Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Show me where I ever restated the claim as true. I will be waiting.
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Atheists: What would be evidence of God’s existence?
- Thread starter Trailblazer
- Start date
ppp
Well-Known Member
Happily. Once you answer my question.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Ask me if I care what other people believe about me. I only care what God thinks of me.
I alone know my intent and I don't care what anyone else thinks it is. If it makes you feel good to think you are right about me have at it. You cannot hurt me because God is my greatest protection.
I have no burden of proof no matter how I phrased anything since I am not trying to prove anything to anyone.
Anyone who wants to know the truth about God or Messengers of God has the burden to prove it to themselves.
I am not responsible for doing other people's homework just because they are to lazy to do it.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
You first.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Do you seriously think that your god would approve of your actions? Why assume that he is so weak?
ppp
Well-Known Member
Nope. When you refuse to reciprocate, you are not worth my time. Good night.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
What actions? Telling people that the burden of proof is on them instead of on me?
That came straight from God through Baha'u'llah so I know God would approve.
It is called Independent Investigation of Truth. and it means we are all responsible to investigate the truth for ourselves.
"The first Baha’i principle is the independent investigation of reality. Not found in any sacred Book of the past, it abolishes the need for clergy and sets us free from imitation and blind adherence to unexamined, dogmatic beliefs. Baha’is believe that no soul should follow ancestral or traditional beliefs without first questioning and examining their own inner landscape. Instead, the first Baha’i principle gives each individual the right and the duty to investigate and decide what they believe on their own."
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Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Does your god need you to make obviously false statements for him? I would hope that he was stronger than that.
Then let's take a closer look at what you said and examine it to see whether or not you used that fallacy.
Here's what you said:
The claim that you made is in bold, what comes after, is the thing that you've used to justify your claim.
In other words, your argument is, "there are evidence for the existence of God , 95% of the world's population believe that a god exist, therefore a god exist
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
Sorry but that sounds like something people say when they don't have good evidence for a thing.
Everything else we know exists, we have evidence for. Except this one, most important thing? That you have to believe on faith. You don't get any evidence.
Come on.
Sheldon
Veteran Member
That's not what you said though, you offered no evidence, just claimed there must be evidence because of the number of people who believe in deities here:
So an argumentum ad populum fallacy, more worryingly you don't seem to understand it was a fallacy. It's also worth pointing out, that the percentage you quoted don't hold the same belief, they believe in different wildly religions and deities, making your claim for obvious evidence to support those various beliefs even more dubious.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
How do you know that any of my statements are obviously false?
Unless you have proof to back up that assertion it is only your personal opinion, a bald assertion.
What is "bald assertion?" Well the name says it all, doesn't it? It's stating something without backing it up.
Logical Fallacy Lesson 4: Bald Assertion | Rational Response Squad
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
It has been explained to you ad nauseum how we know. You won't deal with those statements so they are not "Bald Assertions". There is a history here that you can go back over and check. You can't expect others to repeated explain the same thing to you over and over again. So once again you have misused a logical fallacy. When you use that one you need to make sure that there is not a history supporting your opponent.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
That's right. We have to believe in God on faith and on the evidence that God provides.
I don't set the parameters for belief, God does that. I only report what I believe they are.
The reason God does not prove He exists is because God wants our faith. If God proved He exists then we would no longer need faith. However, God does not expect us to believe blindly, with no evidence, because that would be unjust. God provides evidence by way of His Messengers.
Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.
We must first believe that it is possible for God to exist, and that requires faith since no man has ever seen God.
God will reward those who earnestly seek Him with the evidence they need to believe, but God will not force anyone to accept the evidence. That is a choice.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, it has NEVER been explained how you know that any of my statements about God are obviously false.
The only way you could know they are false is if you had a direct line to God and God told you they are false.
You don't know that any of my statements about God are obviously false, all you have is a personal opinion.
This has nothing to do with me.
You made the bald assertion when you said you know that my statements about God are obviously false.
There is nothing complicated about this. If you assert that my statements about God are obviously false then you need to provide proof. Otherwise you are making a bald assertion.
What is "bald assertion?" Well the name says it all, doesn't it? It's stating something without backing it up.
Logical Fallacy Lesson 4: Bald Assertion | Rational Response Squad
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
It is not your statements about God that have been shown to be false, it is your statements and claims (which you so frequently deny once you made them) about evidence that are obviously false.
And no, I have more than personal opinion. Once again you forgot my example of the blue tiles. To understand where someone has just opinion or not one has to understand the concept of evidence.
Let's go over the example of blue tiles. You should be able to do that without running into any bias that keeps you from discussing concepts properly. Does that sound agreeable to you?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
My statements and claims about having evidence are not false.
I have evidence, you just don't view it as evidence.
You do not define what evidence would be for a Messenger of God, it is what it is.
You can accept it or reject it.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
No, the problem is that it is demonstrably not reliable evidence. It is not "evidence" that any rational think would accept. You use the sort of evidence that I demonstrated with Tom. Which means that by your standards your Bab is .. . well I really do not want to go quite that far. The reason that you would rightfully reject Tom as a source of evidence almost everyone rejects your claims of evidence.
Evidence has to be able to cut both ways and with your low standards even the lowest forms of "god does not exist" refute your God. If you want to reason rationally you have to reason consistently. You can't use one standard of evidence for your own beliefs and a different standard for the beliefs of others.
Ella S.
Well-Known Member
There are 316 pages of this thread. I usually write a response before reading the thread so my response isn't colored by other users' answers, and then I will go back and read through the thread to see whether I should bother posting my response or if I should delete it. It is a little infeasible for me to do that here.
I'm here because this thread has been linked to frequently in other threads where the question of evidence arises. I think I should clarify that I think the God of classical theism is literally impossible and, thus, there cannot be any evidence for him. However, there are other concepts of God. There's a variety of monotheist, deist, pantheist, panentheist, pandeist, panendeist, monist, dualist, pluralist, etc. concepts of God that are not necessarily self-contradictory.
The issue is that, well, what is evidence for one concept of God is not usually going to be evidence for another. If we could demonstrate the potential for transcendence, for instance, that would not have much of an effect on pantheism. If we could demonstrate the potential for immanence, likewise, the that would not have much of an effect on deism.
So we first have to define what we mean by "God" when we use that word. I think the Deist God is probably the closest approximation to that, but the issue is that the Deist God is unfalsifiable. We can't really test whether the Deist God in general exists or doesn't exist.
However, we could maybe prove a specific conception of a Deist God. For instance, if we had enough evidence for simulation theory that it became the consensus among scientists, then we might be able to build on that to discover the whole universe was coded by a single entity. I would probably see such a being as essentially God, for all intents and purposes, even if it's merely a lesser inhabitant of its own universe.
Another way we could demonstrate that a different concept of God is real is if we could discover an alien civilization that has records of interfering with earth in the same way that Yhwh, El, or Elohim are described to do in myth. Then we could find whatever alien played the role of "God," essentially proving it was a real entity to begin with. This is obviously a very fantastical situation, but it genuinely would prove to me that God was real.
If fantasy is allowed, then I can think of plenty that I would accept as indirect evidence for God, even if they might not be strong evidence all on their own. The feathers of an angel, a captured angel, a captured fallen angel, a physical portal to Heaven or Hell, Jesus literally descending from the sky and announcing the Second Coming as Gabriel blows his horn, one of the Ophanim, if we find Heaven as described in Ezekiel literally floating in orbit around earth, etc. This would all be great evidence, but it's never taken seriously in discussion because I think we all know how ridiculous it is. I think we know that it's ridiculous precisely because none of these things exist, though, and many believers intuitively realize this when this sort of hard evidence is asked for.
Pretty much all actual evidence for God is going to have to be fantastical, because God is a fantastical concept.
I'm here because this thread has been linked to frequently in other threads where the question of evidence arises. I think I should clarify that I think the God of classical theism is literally impossible and, thus, there cannot be any evidence for him. However, there are other concepts of God. There's a variety of monotheist, deist, pantheist, panentheist, pandeist, panendeist, monist, dualist, pluralist, etc. concepts of God that are not necessarily self-contradictory.
The issue is that, well, what is evidence for one concept of God is not usually going to be evidence for another. If we could demonstrate the potential for transcendence, for instance, that would not have much of an effect on pantheism. If we could demonstrate the potential for immanence, likewise, the that would not have much of an effect on deism.
So we first have to define what we mean by "God" when we use that word. I think the Deist God is probably the closest approximation to that, but the issue is that the Deist God is unfalsifiable. We can't really test whether the Deist God in general exists or doesn't exist.
However, we could maybe prove a specific conception of a Deist God. For instance, if we had enough evidence for simulation theory that it became the consensus among scientists, then we might be able to build on that to discover the whole universe was coded by a single entity. I would probably see such a being as essentially God, for all intents and purposes, even if it's merely a lesser inhabitant of its own universe.
Another way we could demonstrate that a different concept of God is real is if we could discover an alien civilization that has records of interfering with earth in the same way that Yhwh, El, or Elohim are described to do in myth. Then we could find whatever alien played the role of "God," essentially proving it was a real entity to begin with. This is obviously a very fantastical situation, but it genuinely would prove to me that God was real.
If fantasy is allowed, then I can think of plenty that I would accept as indirect evidence for God, even if they might not be strong evidence all on their own. The feathers of an angel, a captured angel, a captured fallen angel, a physical portal to Heaven or Hell, Jesus literally descending from the sky and announcing the Second Coming as Gabriel blows his horn, one of the Ophanim, if we find Heaven as described in Ezekiel literally floating in orbit around earth, etc. This would all be great evidence, but it's never taken seriously in discussion because I think we all know how ridiculous it is. I think we know that it's ridiculous precisely because none of these things exist, though, and many believers intuitively realize this when this sort of hard evidence is asked for.
Pretty much all actual evidence for God is going to have to be fantastical, because God is a fantastical concept.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
Yes, I remember participating in this thread..
I talked about prophecy and predestination .. and free-will.
..just a tad.
The Abrahamic concept of God is an extension of the Deist..
The word "heaven" is problematic to me .. I see it used in different contexts.
eg. the heavens opened, and down came the rain
..and a person will either "go" to heaven or hell
One is a physical definition, whilst the other is spiritual.
It is not fantasy that we all must die.
It is not difficult to believe that we will find ourselves aware once more .. as we can't rule out the possibility.
We then rely on the testimonies of people, in order to evaluate the likelihood of each claim.
Clearly, 50% of the world believe in Christianity and Islam.
We know that many people amongst those have little knowledge of their faith, but many do .. and they continue to dominate people's imagination and beliefs.