If God existed how could it be proven?

[Trailblazer]

Well I suppose my answer would be, that this is back projecting properties onto God, when we supposedly can't do such (not knowing anything about God other than through messengers or via our thinking) and the intermediary argument (all messengers, prophets, and such) is just so prone to deception and non-verification as to make any propositions as to what God can and cannot do rather immaterial. Why would any God use such an error-prone system? We can all project our beliefs and expectations onto what we might think is an appropriate God, whether supported by some religious text or not. And what people believe as to the validity of any messengers is hardly proof of such, which I'm sure you realise - there being so many. The fact that many choose to believe that some are bona fide messengers and others not is hardly proof of such. It all seems rather circular to me.

Of course that fact that many people choose to believe in Messengers is not proof that they are Messengers of God.
However, the converse also applies: The fact that many people choose not to believe in Messengers is not proof that they are not Messengers of God. What people believe has nothing to do with what is true, as people can believe anything.

God used that system because it was the "best system." God has to know the best system because God is all-knowing. Sure things can go wrong because humans are subject to making mistakes but try to think of another system that would work. I cannot think of one. How could God communicate to humans except through a human, and since the Messengers also have a divine nature they are more than just human so they can bridge the gap between God and humans and act as mediators. That sure makes sense to me.

 

[Trailblazer]

And the entire point here, is how one tells the difference....

One has to do their research if they want to know if the claims are true or false.

They certainly established entire communities.
Not sure how you think that's relevant though.

It is relevant because those civilizations exist, so you have to explain why they exist and how that could exist of those Messengers had never showed up. The Christian and Islamic civilizations did not drop down out of mid-air, they only exist because Jesus and Muhammad existed.

Your question smells like a giant argumentum ad populum in the making.

So I was right. Argumentum ad populum.

That is not Argumentum ad populum because Argumentum ad populum is related to what people believe.

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

People don't believe in a civilization. It simply exists, so it is a fact, not a belief.
Nice try but I know all the logical fallacies.

 

[Trailblazer]

Some people say horrible things about God and when you answer then you are accused of making excuses.

An infallible God can never need excuses because He cannot make any mistakes, so I cannot be making excuses for a God that needs no excuses.... And atheists like to think that are so logical.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Of course that fact that many people choose to believe in Messengers is not proof that they are Messengers of God.
However, the converse also applies: The fact that many people choose not to believe in Messengers is not proof that they are not Messengers of God. What people believe has nothing to do with what is true, as people can believe anything.

God used that system because it was the "best system." God has to know the best system because God is all-knowing. Sure things can go wrong because humans are subject to making mistakes but try to think of another system that would work. I cannot think of one. How could God communicate to humans except through a human, and since the Messengers also have a divine nature they are more than just human so they can bridge the gap between God and humans and act as mediators. That sure makes sense to me.

You still seem to be projecting qualities on to God. I base much of my believing or not based on some knowledge of human behaviour and human thinking, and the probabilities associated with such. I'm sure you would understand why it might be difficult for many of us to therefore trust messengers. Most it seems got their verification over time - just more people believing such - and they were not generally believed at first. Such that this again is hardly any endorsement.

 

[Trailblazer]

The fact that most people believe in some sort of a god isn't very convincing. 1) The vast majority of people who believe in a god were indoctrinated to believe so from a very young age. 2) Few if any of them can agree on who this god that has 'revealed' himself to them is. And it certainly isn't evidence for the claim that this god being is 'all-knowing'. In fact if the best way he can come up with for revealing himself is his 'time-honored' but horribly ineffective method of communicating via messengers, that suggest that he is far from all-knowing.

No, what it suggests is that you are not all-knowing so you don't know *the best way* to communicate to humans.

Messengers is a very effective method because most people believe in a Messenger of God and and that is why most people believe in God. If God had never used Messengers, hardly anyone would believe in God because the main reason people believe in God is because of one of those Messengers. We know that because very few people in the world believe in God for some other reason. 84 percent of the world population has a faith and those faiths all have some kind of Founder, what I refer to as a Messenger. So obviously, using Messengers is a successful method of communication.

The reason people cannot agree on who God is is because they all believe in different religions that have been *corrupted by man* over time, but if they recognized Baha'u'llah that would clear it all up. One cannot justly blame God or Baha'u'llah because people have rejected Baha'u'llah since everyone had free will to choose.

 

[Trailblazer]

I am completely fine with this. If the evidence never presents itself in my lifetime it will not matter in the slightest to my life and livelihood.

No, it won't affect your life or livelihood in this life, but it will affect your afterlife which is for all eternity, compared to this life which is very temporary. You can discount that if you want to but that won't make it go away. If there is an afterlife there is an afterlife and that is reality, so what you believe about that won't change reality.

Which simply isn't good enough. I will continue to wait. Not with bated breath, mind you. Basically, I will wait, living my life under the pretenses that actually make sense until such time as it is evidenced that this idea about God's existence (which does not make sense) is actually representative of reality. Until that time, it simply doesn't matter.

Just think about that... there isn't even evidence that it matters! That's how little it matters.

There is plenty of evidence that it matters in various scriptures, you just do not accept that as evidence....but that does not mean it is not evidence, only that it is not evidence to you.

 

[Trailblazer]

You still seem to be projecting qualities on to God. I base much of my believing or not based on some knowledge of human behaviour and human thinking, and the probabilities associated with such. I'm sure you would understand why it might be difficult for many of us to therefore trust messengers. Most it seems got their verification over time - just more people believing such - and they were not generally believed at first. Such that this again is hardly any endorsement.

No, the Messengers were never believed inat first, they were believed in over time, so it is not expected that many people will believe in a new Messenger such as Baha'u'llah for a long time, unless God does something to intervene, which is not God's modus operandi.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

One has to do their research if they want to know if the claims are true or false.

I'ld first require something that is "researchable".
All you are giving me is a piling on of claims. Unverifiable ones, at that.

It is relevant because those civilizations exist,

Or existed. Civilizations come and go, and the religions usually follow suit.
Surely you are aware of that.

so you have to explain why they exist and how that could exist of those Messengers had never showed up.

This makes no sense to me.
Thousands upon thousands of gods have been claimed over the course of mankind and entire cultures have centered around them as well.

It's not like the invention of religions is unprecedented.
Why do you think it requires some "extra special" explanation?

Clearly inventing religions and building cultures around such superstition, is a thing that humans tend to do. And why is explained pretty well through human psychology. I see no reason to replace such perfectly reasonable and well-evidence explanations with crazy unfalsifiable, unverifiable extra-ordinary ones...

The Christian and Islamic civilizations did not drop down out of mid-air, they only exist because Jesus and Muhammad existed.

Ugh...

"christian civilization" existed (past time!) because of Constantine who created it, a full 4 centuries after jesus kickstarted the cult.

It only existed because the guys in power bought into it. And even then it was just a rebranding of Roman civilization.

And past time, because I disagree a "christian civilization" exists today. There are no christian theocracies anymore. Today, in the west, we live in secular humanist civilizations. There's the judeo-christian culture, sure. It's part of our heritage. It also includes ancient Roman culture and Greek culture.

No civilization starts with one man. Not even when that man is Genghis Khan or Alexandria The Great. It is always a team effort.

The claim that "because christianity become a ruling entity" in the world "therefor its extra ordinary claims are true and accurate" is utter foolishness and extremely shallow and shortsighted.

It completely ignores the actual dynamics of how civilizations come about.

That is not Argumentum ad populum because Argumentum ad populum is related to what people believe.

And the reason why a religion takes over a civilization, is because many people believe.

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.

People don't believe in a civilization. It simply exists, so it is a fact, not a belief.
Nice try but I know all the logical fallacies.

But you can't see the underlying assumptions you make.
The only reason why a religion takes over a civilization, is because the people living in that civilization believe in the religion.

Jesus didn't create any civilization or culture.
Believers did. Hundreds of years later.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You are talking about Aliens with super technology that allows them to move and manipulate cosmic dust clouds that are thousands of light years big.

So?

My grandfather grew up in a world where the primary means of transportation were a horse and a donkey.
Today, we're sending probes to Mars.

Fast forward another couple thousand years of technological advancement.
There's a myriad of ways on how galactic travel could be accomplished.
And none of them requires "magic".

That where willign to play a bad joke to us humans.

How so? Surely you are aware of human curiosity, right? Humans have an inner urge to explore, to ask questions, to study things. There are people that move proverbial mountains just to be able to go to the deepest spots in the ocean to find out what kind of life they'll encounter there and if they could, they most definitely would grab one of them for study and if possible, return it to the ocean - perhaps with a tracking chip attached.

Why? Just plain old curiosity.

Again, fast forward a couple thousand years and imagine a world where we have technology that allows for intergalactic travel. Suppose we encounter a planet with life on it. Wouldn't we act in the exact same way as we would in the depths of the ocean?

I say we absolutely would. So why would potential galaxy traveling aliens be any different? It doesn't seem that much of a stretch to me. Au contraire. I'ld think it's rather expected behavior. Unless perhaps if they are a really really old race and have already encountered bazillions of planets and studied trillions of life forms to the point that they are no longer interested. But in that case, their reason for traveling is likely just to kill us all and grab our resources, lol.

I would argue that God is more porbable than aliens because we don’t have good arguments in favor of the existence of God, and no arguments for the existence of super intelligent aliens .

lol

So you have "words".

I have precedents: us.
The precedents for "magical beings": below absolute zero.

No amount of "words" is going to make things that you yourself define as being "impossible" (remember, when you tried to define what "supernatural" is?) "probable".

And given the existence of God its more likely that he would manifest to us telling the truth than the probabilities of Aliens manifesting to us with a lie and a bad joke.

I disagree.

Mere words never stack up to actual precedents.

(I just noticed I misunderstood the "lie and bad joke" part. for some reason I thought you were talking about alien abductions, not sure why. My argumentation doesn't change though, so I'm going to leave it in as-is)


Aliens are not only probable, they are in fact extremely plausible. A near certainty.
Considering everything we know about life, physics, chemistry, the absurd size of the universe, the absurd amount of stars with orbiting planets.... It would actually be nothing short of perverse to state that life only exists on planet earth.

And since we humans are a precedent ourselves of intelligent life, there's no reason at all to think life on other planet can not be equally intelligent - or much more intelligent.

Does that make it plausible that they visited earth? Off course not.
But if the question is "what's more probable? Magical entities or natural aliens?" then the answer should be painfully obvious.

In any case your position is very telling, if not even a message in the cosmos saying “hey @TagliatelliMonster I am God and I exists”, is good enough to convince you then the problem is your extreme skepticism and not the evidence itslef.

The problem with that is that the causal relationship is simply asserted instead of demonstrated.

btw: you are also assuming that if it were aliens, that it would have to be a joke or lie. Why is that? Why do you exclude the possibility that these aliens actually believe themselves that they are gods?

 

[Trailblazer]

My point is, if God have already optimized things for being the best it can possible be, then not only shouldn't people be sad about things going wrong, but happy that they weren't worse. Also it doesn't really make sense to try to improve things, because they are already as good as they can get, whether we try to do something or not, doesn't matter. Everything we do is essentially an illusion of making a difference.

That is true if you believe everything is already set in marble, but I don't believe that. I believe we can do things that can improve our situation. Since we have free will what we choose to do can make a difference.

Exactly. As cold as it may sound, following your logic. People should be pleased that when they lose a loved one, whether that is in an accident or to a disease, they should be happy for the way they died, because it was the absolute best it could be.

I said there is no reason to believe that everyone should be happy all the time, and that is not possible as long as we are living in a material world, which is the primary source of unhappiness. One source of unhappiness is disease and death of ourselves and our loved ones, and that is unpreventable as long as we have physical bodies.

I am not saying we should all be happy for how it happened because that was the best it could be, although some people with strong faith believe that whatever happens is God's will so we should accept it as our fate.

When I read this explanation, I can't see how one doesn't instantly think, "How convenient that it works like that ", it works exactly in such way that we can't verify it at all.

Should I rewrite this:
“And now regarding thy question, “How is it that no records are to be found concerning the Prophets that have preceded Adam, the Father of Mankind, or of the kings that lived in the days of those Prophets?” Know thou that the absence of any reference to them is no proof that they did not actually exist. That no records concerning them are now available, should be attributed to their extreme remoteness, as well as to the vast changes which the earth hath undergone since their time.

Moreover such forms and modes of writing as are now current amongst men were unknown to the generations that were before Adam. There was even a time when men were wholly ignorant of the art of writing, and had adopted a system entirely different from the one which they now use. For a proper exposition of this an elaborate explanation would be required.”

It would be like this:
"We have absolutely no clue, what the people before Adam and Eve thought, because the written language weren't invented. Therefore I have no clue whether or not, what i'm about to say is true or false. But nonetheless im going to explain why there might have been prophets before Adam and Eve. And the reason is, why not? Since you can prove that it weren't true, so assuming that there were, is equally likely."

Baha'u'llah knew everything about the ages that preceded Adam because He had knowledge from God and God is all-knowing, but of course that is not verifiable so I don't expect you to believe it.

 

[leroy]

So?

My grandfather grew up in a world where the primary means of transportation were a horse and a donkey.
Today, we're sending probes to Mars.

Fast forward another couple thousand years of technological advancement.
There's a myriad of ways on how galactic travel could be accomplished.
And none of them requires "magic".



How so? Surely you are aware of human curiosity, right? Humans have an inner urge to explore, to ask questions, to study things. There are people that move proverbial mountains just to be able to go to the deepest spots in the ocean to find out what kind of life they'll encounter there and if they could, they most definitely would grab one of them for study and if possible, return it to the ocean - perhaps with a tracking chip attached.

Why? Just plain old curiosity.

Again, fast forward a couple thousand years and imagine a world where we have technology that allows for intergalactic travel. Suppose we encounter a planet with life on it. Wouldn't we act in the exact same way as we would in the depths of the ocean?

I say we absolutely would. So why would potential galaxy traveling aliens be any different? It doesn't seem that much of a stretch to me. Au contraire. I'ld think it's rather expected behavior. Unless perhaps if they are a really really old race and have already encountered bazillions of planets and studied trillions of life forms to the point that they are no longer interested. But in that case, their reason for traveling is likely just to kill us all and grab our resources, lol.




lol

So you have "words".

I have precedents: us.
The precedents for "magical beings": below absolute zero.

No amount of "words" is going to make things that you yourself define as being "impossible" (remember, when you tried to define what "supernatural" is?) "probable".



I disagree.

Mere words never stack up to actual precedents.

(I just noticed I misunderstood the "lie and bad joke" part. for some reason I thought you were talking about alien abductions, not sure why. My argumentation doesn't change though, so I'm going to leave it in as-is)


Aliens are not only probable, they are in fact extremely plausible. A near certainty.
Considering everything we know about life, physics, chemistry, the absurd size of the universe, the absurd amount of stars with orbiting planets.... It would actually be nothing short of perverse to state that life only exists on planet earth.

And since we humans are a precedent ourselves of intelligent life, there's no reason at all to think life on other planet can not be equally intelligent - or much more intelligent.

Does that make it plausible that they visited earth? Off course not.
But if the question is "what's more probable? Magical entities or natural aliens?" then the answer should be painfully obvious.



The problem with that is that the causal relationship is simply asserted instead of demonstrated.

btw: you are also assuming that if it were aliens, that it would have to be a joke or lie. Why is that? Why do you exclude the possibility that these aliens actually believe themselves that they are gods?

Your problem is that you tend to jump in to conversations that I am having with others, without understanding the context

If you see a message in the cosmos near a distant star that says “hey guys from religious forums, I am God and I excist”…………….it would be very unlikely that this message was written by an alien because even if there are intelligent Aliens, … it would still be very unlikely that they know about religious forums, and even more unlikely that they would lie and play a bad joke to us.

In the other hand if God exists, then why wouldn’t he be the author of that message?

given the existance of God and given the existance of the message...............the claim God did it, doesnt seem to very improbable

 

[Trailblazer]

I'ld first require something that is "researchable".
All you are giving me is a piling on of claims. Unverifiable ones, at that.

Both the claims and the way you can research those claims are on this post. Much of this is verifiable.

Questions for knowledgeable Bahai / followers of Baha'u'llah

This makes no sense to me.
Thousands upon thousands of gods have been claimed over the course of mankind and entire cultures have centered around them as well.

It's not like the invention of religions is unprecedented.
Why do you think it requires some "extra special" explanation?

Why do you think all these religions were all invented by man and had nothing to do with God? Why would man invent religions and say they came from God. That makes no sense to me.

Clearly inventing religions and building cultures around such superstition, is a thing that humans tend to do. And why is explained pretty well through human psychology. I see no reason to replace such perfectly reasonable and well-evidence explanations with crazy unfalsifiable, unverifiable extra-ordinary ones...

When I speak of religion, I am referring to the essential foundation or reality of religion, not the superstitious dogmas which have gradually encrusted religion and destroyed what was originally revealed by God.

“The greatest bestowal of God in the world of humanity is religion; for assuredly the divine teachings of religion are above all other sources of instruction and development to man. Religion confers upon man eternal life and guides his footsteps in the world of morality. It opens the doors of unending happiness and bestows everlasting honor upon the human kingdom. It has been the basis of all civilization and progress in the history of mankind.......

But when we speak of religion we mean the essential foundation or reality of religion, not the dogmas and blind imitations which have gradually encrusted it and which are the cause of the decline and effacement of a nation. These are inevitably destructive and a menace and hindrance to a nation’s life,—even as it is recorded in the Torah and confirmed in history that when the Jews became fettered by empty forms and imitations the wrath of God became manifest...” Bahá’í World Faith, pp. 270, 272

RELIGION AND CIVILIZATION

Ugh...

"christian civilization" existed (past time!) because of Constantine who created it, a full 4 centuries after jesus kickstarted the cult.

It only existed because the guys in power bought into it. And even then it was just a rebranding of Roman civilization.

Christian civilization only existed in the first place because of Jesus although it grew and flourished because of Constantine and what happened after that, namely the Christians doing so much missionary work.

And past time, because I disagree a "christian civilization" exists today. There are no christian theocracies anymore. Today, in the west, we live in secular humanist civilizations. There's the judeo-christian culture, sure. It's part of our heritage. It also includes ancient Roman culture and Greek culture.

Christian civilization still exists even though it is not what it once was. I am not talking about Christian theocracies, I am talking about people who believe in and follow the teachings of Jesus, the Christians who comprise the civilization. We do not live in a secular humanist civilizations because most people believe in God and a religion, be it Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity or Islam. The governments are secular but the people are not.

No civilization starts with one man. Not even when that man is Genghis Khan or Alexandria The Great. It is always a team effort.

Christianity started with Jesus and Islam started with Muhammad and then they grew larger over time because the beliefs in those Messengers spread far and wide.

The claim that "because christianity become a ruling entity" in the world "therefor its extra ordinary claims are true and accurate" is utter foolishness and extremely shallow and shortsighted.

I agree. Just because Christianity still predominates that does not mean its extraordinary claims are true, and I don't believe in claims such as the resurrection and all the other miracles in the Bible ever literally took place. Much of that was metaphors for spiritual truths.

It completely ignores the actual dynamics of how civilizations come about.

I did not say they come about from one Messenger of God, I only said they were initiated by Him. They come about by those who believe in the Messenger and other factors.

And the reason why a religion takes over a civilization, is because many people believe.

But you can't see the underlying assumptions you make.
The only reason why a religion takes over a civilization, is because the people living in that civilization believe in the religion.

Believers did. Hundreds of years later.

That is all true, the reason religion takes over a civilization is because people believe, but it is still not ad populum because that is an argument related to what is true or false.

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

 

[QuestioningMind]

No, what it suggests is that you are not all-knowing so you don't know *the best way* to communicate to humans.

Messengers is a very effective method because most people believe in a Messenger of God and and that is why most people believe in God. If God had never used Messengers, hardly anyone would believe in God because the main reason people believe in God is because of one of those Messengers. We know that because very few people in the world believe in God for some other reason. 84 percent of the world population has a faith and those faiths all have some kind of Founder, what I refer to as a Messenger. So obviously, using Messengers is a successful method of communication.

The reason people cannot agree on who God is is because they all believe in different religions that have been *corrupted by man* over time, but if they recognized Baha'u'llah that would clear it all up. One cannot justly blame God or Baha'u'llah because people have rejected Baha'u'llah since everyone had free will to choose.

Messengers are clearly a very ineffective method, otherwise there wouldn't be 1000's of different interpretations of who/what god is. All the fact that 84% of the population has a faith indicates is that the vast majority of people are indoctrinated into a religion at a young age. Now if people were not even introduced to the notion of god until they reached the age where they could reason and practice critical thinking skills and we STILL had 84% of people believing in a god THEN you might have an argument. The simply fact that religions must indoctrinate their followers from birth suggests that such indoctrination is the main if not only reason they believe.

 

[Trailblazer]

Messengers are clearly a very ineffective method, otherwise there wouldn't be 1000's of different interpretations of who/what god is.

How logical is it to say that the Messengers is not an effective method just because humans make mistakes after the message is delivered?

I already explained why there are so many interpretations and it is a logical reason. As long as people exist they will have different ideas about what scriptures mean, and then what happens as a result is that religions split into thousands of sects. Nobody can prevent sects from forming unless there is a Covenant between the Messenger and the followers that prevents that from happening. There has never been such a Covenant until Baha'ullah made one so the Baha'i Faith can never split into sects as has happened with all the older religions.

All the fact that 84% of the population has a faith indicates is that the vast majority of people are indoctrinated into a religion at a young age. Now if people were not even introduced to the notion of god until they reached the age where they could reason and practice critical thinking skills and we STILL had 84% of people believing in a god THEN you might have an argument. The simply fact that religions must indoctrinate their followers from birth suggests that such indoctrination is the main if not only reason they believe.

Can you prove that indoctrination is childhood is necessary in order for people to believe in a religion after they grow up? Just because indoctrination happens we cannot say that is the REASON people believe.

That argument will not fly unless you can prove that if all those people who were raised in a religion had not been raised in a religion they would not have joined a religion after they grew up. I was not raised in any religion yet I joined a religion after I grew up. I know many other people like that. I know those who were not raised in religion and were atheists who have become Christians in later life.

Nobody can say how many religious believers there would be if people were not raised in a religion but I think most people are searching for the truth about God so they would have found a religion later in life because there is no other way to know anything about God. Only a small minority of people reject the idea of religion and God and that is why they are atheists.

 

[QuestioningMind]

How logical is it to say that the Messengers is not an effective method just because humans make mistakes after the message is delivered?

I already explained why there are so many interpretations and it is a logical reason. As long as people exist they will have different ideas about what scriptures mean, and then what happens as a result is that religions split into thousands of sects. Nobody can prevent sects from forming unless there is a Covenant between the Messenger and the followers that prevents that from happening. There has never been such a Covenant until Baha'ullah made one so the Baha'i Faith can never split into sects as has happened with all the older religions.

Can you prove that indoctrination is childhood is necessary in order for people to believe in a religion after they grow up? Just because indoctrination happens we cannot say that is the REASON people believe.

That argument will not fly unless you can prove that if all those people who were raised in a religion had not been raised in a religion they would not have joined a religion after they grew up. I was not raised in any religion yet I joined a religion after I grew up. I know many other people like that. I know those who were not raised in religion and were atheists who have become Christians in later life.

Nobody can say how many religious believers there would be if people were not raised in a religion but I think most people are searching for the truth about God so they would have found a religion later in life because there is no other way to know anything about God. Only a small minority of people reject the idea of religion and God and that is why they are atheists.

How logical is it to say that the Messengers is not an effective method just because humans make mistakes after the message is delivered?

It's completely logical, if the individual sending the messengers knows that the message is being sent to fallible human beings who are likely to make mistakes. Sending a messenger that you know beforehand is going to be misinterpreted sounds like a VERY ineffectual method to me.

Can you prove that indoctrination is childhood is necessary in order for people to believe in a religion after they grow up? Just because indoctrination happens we cannot say that is the REASON people believe.

No, I can't and I never will be able to unless parents stop indoctrinating their children. Of course, it works both ways. Since YOU can't prove that people would still believe in a god even if they weren't indoctrinated, it's absolutely ridiculous for you to suggest that the fact that 84% of people current believe in a god is in any way 'evidence' that some god must exist.

And though the fact that all religions DO begin indoctrinating children from birth certainly suggests that religious leaders are quite aware that such indoctrination is required for most people to believe.

Nobody can say how many religious believers there would be if people were not raised in a religion but I think most people are searching for the truth about God so they would have found a religion later in life because there is no other way to know anything about God.

Personally I'm convinced that if people weren't exposed to the concept of god until they were 10 to 12 years old there would VERY few people who have reason to believe that there was any 'truth' about god to search for. The only reason most people have a desire to search is because they were told from birth that there was something to find.

 

[Bear Wild]

The only way the God I believe in proves Himself is by sending Messengers to represent Him in this contingent world. Of course, not all people consider that proof and that is why there are still agnostics and atheists.

So you do not need god to prove himself and I agree and I do not need Nethrus, Boann, Thor, Dagda, or Freya to prove themselves either. I remember meeting Boann when I was in Ireland. She did not need to prove a thing.

How do you know which messengers to believe and which ones not to believe? Who would they present themselves?

 

[rational experiences]

How do you know that?

Man didn't invent the presence of wood.

The flood theme in human records is a science thesis for how to convert earth via UFO radiation mass. Original thesis before nature existed.

Yet where he did science nature existed.

Breaking of the law mass holding in pressurized states is first natural law cold empty holy mother space womb.

Gold was the new pyramid thesis how to convert matter to gain a gold product. Philosophers secret.

Earth changed from its origins science stated when you brother sent us all to hell a long time ago as first pyramid science.

After ice age newly born was new science inferred teaching of causes. As ice melted.

Yet the same advice is relative what you seek as satanist...Satan in deep pit.

Theories mass pressurized is held. Gods form he preached.
To convert it by radiating mass.

To own huge sink holes black hole thesis on earth seeing you don't live in the cosmos.... to gain earth depth deepest coldest seam...sewing in thesis.

To end machines life back into the fused instant snap freeze depth earths God hell of where you destroyed us.

Everyday I hear sciences designer voice men saying you have not realised that earth depth yet. Yet want it.

Yet the cosmic deep space pit black holes in deep pressure of space is the thesis first.

Why we get told we don't know what we are talking about as God the earth keepers of life safety....humans who argue. About God being first. Earth body.

As science human stated uses all earth products to invent science.

Satanists possesed by giant angel humanlike images. When giants life was the dinosaur and not giant human angels that lived before.

Written evidence was proof of possessed human thoughts lying.

Satanism a teaching was about human mind in theory possessed by communicating feedback.

An actual medical human realisation teaching in science.

Sun theists self consuming status

God holy mother Earth space law holding not consuming.

First theory science how to cause consumption of the body flesh God the stone.

False preaching Satanists. Satan act ate the body of God.

Humans don't eat stone products for nuclear grail sion reactions.

When someone says they are Satan it is what they infer to. Human theism only.

 

[Trailblazer]

How logical is it to say that the Messengers is not an effective method just because humans make mistakes after the message is delivered?

It's completely logical, if the individual sending the messengers knows that the message is being sent to fallible human beings who are likely to make mistakes. Sending a messenger that you know beforehand is going to be misinterpreted sounds like a VERY ineffectual method to me.

Can you prove that indoctrination is childhood is necessary in order for people to believe in a religion after they grow up? Just because indoctrination happens we cannot say that is the REASON people believe.

No, I can't and I never will be able to unless parents stop indoctrinating their children. Of course, it works both ways. Since YOU can't prove that people would still believe in a god even if they weren't indoctrinated, it's absolutely ridiculous for you to suggest that the fact that 84% of people current believe in a god is in any way 'evidence' that some god must exist.

And though the fact that all religions DO begin indoctrinating children from birth certainly suggests that religious leaders are quite aware that such indoctrination is required for most people to believe.

Nobody can say how many religious believers there would be if people were not raised in a religion but I think most people are searching for the truth about God so they would have found a religion later in life because there is no other way to know anything about God.

Personally I'm convinced that if people weren't exposed to the concept of god until they were 10 to 12 years old there would VERY few people who have reason to believe that there was any 'truth' about god to search for. The only reason most people have a desire to search is because they were told from birth that there was something to find.

It's completely logical, if the individual sending the messengers knows that the message is being sent to fallible human beings who are likely to make mistakes. Sending a messenger that you know beforehand is going to be misinterpreted sounds like a VERY ineffectual method to me.

Of course God knows that humans will make mistakes but that is unavoidable. There is no other way that God can communicate that humans could even understand. It does not matter to God if humans make mistakes because it does not affect God, it only affects the humans.

Now that God has sent a new Messenger that cannot be misinterpreted all that happened back throughout history does not matter anymore because the truth is out there; so now if people keep making mistakes it will be because they refuse to look at what the new Messenger wrote.

Christians have misinterpreted much of the Bible because they did not have the key to unlock the meaning. Because of the way the Bible was written, misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the Bible has been a big problem since the very beginning. Christians disagreed as to what the Bible meant and none of them clearly understood much of what it meant, and that is why there are so many different sects of Christianity. That is understandable because it was prophesied by Daniel that the Book would be sealed up until the time of the end, meaning nobody would really understand it:

Daniel Chapter 12: 4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. 8 And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? 9 And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. 11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. 12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.

The early Church fathers interpreted the Bible the way they did because they could not fully understand it. Now Christians continue to interpret the Bible the way it has always been interpreted...The "Book" was intended to be sealed up until the time of the end, until the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days came. The 2,300 years came in 1844 and the book was unsealed by Baha’u’llah. That math is explained in Some Answered Questions, 10: TRADITIONAL PROOFS EXEMPLIFIED FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL.

People do not have to run to and fro anymore. Unsealing the Book means we can now understand the true meaning of the Bible. By reading the Baha’i Writings that explain the true meaning of the Bible, we can understand what much of the Bible means that could never be understood before (knowledge shall be increased).

4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased

No, I can't and I never will be able to unless parents stop indoctrinating their children. Of course, it works both ways. Since YOU can't prove that people would still believe in a god even if they weren't indoctrinated, it's absolutely ridiculous for you to suggest that the fact that 84% of people current believe in a god is in any way 'evidence' that some god must exist.

I never even suggested that the fact that 84% of people currently have a religion is in any way 'evidence' that God exists. I only ever said that it is evidence that Messengers have been successful in garnering belief in God. The proof that God exists is the Messengers themselves, NOT how many people believe in them.

And though the fact that all religions DO begin indoctrinating children from birth certainly suggests that religious leaders are quite aware that such indoctrination is required for most people to believe.

That is probably true of the religious leaders, if you are thinking of Christianity and Islam, because they want to increase their flocks. Jews also raise children in Judaism, but because it is tradition, not to grow their numbers.

You are probably thinking of Christianity. Do you know how parents of other religions raise their children? It is true that most parents probably teach their children to believe what they believe because they think that is in their children’s’ best interest but I think that is wrong, because then those children do not really have free choice when they become adults because they have been brainwashed. Baha’i parents are not supposed to do that and a child cannot even choose to become a Baha’i until they are 15 years old which is considered the age of reason, and then it is fully their choice.

Personally I'm convinced that if people weren't exposed to the concept of god until they were 10 to 12 years old there would VERY few people who have reason to believe that there was any 'truth' about god to search for. The only reason most people have a desire to search is because they were told from birth that there was something to find.

Of course you have a certain bias and I also have a bias, but there is no way to prove either one of us is correct since most children ARE raised in a religion. I believe that most people have an innate desire to know the truth and at some point in their lives they think about the purpose of life and how God might be related to their purpose. Just look at all the people who come to this forum seeking truth. Certainly not all members here are settled in a particular religion and not all nonbelievers are settled into non-belief. Of course a religious forum is not representative if the population, but we already know that most people already believe in God or are open to the idea that God exists as positive atheists are only 7% of the population. (Demographics of atheism - Wikipedia)

 

[Trailblazer]

How do you know which messengers to believe and which ones not to believe?

By researching them; their lives, their mission, and their scriptures. If they do not even claim they have a mission from God and they have no scriptures why would you believe they were Messengers of God?

 

[QuestioningMind]

It's completely logical, if the individual sending the messengers knows that the message is being sent to fallible human beings who are likely to make mistakes. Sending a messenger that you know beforehand is going to be misinterpreted sounds like a VERY ineffectual method to me.

Of course God knows that humans will make mistakes but that is unavoidable. There is no other way that God can communicate that humans could even understand. It does not matter to God if humans make mistakes because it does not affect God, it only affects the humans.

Now that God has sent a new Messenger that cannot be misinterpreted all that happened back throughout history does not matter anymore because the truth is out there; so now if people keep making mistakes it will be because they refuse to look at what the new Messenger wrote.

Christians have misinterpreted much of the Bible because they did not have the key to unlock the meaning. Because of the way the Bible was written, misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the Bible has been a big problem since the very beginning. Christians disagreed as to what the Bible meant and none of them clearly understood much of what it meant, and that is why there are so many different sects of Christianity. That is understandable because it was prophesied by Daniel that the Book would be sealed up until the time of the end, meaning nobody would really understand it:

Daniel Chapter 12: 4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. 8 And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? 9 And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. 11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. 12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.

The early Church fathers interpreted the Bible the way they did because they could not fully understand it. Now Christians continue to interpret the Bible the way it has always been interpreted...The "Book" was intended to be sealed up until the time of the end, until the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days came. The 2,300 years came in 1844 and the book was unsealed by Baha’u’llah. That math is explained in Some Answered Questions, 10: TRADITIONAL PROOFS EXEMPLIFIED FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL.

People do not have to run to and fro anymore. Unsealing the Book means we can now understand the true meaning of the Bible. By reading the Baha’i Writings that explain the true meaning of the Bible, we can understand what much of the Bible means that could never be understood before (knowledge shall be increased).

4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased

No, I can't and I never will be able to unless parents stop indoctrinating their children. Of course, it works both ways. Since YOU can't prove that people would still believe in a god even if they weren't indoctrinated, it's absolutely ridiculous for you to suggest that the fact that 84% of people current believe in a god is in any way 'evidence' that some god must exist.

I never even suggested that the fact that 84% of people currently have a religion is in any way 'evidence' that God exists. I only ever said that it is evidence that Messengers have been successful in garnering belief in God. The proof that God exists is the Messengers themselves, NOT how many people believe in them.

And though the fact that all religions DO begin indoctrinating children from birth certainly suggests that religious leaders are quite aware that such indoctrination is required for most people to believe.

That is probably true of the religious leaders, if you are thinking of Christianity and Islam, because they want to increase their flocks. Jews also raise children in Judaism, but because it is tradition, not to grow their numbers.

You are probably thinking of Christianity. Do you know how parents of other religions raise their children? It is true that most parents probably teach their children to believe what they believe because they think that is in their children’s’ best interest but I think that is wrong, because then those children do not really have free choice when they become adults because they have been brainwashed. Baha’i parents are not supposed to do that and a child cannot even choose to become a Baha’i until they are 15 years old which is considered the age of reason, and then it is fully their choice.

Personally I'm convinced that if people weren't exposed to the concept of god until they were 10 to 12 years old there would VERY few people who have reason to believe that there was any 'truth' about god to search for. The only reason most people have a desire to search is because they were told from birth that there was something to find.

Of course you have a certain bias and I also have a bias, but there is no way to prove either one of us is correct since most children ARE raised in a religion. I believe that most people have an innate desire to know the truth and at some point in their lives they think about the purpose of life and how God might be related to their purpose. Just look at all the people who come to this forum seeking truth. Certainly not all members here are settled in a particular religion and not all nonbelievers are settled into non-belief. Of course a religious forum is not representative if the population, but we already know that most people already believe in God or are open to the idea that God exists as positive atheists are only 7% of the population. (Demographics of atheism - Wikipedia)

I really see no reason to care about some proposed being that is so powerless to intervene on my existence that it's only means of providing evidence for itself is if I happen to stumble upon the writings of some long dead messenger he sent.