Bingo, i rest my case
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What would be evidence that God exists?
- Thread starter Trailblazer
- Start date
Bingo, i rest my case
I'd say it is objectively real. Others describe the same things in the same ways, thus leading to the view that there is something more to the reality of it, than it just "being in my head". It's also in others experiences as well.
What I said, that you misinterpreted, was that I am not making claims of some propositional truth. That's putting a wrapper around it, defining it's boundaries, and making a truth claim about that idea. That's not what I am doing, and thus it does not fit you saying I am claiming to be "right", or others "wrong". That only pertains to propositional truths, not descriptions of personal experience.
I tried to use the analogy of tasting an orange, as opposed to theories and beliefs about the taste of oranges. That taste is not just something in one's head, it's also the description of other orange tasters, so it's objectively real, that is there is something more than just one's "imagination".
Yes it does. Everyone else who eats that orange describes various, consistent health benefits with it. That carries weight. Same thing with the experience of love. It too has an objective reality, but it is not something you know is real or get benefits from, if all you have are arguments supporting that it's real. It's nothing until you experience it, other than a dream of something happy, which give a certain degree of comfort while lacking the real thing.
They have meaning to you additionally when you realize it's not just in your head, and others, skeptics let's call them, think you're insane, since they've never personally tasted an orange, living in bland oatmeal land, where exostic and spicy things are unheard of.
I'll put it this way. God is not a Yeti. It is a word to describe the experience of ultimate reality. That is a subjective Taste, not a concept of some strange mysterious creature that alludes detection somehow, and all we have to go with are "signs" of it's activities out in the woods, such as broken branches which fuels speculations about the fantastical. That's what most people seem to imagine it is about, using terms like "right or wrong" about different claims.
Love is a subjective experience, but it is also objectively real.
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Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I'm sorry, but I do not believe it is possible for all the religions to drop their conflicting claims, not even of any if them actually... They are just too attached to what they believe. They certainly are not going to admit that they are wrong because all the Abrahamic religions except the Baha'i Faith believe they are the only ones who are right...
As for religions just evaporating someday, I do not see that happening either because religion is on the rise, not on the decline. Since the year 2000, religion has made resurgence whereas atheism and agnosticism are on the decline.
The growth rates of the Abrahamic religions from 1910-2010 were as follows: Judaism .11%, Christianity 1.32%, Islam 1.97%, and Baha’i Faith 3.54%.
Atheism was growing at a rate of 6.54% from 1910-2010 but dropped to a growth rate of 0.05% from 2000-2010. Agnosticism was growing at a rate of 5.45% from 1910-2010 but dropped to a growth rate of 0.32% from 2000-2010. That demonstrates that both atheism and agnosticism are on the decline but also that there are many more agnostics than atheists.
Statistics from: Growth of religion - Wikipedia
ppp
Well-Known Member
It is an objective fact that one has experiences. The experience event is objective. Experiencing the event is subjective. The explanation for the event is objective.
My taste of an orange is only in my head. You cannot experience it. Maybe one day technology will come along that will allow you to share that experience - which would be neat - but for the time being you cannot.
The explanation for that taste can be my eating of an orange, or a memory of doing so, or a set of chemicals that mimic the taste in my nervous system, or a stroke, etc. All of which are objective events in reality.
Which is your 'Absolute'? The experience, or the explanation for the experience? It cannot be both.
rational experiences
Veteran Member
When males as humans own human thinking applied conditions, beyond natural self, in awareness for natural life, then they lied. Simple fact of explanation for everyone.
If you have to own a place to state, lets heal all wrongs, then you have to first admit you are wrong, as everyone.
Why such a theme as one religion or one group control and belief is imposed, yet everyone everywhere owns that imposition.
All that you have left for any truth is the self, owning a single explanation in a moment of self existence, owning an experience. And of course that experience would be similar to what occurred before for ONE reason only.
Not because of God, but because males choice artificial, science. To forcibly take the mass as owned by ONE in space O the planet and melt it, and then cool it again. And also remove gases out of chemical/mineral bodies. All the first God, the planet. Yet in relativity, no science is with ONE GOD, for one God natural history was a planet O just sitting owning the mass he manipulates in space.
For he quoted about SION that you cannot hold it in a container, for what he discussed was fusion first and then fission. What is fused is not in a container, it is the container.
Then you have males quoting, I first had to think about concepts and so said and God O the planet told me information as I personally researched it. How the explanation of how God told science. Then when science used machine, the machine encoded ground reactive fusion/fission dust changes. And then voice/image were encoded recorded at his own losses. Water cooling and oxygen, and microbes.....lost to cool the increased radiating gas burning of natural mass.
So M and A S S he says is the Holy Mother......spatial cold holding God O the planet stone. Mother of God theme...which has nothing at all to do with him.
Then the science male then quotes, then I HEARD God speaking back to him, in his owned male science voice. Seeing he physically changed the One God in science. Where the concept of a higher self male first was owned naturally, then he converted his life/mind/body and chemicals. In the pyramid/Temple ground fission attack conversion.
Seeing the condition science only belonged to the planet and not to the Immaculate heavenly spirit.
Then you own a male quote as a man, a brother, a life of a clone. DNA first male equal life x the multitude of you. As you converted you knew, you were special, then you quote your brother who you shared equality with was special, but then you began to all change and be sacrificed. Where the detail of I am now the only son of God sacrificed belonged to all male humans, as their own quote.
For you are all living on planet Earth and you all lost the origin of the Father of adult origins of original DNA, that allowed you to be a clone virtually. Which might be where all of the fake UFO information came about. Due to science.
So when you first did not hear any voice, but your own, male human. Your research was of the planet mass and fusion, as sought by you. God then told you by that condition. Then after irradiated, feed back voiced recording about God then told you, being actual HEARING.
The truth of the history of science.
So when science says, from the God stone, and it is all in the past, my machine and my gases taken out of the planet mass. So I am living in the present, as a future from that past...and says I am safe. He learnt he was not. For he pretends that the machine reacting was before his own existence, so how could it hurt him.
Today he tries to infer if I own a machine reaction before life existed, then instead of life existing, I can give the information of the spirit that came from space direct to my machine. Which historically already was the radiation mass that the UFO in spatial cooling sucked out of Planet Earth, which was God information.
For surely by now he must realise he is wrong.
Human claim in spirit life, when I die I still own one higher spirit of my own history, and it is in the eternal. A spirit that had always existed, and never came out of the body, but it lost a mass into creation. The highest spirit of our own self still communicates from that body to our consciousness. Why a huge population in awareness says, I do not just die and exist no more....my spirit the highest part of my history still exists. For we know it does. And it IS NOT in creation.
If you have to own a place to state, lets heal all wrongs, then you have to first admit you are wrong, as everyone.
Why such a theme as one religion or one group control and belief is imposed, yet everyone everywhere owns that imposition.
All that you have left for any truth is the self, owning a single explanation in a moment of self existence, owning an experience. And of course that experience would be similar to what occurred before for ONE reason only.
Not because of God, but because males choice artificial, science. To forcibly take the mass as owned by ONE in space O the planet and melt it, and then cool it again. And also remove gases out of chemical/mineral bodies. All the first God, the planet. Yet in relativity, no science is with ONE GOD, for one God natural history was a planet O just sitting owning the mass he manipulates in space.
For he quoted about SION that you cannot hold it in a container, for what he discussed was fusion first and then fission. What is fused is not in a container, it is the container.
Then you have males quoting, I first had to think about concepts and so said and God O the planet told me information as I personally researched it. How the explanation of how God told science. Then when science used machine, the machine encoded ground reactive fusion/fission dust changes. And then voice/image were encoded recorded at his own losses. Water cooling and oxygen, and microbes.....lost to cool the increased radiating gas burning of natural mass.
So M and A S S he says is the Holy Mother......spatial cold holding God O the planet stone. Mother of God theme...which has nothing at all to do with him.
Then the science male then quotes, then I HEARD God speaking back to him, in his owned male science voice. Seeing he physically changed the One God in science. Where the concept of a higher self male first was owned naturally, then he converted his life/mind/body and chemicals. In the pyramid/Temple ground fission attack conversion.
Seeing the condition science only belonged to the planet and not to the Immaculate heavenly spirit.
Then you own a male quote as a man, a brother, a life of a clone. DNA first male equal life x the multitude of you. As you converted you knew, you were special, then you quote your brother who you shared equality with was special, but then you began to all change and be sacrificed. Where the detail of I am now the only son of God sacrificed belonged to all male humans, as their own quote.
For you are all living on planet Earth and you all lost the origin of the Father of adult origins of original DNA, that allowed you to be a clone virtually. Which might be where all of the fake UFO information came about. Due to science.
So when you first did not hear any voice, but your own, male human. Your research was of the planet mass and fusion, as sought by you. God then told you by that condition. Then after irradiated, feed back voiced recording about God then told you, being actual HEARING.
The truth of the history of science.
So when science says, from the God stone, and it is all in the past, my machine and my gases taken out of the planet mass. So I am living in the present, as a future from that past...and says I am safe. He learnt he was not. For he pretends that the machine reacting was before his own existence, so how could it hurt him.
Today he tries to infer if I own a machine reaction before life existed, then instead of life existing, I can give the information of the spirit that came from space direct to my machine. Which historically already was the radiation mass that the UFO in spatial cooling sucked out of Planet Earth, which was God information.
For surely by now he must realise he is wrong.
Human claim in spirit life, when I die I still own one higher spirit of my own history, and it is in the eternal. A spirit that had always existed, and never came out of the body, but it lost a mass into creation. The highest spirit of our own self still communicates from that body to our consciousness. Why a huge population in awareness says, I do not just die and exist no more....my spirit the highest part of my history still exists. For we know it does. And it IS NOT in creation.
ppp
Well-Known Member
Atheism is not the appropriate indicator. It is merely a subset of the non-religious. The fastest growing relevant group is the Nones.
"Six-in-ten religiously unaffiliated Americans – adults who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – say the questioning of religious teachings is a very important reason for their lack of affiliation. The second-most-common reason is opposition to the positions taken by churches on social and political issues, cited by 49% of respondents (the survey asked about each of the six options separately). Smaller, but still substantial, shares say they dislike religious organizations (41%), don’t believe in God (37%), consider religion irrelevant to them (36%) or dislike religious leaders (34%)."
The ‘nones’ have it: Share of Americans with no religious affiliation growing
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
That is true in America mostly because more and more people are questioning Christianity, but Christianity and Islam are growing in other parts of the world, and the growth if religion accounts for the decline in atheism.
Atheism growing? No, atheism is actually on the decline!
16 March 2016, 07:56
Atheism is not growing despite what atheists may say. Real surveys and statistics say atheism is on the decline worldwide. Sorry atheists but atheism is not on the rise nor is it winning. It's still the minority and a declining one at that.
The Pew Research Center's statistics show that atheism is expected to continue to decline all the way into 2050 with a continued growth of religion. Other research also shows a huge surge in growth for Christianity in China which is currently the world's most "atheist" nation because of the atheist communist government suppressing religion, the research suggests that China will soon become the world's most Christian nation within 15 years.
This is simply history repeating itself: Christianity prospered in Rome back in the ancient era when it was suppressed and it still grew in the militant atheist soviet Russia when it was suppressed there only a century ago with the majority of Russians today now also identifying as Christian. Just goes to show that atheist suppression of religion still doesn't stop religion.
Sources:
The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050
Religiously Unaffiliated
China on course to become 'world's most Christian nation' within 15 years
http://masterrussian.com/russia/facts.htm
Atheism growing? No, atheism is actually on the decline!
McBell
Unbound
Can you cite an article that is not four years old?
I don't see religions going quietly - not in their nature - but neither is the numbers game to be a likely one for the future. Particularly when those nations that become more wealthy, and where freedoms often follow or precede such, then we will see more just dropping out of such beliefs. Unless wars intervene to alter any of this. The people who are becoming more religious are not the ones at the forefront of progress.
ppp
Well-Known Member
Again, you are talking about atheism, and not the non-religious. Do you understand that atheists are subset of the non-religious?
McBell
Unbound
Some more recent than 2016 sources that state the opposite:
ppp
Well-Known Member
She is trying to argue her position that religion is increasing based on a false dichotomy. She is trying to pretend that atheism is equivalent of non-religious.
I'm with you on everything but the last sentence. The explanation for the event is an attempt to be objective, but it is still a subjective undertaking. "What do you think that was", is what can be termed as a "2nd person perspective of a 1st person experience". It is a mental exercise. To attempt to make an objective claim about it, draws from the person's subjective points of view, whether that is the person who experienced it themselves, or that of an outsider looking at it. "Objectivity" is not as cut and dry as we might like it to be.
Yes, I can experience it. I can eat an orange. You can tell me about your experience, and I can compare it with descriptions of mine. Or others can compare both our our descriptions of eating an orange. The fact that there are direct correlations between them, says there is an objectively reality to the taste of oranges in human experience. It's not only in your head, but in the head of everyone else with similar experiences with oranges. Therefore, "Only in you head" is not objectively true.
Yes, your experience is uniquely yours. I can't taste the food you are currently eating. But if I eat what you are eating and we describe the experience identically, then it's not "only in your head". It exists outside your head too.
Yes, the technology is called "sharing".
"The water's great, come on in", allows you to share that experience.Yes. Once you compare your experiences with others about something, it becomes something more than only in your head. So, let's talk about the experience of Ultimate Reality then. Apparently, since there are consistent, and mappable patterns of these types of experiences researchers, following scientific protocols, are able to objectively lay out and compare, this says that there is a type of experience in humans that is consistently seen, removing factors like culture and belief systems. You get the same results across cultures.
There is something "hardwired" in humans that allow that orange to taste the same, or experience Ultimate Reality the same way. We all share the same type of "taste buds", not different types, where one human has the taste buds of a bird, while another has one of a frog. They are human experiences, that is common to all humans. When you compare these like this, it is safe to say it is more than "only in your head". It's in all of our heads.
The experience itself, of course. Any ideas we have about the Absolute, cannot be absolute themselves. They are mental constructs, not actual experience.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I do not see why it would make any difference. Atheism is on the decline and religion is growing, and there are reasons for this.
If you think you can prove otherwise, maybe you can find an article.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, I do not see Christianity or Islam going quietly, and the other religions such as Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism are not bothering anyone so I see no reason why anyone would worry about them.
I agree that the people who are in the older religions are not the ones at the forefront of progress, but the Baha'i Faith is at the forefront of progress, as you would find out if you did a little research into what the Baha'is are doing all over the world... It is pretty awesome, especially given the very small number of Baha'is compared to the other religions.
I believe that eventually the agnostics and atheists will realize that there is a God, and this is based upon what the Bible and the Baha'i Writings say, that everyone will believe in God in the future.
Jeremiah 31:34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
Isaiah 11:9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
“The Day is approaching when God will render the hosts of Truth victorious, and He will purge the whole earth in such wise that within the compass of His knowledge not a single soul shall remain unless he truly believeth in God, worshippeth none other God but Him, boweth down by day and by night in His adoration, and is reckoned among such as are well assured.”
Selections From the Writings of the Báb, pp. 153-154
We can already see it trending in that direction, as the number of atheists on the world are dwindling and will continue to do so. As a Baha'i, what I believe will happen is what was predicted by the Guardian of the Baha'i Faith about 80 years ago... As soon as the Baha'i Faith becomes more prominent the Christians will launch all out attack on the Baha'i Faith, and when the happens the Baha'i Faith will become more well known and people will join it in droves. When agnostics and atheists realize what the Baha'i Faith teaches and how different it is from traditional Christianity, they might be the first to join. The Christians cannot stop any of this from happening because they cannot thwart the Will of God. I wish I could live long enough to see this day, I want nothing more than this.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Yes, I do understand that, but that does not change the fact that religion is growing in most of the world.
The non-religious are only growing in certain countries of Europe and in North America.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
These articles pertain to America and I know that religion has been steadily declining in America. In the 1950s, 95% of Americans were Christian, now only about 65% identify as Christians.
Christianity is the most adhered to religion in the United States, with 65% of polled American adults identifying themselves as Christian in 2019, down from 75% in 2015, 78% in 2012, 81.6% in 2001, and 85% in 1990. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation.
Christianity in the United States - Wikipedia
I see that trend continuing as more and more people drop out of Christianity and become agnostics or atheists. I am very happy about this trend, for my own personal reasons.
#295 Trailblazer, 12 minutes ago
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Baha'is do not interpret everything in the Bible literally, but neither do all Christians and Jews, but that certainly does not mean we do not believe in the Bible.
It is not true that Baha'is only believe parts of the Bible that Baha'ullah refers to but if Baha'u'llah or Abdul-Baha interpreted or referred to something in the Bible we believe what they wrote, as opposed to what Christians might believe, or how they might interpret the Bible.
I am not sure if I ever posted this to you, but it is a very important quote:
“Know assuredly that just as thou firmly believest that the Word of God, exalted be His glory, endureth for ever, thou must, likewise, believe with undoubting faith that its meaning can never be exhausted. They who are its appointed interpreters, they whose hearts are the repositories of its secrets, are, however, the only ones who can comprehend its manifold wisdom. Whoso, while reading the Sacred Scriptures, is tempted to choose therefrom whatever may suit him with which to challenge the authority of the Representative of God among men, is, indeed, as one dead, though to outward seeming he may walk and converse with his neighbors, and share with them their food and their drink.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 175-176
According to Baha'i beliefs, they who are its appointed interpreters, they whose hearts are the repositories of its secrets, are Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha and the Representative of God among men for this age is Baha'u'llah.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
That would make sense if there is no God... Otherwise, the Baha'i explanation, that different people in different cultures and different religions had different conceptions of the one true God, is more plausible.
From a Baha'i viewpoint, It is only their conception of God that is sometimes incorrect, but it is the same God, since there is only one true God, and here is a brief description of that God.
“Regard thou the one true God as One Who is apart from, and immeasurably exalted above, all created things. The whole universe reflecteth His glory, while He is Himself independent of, and transcendeth His creatures. This is the true meaning of Divine unity. He Who is the Eternal Truth is the one Power Who exerciseth undisputed sovereignty over the world of being, Whose image is reflected in the mirror of the entire creation. All existence is dependent upon Him, and from Him is derived the source of the sustenance of all things. This is what is meant by Divine unity; this is its fundamental principle.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 167
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
God did produce Books, in every age and dispensation.He can create a universe, but he can't produce a book?
“That City is none other than the Word of God revealed in every age and dispensation. In the days of Moses it was the Pentateuch; in the days of Jesus, the Gospel; in the days of Muhammad, the Messenger of God, the Qur’án; in this day, the Bayán; and in the Dispensation of Him Whom God will make manifest, His own Book—the Book unto which all the Books of former Dispensations must needs be referred, the Book that standeth amongst them all transcendent and supreme.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 270