it as any.

What gets transcended is being rooted in reality and reason. The "spiritual" state means rejecting reason and becoming absorbed in fantasy. Religion offers a way for humans to withdraw into an illusion and believe there is meaning and significance to life that isn't factually apparent.

 

[Trailblazer]

There can be no objective evidence for any non existent thing,

Of course there cannot be objective evidence of a nonexistent thing but that does not mean that all existent things have objective evidence.

The lack of objective evidence does not deem God non-existent.

Objective evidence is just something you want, like a little child wants a cookie, it does not make God exist.

Logically speaking, God could exist and there might be no evidence at all, since it is God who would have to provide the evidence of His existence.

God did provide that evidence, atheists just don't like what God provided. Atheists are like small children who want a chocolate chip cookie instead of the oatmeal cookie their mother gave them.

 

[Daniel Nicholson]

Essentially what you are saying is that God does not exist unless God does what I WANT God to do, and what you think God should be doing is all an ego projection.

When you say "He either can't change this or doesn't care to; so He's either evil or incompetent" you are like a small child saying that if mommy does not give me a cookie then mommy is evil or incompetent.

It would be trivially easy for a god to give everyone evidence of His existence and give clear instructions and knowledge IF GOD WANTED TO DO THAT.

The real God does whatever He damn well pleases and does nothing He does not choose to do. This is what flies completely over the head of atheists. Atheists think Omnipotent means that God can do anything, and what that means to atheists is that God should be doing everything I expect Him to do - and if God does not do what you expect God to do God is deemed a bad God.

Atheists have no clue what Omnipotence really means. It means that God has all power to do whatever He chooses to do. Baha'u'llah explained what Omnipotence means in a nutshell.

“Say: O people! Let not this life and its deceits deceive you, for the world and all that is therein is held firmly in the grasp of His Will. He bestoweth His favor on whom He willeth, and from whom He willeth He taketh it away. He doth whatsoever He chooseth.” Gleanings, p. 209

“Say: He ordaineth as He pleaseth, by virtue of His sovereignty, and doeth whatsoever He willeth at His own behest. He shall not be asked of the things it pleaseth Him to ordain. He, in truth, is the Unrestrained, the All-Powerful, the All-Wise.” Gleanings, p, 284

“God witnesseth that there is no God but Him, the Gracious, the Best-Beloved. All grace and bounty are His. To whomsoever He will He giveth whatsoever is His wish. He, verily, is the All-Powerful, the Almighty, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.” Gleanings, p. 73

I wish you read my post that was immediately after my initial post. I said I am not expecting anything from God. There is no evidence for what YOU assert God does. Whatever it is you and your books say he does, has done, is going to do, characteristics, motives... everything. I wish you could get this part right so we can move the conversation along.

 

[Trailblazer]

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.

And those religious people will say this because they believe that their religion is the one true religion.
I never claimed that the Baha'i Faith is the one true religion, I only said I believe it is the religion for this new age.

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?

I can only say what makes Baha'u'llah more compelling to me.
The other Messengers are also compelling but not as compelling, since they did not bring the message for this age and they did not write their own scriptures

Jesus had the answer as to how I would know you are not a true Messenger. Have you done what the Messengers have done?

Matthew 7:15-20 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Fruits: the pleasant or successful result of work or actions: fruit

 

[Daniel Nicholson]

The fact that you and other atheists do not SEE what you would expect to see if God existed only means that you are putting expectations on God - how He should have created the universe and how He should have communicated to humans - and that is only a projection of your ego.

Same thing as above, Im basing everything on what theists assert God does.

So what is your response now that you know this?