Questions for Atheists and Agnostics

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I have verifiable evidence that Baha’u’llah existed and who He was as a person, what He did on his mission, what He wrote, and the religion He established, prophecies that were fulfilled by Him, and predictions He made that came true.

You do?

Was it you or @shunyadragon (or both?) who said that there is - and can be - no verifiable evidence of God?

Verifiable evidence that someone was a “Messenger of God” would also be verifiable evidence of God.

 

[ChristineM]

I do not care if people take me seriously, because I am not trying to convince anyone that my beliefs are true. Baha’u’llah wrote that the faith of no man can be conditioned by anyone except himself. That means that I cannot justify my beliefs to anyone except myself. Everyone has to justify their beliefs to themselves.

In your own words.. I do not care.

You seem to type an awful lot of Baha this and Baha that for one who doesn't care.

Im done with the circular waffle

There is evidence, and that evidence for a Baha’i is everything that surrounds the Revelation of Baha’u’llah. The fact that you do not consider that evidence does not mean it is not evidence. It just means it is not evidence to you. But it is evidence to me and about seven million other people in the world. That does not mean it is proof that God exists because nobody can prove that God exists. Evidence is not proof:

Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid:
Proof: evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement:

When you say evidence I think you mean verifiable evidence which is the same thing as proof, because if something can be verified it is a proven fact. I never claimed to have verifiable evidence that God exists but I did claim to have verifiable evidence that Baha’u’llah existed as well as verifiable evidence of everything that surrounds His life and Mission and His Writings.

Been through all this before we decided you had a very low threshold of evidence. Im not going over it again.

Except of course your new 'no evidence is evidence' ploy. That totally screws with my mind. How you work that out is beyond me.

 

[Trailblazer]

No what I meant was that knowing that God uses Messengers at all is something 'about God' that I would have to know before learning about God from a Messenger. The same goes for God not talking to regular people. I just know that, right? Except that I don't.

I can take your word for it. But then, I have no idea if you are a messenger so I can't trust what you say about God, right? Where does that leave us?

I understand what you are saying, but unfortunately there is no way to know anything about God except through a Messenger, so it is kind of a Catch-22.

In other words, God can only tell you what He does or does not do through a Messenger.

You should not take my word for it. You should read what the Messenger says about it. There is no other way to know anything about God, what God does or what God wants us to do. That is how God communicates to humans.

 

[Trailblazer]

“I have verifiable evidence that Baha’u’llah existed and who He was as a person, what He did on his mission, what He wrote, and the religion He established, prophecies that were fulfilled by Him, and predictions He made that came true.”

You do?

Was it you or @shunyadragon (or both?) who said that there is - and can be - no verifiable evidence of God?

I said that. God Himself cannot be verified to exist (proven to exist).

Verifiable evidence that someone was a “Messenger of God” would also be verifiable evidence of God.

No, because since we were not the ones who got the message, it cannot be proven that He got a message from God. There were witnesses to Him receiving His revelation, but still, they were not the ones who heard from God. That is the part we have to take on faith, after we have verified all of the above.

 

[Trailblazer]

In your own words.. I do not care.
You seem to type an awful lot of Baha this and Baha that for one who doesn't care.
Im done with the circular waffle
Been through all this before we decided you had a very low threshold of evidence. Im not going over it again.
Except of course your new 'no evidence is evidence' ploy. That totally screws with my mind. How you work that out is beyond me.

So I guess we are done here.

 

[ChristineM]

So I guess we are done here.

Thats how it usually goes. Im not one for circular god magic

 

[Audie]

I understand what you are saying, but unfortunately there is no way to know anything about God except through a Messenger, so it is kind of a Catch-22.

In other words, God can only tell you what He does or does not do through a Messenger.

You should not take my word for it. You should read what the Messenger says about it. There is no other way to know anything about God, what God does or what God wants us to do. That is how God communicates to humans.

You really are either just making this up, or, taking
someone else's word for it after they made it up.

You do know that, dont you?

Honestly, the way people "know" the personality,
and the limits on the power of the ominipotent
monster that they have no (zero) (0) way of
knowing that it even exists, is just too ridiculous.

Ever think to stand back a bit, and notice that?

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I explained to Jim why I posted this thread. It was not intended to elicit any debate about who is right and who is wrong. I was just trying to gather information, to get opinions from atheists and agnostics regarding the questions in the OP. I cannot help it if some atheists want to debate with me. I just answer posts as they come in.

I did not post the OP to talk about my beliefs but as usual the thread derailed after a few posts. Here is part of my explanation to Jim:

“I did not want to divulge this before because I thought it would bias the answers I got to my questions, but now that most people have responded I can explain the reason I posted this thread.....

There is an atheist on another forum who insists that if god were real god would want 100% of people in the world to believe in Him. He thinks that anything less than 100% has to be a failure on the part of god to communicate properly. According to him, none of this can be human failure to believe in what god communicated through messengers; it is all god’s fault for communicating improperly. He does not believe humans have free will or that they are responsible for anything. He does not even think criminals are responsible for their behavior although he will admit they have to be put in jail to protect society.

He thinks that the best way god could accomplish the 100% belief would be to communicate directly to everyone, to each and every human being in the world, to all 7.44 billion people. There is absolutely nothing more ridiculous, to think that god owes every person on earth their own personal message, or that god would have to communicate that way to prove he exists. Just because 7% of the population is atheists who reject God’s messengers, God is not obligated to send them a personal message to prove He exists.

He thinks that using Messengers is a very poor method of communication because (a) only 93% of people in the world believe in God, and (b) hardly anyone believes in the “new” Messenger when He appears or for a long time afterwards.

He completely disregards the human element of choice, so he cannot understand why the main reason people do not to believe in the new messenger is because they are attached to their older religions and messengers, and they believe they are the only true religions and messengers; or if they are nonbelievers they do not believe god would have messengers. In his mind, it is all a failure on the part of god to communicate properly because humans cannot fail. He thinks god is omnipotent so god should prove he exists. He also thinks that since god is omnipotent god can show up on earth.

So I posted this thread because I wanted to find out what other atheists and agnostics thought about this. As I expected, when I went back and told him nobody agreed with him, he said he did not care what anyone else thinks, so he asked me why I even bothered to tell him. I told him that there are other atheists on that forum who might be interested in what other atheists think, and that I do not only post to him for him to read what I post.”

Hmm. I dont know where else you could have post it this. RFians see religious debates and figure they need to debate.

But, every agnostic and atheist have their own views and not everyone who doesnt believe in deities share the same views. Most atheist on RF I spoke with have some sort of idea of god even though they say they believe in none. A few dont even know the nature of god but they still can talk about him based on upbringing. Think only one person shares camaderie with me: we know nothin'

Which makes it hard for me to answer god-questions because I dont believe gods, deities, avatars, incarnations, mythological gods, etc exist. Abrahamic god is just popular but not special nonetheless.

But, Id say its probably something you wont get from the guy in the other forum. He has his opinions but, as with theist religions, not everyone shares the same views. Theist: Hindu, Abrahamic, Pagan, and so forth.

Its fine to ask but just be mindful the different answers wont help much without putting us in a box so that our answers reflect he question youre asking.

Your approach sounds counterproductive.

 

[Sir Doom]

I understand what you are saying, but unfortunately there is no way to know anything about God except through a Messenger, so it is kind of a Catch-22.

You are literally telling me something about God without being a messenger right now. It isn't a catch 22, it's a blatant contradiction. You do not even believe it yourself hence you are telling me about God yourself.

In other words, God can only tell you what He does or does not do through a Messenger.

Except the part that you just told me. You are apparently capable of telling me this 'fact' about God without being a messenger.

You should not take my word for it. You should read what the Messenger says about it. There is no other way to know anything about God, what God does or what God wants us to do. That is how God communicates to humans.

But I must take your word that there is a messenger in the first place. Then I am meant to take your word as to who this messenger is. Then I must also take your word that there is no other way. These are all things about God that I must accept BEFORE I ever speak to a messenger.

Your own belief defeats itself.

 

[QuestioningMind]

No, it is not just MY personal belief, it is the personal belief of about seven million people. I am not saying that that proves anything, but the likelihood of it being true is greater than the likelihood that one lone atheist has the truth, especially because he has NO WAY to KNOW anything about the god in question.

We are not talking about Moses or Jesus. We are talking about Baha’u’llah. Everything surrounding His Life and Mission can be VERIFIED. As such, it is not mythology. It is FACT. Non-Baha’is who were historians have even written about these facts.

Those are not MY stories. I guess you are alleging that the prophets in the Bible made up the prophecies. Of course, I do not believe that. Baha’u’llah did not establish those prophecies, they were fulfilled by His Coming and after He came. That is covered in the book entitled Thief in the Night.

Also, the predictions Baha’u’llah made came true, and that in incontrovertible: In this book is a list of 30 things that Baha’u’llah predicted that actually came to pass: The Challenge of Baha'u'llah

What is better about what is recorded in the Bible vs. what this one lone atheist made up? Mind you, I am not saying that all the stories in the Bible are literally true, but again, the chances of it all being false is next to zero. However, the chances of what this atheist OPINION being false is next to 100%, since he bases his OPINION upon nothing except what he calls “the use of reason” and it is only HIS reason he bases everything upon. The other salient point is that his arguments are drop dead illogical. He cannot even understand the simply fallacy he commits when says that most messengers were false, therefore there cannot be a true Messenger of God.

You are absolutely correct. The ONLY part that matters is whether or not the revelation ACTUALLY came from God. Even though it can NEVER be verified then there is a good reason to accept it as true.... That REASON is all the other EVIDENCE that indicates that Baha’u’llah was telling the TRUTH. The other reason is that what Baha’u’llah revealed could well be the Truth from God and you could be rejecting it just because you want verifiable evidence which is impossible to obtain for obvious reasons that make sense if you reason it out.

Do you know the logical fallacy you just committed? I hope you are not going to be as illogical as my atheist friend.

The fact that people can have faith in absolutely ANYTHING, in no way proves that what a person has faith in CANNOT BE the truth. It might be the truth or it might not be the truth.

Certainly, faith ALONE is not a reliable path to the truth, so one would not want base a belief in God or Baha’u’llah on faith alone. One would want good evidence to support one’s faith. Moreover, the evidence comes first, then the faith.

Okay, this is getting boring... you're just repeating the same things over and over. I KNOW that it's a personal belief that you SHARE with 7 million other people... I said as much in my last post. STILL doesn't change the fact that it is your PERSONAL OPINION.

We are not talking about Moses or Jesus. We are talking about Baha’u’llah. Everything surrounding His Life and Mission can be VERIFIED. As such, it is not mythology. It is FACT. Non-Baha’is who were historians have even written about these facts.

AGAIN... we could be talking about SANTA CLAUS and it wouldn't matter. The fact that you can verify some historical facts about this person DOES NOT mean that ANY of the fantastical claims about him being a messenger from god are TRUE. It's just your PERSONAL OPINION that he was. And your personal opinion does NOT qualify as verifiable evidence.

You are absolutely correct. The ONLY part that matters is whether or not the revelation ACTUALLY came from God. Even though it can NEVER be verified then there is a good reason to accept it as true.... That REASON is all the other EVIDENCE that indicates that Baha’u’llah was telling the TRUTH. The other reason is that what Baha’u’llah revealed could well be the Truth from God and you could be rejecting it just because you want verifiable evidence which is impossible to obtain for obvious reasons that make sense if you reason it out.

The fact that it can NEVER BE VERIFIED means that there is NO good reason to accept it as true! All of your evidence that CANNOT be verified is USELESS! Such 'evidence' is nothing more that your PERSONAL OPINION! (yeah, yeah, I KNOW... it's an OPINION that you share with 7 million other people).

The fact that people can have faith in absolutely ANYTHING, in no way proves that what a person has faith in CANNOT BE the truth. It might be the truth or it might not be the truth.

EXACTLY! It MIGHT be true or it might NOT be true. So faith is no more reliable a path to ascertaining the truth as flipping a coin... it MIGHT come up heads or it MIGHT come up tails. Of course I never claimed that faith doesn't have a 50/50 chance of being true... ONLY that it is NOT a reliable path to the truth. Or at least, no more reliable than flipping a coin.

Anyway... unless you have something NEW to say, I think we've beat this dead horse long enough. Enjoy continuing to delude yourself!

 

[Unveiled Artist]

@Trailblazer

1. If god exists, he has the ability to communicate without messengers

2. Messengers are human too.

3. Bahaullah only lived between 1817-1872 (as so researched.) I researched my geno and I have family alive during that time period to which I can know more of. In that respect, time difference doesn't make a difference in hearing god

3. If god exists and the messengers know we should be able today have more messengers like jesus and bahaullah. If they are here, who would believe them?

4. I can write a book predicting future events. If people cares about me enough, theys probably realize what I know is related to what they know of their day. Maybe I'd be a prophet but not a spokesman for god

Solve where gods messengers stopped and god stop talking between 1872 and today. What happened?

5. Between that time how did books became more authority than the people themselves?

 

[LuisDantas]

There is no objective verifiable evidence for atheism.

Of course not, because there is no sense in expecting any. What would that evidence be, even hypothetically?

 

[Audie]

@Trailblazer

1. If god exists, he has the ability to communicate without messengers

2. Messengers are human too.

3. Bahaullah only lived between 1817-1872 (as so researched.) I researched my geno and I have family alive during that time period to which I can know more of. In that respect, time difference doesn't make a difference in hearing god

3. If god exists and the messengers know we should be able today have more messengers like jesus and bahaullah. If they are here, who would believe them?

4. I can write a book predicting future events. If people cares about me enough, theys probably realize what I know is related to what they know of their day. Maybe I'd be a prophet but not a spokesman for god

Solve where gods messengers stopped and god stop talking between 1872 and today. What happened?

5. Between that time how did books became more authority than the people themselves?

Who indeed. Like, people, in their countless thousands,
who chase after "Messengers" the way the have throughout
history and all around the world?

Cults and "prophets" thick as hairs on a dogs back.

Every last one of them a phony.

 

[shunyadragon]

Of course not, because there is no sense in expecting any. What would that evidence be, even hypothetically?

Hypothetically none as with the Existence of God.

 

[shunyadragon]

@Trailblazer

1. If god exists, he has the ability to communicate without messengers.

Assumption of the nature of God from the fallible human perspective.

2. Messengers are human too.

From the Baha'i perspectove true.

3. Bahaullah only lived between 1817-1872 (as so researched.) I researched my geno and I have family alive during that time period to which I can know more of. In that respect, time difference doesn't make a difference in hearing god

True, so what? Again your making assumptions on how God must reveal to humanity the spiritual guidance for human spiritual human evolution,

3. If god exists and the messengers know we should be able today have more messengers like jesus and bahaullah. If they are here, who would believe them?

If God exists God will not conform to your expectations concerning the nature of God and Revelation.

 

[LuisDantas]

Hypothetically none as with the Existence of God.

Except that claims of Its existence would logically have to either gracefully accept refusal or else present extraordinary evidence.

In that respect the two claims are quite asymmetrical.

 

[Koldo]

Broadly speaking, it makes a difference if we believe in God and His message, because then we know the Very Purpose of our existence.

I do not see the point of believing God just to believe in God... Moreover, if we believe that there is a God and we know nothing about God we could be believing in a god of our own imagination, and I do not think that is very beneficial. So the upshot of all this is that God without the Messenger is like going out on the ocean and expecting to get across it with no boat. God is like an ocean that is a complete mystery till He is revealed through His Messenger...

What purpose, other than the one we give to our existence, is relevant ?
I don't see why one should care about that, other than for curiosity's sake. Why do you ?
As I see it, I am the one constantly imbuing my life with meaning through my own actions.

You don’t know any reasons to believe in God or you don’t care about believing in God even if there are reasons to believe in God?

I meant neither. I meant I don't see belief as something to be desired by itself. I see belief as a mere consequence.
Let me put it this way: Belief is a consequence of you being convinced of something.

I agree that it makes sense to want to know whether something is the case. It does not matter if certain things are the case, but I certainly think it matters if God is the case, because there are huge implications if God exists, especially if there are things that God wants us to know.

I also agree that it makes sense to want something to be the case, although it depends upon what that something is. Most people would want God to exist although as I said about that atheist woman I knew, she did not want God to exist, even if God did indeed exist. I suppose people could have various reason for wanting God to exist, such as God watching over them and protecting them.

Why wouldn’t someone what to believe something is the case if it was the case? Why is belief not to be desired?

Would you want to know if God exists? Would you want God to exist if God exists? Would you want to believe that God exists if God exists?

I think it is reasonable to want one's own beliefs to align with truth. In other words, I think it is fine to say: I want to believe in God if God exists. What I find weird is saying: I want to believe in God. Period.

Would I want to know if God exists? Yes.
Would I want God to exist ? Depends on what you mean by the term.
Would I want to believe that God God exists if God exists ? Yes.

She was not an honest person so she was not going to come out and say that it would upset her lie to believe in God, but it was easy to read between the lines.

It would upset her life because she would have to do things she did not want to do, like following the teachings and laws of a religion. Sure, someone can “just believe in God” but what is the point if it does not change one’s life? In short, she was happy with her life the way it was, with no god, or so she thought. I am very intuitive and I knew her pretty well, so I had a sense about me that she thought God probably existed; otherwise she would not have gotten so angry at me for saying so. I mean the other atheists on that forum who really did not believe god existed were not bothered much by my saying so, because they were secure in their non-belief...

I warn you now, my other hat is psychology, a hat I wore a lot longer than my religion hat, so I naturally analyze people by what they say and how they say it. However, I would never pretend to know what is in someone’s heart or mind; I just had an opinion about that woman because we had so much history. She hated me so much she finally got banned from the forum we were on for telling the forum owner what to do, which was to kick me off the forum. She insulted him and told him he did not know how to run his forum and that was the final straw for him. Before that he had been very tolerant, I never would have allowed her to insult people the way she insulted me on my forum. That forum owner is an atheist and we had issues between us because he did not like my religion either, but he was fair most of the time. We finally had a falling out and I left. I tried to apologize to him for my part in it in a private message but he was so angry that he never responded.

This woman was a control freak and she had serious psychological issues and spiritual issues as well. She hated me so much she sent me a private message but I never read it. I had my husband read it and he said he had never seen anyone that hateful in his entire life. The thing is that I never did anything to deserve that. I tried to be her friend but that was impossible because she hated my religion and she hated me. She even followed me to another forum and posted a very long hateful post there because that forum did not have any rules that were enforced. Of course she used a different handle, but I knew it was her. I felt like I was being stalked but I think it is over now, thank God.

If people do not believe in God or even if they do not want to believe in God I have no problem with that because it is none of my business, so why couldn’t she just leave me alone to believe the way I did?

We are talking about a seriously disturbed person. She knew I was a licensed counselor and what state I lived in so she called the health care authority to find out if my license was in good standing because she thought I was practicing without a license. I wasn’t, but she posted on that forum that I was, just to humiliate me. That forum owner really put her in her place that time.

Sorry to ramble on so, but this was not all for naught because this woman is a good example of a reason to believe in God and follow a religion. If she had believed in God and a religion she would not have behaved that way. I am not saying that all religious people follow the teachings of their religion, but if they do they are not hateful and mean to other people, and just because it was only me that she hated and was mean to is no excuse. Decent people do not treat anyone that way, especially when the target did nothing to deserve such treatment. Also, if people really believe in God they have a fear of God and what could happen to them as a result of their actions.

Woah. What a hassle.
I hope everything is alright now.

All that said most atheists I know are moral people, which shows that people do not need to believe in God to be moral. In fact, atheists who live moral lives without hoping for a reward in heaven so we know they are sincere and they really care about other people. I have nothing but good things to say about the atheists I know and I know a lot of atheists. In fact, I have more atheist friends online than friends who are believers. My friends give me a really hard time about my beliefs but I would never judge them for that, especially because I know why they do that; they are ex-Christians and they were hurt badly by Christianity in the past.

Precisely. I cannot not believe God exists even if I want to, so it is a terrible position to be in whenever I wish God did not exist.

I mean belief that God exists and belief in what God said, which is what God revealed through His Messenger, Baha’u’llah.

Ok. I get what you meant now.

 

[shunyadragon]

Except that claims of Its existence would logically have to either gracefully accept refusal or else present extraordinary evidence.

In that respect the two claims are quite asymmetrical.

I take a less biased approach and consider the claims equally, and to any further need to present extraordinary evidence to back up their claims.

The claim of agnosticism would not require extraordinary evidence.

 

[Trailblazer]

In other words, God can only tell you what He does or does not do through a Messenger.

True.

You really are either just making this up, or, takingsomeone else's word for it after they made it up.

You do know that, dont you?

Baha’u’llah did not make anything up. He got a revelation from God. That is what I know.

For whatever reason, atheists have a problem with the “idea” of Messengers of God. I have been posting to atheists for over four years but not one of them has been able to give me one good reason why God would not use a Messenger. Not one atheist has come up with another way God could communicate that would work better for all of humanity. That is because there is no other way.

If atheists do not choose to believe in the Messenger of God then they will never know that God exists or what God wants.

The ominipotent monster that they have no (zero) (0) way ofknowing that it even exists

I have a way of knowing that God exists. I know because Baha’u’llah manifested God.

As for the omnipotent monster, I wish He did not exist. Religious apologetics don’t cut it for me. I believe God exists but I do not have to like Him.

Baha’u’llah was just the mailman who brought God’s mail to humanity. It is not Baha’u’llah’s fault that God built the post office, nor is it Baha’u’llah’s fault how God runs the post office. God is the one responsible for creating this world, which is a storehouse of suffering, more for some people than others. God does not seem to give a rip about suffering of people or animals, but if He does there is no way that we can know it. We are just supposed to believe it because it is written in scriptures. Sorry, but I cannot believe in an All-Loving God. I would never have made a good Christian. I am too logical.

 

[Trailblazer]

Its fine to ask but just be mindful the different answers wont help much without putting us in a box so that our answers reflect he question youre asking.

Your approach sounds counterproductive.

I was not trying to put anyone in a box, quite the contrary. I wanted to know how atheists and agnostics think about god and what god would want and how god would communicate if god existed. The fact that most atheists would never claim to know what god would want or how god would communicate if god existed is what I wanted to know. The answers helped me a lot. It told me what I needed to know. There is only one atheist like the one on the other forum, an atheist who thinks he knows what god would want and what god would do with no way to know that. It is strange at best and insane at worst.