You have been contradicting yourself ever since I cited this definition of a fact. First you accepted it and then started going back to the other senses of the word that require it to be known.
The problem with the definition that you cited is that something can exist in reality and be true even though it is not
known as a fact.
Fact: something that actually exists; reality; truth:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/fact
A case in point is the planet Pluto. Before 1930 it was not known as a fact that Pluto existed, but later it was discovered and then it was a fact.
So, God could exist in reality even though God is not known as a fact. I believe that will be known after we die, but it is better to find out before that.
Facts are known. Here is another definition that is more thorough and it contrasts an opinion with a fact.
A religious belief (that God exists) is an opinion, not a fact, since it is not verifiable.
Fact or Opinion? - Tutor Hints
A
fact is a statement that can be verified. It can be proven to be true or false through objective evidence.
An
opinion is a statement that expresses a feeling, an attitude, a value judgment, or a
belief.
It is a statement that is neither true nor false. Or it may feel true for some, but false for others.
A FACT:
-
can be proven true or false through objective evidence.
- relies on denotative language.
- frequently uses measurable or verifiable numbers, statistics, dates and measurements.
AN OPINION:
-
cannot be presently verified.
- relies on connotative language.
- can mean different things to different people.
- uses value judgment words and comparisons such as “best,” “most,” etc.
How on earth do you think something that isn't factual is going to indicate the truth of anything?
All I am saying is that something can be true even if it cannot be proven to be true. I thought we agreed that?
ratiocinator said: Because just because you can't prove or provide evidence that something is true does not stop it from being "
something that actually exists; reality; truth", the definition of 'fact' that you accepted.
On the contrary, (absolute) proof is necessarily abstract, which is why it's only available in mathematics and pure logic. You are never going to absolutely prove anything about the real world.
That's a good point. How then do you think anyone could ever prove that God exists -- as a fact that everyone would accept, not just believe?
Which is as pointless as my time travelling toasters. The real problem is that you have no objective evidence either.
Of course I have no objective evidence for God. If I had objective evidence of God, God would be a fact (see definition above).
God is unknowable, except through His Messengers, so they are the evidence for God. Of course that is only my opinion, my belief.
Begging the question again. Just to make this clear, to a impartial observer, the Baha’i Reference Library does not stand out from all the other religious texts in the world, or any other form of superstition or magical thinking, for that matter. There is no prima facie reason to think it contains the truth. Hence, if it is actually the truth, it has been hidden.
You are correct. It remains 'hidden to you' until you look at it and find it. Not everyone will find it because not everyone will see the same thing in those texts, since all humans are thinking and processing information with their own mind, and every mind is different from other minds. Everey human mind contains all the knowledge they have acquired to date and includes any and all biases they might have against religion from their past experiences. That is why most people won't even look at the Baha'i Writings and thus discount them before ever looking at them.
“If a man were to declare, ‘There is a lamp in the next room which gives no light’, one hearer might be satisfied with his report, but a wiser man goes into the room to judge for himself, and behold, when he finds the light shining brilliantly in the lamp, he knows the truth!” Paris Talks, p. 103
Of course, but there's also no reason at all to think that there are any genuine messengers. So why would one go to all the effort of checking everything when it might well be a fruitless task?
There's no reason at all
for you to think that there are any genuine messengers because you already have the thought in your mind that there cannot be any true Messengers. Do you understand what I mean?
I never heard of the concept of a Messenger of God before I became a Baha'i at age 17 because I was not raised in any religion or with any belief in God, so I went into my investigation of the Baha'i Faith with an unbiased mind, and it made sense to me after I read all the books.
I am not suggesting that you check everything in all the older religions. If you were looking for a vehicle that would get you across the country on a long trip, would you buy an old vehicle that had seen its day?
Well, strictly speaking, being omniscient and omnipotent, doesn't logically rule out also being an idiot and/or incompetent., and it certainly doesn't guarantee benevolence and not playing cruel games of hide and seek.
Being omnipotent doesn't logically rule out also being an idiot and/or incompetent, but being omniscient rules out God being an idiot, and being Infallible rules out God being incompetent.
You are correct, Being omniscient and omnipotent doesn't guarantee benevolence. That God is benevolent is a faith-based believe, it can never be proven.
Do you think it is possible that you only 'believe' that God is playing hide and seek and that is not actually the case?
Just because God is not visible to
everyone that does not mean God is hiding. When the sun is hidden by a solar eclipse does that mean the sun no longer exists?
Of course, but why would I want to bother with a god that doesn't want to convince me?
A better question is why you would expect God to convince you, given you have a brain and free will to convince yourself.
God has no need to convince anyone that He exists because God does not need anyone's belief, since God is self-sufficient and has no needs.
Humans are the ones who have needs so they need to convince themselves that God exists,
if they want to believe in God.
Leaving aside the logical problems with free will (because we've been there and just ended up going in circles), giving people free will is useless if you then withhold facts from them.
God has not withheld anything from humans. Through the Messengers, God has revealed all that humans need and are capable of understanding in every age in history.