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

[Tiberius]

For God, everything has already happened. There is no past, present, and future, God knows everything simultaneously because omniscience is an attribute of God.

“Every act ye meditate is as clear to Him as is that act when already accomplished. There is none other God besides Him. His is all creation and its empire. All stands revealed before Him; all is recorded in His holy and hidden Tablets. This fore-knowledge of God, however, should not be regarded as having caused the actions of men, just as your own previous knowledge that a certain event is to occur, or your desire that it should happen, is not and can never be the reason for its occurrence.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 150

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, p. 138

Making a claim is not an explanation, and this does not address the question I was asking anyway.

At best, this reads as, "It just does." And that's not an answer at all.

 

[Hidingfromyou]

Don't you know them already?
How can you say that they have no validity if you don't know them?

I'm familiar with the claims of believers. This ain't my first rodeo.

But go on, surprise me! Give me a single valid religious claim.

 

[Trailblazer]

Wait! I got this: because you really believe it to be true. Further, you believe that evidence supports its claims!

Well, believers of other religions "know" their mythologies to be true as strongly as you believe in yours.

It is not true because I believe it is true, it is either true or not. What other religious people believe has no bearing upon what is actually true either. The same holds true for you. What you believe -- your personal opinion -- is not true just because you believe it is true.

In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so."
Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia

Yes, I have evidence that supports my claims but I am not going to waste any more time on this.

 

[Trailblazer]

Making a claim is not an explanation, and this does not address the question I was asking anyway.

At best, this reads as, "It just does." And that's not an answer at all.

What question did it not address?

 

[Hidingfromyou]

It is not true because I believe it is true, it is either true or not. What other religious people believe has no bearing upon what is actually true either. The same holds true for you. What you believe -- your personal opinion -- is not true just because you believe it is true.

In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so."
Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia

Yes, I have evidence that supports my claims but I am not going to waste any more time on this.

Now you're making an objective claim. "It is not true because I believe it is true, it is either true or not."

But you do not appeal to objective evidence. Ergo, you are making subjective claims to truth, not objective ones.

Please present your objectively true evidence, I'd love to hear it!

 

[Trailblazer]

I'm familiar with the claims of believers. This ain't my first rodeo.

But go on, surprise me! Give me a single valid religious claim.

I'm familiar with the claims of atheists. This ain't my first rodeo.

But go on, surprise me! Tell me something I have not heard thousands of times before.

 

[Hidingfromyou]

I'm familiar with the claims of atheists. This ain't my first rodeo.

But go on, surprise me! Tell me something I have not heard thousands of times before.

Why are you not presenting the objectively true evidence you just claimed?

 

[Trailblazer]

Now you're making an objective claim. "It is not true because I believe it is true, it is either true or not."

But you do not appeal to objective evidence. Ergo, you are making subjective claims to truth, not objective ones.

Please present your objectively true evidence, I'd love to hear it!

I have objective evidence but there is no reason for me to present it again and again just to hear the atheists say "that's not evidence."

Like I just said, this is not my first rodeo. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

 

[Trailblazer]

Why are you not presenting the objectively true evidence you just claimed?

There is no such thing as objectively true evidence. There is just objective evidence. Some people will believe it means x and some people will think it means y and some people will think it means z. ALL evidence is interpreted subjectively. All people think differently so no two people will see the same evidence exactly the same way.

 

[Hidingfromyou]

There is no such thing as objectively true evidence. There is just objective evidence. Some people will believe it means x and some people will think it means y and some people will think it means z. ALL evidence is interpreted subjectively. All people think differently so no two people will see the same evidence exactly the same way.

So you are walking back your claims to objective evidence?

Are you agreeing with my previous statement that your religious experiences are entirely subjective ones, like other believers of other religions?

 

[Hidingfromyou]

I have objective evidence but there is no reason for me to present it again and again just to hear the atheists say "that's not evidence."

Like I just said, this is not my first rodeo. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Ah, so you don't have objective evidence. If you did, it would be accepted by all. What you have is called "subjective evidence."

That's fine, we're all subjective experiencing beings. My previous argument stands correct and uncontested.

Re: the insanity urban myth, that's actually false. Insanity isn't doing the same thing over and expecting different results. Insanity is experiencing and interpreting reality in ways that is abnormal, often irrational, and unlike what neurotypical individuals experience.

It's a common urban myth to make that claim, it's basically presented daily on all media, from news to TV shows, but it's actually untrue from the discipline of psychology.

 

[Trailblazer]

Religion has zero predictive power. Scientific explanatory models that are confirmed have great predictive power.

Everything that was predicted in the Bible has come true and the remainder of the prophecies will be fulfilled in due time.

1. Ok, sounds good!
2. The purpose of physical reality?

Uhm, what?

Why do spiritual beings--human souls--begin their lives in the physical world? According to well-known Baha'i author, scholar, and educator John Hatcher, the world is a classroom designed by God to instigate and nurture mental and spiritual growth. The Purpose of Physical Reality examines the components of this classroom to show how everyday experience leads to spiritual insight. Viewing life in this way, we can learn to appreciate the overall justice of God's plan and the subtle interplay between human free will and divine assistance in unleashing human potential. The idea of physical reality as a divine teaching device not only prepares us for further progress in the life beyond, it also provides practical advice about how to attain spiritual and intellectual understanding while we are living on earth.
https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Physical-Reality-John-Hatcher/dp/1931847231

3. Spiritual reality = fiction. Hence, it can't be measured. Zero validity.

Everything that is true cannot be measured. Measurement is for science not religion.

4. Humans weren't created. We evolved.

Mythological claims about human creation = again, zero validity. Make-believe. All equal.

I agree, humans evolved. I am not a Christian.

5. You're quite wrong here, my friend. History has shown that scientific explanations of reality have removed religious explanations in every single discipline of knowledge.

Science can only explain physical reality, not spiritual reality.

Remember the sin theory of disease? Gone. Replaced by the germ theory.
Remember the earth centric solar system? Gone.
Remember spontaneous creation? Gone.
Catastrophsim? Gone.

What makes you think I ascribe to any of these religious beliefs. I am not a Christian.
I believe in the harmony of science and religion and the supremacy of neither one.

Science and Religion

Bahá’ís reject the notion that there is an inherent conflict between science and religion, a notion that became prevalent in intellectual discourse at a time when the very conception of each system of knowledge was far from adequate. The harmony of science and religion is one of the fundamental principles of the Bahá’í Faith, which teaches that religion, without science, soon degenerates into superstition and fanaticism, while science without religion becomes merely the instrument of crude materialism. “Religion,” according to the Bahá’í writings, “is the outer expression of the divine reality. Therefore, it must be living, vitalized, moving and progressive.”1 “Science is the first emanation from God toward man. All created things embody the potentiality of material perfection, but the power of intellectual investigation and scientific acquisition is a higher virtue specialized to man alone. Other beings and organisms are deprived of this potentiality and attainment.”2

So far as earthly existence is concerned, many of the greatest achievements of religion have been moral in character. Through its teachings and through the examples of human lives illumined by these teachings, masses of people in all ages and lands have developed the capacity to love, to give generously, to serve others, to forgive, to trust in God, and to sacrifice for the common good. Social structures and institutional systems have been devised that translate these moral advances into the norms of social life on a vast scale. In the final analysis, the spiritual impulses set in motion by the Founders of the world’s religions—the Manifestations of God—have been the chief influence in the civilizing of human character.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá has described science as the “most noble” of all human virtues and “the discoverer of all things”.3 Science has enabled society to separate fact from conjecture. Further, scientific capabilities—of observing, of measuring, of rigorously testing ideas—have allowed humanity to construct a coherent understanding of the laws and processes governing physical reality, as well as to gain insights into human conduct and the life of society.

Taken together, science and religion provide the fundamental organizing principles by which individuals, communities, and institutions function and evolve.

When the material and spiritual dimensions of the life of a community are kept in mind and due attention is given to both scientific and spiritual knowledge, the tendency to reduce human progress to the consumption of goods, services and technological packages is avoided. Scientific knowledge, to take but one simple example, helps the members of a community to analyse the physical and social implications of a given technological proposal—say, its environmental impact—and spiritual insight gives rise to moral imperatives that uphold social harmony and that ensure technology serves the common good. Together, these two sources of knowledge are essential to the liberation of individuals and communities from the traps of ignorance and passivity. They are vital to the advancement of civilization.

Science and Religion | What Bahá’ís Believe

 

[Trailblazer]

Please give me a true claim from your religion that has validity.

Why would I give you that only to hear you say it has no validity?
This is not my first rodeo. I have been posting to mostly atheists day and night for nine years so I know the drill.
Are you going to be the first atheist who is different? I kept thinking that for nine years but eventually I realized that was not going to happen.

 

[Trailblazer]

So you are walking back your claims to objective evidence?

Are you agreeing with my previous statement that your religious experiences are entirely subjective ones, like other believers of other religions?

No, I have it, but I am not going to present it to any more atheists, not unless I have first determined they are sincere.
I am not playing any more games with atheists, I have better things to do. People either want to know the truth or not.

 

[Hidingfromyou]

Everything that was predicted in the Bible has come true and the remainder of the prophecies will be fulfilled in due time.

Nonsense.

Why do spiritual beings--human souls--begin their lives in the physical world? According to well-known Baha'i author, scholar, and educator John Hatcher, the world is a classroom designed by God to instigate and nurture mental and spiritual growth. The Purpose of Physical Reality examines the components of this classroom to show how everyday experience leads to spiritual insight. Viewing life in this way, we can learn to appreciate the overall justice of God's plan and the subtle interplay between human free will and divine assistance in unleashing human potential. The idea of physical reality as a divine teaching device not only prepares us for further progress in the life beyond, it also provides practical advice about how to attain spiritual and intellectual understanding while we are living on earth.
https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Physical-Reality-John-Hatcher/dp/1931847231

Everything that is true cannot be measured. Measurement is for science not religion.

I agree, humans evolved. I am not a Christian.

Science can only explain physical reality, not spiritual reality.

What makes you think I ascribe to any of these religious beliefs. I am not a Christian.
I believe in the harmony of science and religion and the supremacy of neither one.

Science and Religion

Bahá’ís reject the notion that there is an inherent conflict between science and religion, a notion that became prevalent in intellectual discourse at a time when the very conception of each system of knowledge was far from adequate. The harmony of science and religion is one of the fundamental principles of the Bahá’í Faith, which teaches that religion, without science, soon degenerates into superstition and fanaticism, while science without religion becomes merely the instrument of crude materialism. “Religion,” according to the Bahá’í writings, “is the outer expression of the divine reality. Therefore, it must be living, vitalized, moving and progressive.”1 “Science is the first emanation from God toward man. All created things embody the potentiality of material perfection, but the power of intellectual investigation and scientific acquisition is a higher virtue specialized to man alone. Other beings and organisms are deprived of this potentiality and attainment.”2

So far as earthly existence is concerned, many of the greatest achievements of religion have been moral in character. Through its teachings and through the examples of human lives illumined by these teachings, masses of people in all ages and lands have developed the capacity to love, to give generously, to serve others, to forgive, to trust in God, and to sacrifice for the common good. Social structures and institutional systems have been devised that translate these moral advances into the norms of social life on a vast scale. In the final analysis, the spiritual impulses set in motion by the Founders of the world’s religions—the Manifestations of God—have been the chief influence in the civilizing of human character.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá has described science as the “most noble” of all human virtues and “the discoverer of all things”.3 Science has enabled society to separate fact from conjecture. Further, scientific capabilities—of observing, of measuring, of rigorously testing ideas—have allowed humanity to construct a coherent understanding of the laws and processes governing physical reality, as well as to gain insights into human conduct and the life of society.

Taken together, science and religion provide the fundamental organizing principles by which individuals, communities, and institutions function and evolve.

When the material and spiritual dimensions of the life of a community are kept in mind and due attention is given to both scientific and spiritual knowledge, the tendency to reduce human progress to the consumption of goods, services and technological packages is avoided. Scientific knowledge, to take but one simple example, helps the members of a community to analyse the physical and social implications of a given technological proposal—say, its environmental impact—and spiritual insight gives rise to moral imperatives that uphold social harmony and that ensure technology serves the common good. Together, these two sources of knowledge are essential to the liberation of individuals and communities from the traps of ignorance and passivity. They are vital to the advancement of civilization.

Science and Religion | What Bahá’ís Believe

If you don't understand that doctrine to be equal to any other religious doctrine, you go right ahead and believe you've found the "one, true religion." Like every other believer of every other religion on the planet, throughout history.

The great sociologist Durkheim wrote "All religions are true."

They all do what we anthropologists call "social work." Your religion is a cultural system. It is an encultured system and it structures how you understand, interpret, communicate and experience reality.

It is absolutely and unequivocally subjective. And real for believers. Protest all you want, you're utterly and unmistakably wrong in your protests.

Science produces new knowledge and new ways of understanding. Religion peddles in metaphor and make-believe claims.

I'm happy that they make you happy. Yet I'm saddened that you're unable to expand beyond the believer's arrogance that only they are correct. Somehow, in your world, everyone else is wrong, every other religion doesn't quite get it. There is no greater arrogance than this.

On the other hand, I like that the faith you've presented appeals to other religions by claiming a vast, unknowable, universal deity that each religion touches some small part of. It's a bit disappointing that you subsequently make claims like "the Mayans didn't really get it," since that contradicts what is most attractive about a universal divinity, a lack of arrogance and an admission that others are correct, too.

Still, social science does a better and more thorough job of explaining - and effectively explaining - religiosity as an adaptation to produce larger than kin social cohesion, through shared, structuring cultural systems.

Anyways, that's all you get from me. Thanks for sharing lots of the Baha'is faith. I've always wanted to know more about it. Seems pretty good, better if you can drop the arrogance from it - I am left wondering if some Baha'i religious leaders do?

It's been lovely. All the best to you.

 

[Hidingfromyou]

No, I have it, but I am not going to present it to any more atheists, not unless I gave first determined they are sincere.
I am not playing any more games with atheists, I have better things to do. People either want to know the truth or not.

You didn't come to engage, you came to proselytize. Can't really blame you.

But it's a subjective world you're preaching.

 

[Trailblazer]

Ah, so you don't have objective evidence. If you did, it would be accepted by all. What you have is called "subjective evidence."

You are wrong about that, dead wrong. Not all people are going to believe that the objective evidence for a religion means the same thing. That is logically impossible unless everyone was a clone with the same exact brain.

 

[Trailblazer]

You didn't come to engage, you came to proselytize. Can't really blame you.

But it's a subjective world you're preaching.

If I came to proselytize I would have thrown all the evidence I have at you. Do you have any logical abilities?

There is no such thing as a objective world vs. a subjective world. My religion exists in reality and that is objective but it will be interpreted subjectively by everyone who looks at it.

 

[Tiberius]

What question did it not address?

How does time dilation at relativistic speeds explain how God has knowledge of a future that hasn't yet happened?

 

[Tiberius]

You are wrong about that, dead wrong. Not all people are going to believe that the objective evidence for a religion means the same thing. That is logically impossible unless everyone was a clone with the same exact brain.

How do you reach that conclusion? All rational people all agree on the speed of light based on the objective evidence. All rational people agree on the shape of the Earth based on the objective evidence. Why can't all rational people agree on religion in the same way?

Lemme guess: Because religion's different from science!