Spiritual Evidence and Proofs of God’s Existence

[loverofhumanity]

There is no such thing as spiritual proofs. Proof can be either empirical observation, as with science, or it can be logic.

That’s only because the science of the love of God has not yet become well known worldwide but in time it will do so.

 

[F1fan]

Theres so many good people in the world as a direct result of modelling their lives on one religion or another.

How can you say their goodness is due to religion and not just them being naturally good? There are bad theists and good atheists, so that is a fly in your ointment.

The proof of the transformative power of religion is undeniable.

It's plenty deniable. What IS undeniable is the lack of evidence to religious claims.

But each religion has a lifespan. Each age had a religion which brought great spiritual and social progress to the world.

That is a dubious claim. It's likely human civilizations would have progressed well if religions weren't invented.

Religions make bad people good if they obey it.

Like the 9-11 hijackers who obeyed God's will to such a degree they were willing to die. That's impressive obedience, don't you think?

 

[Valjean]

What does subjective mean in that case. Does it mean the experience is limited to the person or is it possible the experience can be found in more than one individual. Usually Christians will give credit to the fruit of the Spirit for all believers but gifts can be individual. For instance I can't levitate as some have experienced and I can't fly the way the Buddha did. However the love of God is in me because Jesus is in me and should be in anyone who has received Jesus as Lord and Savior.

It means the experience is personal and not generally observable, measurable, testable, explainable, or falsifiable.
Often psychic experiences like ecstatic states are reproducible in multiple persons, but without additional, empirical evidence they're poor support for ontological claims.

 

[Valjean]

I don't believe anyone has ever taken a poll of Christians to see if the experience is the same. I believe most of us just assume that it is.

Psychologists, neurologists and anthropologists are the principle researchers in this area.

 

[Trimijopulos]

What our minds grasp is not God.

No! God is not a figment of our imagination. God is the product of an ancient joke and there is evidence proving the assertion correct.
The God of gods

We cannot create only reproduce.

No! We are experts in creating nonsense:

All the universe is contained in a matrix of laws it cannot deviate from. We did not initiate these laws. There is a Supreme Intelligent Being otherwise nothing could exist as we did not create ourselves nor nature nor a human friendly environment. Every law has a LawGiver. To say there is no God is to say that cause and effect do not exist. And all existence owes its existence to a Cause which has to be intelligent. For intelligent life cannot come from emptiness and nothingness and we did not create ourselves.

Philosophy constitutes most of the nonsense we can create.

 

[Valjean]

Cause and effect. One obeys the laws of God and observes the effect. We take a law and obey it and then see what the effect is. Here is an example. I’ve tried obeying this with wonderful results but it comes from God not man. Men tell us the opposite that only their religion should be followed but God says not so. This quote is from a new Revelation which came from God.

Before one can observe the laws of God, one has to know what these laws are. Different religions; different laws. How do you choose?

All religions claim obeying the rules is beneficial. One person obeying a rule, with a beneficial result, is hardly statistically significant. It's not confirmatory evidence.

 

[Valjean]

I think that under the influence of the Prophets humanity has progressed and advanced spiritually, socially and even scientifically and materially, for high and noble thoughts, principles and attitudes which religion inspires, leads to the discovery of truths formerly unknown. We have progressed under God’s Watchful Eyes from the family, tribe, city state, state and now approaching the founding of a world civilisation. How on earth did America ever conceive the idea of nationhood in 1776 without help from Islam which founded the first great nation with a constitution. The Constitution of Medina was founded 622AD. Different religions have inspired different qualities in people to advance their own society.

Today, with the internet and international communications, the world is gradually giving birth to a world society. While Muhammad taught love of one's nation as a prerequisite of faith in God, today Baha’u’llah teaches that love of one’s nation is inadequate for this age and only an inclusive love for all humankind can hope to bring about true and lasting peace.

I think under the influence of the prophets, human history has been one long series of wars, strife, exploitation and despotism.
Religion, far from promoting science, progress or technology, has actively suppressed them. It was only when we stopped looking for truth in the scriptures and adopted a secular, scientific investigative modality that human knowledge, technology and prosperity really take off.

America conceived the idea of statehood after a period of benign neglect as Britain squabbled with the French. We became used to managing things independently, so when they came back looking for money to recoup their war expenses, we balked, and began a treasonous insurrection. Few Americans knew anything about any Islamic constitution.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You fail to mention the schools and orphanages established and centres of learning. Baghdad was once the centre of learning of the world and Islam established the earliest universities with degrees.

Why would I have? Why did you? Is that part of an argument for Baha'ism or religion? If so, neither are necessary for any social function.

There will always be opponents of God and truth.

This is a very divisive attitude. You don't have truth. You have your imagination and mistake it for truth, and you frame unbelievers as enemies.

What our minds grasp is not God. It is our imagination.

Agreed. It unexpected to see you write that, though.

One of the purposes of God’s religion is to separate the godly from the ungodly.

This is religion being divisive as well

To the immoral and ungodly the teachings of God are very bitter and they detest them. But to those who love truth they are the choicest of all fruits.

And this.

Humanism? Many of its ideals were around in religion thousands of years before it was founded.

Your religion is unlike humanism, which has its roots in the idea that human beings are the source of physical and moral knowledge using reason, experience, and conscience - not faith or received wisdom in holy books. If some of the principles are the same, that's as insignificant as Genesis getting some of the science right.

Theres so many good people in the world as a direct result of modelling their lives on one religion or another.

I find humanists much more likely to be good people, but then perhaps we don't define good the same way. Yours is according to how pious they are. You equate godly with good. Religion had an ill effect on Mother Teresa, a natural born spiritual genius who was damaged by her faith, which taught her that suffering was good, a very dangerous belief for a woman tasked with running a series of hospices intended to ease the suffering of the dying poor. The church convinced her to send charitable contributions to her hospices to the Vatican treasury instead. She died unhappy and conflicted over her faith.

Religions make bad people good if they obey it.

Why would bad people obey the religion? Because they're afraid of hell? Here's a different opinion:

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. For good people to do evil things, it takes religion." - Nobelist Steven Weinberg

Perhaps he was thinking of Mother Teresa.

 

[icehorse]

It’s like one has food, shelter, clothing and electricity but stating that the sun does not exist although without the sun no life could exist. Being in denial is really very illogical but to each his own.

Hmmm, so if I understand you correctly, you think it's illogical for me to be spiritual, but not believe in god? I feel awe when I look at the stars, or an eagle in flight, or a rainbow. I feel wonderful emotions when I hear of a heroic act. Why do I have to believe in a god again?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The words I keep using in english are "transfer of custody". Do you have something similar to the word "custody" in your home country?

When I purchase something, it is transferred from one person's custody to my custody, from one person's sphere of authority to another person's sphere of authority. It's an amazon delivery, or perhaps, buying groceries. The purchased item started out in one person's domain, and ends up in my domain.

Evidence in a court of law, has to have a documented chain of custody. That chain describes who was responsible for it all throughout it's various travels and transfers. From one person, agency, to the next.

For children, when a parent is unsuitable, the child's care is transferred from one parent to another parent. When a child flies unaccompanied by their parent, they are transferred to the custody of an airline employee during their travel until they reach their destination, where they are transferred into the custody, care, and responsibility of another responsible adult.

Okay, I get it now, I think. An adult women come be in custody of the father, but not the son. Or it is only non-adults as children for females?

 

[SkepticThinker]

The first definition is "to sell". The second defintion is "to transfer"

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The best one can do is use context.

Property is also transferred.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Property is also transferred.

I think it is about authority over females. The trick is that they are not slaves in one understanding, but that a man has authority over a woman. If I am right, it is about rights, autonomy and so on.

 

[We Never Know]

No way. Not even a little.

You don't own her. She isn't your slave. You didn't purchase her. With that ring you both agreed to share life together..... And either one can void the agreement at anytime.(hopefully that doesn't happen).

 

[F1fan]

That’s only because the science of the love of God has not yet become well known worldwide but in time it will do so.

The “science of the love of God”? This sounds like an elaborate hoax. You claim it is “not well known” which suggests it is genuine and available to everyone including critical thinkers. Where is the resource that describes and explains it?

Then you predict it will be known worldwide, based on what model?

My prediction is that this is not true and real, and is another desperate ploy to promote a religious view that fails to meet any rational standard. To my mind it isn’t spiritual to invent falsehoods.

 

[CG Didymus]

This is a very divisive attitude. You don't have truth. You have your imagination and mistake it for truth, and you frame unbelievers as enemies.

As if Baha'is believe in what the other religions believe. They don't. They believe in the Baha'i interpretation of what the other religions supposedly used to believe, but now don't. I really doubt there is one other religion that Baha'i would say that they have The Truth. Because, for a Baha'i, The Truth, means that a person believes in Baha'u'llah and becomes a Baha'i.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

As if Baha'is believe in what the other religions believe. They don't. They believe in the Baha'i interpretation of what the other religions supposedly used to believe, but now don't. I really doubt there is one other religion that Baha'i would say that they have The Truth. Because, for a Baha'i, The Truth, means that a person believes in Baha'u'llah and becomes a Baha'i.

No, The Truth means I have The Truth. Don't you know that? That is how it works. Everybody can say first person as I: No, The Truth means I have The Truth.
That is not just you, that is also me and everybody else.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

That’s only because the science of the love of God has not yet become well known worldwide but in time it will do so.

There is no "science of the love of God."

 

[dybmh]

No doubt in such a list there will be copies and (as with the annoying Living Bible) paraphrases. There will remain substantial scholarship with complete reassessment of each verse with others, however, such as the KJV (remarkable relative to its day and age), Young's Literal Translation 1862, the Standard Version of the 1890s, the RSV 1965, and the NRSV 1989. No doubt there are more. They all say "sell".

So by my criteria your protestations are yet to have a basis in the text. God has no objection to people owning and selling other people.

The point is, you claimed it would be a conspiracy theory to beleive that all those translations would have the same mistake. Unless of course they all come from the same source. The number of the translations, is what you claimed as important, but that volume has been reduced dramatically.

Regardless. My objection is that the word 'sell' does not match the rest of the words. And that all the critics in this thread are ignoring all the words but one.

By that same logic, it is perfectly reasonable to focus on one word "dealt"

Yes. You can sell your daughter IFF she's your property, and if she's not, you can't.

She's not property if she consented.

That is, she's owned, so she already has the legal status of a slave. A favored slave, so the rules appear to be intended to protect her favored status, but she's still a human with an owner.

OK. So let's play this out.

The father sells a slave with conditions to a new owner. The owner does not meet those conditions; therefore, the new owner dealt falsley with HIM the father.

The ONLY way for the owner to have dealt falsely with HER, the daughter, is if she has an agreement with the new owner. Therefore she was not a slave, and is not a slave.

He *dealt* falsely with her means he had a deal with her. There is no other way. That's what it says in the RSV which you have said you respect.

 

[dybmh]

You don't own her. She isn't your slave. You didn't purchase her. With that ring you both agreed to share life together..... And either one can void the agreement at anytime.(hopefully that doesn't happen).

I don't own her even though there was a contract. I mean, a real contract with witnesses and multiple signatures. It was like a business deal, but nope, no slavery involved.

 

[dybmh]

Property is also transferred.

Yup. And so are children. But they're not slaves or property. Sometimes it's useful in law to describe them as property.

If someone accidentally runs over a child in a crosswalk where you are; what happens when the court finds the driver negligent? Who gets the payout for damages? If it's the parents, why do they get anything? They don't own the child? The child is not property?