Atheists: What would be evidence of God’s existence?

[KWED]

..so the answer to your question is "Yes".
You can choose whatever shirt you like,
and that will be what God knows 100% for sure

So by your argument, god is merely observing our actions. He does not have any magical foreknowledge and does not determine future events by will or decree.

I notice you have avoided revealing which version of god you favour. This is important because you are making claims that contradict religious dogma in some cases.
You can make up whatever type of god you want, but you can't then claim that it is the god of one of the religions.

So, is god your own invention or an established one?

 

[KWED]

Yes, he is free to choose any shirt he likes.
Almighty God is never wrong, by definition.

So basically, god is one of those annoying people who waits to hear the answer to a question and then says "Yes, I knew that".

What about this..

The barber in the village shaves everybody that doesn't shave themselves.

It seems quite reasonable, until we consider the plight of the barber. Does he shave himself or not?
If he shaves himself, then due to the statement above, he does NOT shave himself.

It becomes illogical. The statement needs an exception clause.
i.e. except the barber

That is all that is happening here. It is a trick statement.

"If God knows 100% for sure that I am going to wear the red shirt, am I capable of of choosing to wear a different shirt?"

It is putting the cart before the horse

No. It simply shows that god's infallible omniscience removes free will.
You are struggling with it because you assume, a priori, that both infallible omniscience and free will must co-exist so cognitive dissonance prevents you from recognising the logical outcome.
To use your analogy, you are claiming that the barber both shaves himself and does not shave himself, and that there isn't an issue with that.

 

[KWED]

God's foreknowledge has nothing to do with what we will decide to do. God knows what we will decide to do only because God has foreknowledge but God's foreknowledge has no effect upon what we will decide to do.

You could choose chicken or beef or fish.
What I know you will choose has nothing to do with what you will choose, just as what God knows has nothing to do with what you will choose.

Knowing something will happen is not what causes it to happen. Human choices and the ensuing actions are what cause things to happen.

Question.—If God has knowledge of an action which will be performed by someone, and it has been written on the Tablet of Fate, is it possible to resist it?

Answer.—The foreknowledge of a thing is not the cause of its realization; for the essential knowledge of God surrounds, in the same way, the realities of things, before as well as after their existence, and it does not become the cause of their existence. It is a perfection of God.......

Therefore, the knowledge of God in the realm of contingency does not produce the forms of the things. On the contrary, it is purified from the past, present and future. It is identical with the reality of the things; it is not the cause of their occurrence........

The mathematicians by astronomical calculations know that at a certain time an eclipse of the moon or the sun will occur. Surely this discovery does not cause the eclipse to take place. This is, of course, only an analogy and not an exact image.
Some Answered Questions, pp. 138-139

This is pointless. You are repeatedly contradicting yourself and denying reason and logic.
You claim that god has infallible foreknowledge of what choice we will make, yet you also claim that we are free to make choices different to the one god knows we will make.
The two positions are fundamentally, and clearly mutually exclusive.

Also, the issue has been explained to you several times yet you keep attacking the same straw man. It's almost as if you are deliberately refusing to understand what is being said.

 

[KWED]

No, we cannot do things that God does not know we will do because God knows everything we will do.
We can chose something different to what god knows we will choose.
We can.
We can't...

 

[KWED]

No. It is you that are wrong.

"If God knows I am going to wear the red shirt tomorrow, then I MUST wear the red shirt. I am not able to choose the blue shirt instead."

That's true.
..but so is this..

"If God knows I am going to wear the blue shirt tomorrow, then I MUST wear the blue shirt. I am not able to choose the red shirt instead."

..so which is it?
Do you choose the red shirt or the blue shirt?
Are you going to say that it depends on what God knows?
..because it doesn't..
It depends on what you CHOOSE.

You really have no idea about this, do you?

You actually explained it perfectly to yourself.
It is inevitable that we will make the choice that god knows we will make - whatever that choice is.

 

[KWED]

We can make any choice we want and carry it out if we have the capability and opportunity.

Free will is simply the will/ability to make choices based upon our desires and preferences. Our desires and preferences come from a combination of factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances. How free they are varies with the situation. Certainly what we refer to as “free will” has many constraints such as capability and opportunity.

But you have already admitted that we can't make any choice other than the one god knows we will make.
Although you also claimed that we can make choices other than the one god knows we will make.

God, on the basis that He created us so God knows what we were created for.

But god isn't bound by his own moral code? Seems a bit hypocritical.

Things won't happen that God does not know will happen because God knows everything that will ever happen.

So at any given moment, our choices must match the ones god knows we will make.

What God knows is not fixed as it changes whenever humans make a choice to do something.

So god doesn't know what we will do until we do it.
I also have that magical power.

Question.—If God has knowledge of an action which will be performed by someone, and it has been written on the Tablet of Fate, is it possible to resist it?

Answer.—The foreknowledge of a thing is not the cause of its realization; for the essential knowledge of God surrounds, in the same way, the realities of things, before as well as after their existence, and it does not become the cause of their existence. It is a perfection of God... Some Answered Questions, pp. 138-139

Apart from the fact that the "answer" is little more than word salad, it is also the same old straw man.

No one is claiming that infallible foreknowledge causes an event, just that it makes that event inevitable.

 

[KWED]

Yes. Almighty God is able to do all things.
That doesn't include logical fallacies
i.e. the logically impossible.
.

So god is bound by external forces.
Interesting.
Which god are you referring to?

 

[Sheldon]

Is there anything we can do that you believe a deity cannot prevent or stop us doing if it wanted to?

No.

So it could stop paedophiles abusing children, if it wanted to, yet it does nothing to prevent this unimaginable suffering. Even if I believed such a deity existed, I could not worship any entity that sadistic and unempathetic towards the suffering of conscious beings. The idea it designed and created a world with the ubiquitous suffering we see, is a monstrous idea to me.

 

[Sheldon]

From my viewpoint, you have rebelled against God by rejecting all His Messengers, and you cannot blame God for that since you have had many more opportunities than most people to recognize the Baha'i Faith.

I don't see it as any different to any other man made religion. The claims are all unevidenced, and the use of vapid platitudes in place of cogent evidenced explanations, are all too familiar. People want to believe it, so they do, but I can so no objective difference from any other man made religions.

 

[Sheldon]

No one is claiming that infallible foreknowledge causes an event, just that it makes that event inevitable.

Of course, in any circumstance I am bound by whatever number of choices present themselves, if anything exists that knows which one I will "choose" before it happens, then it is obvious I must be bound to that choice alone, it cannot be reasoned any other way without ludicrous cognitive dissonance.

 

[Sheldon]

No. It is you that are wrong.

"If God knows I am going to wear the red shirt tomorrow, then I MUST wear the red shirt. I am not able to choose the blue shirt instead."

That's true.
..but so is this..

"If God knows I am going to wear the blue shirt tomorrow, then I MUST wear the blue shirt. I am not able to choose the red shirt instead."

..so which is it?
Do you choose the red shirt or the blue shirt?
Are you going to say that it depends on what God knows?
..because it doesn't..
It depends on what you CHOOSE.

So god knows what I will do, but only after I've done it, you're describing an ordinary human.

 

[TheBrokenSoul]

Welcome to the forum.
That God exists in the heart and religion exists in the mind is in accordance with my beliefs.

God exists in our minds has a word created in history and people try to define God in their own imaginations instead of just feeling the love that was intended .
I believe that life is different from a rock and ourselves didn't necessarily evolve on Earth .

 

[Sheldon]

we are judged according to the moral choices that we make.

Who decides what is "moral" and "immoral", and on what basis?

God, on the basis that He created us so God knows what we were created for.

We are judged even though we can't know what is moral and what not, and even though a deity exists that does know, and knows what we will do anyway?

As always religious apologetics delves ever more deeply in contradiction and absurdity. I can see the rationale of deciding that a sound basis for human morality is to promote the wellbeing of conscious animals including humans, and to try and avoid, and as far as possible to prevent all unnecessary suffering, as this better than the alternative. However the idea I must blindly follow rules I cannot know are moral, is preposterous, "good" Nazis managed that much. If your deity asked you, like Abraham to murder a c child as a sacrifice to it, would you consider it for even a second? I would tell such a deity to f*** right ***.

I am more and more relieved there is no objective evidence for any such deity.

 

[Sheldon]

4.God exists in the heart , religion exists in the mind

God is real as love

Unicorns exists in the heart , religion exists in the mind

Unicorn is real as love

I'm seeing no objective difference there, unless you can point it out to me?

 

[Sheldon]

I believe that life is different from a rock and ourselves didn't necessarily evolve on Earth .

What other scientific facts do you deny? Or is it just the ones that deliver unwelcome truths contradicting archaic creation myths?

Species evolution is as well evidenced a scientific fact as any we have, denying it is no less absurd than denying the rotundity of the earth.

 

[Sheldon]

Lemme get this straight...

God knows 100% for sure that I will wear the red shirt.

I choose the wear the Blue shirt.

God's claim that I will wear the red shirt was NOT wrong?

Adaboy, now you're getting it, no wait, damnit I had there, but now it's gone...

What colour were the shirts again, I can get this surely?

 

[Sheldon]

God knows 100% for sure that you will wear the red shirt but only if red is the color you will choose to wear.

Dear oh dear...this has to be a windup...

 

[Sheldon]

Who is using the special pleading fallacy is all a matter of perspective.

Nonsense sorry, logic is a method of reasoning that adheres to strict principles of validation, it was created precisely to remove subjective errors of perception.

You are making claims about a deity, someone points out they are irrational, you then insist your deity is special as it is not like humans and can't be judged the same. That is a special pleading fallacy every day of the week. That's before we even ask how you can know anything about this deity you are arguing for, so these unevidenced assumptions also strikes me as begging the question fallacies.

 

[TheBrokenSoul]

What other scientific facts do you deny? Or is it just the ones that deliver unwelcome truths contradicting archaic creation myths?

Species evolution is as well evidenced a scientific fact as nay we have, denying it is no less absurd than denying the rotundity of the earth.

You think that Darwin's evolution theory is scientific fact ? That is simply not true , Darwin presented a good theory but didn't supply any real evidence . The fact is the history before present conceptions is only viable if there is an observer too record that history .

 

[TheBrokenSoul]

I'm seeing no objective difference there, unless you can point it out to me?

The difference is that in a possible infinite Universe there is infinite possibilities . The Unicorn might be real for all you know , a horse with a spike isn't that vivid of imagination .