Evidence

[Trailblazer]

Yes, they do.
..and atheists believe their nonsense in a similar fashion.

Oh, don't you know that atheists believe their stuff since there is no evidence for God?
Maybe you have not been paying enough attention.

 

[Trailblazer]

Sure it's based on flawed logic. Stating that god is not weak because He chooses to use Messengers to communicate is a premise that you have not demonstrate to be true.

I do not have to demonstrate that God is not weak because He chooses to use Messengers, since I did not claim that God is weak because He chooses to use Messengers. The premise that God is weak because He chooses to use Messengers is your premise so you are the one who needs to support your premise.

It does not even makes sense that using Messengers would mean God is weak, there is no correlation whatsoever. Maybe you have some dreamy notion that an all-powerful God would do something differently than He has done because He has so much power, but how much power God has is not relevant regarding how He communicates.

The "God can do anything" argument cannot be used to say that if God exists God would do something differently (than using Messengers).

As I told this atheist on another forum years ago, if God exists what we see is what God has done, so that means it is logically impossible that if God exists God would do something differently, since God has not done anything differently than what we see (Messengers who establish religions). This is a matter of logic. I started a thread related to this about a year ago.

Atheists: If God existed would God……

You've failed to provide any evidence that this god being even exists, let alone that it sends messengers.

It can never be proven that God exists or that God sends Messengers. All we have is evidence, but evidence is not the same as verifiable proof. I have probably said this 100 times.

Of course it's about whether or not these proposed messengers were sent from some god being. IF in fact these messengers had an effect on society but were NOT sent by your proposed god, then the existence of the messengers CANNOT be used to claim that your god is not ineffectual. If your god didn't send the messengers then your god had no effect upon society, and that makes your god ineffectual.

If these Messengers had such an impact upon society that is evidence that *indicates* (not proves) that they were sent by God, and if they were Messengers of God it certainly is evidence that the method that God has used is effectual. If God wants people to believe in Him He would use an effectual method, and Messengers are that method.

Any logical person would ask why they had such an effect, if they had nothing to do with God. No other men have had such a lasting effect upon society.

Nobody can ever prove that God sent Messengers but if God sent them that makes God effectual.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Oh, plenty of evidence has been shown.
..but you don't want to see it .. you can't see it .. it doesn't exist.

..when asked by my Lord on the day of judgment, "who is your Lord?", I have my answer ready .. no hesitation, God willing.
..whereas you .. you'd better hope you are not asked.

That's GREAT! So PLEASE do provide me with the BEST verifiable evidence you have that some god being exits... I can't wait!

 

[Trailblazer]

I know you have a different explanation, but that seems to me to suggest that the revelations were inaccurate in various ways. Fair enough really.

The revelations from God were not inaccurate when they were first revealed but after man meddled with them over long periods of time, these religions no longer resembled what was originally revealed.

“Alas! that humanity is completely submerged in imitations and unrealities notwithstanding the truth of divine religion has ever remained the same. Superstitions have obscured the fundamental reality, the world is darkened and the light of religion is not apparent. This darkness is conducive to differences and dissensions; rites and dogmas are many and various; therefore discord has arisen among the religious systems whereas religion is for the unification of mankind. True religion is the source of love and agreement amongst men, the cause of the development of praiseworthy qualities; but the people are holding to the counterfeit and imitation, negligent of the reality which unifies; so they are bereft and deprived of the radiance of religion. They follow superstitions inherited from their fathers and ancestors. To such an extent has this prevailed that they have taken away the heavenly light of divine truth and sit in the darkness of imitations and imaginations. That which was meant to be conducive to life has become the cause of death; that which should have been an evidence of knowledge is now a proof of ignorance; that which was a factor in the sublimity of human nature has proved to be its degradation. Therefore the realm of the religionist has gradually narrowed and darkened and the sphere of the materialist has widened and advanced; for the religionist has held to imitation and counterfeit, neglecting and discarding holiness and the sacred reality of religion. When the sun sets it is the time for bats to fly. They come forth because they are creatures of the night. When the lights of religion become darkened the materialists appear. They are the bats of night. The decline of religion is their time of activity; they seek the shadows when the world is darkened and clouds have spread over it.”
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Foundations of World Unity, p. 71)

 

[Trailblazer]

See, I believe the hilighted bit is all wrong. The parents I might have loved (never had them, instead was abused by others) are those -- not who I feared, but who I trusted. Parents I knew would try (as best they could) not to lead me astray, but who would not try to kill me (as a stepfather did twice).

Fearing God dos not mean the same to everyone. It does not have to mean fear of what God is going to do to you if you are disobedient. To me fear of God means having reverence for God, being in awe of God, fully aware of God's power and what God could do. Moreover, fearing God does not preclude loving God and seeing God as a good parent.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I do not have to demonstrate that God is not weak because He chooses to use Messengers, since I did not claim that God is weak because He chooses to use Messengers. The premise that God is weak because He chooses to use Messengers is your premise so you are the one who needs to support your premise.

Reread his post. he was asking about God not being weak. He was asking you to support your claim, he was not changing it.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Oh, don't you know that atheists believe their stuff since there is no evidence for God?
Maybe you have not been paying enough attention.

Too bad that you cannot present any reliable evidence.

 

[Trailblazer]

It's both. You believe your guess. And why is it called a guess? Because it's not demonstrably correct.

No, I said it is not my guess, it is my belief. I did not guess, I researched and came to believe. As a belief it cannot be proven true, but that does not mean it is false. I suggest you bone up on your logic. If you say it is false because it has not yet been proven true (demonstrated) that is an argument from ignorance.

Argument from ignorance asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there may have been an insufficient investigation, and therefore there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four,

1. true
2. false
3. unknown between true or false
4. being unknowable (among the first three).[1]

Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia

As a Baha'i who believes that messengers are the best method available to a deity to communicate with man, you are pretty much forced to reject it. If God can speak to man directly, then messengers are not necessary nor a good idea.

I am not forced to reject what it says in the OT, but since it was written by en, I have no reason to believe it. However, even if God did speak to a few men directly in ancient times when the Bible as written, that does not mean that God did not also speak to Messengers and it does not mean that Messengers are not necessary or a good idea. Ever heard of Moses? According to the OT the Israelites on Mt Sinai did not want to hear from God directly, it frightened them, so they wanted Moses to receive the message. I heard this from a Jewish woman I once knew.

It is really kind of irrelevant what you believe God should do to communicate because what we see is what God has done if God exists, and there is nothing you can do about it, since you cannot thwart the will of an all-powerful God.

If God exists, God does not communicate directly to everyone. Logically speaking, that means that if God existed God would not communicate directly to everyone. Whether or not God communicated to Messengers can never be proven. We do have evidence that God has communicated to Messengers, but we have no evidence of God doing anything else to communicate to humans.

Disagree. You just wave away such thinking by declaring it off limits. Your argument is to declare that messengers are the best way a tri-omni deity could choose to communicate, I disagree, you say, "Put your money where your mouth is," I give better ways to communicate, and your reply is to declare that I compare how humans communicate to how a god could is off limits.

It is really rather simple. God is not a human so God cannot communicate like a human communicates. That is why God employs a Messenger to communicate for Him, since a Messenger is both divine and human.

You can say that you don't believe God exists because the Messengers don't constitute evidence for God, but if God exists and there was a *better way* to communicate to humans why wouldn't God use that way? The only way your argument works is if there is no God, because if there is a God He would have used the *best way* to communicate since God wants everyone to believe He exists. This is logic 101 stuff.

But it's you making the excuses - excuses for why this god can't do better than mundane messengers with mundane messages.

I do not need to make excuses for God since God is infallible so God cannot ever make any mistakes. Moreover, God cannot do any *better* than He has done because God is All-knowing and All-wise. You are neither one of those so that means your opinion about what God should do differently is fallible. It is also illogical for the reasons i noted above.

Your own arguments can be used against you. How with your finite human mind would you know what a message from a god looked like to judge the one you have believed?

The messages from God are tailored for the human mind, made to order, signed, sealed and delivered. That is how I can can judge them. You can judge them too and come up with a different conclusion.

Critical thinkers process information more accurately than all but a few of the 93%.

In other words, critical thinkers are atheists, and only a few believers can think critically. I do not care what you want to label yourself as, it does not make you any smarter than any believer, it just makes you more arrogant.

Faulty reasoning. And you seem to think that it's not possible to declare somebody's argument fallacious. Yes, every theist holds an irrational belief, since none can justify it with reason. Every one.

Every theist holds an irrational belief. And of course every atheist holds a rational belief.
This f course is the fallacy of black and white thinking.

The only point worth making is that YOU do not determine what reason is, you only believe you do.
The other point worth making is that as usual, you have to knock believers down in order to raise yourself up to a superior position. You have to believe that believers are all wrong in order for all atheists to be right. It is sad really, and other people can see it. Most of them are just too polite to say anything.

There is no proof that God exists or that God does not exist, so you can keep spinning your wheels till the cows come home, trying to prove that you are right and I am wrong. This is not a discussion or even a debate, it is a all-out assault on believers, hiding behind a smokescreen of words, but it doesn't fool me.

 

[Trailblazer]

Too bad that you cannot present any reliable evidence.

Too bad you cannot recognize the reliable evidence.

 

[Trailblazer]

Reread his post. he was asking about God not being weak. He was asking you to support your claim, he was not changing it.

I made no claim that God is not weak because God uses Messengers, I said there is no correlation between weakness and the use of Messengers.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Too bad you cannot recognize the reliable evidence.

Now, now. I am sure that your deity would not approve. You cannot even properly define evidence. You relied on a dictionary definition, but that was worthless since it cannot be used to tell what is and what is not evidence. You need a working definition of evidence.

I know you do not like to be pressed, but you are the one that tries to keep claiming that you have evidence and that does not appear to be the case at all.

 

[PruePhillip]

How about a bigger question - why does anything at all (including a god or gods) exist? Your question is answered by supernaturalist with a claim about a god existing, but my question can't even be answered with that.

That's dodging the question. We are talking about the universe, the sum total of all we know. You can't explain things outside of time and space because we can't comprehend such existance.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Now, now. I am sure that your deity would not approve. You cannot even properly define evidence. You relied on a dictionary definition, but that was worthless since it cannot be used to tell what is and what is not evidence. You need a working definition of evidence.

I know you do not like to be pressed, but you are the one that tries to keep claiming that you have evidence and that does not appear to be the case at all.

In my opinion, there isn't any absolute, verifiable evidence for the existence of God, and I can't genuinely believe anyone who claims there is. I also don't believe any religious writings, ancient or modern, that claim to speak for God or any person who claims to be a divinely appointed messenger of God. Assuming that the biblical God exists, I don't believe that he is deserving of love, worship, and reverence, and he certainly isn't deserving of mine. But he is worthy of scorn. As I said in another post (read it here), I think that the biblical God is like a narcissistic and abusive parent who only loves their children when they obey and do exactly what they're told to do, but if their children disobey or make them angry, then there'll be hell to pay. It isn't a relationship based on unconditional love.

 

[PruePhillip]

And so far your criterion is a lose definition of cause and effect that allows you to decide when a supernatural event has occurred. You offer no manner to discern a supernatural event versus a natural event, so we reject your beliefs on this matter.
.

This is a natural event - the earth forming when the sun emerges. Happens all the time, literally.... every day I suppose.
This is something far weirder - something hitting the earth to form our seasons and give us a double planet system to stablize the earth's orbit.

Now something hit Uranus - knocked it sideways. So it can happen. But time and time again we seem to get uncannily lucky about events.

 

[PruePhillip]

Actually the world coalesced quite quickly, very soon after the sun in universe time scales.

And chaos refutes a fine tuned argument

I don't know about these "fine tuned arguments" - there was a ton of violence to create this 'tuning.'
And time is required to create us. You need time for the expansion of the universe, time for the first generaton of hydrogen stars to create 'metals' and time for generations of metal stars to build up to the point they can create rocky planets.

 

[PruePhillip]

Because the Earth, and other planets, were formed by th collision of smaller objects. Those collisions are not perfect. Did you not read the article? That was what it was there for. There is a range of how much planets are off. From almost zero for Mercury, to almost 180 degrees for Venus. We are not on our side, Uranus is on its side.

Sure, and we get that perfect season-creating angle, and a large moon (double planet) to stabilize that angle.
Kinda neat - the coincidences keep stacking up.

 

[Trailblazer]

You cannot even properly define evidence. You relied on a dictionary definition, but that was worthless since it cannot be used to tell what is and what is not evidence. You need a working definition of evidence.

Since you are the one who wants evidence, you are the one who needs a working definition of evidence.
In other words, what would constitute evidence for you?

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

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Sure, and we get that perfect season-creating angle, and a large moon (double planet) to stabilize that angle.
Kinda neat - the coincidences keep stacking up.

In my opinion, it is cool how some things worked out to our advantage. However, I'm not so sure something like the Bible actually demonstrates a Creator being, so much as takes credit for everything that has gone on.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Since you are the one who wants evidence, you are the one who needs a working definition of evidence.
In other words, what would constitute evidence for you?

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

NO!! That is not the way that it works at all. You are the one claiming to have evidence. Right now it is rather clear that you don't. Attempting to shift the burden of proof is the same as saying "I don't have any evidence".

 

[John53]

In my opinion, it is cool how some things worked out to our advantage. However, I'm not so sure something like the Bible actually demonstrates a Creator being, so much as takes credit for everything that has gone on.

It seems a very convoluted way of doing things. God decides he wants some play things so he starts a universe and sets in action this 14 billion year chain of events. Maybe I'm lazy but I would have gone with one planet and started with the conditions we need.