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

[Trailblazer]

No it hasn't. You've even agreed with me that there is no objective proof for religious truth.

I meant that in a totally different context. I meant that there is no way to prove that a particular religion is true with objective evidence. However, all the great religions have been proven objectively true by practice over the millennia, since we can see the fruits religion produces in human character and behavior.

So what? Every religion has something they think is able to answer any question and justify any point they have.

But what do they have to address the problems that humanity is facing in the present age? Nothing practical that’s for certain. Other religions have no plan but Baha’is have a plan and instructions as to how it will be implemented and guidance from the Baha'i institutions.

Without testable evidence, these claims mean nothing.

I see no point in going around that block again.

So you've got a system to explain why points of view change over time.
Well, colour me surprised.

Points of view don’t change, people and the world they live in (society) changes over time. Unless one understands that one cannot understand why new religions are revealed by God in every age.

No, I was directly quoting your reasons why you didn't believe that God would just send one person with one message, and you said that it didn't make any sense to you.

That’s right, so what is wrong with me saying it does not make sense to me when it does not make sense to me?

*Sigh* We've been over this.

If a person does your "verification," how do they determine that it is actually verified and they haven't made any errors?

I already explained how you will know. You will know once you have done all your research and turned over every rock.

I literally cut and pasted your own words. If the words are there it is because you wrote them. So DO NOT accuse me of misrepresenting you when I am quoting your own words, okay?

Words in a sentence can mean more than one thing, and they can mean different things to different people. You misunderstood what I meant by what I said, and that can easily happen, but I already explained what I meant and you are free to either accept it or reject it.

It's not support unless you can produce testable evidence.

It is supported when I present the evidence that I have. Religion is not science so there is no testable evidence.

I've been looking at the arguments presented by believers of all different faiths for twenty years, and I keep seeing the same flawed arguments again and again. I've seen nothing different from you. So you'll forgive me if I don't see any reason to look into your claims any closer. They are just so much like the other religious claims I've already examined and rejected, I just don't see the point in wasting my time.

Then don’t spend your time, but then don’t turn around and ask me for some kind of evidence that you know does not exist.

Now, if you had something that was actually NEW and UNIQUE to show me, that would get my attention.

The Baha’i Faith is very new and very unique for many reasons, not ten least of which is that we believe all the religions are the truth from God. I am sorry you have missed the differences, which are larger than the broad side of the barn, but that is no doubt because you are too busy covering the same ground over and over again and getting nowhere so you have NO IDEA what the Baha’i Faith even teaches.

I find it very curious that you think anyone who challenges your views isn't interested in learning the truth, but just trying to win.

I do not think that is true of all people but it is true of some, and you just gave yourself away when you said you were only responsible to support your own position, which to me means you are not interested in what I believe is the truth.

You seem to be playing the victim here in order to justify not having to support your position.

I have already supported my position. Why are we still covering the same old tired ground?

And you don't think that what you're doing is already egotistical? You come in here, essentially derail a thread about proof of God's existence into a thread about why Baha'i is right, you make claims saying that Mr B got it all right, refuse to provide support and then when anyone tries to challenge you, you come out with, "I'm not here for a debate, I'm just stating my beliefs!"

I did not do any of those things. I was hijacked into answering all these atheist posts. Nobody addressed what I said in my OP, they just kept asking me for evidence so all I could do is present what I believe is the evidence. I supported my position with all the evidence I had.

And don't give me that stuff about "Once I realize someone is just playing a game and trying to prove me wrong it not long after that I call it quits," because if that were true you would have stopped replying to me months ago.

I am only replying to you because I have not yet determined that you are playing a game. Even though certain people have told me I am wasting my time posting to you, I am the one who makes those determinations using my own judgment.

I have an inordinate amount of patience with people. I could have evicted that tenant a long time ago, everyone told me I should, but I hung in there and believed he was probably going to come through with the rent. He recently came through with four months of rent he owed me and even paid me through January. Given the chance people can change so I always like to be optimistic rather than pessimistic. I did have to make it clear to him that he had to either pay all the rent he owed me or vacate and that is when he realized I was serious. In so many words I told him I was not going to play the same games he had been playing for years, promising to pay rent and not following through.

Likewise, I have told you I will not cover the same ground over and over again and I plan to stick to that.

 

[Trailblazer]

We'll add atheism to the list of things you don't understand.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I know what an atheist is after nine years of posting to atheists 24/7.

What you do in this thread is functionally the same as claiming they are true. So don't try to hide behind wordplay.

I refuse to argue about that anymore. Claim, believe, it makes no difference to me. This is what I meant about a waste of time.

Again, hiding behind wordplay.

Ditto on what I just said above.

When I presented that passage as an example of a testable claim in the Bible that fails, you essentially said, "Nup, you're wrong, because it was meant metaphorically."

And I still believe you are wrong. So what?

That's a terrible idea. That would lead to people accepting ANYTHING as evidence.

I did not say we should accept anything as evidence.

Then stop acting like we're being unreasonable when we don't believe you.

I think you are unreasonable but that is just my personal opinion. There is no point arguing about that.

This doesn't answer the question.

I'd someone holds that a particular claim is objectively true, how do they determine if it is based on objective evidence, or if it is just based on a subjective opinion?

They look at the objective evidence. Then they will have an opinion that is subjective and objective because that is how the brain operates.

Seems to me that this is just saying that someone who wants to believe in spiritual reality while find a way to convince themselves that it is real.

That is just your biased opinion. You think that any time a believer believes something it is because they want to believe it so they convince themselves it is true. This is a typical atheist position on believers. The reason you think this is because you cannot understand why else we would believe what we believe.

 

[Trailblazer]

Things that a really true don't work like that.

If someone doesn't believe me that 1+1=2, then there are any number of proofs that I can show which prove without any doubt that the claim is correct.

Religion is not math so it cannot be proven like math but that does not mean it is not true.

No, you don't seem to get it.

It's not about science and religion, it's about how to know if something is real or fake.

And you do not use the same methods to know if religion is true or fake as you use to know if science is true or fake. This is logic 101 stuff. Anything else is the fallacy of false equivalency.

The problem is that your reasons are NOT rational.

They are perfectly rational, but if you don’t think they are then you need to explain why they aren’t.

It's like when Dart h Maul was cut in half in Star Wars The Phantom Menace and then he fell down that big hole thing. Then they said, "Oh, and he survived," and had him with robot spider legs, and then mechanical legs. But no answer was really given as to how he actually survived. Just some handwavium and fantheorium. They just asked for us to suspend our disbelief because it allowed them to tell some interesting stories.

But that's fiction. It's excusable in fiction. But in reality, you need to provide REAL explanations, not fan theories.

I do not see how that analogy applies.

I know I can never get it. You miss the point. If something is real, I can get evidence for it. If it is impossible to ever get objective evidence for something, then we should not believe that it exists.

There is objective evidence for the Revelation of Baha’u’llah, lots of it.

And it will surprise you, no doubt, to be told that I AM open to the possibility that God exists. All I ask for is a good reason to believe. It's not my problem if the only stuff you can offer is the same logically flawed arguments that others have thrown up before.

If by now that is what you have determined why do you think anything is going to change? Unless you change your evidence requirements or start to see things differently it will never change and you will die as an atheist.

 

[samtonga43]

No true Scotsman fallacy I'd say. Though in the US most polls suggest almost 45% of adults still deny the fact of species evolution, this is not necessarily the case in other countries, and for other Christians.

Yes, I agree.
In this form of faulty reasoning one's belief is rendered unfalsifiable because no matter how compelling the evidence is, one simply shifts the goalposts so that it wouldn't apply to a supposedly 'true' example. This kind of post-rationalization is a way of avoiding valid criticisms of one's argument.

Example: Angus declares that Scotsmen do not put sugar on their porridge, to which Lachlan points out that he is a Scotsman and puts sugar on his porridge. Furious, like a true Scot, Angus yells that no true Scotsman sugars his porridge.
Your logical fallacy is no true scotsman

 

[muhammad_isa]

You don't seem to actually understand relativity.

On Monday, I get in a rocketship, and I go really fast. Almost at the speed of light. After what I perceive as a few seconds of flying around, I stop and land my rocket on Earth. I discover that it is now Friday. I look around and see what's happening, then I get back into my rocketship armed with my knowledge of what happens on Friday.

Now, pray tell, how do I get back to Monday? Or heck, even Tuesday would do.

All you are doing is avoiding my questions, and asking your own.
I have answered your questions, already.
We are not discussing about somebody from our frame of reference entering another, and finally coming back to their original one, so please stop avoiding the issue.

It's a case of one frame perceiving something before another frame perceives it.
..and I'm asking you what theoretically limits the difference between them.

 

[Sheldon]

you are an agnostic atheist, not an atheist. Atheists say there is no God.

That's a contradiction, an agnostic atheist is obviously a subset of the total number of atheists. an agnostic atheist is not a gnostic atheist or any kind of theist, but they are demonstrably an atheist.

 

[Sheldon]

It's a case of one frame perceiving something before another frame perceives it.
..and I'm asking you what theoretically limits the difference between them.

Sophistry, you're not just hypothesising this, you've already inserted a deity into relativity, you have claimed it IS possible. now what objective evidence can you demonstrate to support that claim? Only Einstein and the entire scientific world seem to have missed that, inexplicably.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Sophistry, you're not just hypothesising this, you've already inserted a deity into relativity, you have claimed it IS possible.

Another one avoiding the question.

 

[samtonga43]

That’s true, but then you are an agnostic atheist, not an atheist. Atheists say there is no God.

What, O Logical One?
Agnostic atheism is not atheism?

Really?

 

[Sheldon]

Another one avoiding the question.

I don't find argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacies very compelling, since they are obviously irrational, even when someone uses sophistry to pretend they're asking a question.

Besides you already claimed it is possible for a deity to exist according to the theory of relativity, and yet have failed to offer any evidence as to why this claim you've tacked on, forms no part of that accepted scientific theory? Almost as if you simply made it up, and are now using an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy to challenge others to disprove your unevidenced clam.

Well exactly like that obviously.

You made a claim and can't evidence it, and I don't need to disprove it, obviously. Like asking someone if they are still beating their wife, I don't find such sophistry as impressive as you seem to here.

 

[muhammad_isa]

I..you already claimed it is possible for a deity to exist according to the theory of relativity, and yet have failed to offer any evidence as to why this claim you've tacked on, forms no part of that accepted scientific theory?

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!


..still haven't answered the question..

 

[Sheldon]

Round like a circle
..still haven't answered the question..

Most circles are. So you mean your argumentum ad ignorantiam attempt to reverse the burden of proof, and get others to disprove your claim, has failed to get your "gotcha" moment, well that's hardly surprising.

Anymore than you ignoring all requests that you evidence your claim that a deity can exist in another time frame, you seem ok with the obvious irony. God of the gaps polemics are as vapid as they are irrational. I think if a scientific theory evidenced a deity, as you claimed, then science might have noticed this. Is there anything else you believe to be hiding in this alternative time frame? Like a unicorn or a mermaid maybe, perhaps that why we can't find any?

 

[muhammad_isa]

science might have noticed this..

"science" can't notice anything .. that would be people.

 

[Sheldon]

"science" can't notice anything .. that would be people.

Well you learn something everyday, I had no idea people weren't involved in science until now?

Now surprise me a second time, with something beyond your bare claim, that it is possible a deity is hiding in a different time frame?

 

[CG Didymus]

Spiritual reality can be found is people really want to understand how it is found and put in an effort to find it.

And people find different "spiritual" realities.

Seems to me that this is just saying that someone who wants to believe in spiritual reality while find a way to convince themselves that it is real.

And that is what we see. People who have "found" a religious belief, usually by someone else telling them about it, tend to fall in-line with whatever those religious beliefs are.... at least for a while. Since they all the religious beliefs contradict each other, they can't all be correct. But to the believers in each one of them, they are real, and the one that they believe in is the correct one. And most all of them explain why the beliefs of the other religions are wrong.

So sure, a spiritual "reality" can be found. And most people that find one puts in an effort to learn more about it and to understand it... Which usually includes why theirs is better than the others. But what have they found? Unprovable religious and spiritual things that they believe are real. And religious people argue back and forth why theirs is right and the other is wrong. And Atheists keep telling them that neither one of them has anything that can be proven to be real. And, ironically, Baha'is believe that religious beliefs that don't agree with science tend towards becoming superstitious.

 

[CG Didymus]

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

In ancient times there was "evidence" of the Gods. The wind, the rain, the sun etc. Doing a ritual and a sacrifice to the Gods for good crops. And then it happened. Then they gave the "first" fruits of the crop to the Gods in thanks. Prayers for healing, and then the person was healed. Some ancient people had spirit guides that they spoke to or they spoke to their ancestors. Someone did something wrong and the Gods struck them down with lightning.

One Christian religion believe in "holy" water and the Jesus' body is in a wafer and his blood in a glass of wine. People believe God spoke from heaven and parted the seas all because a book says so.

But why don't some of us believe all that "evidence" of a God? Because we don't believe it is real. And still, because a man says he came from God and wrote about a God doesn't make it real. There are several books about God, not just Baha'i books. One would be the book of Mormon. Why not believe that? An angel told a man where to find golden plates that told the story found in the book of Mormon. Why not believe it? Why ask for more proof and evidence that it is for real?

Because it could have been faked. Yet, they have a thriving religion. A religion that contradicts the Baha'i Faith. Another religion that has a man that wrote books about God. Can we just go by the words they wrote? People in both religions do, and people in both religions feel and believe in what those words say. For some, and I think justifiably, they ask for more proof and more evidence.

If God, supposedly, did all these miraculous things before, why not now? That would be more proof. Let him strike an evil person down with lightening. Let God part the river to let refugees cross into a promised land. Let his angels appear to people. Let God speak to prophets about what is about to happen. Or... was all that fictional? If God isn't doing those things, then maybe he never did them. People just made up those stories. But people today still have their miracle stories. They speak to angels. They get prophecies. And they get healings. But do we believe them? Supposedly, some of the healings can be verified. Do we believe it was God that did it? Can we prove that God did it? Or, because we know some are fake, do we assume all of them are fake, and the ones that were "healed" were just coincidental?

If God is real. He doesn't have to hide himself. But, because of the variations in beliefs, I think there is good reason to suspect that people made up their Gods and their religions. Is the Bible too profound to be a human invention? How about the New Testament? How about the Quran? And even the Baha'i writings. Is God the obvious author? Or could a man have written such a thing? Do we have other spiritual and religious books that are comparable to what Baha'u'llah wrote?

 

[muhammad_isa]

So sure, a spiritual "reality" can be found. And most people that find one puts in an effort to learn more about it and to understand it..

Yes .. life is a spiritual journey.
It is unique for each one of us. People have different reasons for their beliefs.
Some people stunt their spiritual journey because they don't wish to be different to what their family or tribe believe.
Others wish not to conform and go their own way in life.

As I say, we all have our own unique journeys.

 

[muhammad_isa]

If God is real. He doesn't have to hide himself.

How many times have I heard that one..

G-d is not a person. Don't expect him to be on TV anytime soon
The reason why G-d sends prophets is to correct mankind as to their beliefs, because our beliefs determine our fate.
The truth is out there. It is up to us to find it.
G-d doesn't wrong us. We wrong ourselves.

If we ignore truth, then G-d will give it to those that won't.
They will eventually be victorious, in this life and the next.
However, as the next life is eternal, it makes sense not forget it.

 

[CG Didymus]

However, all the great religions have been proven objectively true by practice over the millennia, since we can see the fruits religion produces in human character and behavior.

And we also see the rotten fruit they produce. Let's use Catholics as an example. St. Francis and Mother Teresa? Good apples. But there's been a few bad apples too. And maybe more bad apples than good ones. So, what can be proven about Catholics? That a large percentage of them are just nominal believers? That some priests did some bad things to altar boys? That Catholics believe things, like Jesus is God, that Baha'is say are false? So, what does that show? That any religions, no matter what they believe, can produce good and bad apples and a bunch of fruitless, nominal believers. Will the Baha'i Faith be better?

 

[Trailblazer]

What, O Logical One?
Agnostic atheism is not atheism?

Really?

It is a sub-type if atheism.