If it could be proved no god exists

[Trailblazer]

After all of our discussions, do you really think I am going to be impressed by the ramblings of your Bahá’u’lláh?

Why would *you think* that *I think* you would be impressed?

 

[Trailblazer]

That you are impressed by the ramblings of an ex-Muslim is meaningless.

No, I am impressed by the Writings of a Manifestation of God.
It might be meaningless *to you* but it is *meaningful* to me.

 

[night912]

I recall, back in the 1950's and 1960's there was this argument
about whether we can keep a moral order if there was no God.
My Gallup Poll profile below shows what happened - we indeed
maintain a moral order, but by redefining what it means to be
moral.
"Smok'n, drinkun' and gambl'n" used to be synonymous with 'sin."
Now sin is about global warming or child abuse. We can recycle
and save the local trees as the new virtue, but what has happened
is that we have externalized sin to someone or something else.
There's no more "living in sin", not only when we shack up with
someone we aren't married to, but we don't live in sin if we gamble,
watch porn, swear, enjoy sexualized behavior and so on.

Sin is a religious concept, particularly to its individual religion and not necessarily universal (although some will overlap). Morality is not the same as "to sin" or "not to sin." People are less religious now.

 

[Trailblazer]

"Adam did not disobey God; that is just a story in the Bible."

So, when God wrote Genesis and gave it to the people through the hands of another of your Messenger/Prophets, Moses, He lied to the people.

First, God did not write Genesis.
Second, it was just a story meant to convey spiritual truths....
Do you really believe the earth was created in six days?

Perhaps the things that Ballulah said are just more of God lying again. If God lied to Messenger/Prophet Moses, there is no reason to believe He didn't lie to Messenger/Prophet Ballulah. You have no way of knowing.

God did not lie to Moses, but Moses did not write the OT in His Own Pen, the way Baha'u'llah wrote His scriptures; so all we really have is what men said that Moses said.... same with Jesus.

Besides that, the Bible is not all meant to be interpreted literally, but rather metaphorically.

From Letters Written on Behalf of the Guardian:

...The Bible is not wholly authentic, and in this respect is not to be compared with the Qur'an, and should be wholly subordinated to the authentic writings of Bahá'u'lláh.
(28 July 1936 to a National Spiritual Assembly)

When 'Abdu'l-Bahá states we believe what is in the Bible, He means in substance. Not that we believe every word of it to be taken literally or that every word is the authentic saying of the Prophet.
(11 February 1944 to an individual believer)

We cannot be sure of the authenticity of any of the phrases in the Old or the New Testament. What we can be sure of is when such references or words are cited or quoted in either the Quran or the Bahá'í writings.
(4 July 1947 to an individual believer)

Except for what has been explained by Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, we have no way of knowing what various symbolic allusions in the Bible mean.
(31 January 1955 to an individual believer)

From letters written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice:

In studying the Bible Bahá'ís must bear two principles in mind. The first is that many passages in Sacred Scriptures are intended to be taken metaphorically, not literally, and some of the paradoxes and apparent contradictions which appear are intended to indicate this. The second is the fact that the text of the early Scriptures, such as the Bible, is not wholly authentic.
(28 May 1984 to an individual believer)

...The Bahá'ís believe that God's Revelation is under His care and protection and that the essence, or essential elements, of what His Manifestations intended to convey has been recorded and preserved in Their Holy Books. However, as the sayings of the ancient Prophets were written down some time later, we cannot categorically state, as we do in the case of the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, that the words and phrases attributed to Them are Their exact words.
(9 August 1984 to an individual believer)

The Bible: Extracts on the Old and New Testaments




​

 

[night912]

Since this is all hypothetical -- If it could be proved no god exists -- there is no way to know what would happen if that could be proven, but since many/most believers only pay lip service to God's Laws, I cannot see how it would make much difference in society. Morality comes from having a conscience and good character, not from religion. Belief does not make anyone a good person, not unless they actually follow the teachings and laws of their religion.

For some, god and/or religion is the only thing that makes them to not act immoral. I've talked to people who say that if god doesn't exist then people are free to do what they want.

 

[Trailblazer]

You should know that people did not become Christians based on Genesis. They became Christians based on stories in the NT.

You are right again. Christians do not become Christians based upon Genesis, but without Genesis and *The Fall* the Christian doctrines could not stand, because there would be no original sin thus no need for Jesus to die for our sin... The whole damn thing would fall down like a house of cards.

Then after that, Christians might be able to see what Jesus really taught.

How is it that you do not understand such basic things about your religion? Why does an atheist have to educate you?

First, Christianity is not *my religion, * the Baha'i Faith is my religion...

Second, I like it when atheists educate me about Christianity or the BIble, since most of them know more about Christianity and the Bible than I do. My parents were *fallen away Christians* so I was not raised Christian. I became a Baha'i during my first year of college and I had no interest in Christianity so I never read one page of the Bible till 2013, which is when I started posting on forums.

 

[Trailblazer]

How's that working out for you? There are twice as many LDS as there are Bahai in half the time.

Why would numbers matter? Numbers do not have any bearing on what is true.

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."

This type of argument is known by several names,[1] including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to democracy, appeal to popularity, argument by consensus, consensus fallacy, authority of the many, bandwagon fallacy, voxpopuli,[2] and in Latin as argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), fickle crowd syndrome, and consensus gentium ("agreement of the clans"). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect. The Chinese proverb "three men make a tiger" concerns the same idea.
Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia​

The converse of this is that if many or most people do not believe it, it cannot be so, and that is fallacious.

It works out great for me because I like the Narrow Way since I have never been one to follow the crowd or take the easy way.

The Narrow Way
13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because[a] narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

 

[Trailblazer]

For some, god and/or religion is the only thing that makes them to not act immoral. I've talked to people who say that if god doesn't exist then people are free to do what they want.

I think that is rather sad reflection on human nature, but that is the way most people are and that is one reason religion is necessary. Most people need the fear of God to keep them in line because most people are materialistic and selfish, so *what they want* is not what God wants for them.

Studies show that the most moral people are atheists and the highly religious, but since most religious people are not highly religious, you can do the math.

 

[Katzpur]

IF you're going at accept THAT as evidence then surely the Hindu Vedas are sufficient evidence for you that Hinduism is true... and the Koran evidence that Islam is true, and the Book of Mormon is evidence that Mormonism is true... and of course the book Dianetics is evidence that Scientology is true. At least in the last two cases we actually know WHEN the books were written and by WHOM.

Except that you more than likely assume that the Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith, which is not what believers in the Book of Mormon believe.

 

[ecco]

No, I mean you cannot prove that God does not exist, but that does not mean that God does exist either:

Proving Non-Existence

Description: Demanding that one proves the non-existence of something in place of providing adequate evidence for the existence of that something. Although it may be possible to prove non-existence in special situations, such as showing that a container does not contain certain items, one cannot prove universal or absolute non-existence. The proof of existence must come from those who make the claims.

Logical Form:

I cannot prove that X exists, so you prove that it doesn’t.

If you can’t, X exists.

Example #1:

God exists. Until you can prove otherwise, I will continue to believe that he does.

Explanation: There are decent reasons to believe in the existence of God, but, “because the existence of God cannot be disproven”, is not one of them.

Proving Non-Existence

This is a classic example of someone skimming parts of an article, believing that it supports their argument, copy and pasting an excerpt and implying: See, I told ya so!.

If you believe the article supports your argument, you obviously don't understand what the article is saying.

Maybe you should try again in your own words.

 

[ecco]

It is not arrogant to deduce something as long as it is only an opinion. I was conjecturing, I was not making an assertion.

You are right, of course human logic is completely worthless in trying to deduce what God does and does not want.

Confusing yourself, are you?

 

[ecco]

If you want, I welcome you to come to my forum and explain that to an atheist who thinks he knows what god would do if god existed, all based upon his puny human logic. This conversation has been going on now for over five years so I could use some help from a *rational atheist.*

If you know of someone, atheist or otherwise, "who thinks he knows what god would do if god existed", tell him/her I think he/she is full of excrement.

But, I have no interest in going into another forum.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Except that you more than likely assume that the Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith, which is not what believers in the Book of Mormon believe.

Actually, even Mormons believe that Joseph Smith was the first to write the words down.

 

[PruePhillip]

There is nothing wrong with sex in a consensual adult relationship, as long as you are not cheating on your partner.

How did god get Mary pregnant without having sex with her, IVF hadn't been invented? In those days you could only get pregnant by having sex, the virgin birth story is rubbish.

Q - How did god get Mary pregnant without having sex with her?

How did God create something out of nothing? How did God
raise the dead? With the bible it's all or nothing regarding faith.
These days a lot of religious people pick and chose what they
believe - the bible speaks about that, too.

 

[PruePhillip]

The Bible is a little confused about which came when. How is it that you don't you know that?
Your point being?

Re biochemistry.

The term "biochemistry" was ridiculed by many people. Bio meant life and chemistry
is, well, chemistry. Life is not chemistry, they stated, life has some magical property
breathed into it by God. "Life begets Life" was the mantra.
This POV was a Christian one, but it's not supported by the bible. The bible states
that life was created by the "land" and by the "seas." And life is of the clay and dust.

As for confused about "which came when"
1 - life is now thought to have formed on the land
2 - life did emerge from the seas too, including birds
3 - man is the last to form.

Do you have another order?

 

[PruePhillip]

So you start off by making nonsense assumptions.
How do you justify stating that "the heavens" as written in the bible means "everything we see, feel, hear etc". Most people take "the heavens" as meaning the sky and the stars. No big mystery.
How do you justify stating that "the earth and life" is a natural process of the "heavens".
You make up silly stuff and expect people to agree with you. Nonsense.

Quote - "Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly
above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.”

This is a common mis-translation. The real translation in the King James and the Hebrew is this:
"and God commanded the seas to bring forth life."
Not "let the seas abound in life."
That's terribly sloppy and designed to "help" the bible "make sense" of the original statement.

This is what confused generations of Jews and Christians - how could the seas create life?

The "heavens" in the Jewish tradition simply means COSMOLOGY.
ie everything out there.

The heavens created the world - the cosmos created the planet
the "earth" created life - dry land
the "seas" created life - oceans

But God himself created the cosmos.

And by cosmos we must assume means planets, stars, galaxies, dark matter,
quasars and the stuff which comprises this (atoms, fields, physical laws...)

 

[Trailblazer]

This is a classic example of someone skimming parts of an article, believing that it supports their argument, copy and pasting an excerpt and implying: See, I told ya so!.

If you believe the article supports your argument, you obviously don't understand what the article is saying.

Maybe you should try again in your own words.

I have no argument. I was just responding to your question:
"Are you referring to the fact that, since gods cannot be proven, they are negatives?"

But what do you think that the article is saying that does not support the argument *you think I have?*

 

[Trailblazer]

Confusing yourself, are you?

No, I am not confused anymore....
Why do you have to be that way when I admitted you were right and I was wrong?

 

[Trailblazer]

If you know of someone, atheist or otherwise, "who thinks he knows what god would do if god existed", tell him/her I think he/she is full of excrement.

But, I have no interest in going into another forum.

I did not think you would want to come but I thought to ask anyway.
Unfortunately I cannot get him to come here either so I will just pass along what you said.

 

[Willamena]

I wonder what would be the reaction of theists if evidence was discovered which proved beyond any shadow of doubt that no god has ever existed, and all faiths are created by humans?

Since the world would look the same, I doubt there would be any reaction.