Atheists: If God existed would God……

[KWED]

Pointing out where I believe you are going wrong is not a personal attack, Tb.

Unfortunately, this is a position taken by many people. Simply criticising a person's ideological position can elicit accusations of all kinds of bigotry.

 

[muhammad_isa]

If there is violent conflict in the world (which was the initial point) it is because Allah has decreed that there will be violent conflict. It is what he wants.

Well, let's see.

Take the atomic bombing of Japan..
Clearly, G-d could have stopped it if He wanted to. He is omnipotent.

However, it seems as if on this occasion, He decided that he would let us taste the tyranny of one another.
I would say that it was "divine wisdom"

Don't think that G-d can't or won't intervene in the future, if we decide to explode our nuclear weapons.
It might even be that he causes us to achieve an "own goal"

 

[KWED]

Well, let's see.

Take the atomic bombing of Japan..
Clearly, G-d could have stopped it if He wanted to. He is omnipotent.

However, it seems as if on this occasion, He decided that he would let us taste the tyranny of one another.
I would say that it was "divine wisdom"

Don't think that G-d can't or won't intervene in the future, if we decide to explode our nuclear weapons.
It might even be that he causes us to achieve an "own goal"

So you accept that all the wars, violence, murder, rape, suffering of millions of children, etc, etc is all Allah's will.

Why do you think he wants life to be so awful for so many people?

 

[ppp]

No, that is not true. I believe what I do BECAUSE of the evidence but the evidence is not what I believe. That's ridiculous. Beliefs are not evidence.

Fine. Then you simply state what you believe. You offer no reliable method for differentiating that which you correctly believe about your god or your assorted messengers from what you incorrectly believe about them. You know, evidence.

 

[ppp]

I have explained it numerous times and I posted the passage that explains it.

That is merely a statement of what you believe.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

What is evidence to me is not evidence to you but you insist I have no evidence because it is not evidence to you. This is what you cannot understand.

I understand that what you are calling something evidence of a deity is not that to me

It is just your personal opinion that the evidence is not evidence because it is not compelling to you. This is all about you and you cannot see anything from my perspective and you do not even try to.

Well, I'm the one evaluating the evidence for myself, so of course it is about how things appear to me. And likewise for you. What I am saying is that these are not equal opinions, because we didn't both properly apply the rules of critical thought. We arrived at our ideas using alternate methods, so it's not surprising that they produced opposite results. But that doesn't save your argument that what you call evidence of a deity is not that unless you can demonstrate that its existence makes your belief more likely, and I've explained what can and what cannot do that, and that what you offer as evidence for a deity is evidence for a man claiming to speak for one, nothing more.

What logical alternative did I eliminate without ruling it out first?

That there is no deity attempting to communicate with mankind. You assume otherwise, which leads you to believe that there must be somebody out there. You also seem to assume that that deity wants to communicate with man, and uses messengers to do so. None of that is correct if this deity doesn't exist or isn't trying or able to reach man. I've explained to you that this belief is an unshared premise of yours, meaning that for those not sharing it, the argument is unsound. Your whole argument is that you believe that there is such a deity because the life and writings of a particular man convinced you of that with words and deeds others recognize as human. It is evidence of that to them, not of a deity.

You seem to want to have your thinking respected. You defend it against those criticizing it, meaning that you believe that it is right and others who see things differently are wrong, unless you believe that these mutually exclusive opinions are equally valid. To a critical thinker, that's a red flag. It tells him that at least one those opinions is wrong. If that's how you think, you must believe that the skeptic is wrong if you believe that you are right. If that's not how you think, then you are well off the reasoning reservation. One of the most fundamental principles (axioms) of reason is the Law of Noncontradiction: "states that contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time, e. g. the two propositions "p is the case" and "p is not the case" are mutually exclusive."

This is the underlying principle for ruling out the possibility of encountering a married bachelor some day. You won't. The ideas of being married and being unmarried are mutually exclusive. Nobody can be both at the same time. And you and the skeptic cannot both be right when holding mutually exclusive opinions. If you agree with that, you ought to be looking for ways to rule one in or the other out to make your case. If you think that both ideas can be correct simply because people can believe or hold both even though they are mutually exclusive, then we have even less basis for discussion.

Incidentally, this is also one way of ruling out the Christian deity, the one said to be perfect, and yet makes errors that it regrets and attempts to remedy. That's also off the reservation thinking. Perfect imperfect entities don't exist, just as married unmarried entities don't.

As I've explained before, you don't think according to the principles of critical thought, and you are apparently unaware of that and unable to see or consider it, so you post fallacious thinking and resist analysis of it. I don't expect you to change your mind. I can see that that is not possible. It is closed to that possibility. What that means is that whether you are right or wrong, you are stuck in your present position. If it wrong, you will never see that or move past it.

I mentioned earlier that I am confused by your arguing that your position is logical to people who tell you it is not, yet you consistently reject their evaluations. That would create cognizant dissonance in me if I believed that reason was the path to truth, as I do. I would be concerned that so many people that ought to know disagreed with me. That doesn't seem to matter to you at all. You are content to simply say that's not how you see it, which causes one to consider that you don't care whether your arguments aren't as logical as you claim they are. If that's the case, why argue that they are? Nobody will argue with you for believing something by faith. They'll simply tell you that that is not how they think, and therefore don't believe what you do. What keeps this thread going is your unreasonable position that your arguments are sound, that they are derived logically from the proper understanding of the evidence used. This is what others are calling you on.

I've likened those responses to the Covid disinformation alerts attached to many claims on social media. If people promoting false information present it as knowledge publicly, they ought to be disagreed with publicly. It isn't necessary to convince the source of the misinformation, and usually not possible even with what is compelling evidence and argument, such is the nature of the closed mind. Correct ideas are excluded by a confirmation bias.

 

[HonestJoe]

I don’t know if that correction makes any difference.

Not really. If you'll only accept information you believe comes form God, you're obviously unwilling to accept any information that questions the existence of God.

What did you think I am asking other people to do?

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.

You need to understand what I meant by what I said. God cannot have any wants for Himself because God does not want anything for Himself since God is wholly self-sufficient. However, God wants things for humans.

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.

As for me, I do not put any effort into convincing people that God exists as I have no desire to convince anyone of that.

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?

Okay, but I am not scientifically inclined so I do not know what you know. I studied geography and psychology in college, not hard science.

You don't need to study hard science (or science at all) to know how to follow scientific method. You can observe the shape of a river to determine how it was formed or observe the behaviour of a patient to determine if they're manic or depressed. Even day to day stuff like crossing the road or baking a cake are applications of science.

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.

I believe the soul exists but the soul is immaterial and its nature is a mystery so it cannot be tested as in a science experiment.

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.

The soul was just one example. Do you want some other examples?

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.

Yes, you could test those but those were not the kind of religious beliefs I was thinking of.

OK, but you said religious beliefs are beyond science, no clarification or limitations. Now we have established that statement was incorrect. Maybe you need to think these definitive statements of faith through before blindly repeating them?

3 Ways to Know Something

The way I know that God exists is not Experiential or Constructed, it is Cognitive (Rational) since I have thought my way through it, argued it, or rationalized it.

That's still all within the scope of scientific principles and logic though. Science isn't only about empirical experiments. There is also significantly overlap between those three things.

None of this supports the idea that you can "know" something yet be unable to demonstrate how you know it to other people.

However, the Essence (intrinsic nature) of God is not subject to logic because it is far beyond human understanding so it can never be known.

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.

 

[F1fan]

That statement was completely illogical.
God is not a fact so God is not going to be taught at a university.

Then your previous comment of how you know God exists wasn't the truth. And since you admit what Baha'i teaches, mainly from messengers, isn't fact so isn't going to be taught in schools. So why would anyone bother to learn about Baha'i if it isn't good enough truth to be taught at a school?

But that does not mean that God does not exist.

It means God isn't any more true than Santa Claus.

Knowledge about God comes from only one source, Messengers of God.

But none of that is being taught in schools because it isn't good enough as far as being knowledge and factual. So you're left with just another religion that is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[F1fan]

No, of course not. I am just having discussions with them and they lead wherever they lead.

You present your beliefs, including that you know a God exists, and can't explain how you arrived at that conclusion with anything other than desire and faith, not reason.
As we have pointed out the many flaws in your thinking that isn't reason, nor based on facts. And then you claim it is based on facts and reason, thus logic, but it isn't.

At least they go somewhere. I learn something and they learn something. You are too busy assessing me to have any fruitful discussion about God.

I'm not sure anyone is learning much. We are exposed to Baha'i texts and can see if they hold water or not. None have anything that suggest it was sourced from a divine.

 

[F1fan]

We are the ones who are impatient..
No matter what question you ask about why G-d allows evil, the answer is the same.
1. He has given us sovereignty over ourselves.

Only as far as nature allows. If you are 3 years old and diagnosed with cancer your sovereignty over yourself has to include you have no sovereignty over the cancer, as cancer is part of the creation, and God is the creator.

I noticed you evaded my questions about cancers and the innocent. Is it that you don't know why God will create children with genetic defects which causes them death, or at best horrendous suffering as doctors try to save them?

2. This world is imperfect, mortal

Then your God is accountable for what it created and has reasons for it, unless your God makes mistakes.

You judge everything by life and death, and not by eternity.
What about eternal justice, do you not understand?

I don't understand that it is real outside the minds of certain theists. It's not factual, nor do believers point to any fact and rational that they have decided it exists.

What is likely is that you learned these ideas from some other fallible believer and you decided, consciously or subconsciously to accept what they claimed.

When it is time for somebody to die, they die .. whether it be in the womb, or 900 years old. Compared to eternity, it is as a blink of an eye.

So? That is how nature operates. The universe doesn't care if you are an old evil person or a baby, and there is no justice in how the universe functions. If it did, no children would suffer from genetic flaws.

The alternative is that our Creator is evil.

 

[F1fan]

If the Baha'i Faith is true, it is supposed to be convincing us of the truth, that God is one, religion is one and humanity is one. But no, because Baha'is are only people, they find ways to muck up God's message.

I would think so. If world unity is the goal then you had better approach the world with a set of texts and a message that resonates with humans at a core level. I'm not sure that is even possible since many people are not objectively open to replacing their religious beliefs. Tribalism is a trait we evolved with, and it serves a purpose for unity at a certain level, and part of the equation of tribalism is having an opposing tribe to compete with. It may not be food and resources, but pride, identity, truth, art, etc. This is how the planet is, we are diverse and tribal at many levels. And the tribalism helps us work harder, feel more secure, feel meaning, etc. So we are not going to abandon our tribe, our meaning, our motivations, for a larger purpose UNLESS that alternative can offer a reward equal to, or better.

One example would be an asteroid heading for earth. Suddenly tribalism isn't all that important, our survival as a planet is, and you can bet we would come together to do something about it. Even after 9-11 we saw how tribalism dissolved, for a short time.

Of course the dilemma is that we all need to have a crisis that threatens us all to unify, and a religious movement isn't going to do that. We are OK will war as we dispute the borders of Ukraine because that is where our tribalism happens to be, this is mostly Putin. He is there because of his national tribe. trump was elected because of his tribe. He was thrown out because Biden had a more reasonable tribe. The people will behave in a way that serves their interests, and much of their interests are superficial and tribal. Baha'i doesn't seem to be aware of this problem, and global unity isn't coming without an asteroid.

 

[F1fan]

People actually think that furry little creatures are their relatives, and want to live with them.
One woman had her face ripped off by one, and that's just one of several stories.

Vikings?

People get their heads filled with all sorts of stuff.
We don't have to believe everything we hear, but I think it's both important, and beneficial to search for truthful answers in the right place.
Where do you think we can find those answers?

Science books.

 

[F1fan]

Well, let's see.

Take the atomic bombing of Japan..
Clearly, G-d could have stopped it if He wanted to. He is omnipotent.

However, it seems as if on this occasion, He decided that he would let us taste the tyranny of one another.
I would say that it was "divine wisdom"

That's OK because the Japanese had their "Divine Wind".

Of course God could have just stopped the Japanese from invading China in 1937. But as usual, the God was a useless bystander, as if it doesn't exist in the way we imagine.

Don't think that G-d can't or won't intervene in the future, if we decide to explode our nuclear weapons.
It might even be that he causes us to achieve an "own goal"

Assuming it exists as you imagine.

 

[Sheldon]

I find it hard to believe that an RF poster does not understand the use of the word 'heart' in the context of faith.

I do not like, nor do I see the need for woolly vapid metaphors. I think religious apologetics use these in the pretence something profound has been said, when in fact they are more often meaningless, as is the case here. What does it even mean, to "look into someone's heart?"

It merely shows your pedantic attitude of dismissing emotion as purely physical, and make yourself out to be a 'biological robot' that is flawed in thinking by its biology.

I didn't dismiss emotion, emotion does not come from nor does it reside in, the human heart, that was entirely my point. So the rest of your straw man, and ad hominem attack speak for itself. Again I shan't even feign surprise you ignored my post, quoting just one single observation to attack, and even misunderstanding that (deliberately?) and getting it laughably wrong.
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Here is the rest of my post, which you ignored, perhaps because you have no credible answers?

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Faith is not about intellectual games.
I agree, faith is an a priori bias, that is used in place objective evidence.

↑
Those that truly seek G-d will find out.
That is a no true Scotsman fallacy, quite a popular one among religious apologists, though tellingly it is used by apologists who reach wildly different conclusions.

↑
We are the ones that stunt that growth, by clinging on to beliefs that suit us etc.
Another no true Scotsman fallacy, one can picture the Venn diagram with everyone who shares your beliefs and conclusions in the "un-stunted growth" group.

↑
There is no "book answer".
Does that include the Quran? Selection bias.....

↑
One cannot get close to G-d through academic study,
That would be true of anything thing that has no basis in fact.

↑
knowledge makes our faith stronger.
That's odd, you just claimed (above) that faith is not about intellectual games, now knowledge makes it stronger, you seem to be spinning vapid contradictory platitudes.

↑
Academic study without faith is useless.
Religious faith is defined as "strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof." so your claim is another absurd no true Scotsman fallacy that neatly categorises everyone who doesn't share your faith into a sub group whose academia is "useless". Oddly though we know that atheism is much more prevalent among scientists, and vastly higher again among elite scientists, so it appears you are very wrong.

 

[muhammad_isa]

The alternative is that our Creator is evil.

No. That is what disbelievers wants us to think.
satan is so envious, that he won't be happy until we are doomed like him.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Of course God could have just stopped the Japanese from invading China in 1937.

Yes. G-d certainly has more power than the whole of mankind put together.

 

[Sheldon]

Yes. G-d certainly has more power than the whole of mankind put together.

So does Superman, what's your point.

 

[muhammad_isa]

What does it even mean, to "look into someone's heart?"

I think that you are just pretending not to know..

I didn't dismiss emotion, emotion does not come from nor does it reside in, the human heart, that was entirely my point.

Well there you go then. You DO know what the above means.

Here is the rest of my post, which you ignored, perhaps because you have no credible answers?

Think what you like. What is the point in conversing, if you pretend not to know what "matters of the heart" are?
I suppose if I tell you I know the Qur'an by heart, you will say that my heart can't learn anything as it just pumps blood.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Striking a dead horse repeatedly, will not make it get up.

No argument there.

This exchange has been a prime example of that.

I avoid wasting time on particular posters.

And yet here you are, replying for the upteenth time and still without any clarification of the post that started the initial exchange and which could have ended it right from the get-go.

I think the count now is at 5 responses for you, not a single one providing the clarification of the supposed misunderstanding.

Ow well....

As I said, I don't expect any clarification anymore. Just more denial and mudslinging.
I'm such a prophet.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Given.

Where? Not to me.