Is it Reasonable to Compare Gods with Bigfoot, Fairies, Unicorns, and Leprechauns?

[Valjean]

There is evidence since God chose to provide evidence...
The evidence is the Messenger of God. He is as concrete as you are going to get.

Well that's not very persuasive. The very historicity of Jesus is questioned, and the tales about him are no more than legends.
All religions have their mythologies, and many have seers, prophets and messengers. How is Christian mythology or Christian Messengers any more valid or evidenced than those of other religions? How are Jesus or Muhammad any more believable than the Aztec's Quetzalcoatl?

Messengers are not good or reliable evidence. They've produced no universal consensus of belief, like real, empirical evidence does.

 

[Trailblazer]

None of the evidence for God that I'm aware of is tangible, testable, repeatable, or productive. This is what's meant by empirical, objective evidence. Such evidence is epistemically valid.
Subjective evidence; perceptible only to an individual and not tangible, measurable or testable, is empirically iseless, is it not?

I know what you mean by empirical, objective evidence, but as I said before there is no evidence for God that is tangible, testable, or repeatable.

The evidence that exists, the Messenger of God, is subject to personal opinions. It is not subjective evidence but it is evaluated subjectively. If that is useless to you then it is.

 

[Trailblazer]

Messengers are not good or reliable evidence. They've produced no universal consensus of belief, like real, empirical evidence does.

That's too bad, because Messengers are the only evidence that exists. There is no empirical evidence for God.

No, Messengers of God have not produced universal consensus of belief, but apparently that was not God's objective.

 

[Valjean]

No messenger required. I got the message right from the tap so to speak. Look harder and you'll hear too.

So entirely subjective.
Q: Gut feeling,? delusion? or hallucination.?

Millions of sincere seekers have been looking very hard for thousands of years. No consistent message has been generated. Messages are all over the board.
How, then, can they be considered reliable?

 

[Valjean]

I know what you mean by empirical, objective evidence, but as I said before there is no evidence for God that is tangible, testable, or repeatable.

The evidence that exists, the Messenger of God, is subject to personal opinions. It is not subjective evidence but it is evaluated subjectively. If that is useless to you then it is.

It's useless empirically, however persuasive it may be to the subject. It can't reasonably be used in serious apologetics.

 

[Valjean]

That's too bad, because Messengers are the only evidence that exists. There is no empirical evidence for God.

No, Messengers of God have not produced universal consensus of belief, but apparently that was not God's objective.

So God cares not a jot or tittle what or if anyone believes?
Why, then, do Christians claim correct belief is of such crucial importance? Why is religion or belief important at all, given an indifferent God?

What is God's objective? What is the evidence the messengers are what is claimed?

 

[Trailblazer]

Millions of sincere seekers have been looking very hard for thousands of years. No consistent message has been generated. Messages are all over the board.
How, then, can they be considered reliable?

The messages that were revealed thousands of years ago were not reliable because they were written by men, not by a Messenger of God...
The only message that I consider reliable is the message of Baha'u'llah, since He is the only Messenger who wrote His message in His own pen.

 

[Trailblazer]

It's useless empirically, however persuasive it may be to the subject. It can't reasonably be used in serious apologetics.

That does not mean it can't be used.

 

[Trailblazer]

So God cares not a jot or tittle what or if anyone believes?
Why, then, do Christians claim correct belief is of such crucial importance? Why is religion or belief important at all, given an indifferent God?

I don't know what God cares about, but God does not need anyone's belief because God is self-sufficient and self-sustaining.
God wants us to believe in Him for our own benefit.

What is God's objective?

God's objective is for us to recognize Hid Messenger who was sent for this age, Baha'u'llah.
God's message is not static, it changes in every age, so it is not the same now as it was in former ages.

What is the evidence the messengers are what is claimed?

The evidence for a Messenger of God is as follows:

1. His own Self, who He was, His character (His qualities)

2. His Revelation, what He accomplished (His Mission on earth/ the history of His Cause)

3. His Writings are additional evidence because they show who He was as a person, what He taught about God and other things, and what accomplished on His mission.

 

[Valjean]

That does not mean it can't be used.

Of course. I see them used all the time, over and over. Same arguments, same proofs, endlessly.

I go to many religious and apologetics websites, and always the same arguments, over and over. They've been debunked, or the errors pointed out, hundreds of thousands of times, for a century or more. The errors are exasperatingly familiar to scholars and non-believing posters everywhere, yet with every new religious poster, up they pop again.

 

[Valjean]

I don't know what God cares about, but God does not need anyone's belief because God is self-sufficient and self-sustaining.
God wants us to believe in Him for our own benefit.

Then He should make himself known and his message clear and unambiguous; surely a simple task for the author of the universe.
Thus far, though, the only "benefits" have been endless wars, disputes, bloodshed and repression. It shows every indication of a colossal screw-up.

God's objective is for us to recognize Hid Messenger who was sent for this age, Baha'u'llah.

How do you know that? How do you know there even is a God?
Evidence, please.

God's message is not static, it changes in every age, so it is not the same now as it was in former ages.

The evidence for a Messenger of God is as follows:

1. His own Self, who He was, His character (His qualities)

2. His Revelation, what He accomplished (His Mission on earth/ the history of His Cause)

3. His Writings are additional evidence because they show who He was as a person, what He taught about God and other things, and what accomplished on His mission.

How can these be construed as evidence? How can they be assessed? How are they fundamentally any different from the messages of a thousand other Messengers, with a thousand other messages?

I suspect that whatever message resonates best with the attitudes of the hearer, will be the message believed. No confirmatory evidence needed.

 

[PureX]

Fiction means imagination.

Imagination is required in every form of human cognition. It's what makes humans, human. Fiction is just one method we humans use to comprehed our experience of existence.

If one knowingly attempts to claim that fiction is fact - or reality in your words - then he is being deceptive.

Fact and reality are not even remotely the same things. You are only "deceiving" yourself by continuing to ignore the human cognitive process.

If he's unaware that he is wrong, then he's just confused.

It is you that is continually confused.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

What are the logical fallacies?

All of this has been addressed by others at length already with answers like mine, but I'll answer you myself.

There need not be fallacy in an argument, but if there is, the conclusions will be unsound, meaning not correct and not fit to believe. You repeatedly say that the life and words of the messenger are evidence that he is channeling a deity. They don't if one uses standard, valid reasoning. If you say that YOUR way of reasoning DOES connect them, then you are employing some rogue logic that would contain fallacy if you wrote your argument out. Personally, I don't think there are any steps between your evidence and your conclusion, which is essentially that your evidence implies a god without explaining how or why you think that. That fallacy? Non sequitur.

But just for the sake of argument let's say that there is no fallacy-free argument connecting any evidence or shared premise to a conclusion that God exists. That does not mean that God does not exist

Correct. But it does mean that believing that a god exists isn't reasonable (justified by reason applied to evidence).

I already told you that there is no logical argument that ends, "therefore, God," because a logical argument cannot be used to prove that God exists.
What that means is that there is no logical argument connecting any evidence or shared premise to a conclusion that God exists.

Isn't that saying the same thing I just quoted? First you say to assume something for the sake of argument, and then you assert it as true yourself.

But that does not mean that there is no evidence. Some people can connect the evidence to God.

It means that there is insufficient evidence to justify a god belief according to the standards of academia, courtrooms, and scientific peer review. And there's that rogue logic again. There is no "some people can do it even if experts in interpreting evidence don't agree." These are prescribed rules of inference exactly as with addition, which transform addends into correct sums if the rules are adhered to without error (arithmetic fallacy if you will). Imagine a group of flawless adders agreeing that the correct answer of an addition problem is such-and-such, and somebody using their own rules disagrees with them. This is a minimally subjective process given computers and interobserver agreement, and is guaranteed to provide correct results, whereas the rogue adder is maximally subjective in his thought and is all but guaranteed to come up with wrong sums.

“Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, "Well, that's not how I choose to think about water."? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn't share those values, the conversation is over. If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?” - Sam Harris

Nobody need learn any of these rules, and they will believe what they will believe, but their beliefs have no value to those who don't care what others believe but why they believe them. If they can't provide fallacy-free argument in support of their belief, then the belief is ignored. This is what you face bringing rogue logic to the process, although I think you don't mind that you convince nobody and aren't believed.

just because a person x cannot connect the evidence to God, that does not mean that the evidence is not connected to God.
It only means that person x cannot connect the evidence to God.

OK, but if that person believes in a god, they do so by faith, not reason.

The evidence that exists, the Messenger of God, is subject to personal opinions. it is evaluated subjectively. If that is useless to you then it is.

You can probably guess my response to that. You know what weight insufficiently justified personal opinions carry for the critical thinker.

Fact and reality are not even remotely the same things.

Yes, they are. One derives from the other. A fact is a linguistic string (sentence, paragraph) that accurately maps a piece of sensible reality. If I say that I live five blocks north and three blocks east of the pier, and a walk from my front door of five blocks south and three blocks west gets me to the pier, then the claim is a fact derived from testing reality and useful for accurately predicting outcomes.

You make this too difficult for yourself with such grandiose and obviously incorrect beliefs. But then, you're an epistemic nihilist - all is illusion, nothing is knowable if everything isn't known, etc..

And as has been pointed out to you by two of us already, that is exactly how you live your life making decisions every day based in facts you extracted empirically, und using them to control outcomes, as in finding a good Italian meal based on prior experience with local Italian restaurants. It's that simple.

You're also testy about it. Those that disagree push your buttons and are dismissively insulted without argument (coming right up):

You are only "deceiving" yourself by continuing to ignore the human cognitive process. It is you that is continually confused.

Thanks for your concern, but I've got this.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Still hung up on the notion that gods must be "sentient" huh?

When you're able to let go of that and embrace the broader diversity of theological ideas embraced by different cultures across the world and throughout history, let us know.

Hey man, define it however you wish.

If you agree the sun is just a ball of nuclear infurnus and choose to call it "god". Good for you. I'll just call it the sun and we'ld be talking about the same thing then.
I can take this pencil and call it a "god" also and whenever I talk about a "god", I'ld just mean a pencil.


Not sure I see the point of such.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Let's clear a few things up, here. Bigfoot, fairies, unicorns, and leprechauns all exist, and there is a mountain of evidence to prove it.

1. They all exist as specific universally recognized ideas. When I post any of the above word-labels on your screen, everyone one of you knows quite precisely what idea the labels are referring to. And the fact that we can discuss in writing them proves it.

2. They all exist as a universally recognized visual image. Not only will the idea of the labeled entity come into all of our minds when I post one of these word-labels, but so will a common image for each of them. As we all know what the entity being referred to looks like.

3. They all exist PHYSICALLY. There are millions of physical objects all around the world that when pointed to and asked "what is that", the reply will be that it's one of the above labeled entities (Bigfoot, fairies, unicorns, or leprechauns). In fact, I could go into my local Dollar Store right now and likely find a couple toy or decorative objects bearing these same labels.

ALL of these idealized entities exist, and there is an enormous mountain of "objective evidence" to prove that they exist. So all of you that are mindlessly repeating the mantra that these entities don't exist because there is no evidence of their existing are completely and objectively wrong. And not only are you wrong, but you are almost certainly going to continue to fight, willfully, to maintain being completely and objectively wrong.

Because when people ask "do fairies exist?", they mean ideas, characters in books or dolls you can buy at the store?
This is disengenous at best and dishonest at worst. And you know it.

So Spiderman also exists. I have a selfie with him at Disneyland Paris to prove it.

So understanding this, the assertion that using these entities as an equivalent 'stand-in' for God because they don't exist and there is no evidence of them existing is just patently false, and quite stupid.

The only stupid thing here, is your dishonest argument above.

And anyone that continues to do this after reading this is now doing so willfully.

The existence of God is not even a legitimate question. Clearly God exists, and has existed universally for all humanity throughout all of human history. And there is an enormous amount of evidence to prove it. The issue, is in the fact that we do not all conceptualize God in the same ways, and so we do not experience God's 'existence' in the same ways. And that drives some of us to presume that other people's 'God entity' does not exist while the others, of course, experience and understand that it does exist.

The debate is not a debate over the existence of God. That's already a given. It's a debate over how we conceive/perceive, and therefor how we experience and understand the God idea. THAT, we do not all agree on.

Yeah, like how olds school fans of Marvel comics don't agree with how Disney movies portray Thor.
Great argument you got there.

 

[SalixIncendium]

So Spiderman also exists. I have a selfie with him at Disneyland Paris to prove it.

@Spiderman is actually a member of the forum.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You can ask for any kind of evidence you want to ask for but that doesn't mean you are going to get it.
God only provides the evidence that He chooses to provide, and it is not any more concrete than the Messengers.

You didn't answer his question. Can't say I'm surprised.

 

[F1fan]

I know what you mean by empirical, objective evidence, but as I said before there is no evidence for God that is tangible, testable, or repeatable.

Yet you have claimed that you KNOW God exists. You want it both ways.

The evidence that exists, the Messenger of God, is subject to personal opinions. It is not subjective evidence but it is evaluated subjectively. If that is useless to you then it is.

There are videos of Bigfoot but all of them are questionable and inconclusive. Yet you believe claims of a God existing by a messenger IS conclusive?

I did not say there is no evidence, I said there is no proof. Evidence is not proof.

Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid: https://www.google.com/search

Evidence is anything that you see, experience, read, or are told that causes you to believe that something is true or has really happened.
Objective evidence definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary

Proof: evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement: https://www.google.com/search

There are many kinds of evidence, and not all evidence is verifiable. Verifiable evidence is proof because it establishes something as a fact.

Fact: something that is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information:
fact

I do not need proof because I have evidence.

I can explain how I arrived at my conclusions, but that doesn't mean that others will recognize what I say as evidenced and reasoned, since all human beings reason in their own particular way, with what is contained in their own mind.

Just because others do not recognize it as evidenced and reasoned doesn't mean it isn't.

There is nothing logical about what you are saying. Everyone reasons differently, and I cannot make you reason the way I do since you do not think with my mind. What is in my mind is wholly different from what is in your mind since I have had a different education and different life experiences. Why would other people think like me? Even other Baha'is do not think like me, although we believe some of the same things.

Thus far, there is no evidence that will convince you, but that doesn't mean there is no evidence. You would have to think about the evidence differently than you do now in order to accept it as evidence.

We have gone over your language use and definitions and how it isn’t accurate.

 

[Quintessence]

Hey man, define it however you wish.

If you agree the sun is just a ball of nuclear infurnus and choose to call it "god". Good for you. I'll just call it the sun and we'ld be talking about the same thing then.
I can take this pencil and call it a "god" also and whenever I talk about a "god", I'ld just mean a pencil.


Not sure I see the point of such.

Of course you don't see the point - why would you see the point in expressing gratitude and thankfulness towards anything in your life? You never celebrate anyone's birthday or do nice things for anyone, that would be silly! Why would you ever experience awe, wonder, and fascination towards anything? You think the world is a massive snorefest not worth of your precious attention! Why would you ever think there are powers and forces in the universe bigger than you and beyond your control? You're the best thing ever and everything bows to your mighty power! The rest of us should all tremble before you, O Mighty Tagliate! You are the one True God! You re the only thing worthy of celebration, the only thing worthy of wonder, the most powerful and maximal of all things! Not that stupid old Sun, without which our planet wouldn't even exist and we wouldn't even be having this discussion - forget that! Only YOU are the most mighty, powerful, worthy of worship and awe and wonder and thankfulness because our existences depend only on the greatest of great power that is YOU.

If the above sounds stupid and ridiculous - and it should - maybe you'll start to get the point. And understand why comparing the gods to bigfoot is asinine.

 

[PureX]

Because when people ask "do fairies exist?", they mean ideas, characters in books or dolls you can buy at the store?
This is disengenous at best and dishonest at worst. And you know it.

if you can't ask your question clearly and precisely, then don't blame others when you get answers that you don't like or can't understand. The fact is that all those entities exist in a number of very well evidenced ways. If you had taken the time to think about the questions you ask, and the claims you make, you would have easily seen this. But instead you want to attack everyone else and blame them for your own lazy mind.

So Spiderman also exists. I have a selfie with him at Disneyland Paris to prove it.

Is that really do difficult for you to understand and accept?

The only stupid thing here, is your dishonest argument above.

Please explain why it's untrue or dishonest besides the fact that it's more precise than your own lazy, biased, presumptions.

Yeah, like how olds school fans of Marvel comics don't agree with how Disney movies portray Thor.
Great argument you got there.

I never mentioned either.