What would be evidence that God exists?

[TagliatelliMonster]

It does not matter if it can be evaluated or not. In reality, there is either a mug on your desk or not.
It does not matter if it can be evaluated or not. In reality, there is either a God or not.
It does not matter if it can be evaluated or not. In reality, there is either a Messenger of God or not.

It matters, if you care about actually being justified in making those claims.
Of course, if being justified in claims is not relevant to you and you just believe them because you like them or whatever, then sure... then the burden of proof is irrelevant (to you).

One might ask though, what the point would be of doing that.... as that would be the perfect way to end up with false beliefs.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

The logic is perfect. God does not operate according to human standards of evidence, God has His own standards.
It is only logical that an omnipotent/omniscient God would set the standards for evidence, a human would not set them.
The All-Knowing and All-Wise God knows more than any human as to what to offer for evidence.

No. It is logic that is flawed to the very core. Because you can use the exact same argument, word for word, and replace "god" with ANYTHING your imagination can produce (including things incompatible with god(s)), and the merrit remains the exact same.

When an "argument" works just the same for anything - including mutually exclusive things -, then the argument is utterly meaningless and useless.

Here is the difference between atheists and believers:

One cares about actual evidence and the other is fine with gullibility.

Atheists think they know more than God but believers know that God knows more that they do.

That makes no sense.
Atheists don't believe gods are real. So the idea of atheists thinking they know more then a thing that they don't even believe to be real, is utterly nonsensical.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It does show that to me.

It's as circular as it gets. Fallacies are not a pathway to truth.

It is distinguishable to me and to other people.

Wich makes it meaningless as "evidence".

Whatever that means, who said so?

The definition of the word "evidence".

You are completely illogical. No two people see things the same way even within the same religion.

Which is exactly what I would expect if religions are made up and based on personal superstition..........

It would only make sense AFTER you had proven it to yourself.

IOW, you first need to believe (on faith) so that you can then justify your beliefs with... those same beliefs.

There is no such thing as “supposed to be”

Yes there is. As per the definition of the word evidence.

and as long as you cannot shirk that idea of what evidence has to be then there is no hope that you will ever see the evidence for what it IS.

What you describe, is not evidence but rather just more beliefs.

First off, God is not verifiable since God is not in the world, so how could evidence fom God be independently verifiable?

Exactly. By definition of "god", evidence is impossible. Unfalsifiable, unverifiable claims tend to be like that.

The only evidence we CAN verify is evidence that indicates that a Messenger of God us the real deal.

Which, as per your own admission, is impossible.

I never said the evidence is personal evidence; it is evidence that is available publicly for everyone to evaluate, but the evaluation has to personal because you are the person doing the evaluation.

That's personal "evidence" since it's not independent.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. Religious knowledge is not demonstrable to others.

Because it's not knowledge and instead, mere beliefs.

We can share it but if you had ANY logical abilities you would see that does not good for anyone because nobody is going to believe what I do because I shared it since people are stuck in their own beliefs. Ever tried to change a Christian's beliefs?

And you don't see the problem with that?
You literally just said that such beliefs are dogmatic and not necessarily reflecting truth, since they aren't based on real-world independently verifiable evidence.

Yes, I agree: such beliefs are not indicative of truth. When invoking such type of belief, you can believe ANYTHING.

It has to be investigated independently and verified by each individual.

Which can't be done, since it's not independently verifiable.

Believe whatever you want to believe.

No thanks. Instead, I'll believe those things that can be rationally justified with independently verifiable evidence. I'll leave the "i want to believe" to theists and Fox Mulder.

Religion is associated with a God, scientology is not associated with a God so it is not a religion..

Religion doesn't need to be associated with a God.
Buddhism comes to mind.

You do not know that your explanation os correct

It explains all the facts and is confirmed by the predictions that it makes.

If humans have a tendency to be superstitious and invent religions, then that predicts that isolated groups of humans will come up with their own unique religions.
It also predicts that 2 isolated groups of people will NOT come up with the same religion.

The facts match this explanation.

On the other hand, the hypothesis that there IS a god AND that he communicates his "truth" with "messengers", then I would expect the opposite: that in all these isolated groups, there would be very similar religions featuring pretty much the same stories and the same characters. But that is not what we see at all.

So, my explanation matches the facts.
The other explanation does not.

One is supported by all the evidence.
The other is not.

and you do not know that there is no other explanation because you never bothered to listen to any other explanation because you believe you already know the reason.

The problem is that there is nothing tangable to listen to. You, nore other theists, are not offering me verifiable explanations. Instead, all you have are baseless faith assertions, and nonsense like "you first have to believe so that you can justify those beliefs with those same beliefs".

I'm more then willing to listen to verifiable explanations. Got any?

The new religion for this age does explain why there are so many different religions. It explains that and a lot more.

It doesn't explain. It asserts.
These are not the same thing.

It works for you because you have a lack of knowledge that came from God when God sent the last Messenger who explained all of that.

No. It works because it makes testable predictions that check out.
Humans factually, demonstrably have a tendency to be superstitious and they factually, demonstrably invent religions and myths and legends.

That does not prove a single thing

It provides a verifiable and testable explanation for the existance of the many religions.
Seems to me that it doesn't get better then that.

Just because humans can imagine - a faculty given to us by God -- things does not mean everything they imagine is superstition.

But it does explain why there are so many unique and mutually exclusive religions.
As an explanation, it is sufficient for that data.

So for you to argue for another explanation, you need to come up with one that is at least just as verifiable and which accounts for the facts better then this one.

Which is something you have already acknowledged can not be done.

There are rational religious beliefs but you will never know what they are because you have already made up your mind.

Stop projecting.
I actually do have an open mind. But that doesn't mean I'm going to believe anything on bad or no evidence.
It just means that I'm more then willing to review any evidence one might have while being prepared to change my views in light of such evidence, if such evidence makes that necessary.

You cannot know that so to make that claim is an argument from ignorance.

That's not an argument from ignorance.

Argument from ignorance asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true.

Not what I did.
What I actually did, is point out that explanation A is verifiable and makes testable predictions that check and that it accounts for all the facts. Meaning it has good explanatory power.
As opposed to explanation B, which is not verifiable, makes no testable prediction and which does not properly account for all the facts (bare assertions don't count).

Because of this, I go for explanation A as being the most likely.

This is the opposite of argument from ignorance.

Those religions were all correct for the ages and to the peoples to which they were revealed but time marches on and people and their world change so those old religions are no longer pertinent to the age we live in, so they are not correct for this age.

So their gods existed for a while and then they stopped existing because of social development.
Uhu.

Tnx for making my point.

They are incompatible with each other because they all teach different things

And make incompatible claims about the past, the nature of god(s) and other supernatural entities, etc.
They are as incompatible as heliocentrism and geocentrism.

They can't all be right. But they can all be wrong.

and that is because they were revealed in different ages; but that does not matter anymore because there is a new religion for this age which had everything that humanity needs for this age.

so you believe.

 

[shivsomashekhar]

This is easy.

My premise is that Messengers of God are the only real evidence that God exists because they are the evidence that God provides and wants us to look at in order to determine that He exists.

This is your opinion. I could ask ten theists on what constitutes evidence for God and receive ten different answers. Someone on this thread claims the existence of flowers is clear evidence of God. This person is a theist and is contradicting you. What is your take on that?

God does not speak to anyone else directly because

(a) Nobody else could EVER understand God direct communication from God, and
(b) It is totally unnecessary for God to speak to everyone in the world and tell them the same things, because God can tell it all to a Messenger and everyone can get the same information from what He wrote.

Both (a) and (b) are unsubstantiated opinions. You are relying on faulty logic. How do we know God exists? Because the messenger says so. Why should we believe this person? Because he told us he is a messenger of God.

(1) My dad says Santa Claus is real
(2) My Dad loves me and he has no reason to lie

(1) and (2) proves Santa Claus is real.

You are pinning your argument on the credibility of this messenger. He may have been playing a prank on mankind. He may have been delusional. He may have been a charlatan preying on the naive. All of the above are equally probable and can only be dismissed for sentimental reasons.

If this messenger is the only person who can receive God's message, then he is different from us. But how is he different? You will have to prove that he is different from the rest of us through neutral logic. It cannot be based on a statement by the same messenger.

The problem is further compounded by the existence of countless "messengers of God" around the world - each with his own specific flavor of God and his teachings. Your position would require you to accept *every one* of these messengers as genuine - regardless of the fact that they contradict each other.

The rest of your long OP rests on this premise. As this premise is incorrect, we do not need to talk about it.

The fact that atheists cannot trust that the Messenger speaks for God is their own problem, and since they never even bother to check Him out, they will never know.

This is opinion. Atheists generally research multiple religions and have a decent idea of what they are rejecting. At least, atheists who are active on discussion forums.

 

[Mock Turtle]

It is not supposed to be easy to recognize who is a Messenger of God although it is not that difficult to tell who is not one if we know what to watch out for. There is really no way around using a Messenger to communicate to humans because that is the only way God can successfully convey His messages such that humans can understand them. There is no other realistic way to convey a lot of information to everyone in the world.

The test for humans is to determine who the Messenger is. Not everyone will recognize Him, mostly because people have so many veils over their eyes, biases and prejudices. The primary reason most people do not recognize the new Messenger when He comes is because they already have a Messenger they believe in. As for atheists, they just do not like the idea of Messengers.

You can't get around the issue that many just see a different messenger as being THE one - two billion of each for the major religions - and who have been warring (off and on) since the religions were created - as usually happens with most religions. It's just a cop-out to say we should recognise the true one. And I doubt most atheists are concerned with messengers when it is the concept of God or gods that bothers them, since if they don't believe in gods then it automatically follows that messengers are not what they seem.

 

[Left Coast]

That was not the purpose of this thread so that would have to be the topic of another thread. As I recall we discussed having such a thread some time ago, but as I recall you said something that indicated you had lost interest, so I never posted the thread.

I can still start such a thread but I would have to know that there is an interest and I would have to know that it would not be considered proselytizing by staff. I would also have to wait until I get caught up on posts from this thread which are coming at me left and right.

I'm definitely interested in seeing the evidence, and what leads you to the conclusions you've drawn from it. To avoid Rule 8 violations, be sure to say you're describing your beliefs/opinions, and I would phrase it as, "This is what convinces me, and here is why."

 

[ppp]

What's that view?

That my beliefs cannot be justified in a vacuum or an echo chamber.

Just because we cannot locate God that is no proof of anything.

The paucity of evidence for God means that you are unjustified in believing that any such being exists.

...God is by definition unknowable.

It is hard to take that seriously when you keep claiming to know things about God's nature.

 

[ChristineM]

Simple, because God is Spirit, so God cannot speak to humans the way a man can speak to humans.
Also, God cannot write scriptures because God has no hands.

That is precisely why God manifests Himself in the form of a Messenger who is both divine and human and can thus bridge the gap between God and humans.

I will ask this question.
Why do atheists have a problem with God using a Messenger to communicate?

Yet it seems he speaks to loads of people. Or so they say

No hands? Omni everything...
And there are many who say god wrote some of the bible.

If thats what makes you happy. Yet you have just killed the statement in the first paragraph

Why? First you need a god, then you need to show he/she speaks to one person above others. Then you need to explain why god needs a messenger in the first place. Then we have the plethora of religious conmen who make all sorts of claims about sparking to god and hearing gods word. Those are just logical reasons off the top of my head. No doubt there are many more

 

[ChristineM]

Nope, because we cannot know the results of the President BEFORE he becomes President, so all we have are his campaign promises.

By contrast, we can see the results of the Messenger BEFORE we decide to believe in Him because He has already produced the results.

As i said, no comparison.

But i would say some (not we) have faith in the results

 

[ppp]

No. It is logic that is flawed to the very core. Because you can use the exact same argument, word for word, and replace "god" with ANYTHING your imagination can produce (including things incompatible with god(s)), and the merrit remains the exact same.

When an "argument" works just the same for anything - including mutually exclusive things -, then the argument is utterly meaningless and useless.

Abso-frackin-lutely!

 

[columbus]

The hundred-dollar question is how you think you can know that they are not true?

That's easy.
I use the meaning of know that you've used in multiple posts. "Beliefs I hold with great confidence". What I mean by the word is more like "Beliefs I hold because the objective evidence is strong enough for the purpose".
One of those beliefs is "There is no God who sends Messages in human language." I believe that the evidence strongly shows that we limited humans will learn more about The Creator by rigorous study of Creation(science) than by studying the musings of fallible, limited, delusion prone humans.

Baha'i is yet more evidence that I'm correct. Bahais teach that most Messengers aren't capable of delivering an accurate and objectively true message from God. And it's got a pretty good ethical code, given it's 19th century origins.
But still.

Tom

 

[viole]

My premise is that Messengers of God are the only real evidence that God exists because they are the evidence that God provides and wants us to look at in order to determine that He exists.

Well, with that premise, then your conclusion follows. Congratulations, you have provided evidence for God. I like the premise "messengers of God" as premise to show the existence of God. I have seen examples of circular reasoning, but that is a real stunner.

Let me see. My premise is that kryptonite exists, and therefore Superman exists. Cool, I provided evidence for Superman, didn't I?

Ciao

- viole

 

[halbhh]

My premise is that Messengers of God are the only real evidence that God exists because they are the evidence that God provides and wants us to look at in order to determine that He exists.

Allow me to preface this by saying that nobody can prove that a Messenger received communication from God, since nobody can prove that God exists. As I have been saying in this forum for years, all we have is evidence, and evidence is not the same as proof.

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

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

All that said, I want to share part of a conversation I had with an atheist on another forum. I cut parts of it out and am only posting the salient points that support my argument.

His comments are in blue; my comments are in black.

<< Trailblazer >>

Atheist

Trailblazer

<< There is absolutely NO WAY to ever know anything about God without religion. >>
<< There is absolutely NO WAY to ever know anything about God without Messengers of God. >>

<< That is the way it is because God wanted it that way. >>

And what makes you think that "God wanted it that way"? Did he tell you that?

Yes, God did tell me through the Messenger. God does not speak to anyone else directly because (a) Nobody else could EVER understand God direct communication from God, and (b) It is totally unnecessary for God to speak to everyone in the world and tell them the same things, because God can tell it all to a Messenger and everyone can get the same information from what He wrote. The fact that atheists cannot trust that the Messenger speaks for God is their own problem, and since they never even bother to check Him out, they will never know.

<< Yes, God did tell me through the Messenger. >>

How do you know that your "messenger" didn't make it all up?

What evidence did he provide in support of his claims?

I know because there would be no reason for Him to make all that up, no motive, given He got nothing for Himself, no personal gain.

But that is not the main reason I know. I know because of the evidence that supports His claims. The evidence is as follows:

Suppose I wanted to "check out" your "messenger". How would I go about it?

You could check the sources of information on the links above but that is for more in depth study.

Your "evidence" is worse than worthless.

My evidence is worthless to you, but it is not worthless to me. You just demonstrated just how illogical you are.

If we are going to vote for the President, how do we know if he is worthy of being President? How do we know if he will be able to do the job? We investigate the President the same way we would investigate an alleged Messenger of God. We look at his past life, his present life, what he says and how he says it, whether he has kept his promises in the past, and most importantly, we look at his character.

You are the epitome of illogical thinking because you are so biased against the IDEA of a Messenger of God that you cannot think logically at all.

**************************************

I was not implying to this atheist that we can prove that a man was a Messenger of God simply by looking at his past life, his present life, what he says and how he says it, whether he has kept his promises in the past, or by his character. As I said above, nobody can prove that a man was a Messenger of God as a fact, but I now qualify that statement by saying that we can prove it to ourselves, and then we know. How we know is not something other people can understand because they have not gone through the process of proving it to themselves.

There are no shortcuts. If we want to know is a man is a Messenger of God we have to do our own homework. It might require a little homework or a lot of homework; it depends upon our individual requirements. Or we can refuse the homework assignment and forget the whole idea of God. It does not matter to God because God does not need anyone’s belief, but it might matter to us, especially if there is an afterlife, as the Messengers teach.

When we vote for the President do we know unequivocally that he is worthy of being President? Do we know that he will do what he promised to do? No, we do not know that because nobody can predict the future, so we have to put our trust in him. No matter how many facts we have about him, we still have to believe he is the best man for the job, take a chance and vote for him, hoping that will be in our best interest.

That after one meets His instructions about what He requires, that He responds or fulfills His words of a unique nature.
(many though do seem to get this sequence out of sequential order, or simply are unaware that He has actual requirements that aren't merely belonging to a church, etc, and then jump to the wrong conclusion) (I found out to my great surprise that things work as Christ said (and these in a precise way, when all is done just as He said (instead of the more common ways of most churches that don't fit what He said in full))

 

[columbus]

The Lord of the Rings - Wikipedia

About 30 years ago, there was a guy I ran into a few times at social gatherings. I'll call him Bob because I don't actually remember his name anymore. He seemed convinced that he'd personally met Frodo Baggins. Given the chance, he'd talk about their conversations. I believe that Frodo is a fictional character in a work of fantasy fiction(I posted a link above for those unfamiliar)

He claimed that Frodo was a cheerful little dude with an English accent and haunted eyes. Interesting to talk to.

Now, there're several possibilities for why he claimed this.
A) The Lord of the Rings isn't fiction. I'm just not smart or enlightened enough to grasp that truth.
B) He didn't really believe it, but it made him more interesting at parties with Tolkien geeks like myself.
C) Years of chemical abuse had weakened his grip on reality.

Are all of these possibilities equally possible? Are they mutually exclusive?
If you have an opinion, upon what is it based?

Tom

 

[Windwalker]

<< There is absolutely NO WAY to ever know anything about God without religion. >>

Sorry. Have to stop you there, which makes all the rest of your argument about messengers completely fall apart. I had a spontaneous experience of the Divine, all on my own, prior to any religious teachings. I could tell you quite a few things about what that was, without needing religious teachings to draw from, then and now. It was only because of my experience, that I sought out religion hoping they could tell me more. I became rather disenfranchised after a short time. They had a book. I had experience.

BTW, I just answered your thread's question. What would be evidence that God exists? Direct, first hand experience. That.

 

[ppp]

Sorry. Have to stop you there, which makes all the rest of your argument about messengers completely fall apart. I had a spontaneous experience of the Divine, all on my own, prior to any religious teachings. I could tell you quite a few things about what that was, without needing religious teachings to draw from, then and now. It was only because of my experience, that I sought out religion hoping they could tell me more. I became rather disenfranchised after a short time. They had a book. I had experience.

How can one tell the difference between being correctly convinced that one had an experience with the divine, and being mistakenly convinced that one had an experience with the divine?

 

[Windwalker]

How can one tell the difference between being correctly convinced that one had an experience with the divine, and being mistakenly convinced that one had an experience with the divine?

The actual experience itself. It is the experience of the Absolute, and there is no mistaking that. I've doubted every belief I've ever had, but not that the experience was absolutely real, comparable to nothing else in life, except that of Life itself, with the veil of illusion pulled back. It forever changed my life, and it compares directly with those who likewise have had similar Awakening experiences. It set the course for my entire life to try to come Home to that.

This is not a case of interpreting an unusual sensation, wondering if that is this mysterious "god" figure of religion. "Did he send me a sign," sort of interpretive thing. This was as I said, the curtain of Reality laid bare, utterly changing my understanding of reality. It was not predicated by any religious teachings or practices. It just happened.

 

[Trailblazer]

This is easy.
This is your opinion. I could ask ten theists on what constitutes evidence for God and receive ten different answers. Someone on this thread claims the existence of flowers is clear evidence of God. This person is a theist and is contradicting you. What is your take on that?

Did I not say "My premise is that Messengers of God are the only real evidence that God exists because they are the evidence that God provides and wants us to look at in order to determine that He exists."

So this is just MY premise. Even others in my religion believe that there is other evidence for God's existence such as creation, but I do not consider that evidence because creation could be explained in scientific ways. I certainly do not consider flowers or anything in nature as evidence for God because those too could have come into existence without a God.

Both (a) and (b) are unsubstantiated opinions. You are relying on faulty logic. How do we know God exists? Because the messenger says so. Why should we believe this person? Because he told us he is a messenger of God.

I have been down the same road with many atheists, and I have told them hundreds and hundreds of times that I do not believe that God exists "because the Messenger said so." I also do not believe that the Messenger is from God "because He said so" as that would be circular as well as very naive and foolish.

I FIRST had to research the Messenger and look at the evidence that indicates that He was a Messenger, after which time I believed what He wrote about God and everything else He wrote.

You are pinning your argument on the credibility of this messenger. He may have been playing a prank on mankind. He may have been delusional. He may have been a charlatan preying on the naive. All of the above are equally probable and can only be dismissed for sentimental reasons.

This is all about evidence. Having looked at all the evidence that indicates that He was a Messenger of God, I know that he was not a charlatan or delusional.

If this messenger is the only person who can receive God's message, then he is different from us. But how is he different? You will have to prove that he is different from the rest of us through neutral logic. It cannot be based on a statement by the same messenger.

My hat goes off to you because you are the first person to pick up on the fact that a Messenger of God must be different from us in order to receive a communication from God.Moreover, if He was not different, there would be absolutely no reason to believe Him at all.

I cannot prove that He was different; I can just explain how He was different, why all Messengers of God are different from ordinary humans.

Messengers of God, what Baha’is normally refer to as Manifestations of God, possess two stations: one is the physical station pertaining to the world of matter, and the other is the spiritual station, born of the substance of God. In other words, one station is that of a human being, and one, of the Divine Reality. It is because they possess both a human station and a divine station that they can bridge the gap between God and humans and act as *mediators* between God and man.

Every Manifestation of God is a mirror of God, reflecting God’s Self, God’s Beauty, God’s Might and Glory. All other human beings are to be regarded as mirrors capable of reflecting the glory of these Manifestations Who are themselves the Primary Mirrors of the Divine Being,

The Manifestations of God are another order of creation above an ordinary man. They possess a universal divine mind that is different than our minds and that is why God only speaks to them directly, and through Them God communicates to humanity. The following passage describes the nature of a Manifestation of God (Messenger)..

“Unto this subtle, this mysterious and ethereal Being He hath assigned a twofold nature; the physical, pertaining to the world of matter, and the spiritual, which is born of the substance of God Himself. He hath, moreover, conferred upon Him a double station. The first station, which is related to His innermost reality, representeth Him as One Whose voice is the voice of God Himself. To this testifieth the tradition: “Manifold and mysterious is My relationship with God. I am He, Himself, and He is I, Myself, except that I am that I am, and He is that He is.” …. The second station is the human station, exemplified by the following verses: “I am but a man like you.” “Say, praise be to my Lord! Am I more than a man, an apostle?” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 66-67

The problem is further compounded by the existence of countless "messengers of God" around the world - each with his own specific flavor of God and his teachings. Your position would require you to accept *every one* of these messengers as genuine - regardless of the fact that they contradict each other.

No, my position does not require that I accept everyone who claims to be a Messenger of God as a Messenger of God; that would be utterly foolish, because anyone can make such a claim.

In addition, I do not accept any of those so-called Messengers of God because I believe in Baha'u'llah, who wrote that there are no Messengers of God in the world right now. Moreover, I know who the genuine Messengers of God have been throughout history because they were identified in the Baha'i Writings. There might be other unnamed Prophets but they were not universal Manifestations of God: The Three Kinds of Prophets

The rest of your long OP rests on this premise. As this premise is incorrect, we do not need to talk about it.

If you assert that my premise is incorrect without any proof that is an argument from ignorance.

Argument from ignorance asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there may have been an insufficient investigation, and therefore there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four,

1. true
2. false
3. unknown between true or false
4. being unknowable (among the first three).[1]

Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia

Do you really want to go there? I am not asserting that my premise is correct, I am just sating my premise, which is based upon a religious belief that cannot be proven true or false; thus I am not trying to prove it is true with a logical argument.

This is opinion. Atheists generally research multiple religions and have a decent idea of what they are rejecting. At least, atheists who are active on discussion forums.

What I have is a religious belief, not an opinion, and I did not have to research multiple religions before I knew it was the truth. I knew that within the first two weeks because it was obviously to me that it was the truth, I will qualify that by saying that I knew that the religion was true because of its teachings, but I did not really understand what it meant to say that Baha'u'llah was a Manifestation of God until much later. I assumed that God existed back then but assuming is not the same as believing and believing is not the same as knowing.

I have spent countless hours for the last seven years learning more about the Baha'i Faith and Baha'u'llah, as well as learning about other religions. Having dedicated my life to this pursuit of knowledge, I now not only believe that Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God and that God exists, I know. Of course I cannot prove that to anyone else and that is my my responsibility. I am not making a claim, I am just stating my belief. If people want to know what I know then they have to do their own research. All that we accomplish in this life comes about from our own efforts, as Baha'u'llah wrote:

“The incomparable Creator hath created all men from one same substance, and hath exalted their reality above the rest of His creatures. Success or failure, gain or loss, must, therefore, depend upon man’s own exertions. The more he striveth, the greater will be his progress.” Gleanings, pp. 81-82

“Whoso maketh efforts for Us,” he shall enjoy the blessings conferred by the words: “In Our Ways shall We assuredly guide him.”” Gleanings, pp. 266-267

 

[Trailblazer]

You can't get around the issue that many just see a different messenger as being THE one - two billion of each for the major religions - and who have been warring (off and on) since the religions were created - as usually happens with most religions.

And why have the religions been warring off and on? Because they all believe they are right and the other religions are wrong. That is the problem that has been true for thousands of years. Do you think the solution is just to keep going on this way?

It's just a cop-out to say we should recognise the true one.

I never implied that there is only one true Messenger. I believe there have been many true Messengers and many true religions; I just do not believe that the older religions have the message humanity needs in this new age. The only way to ever have permanent peace and unity is to have one religion that everyone adheres to. I do not believe that will, happen for a very long time, but I believe it will happen eventually because it was foreordained by God.

“That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith. This can in no wise be achieved except through the power of a skilled, an all-powerful and inspired Physician. This, verily, is the truth, and all else naught but error.”
The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, p. 91

And I doubt most atheists are concerned with messengers when it is the concept of God or gods that bothers them, since if they don't believe in gods then it automatically follows that messengers are not what they seem.

As I see it, atheists are in a Catch-22, because the evidence for God's existence is the Messengers, so atheists are never going to know that God exists without a Messenger.

 

[Trailblazer]

I'm definitely interested in seeing the evidence, and what leads you to the conclusions you've drawn from it. To avoid Rule 8 violations, be sure to say you're describing your beliefs/opinions, and I would phrase it as, "This is what convinces me, and here is why."

Okay thanks. That should be easy, since there are so many things that have convinced me.
The hard part is responding to all the posts.
It is not really hard, but it takes so much time, which is why I normally only post new threads on a weekend.

I am still playing catch-up because of this thread, but I plan to post the thread for you next weekend, barring any more unforeseen circumstances, if you know what I mean.