• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Why the burden of proof lies on God ?

danieldemol

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Sorry, I don't play such silly dodgeball games.

You can go ahead and pretend as if such semantic trickery absolves you of any responsability of justifying beliefs / claims, aka burden of proof.

My brain however doesn't work like that.
I personally believe that she doesn't have any responsibility to justify her beliefs/claims unless she wants us to share belief in those claims, which I feel certain she does want even if she denies it. But the rest of us will mostly continue to reject her beliefs except for a few gullible people unless and until she can convincingly explain all the reliable contrary evidence to her beliefs in my view.
 

danieldemol

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Let’s not use the term God but instead reality. Is there possibly another reality outside the human reality? The painting has a painter but not in the same reality yet the painter must exist for the painting to exist. But the painting, the canvas, oils and colours are not in the same dimension as the painter yet the painting itself is proof and evidence of a painter despite the painting not being capable of producing any proof or evidence except its own existence.
I believe you have not properly understood how your analogy relates to reality, since we have experience of painters making paintings and no alternative experience we can call a painting evidence for a painter. Since we have no experience of a human coming into existence without a parent or human cloner we can say that a human is evidence of a parent or a cloning laboratory. But since a God has never been observed producing a human it is a non-sequitur to say that a human is a necessary product of and/or evidence for a God in my view.

That is why although you are welcome to keep your belief in God, your non-sequitur assertion about paintings and gods is unlikely to convince anyone who didn't already have either pre-existing belief in God or a vested interest in believing in God in my opinion.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Sorry, I don't play such silly dodgeball games.

You can go ahead and pretend as if such semantic trickery absolves you of any responsability of justifying beliefs / claims, aka burden of proof.

My brain however doesn't work like that.
The psychology behind this is that you want my beliefs to be clains so you can say that I have the burden of proof, but I have no burden of proof because I am making no claims.

But even when a believer is making claims, that believer has no responsibility for justifying their beliefs to anyone except himself.
The reason for that is because we are only responsible to God for our own beliefs, not for the beliefs of other people, and that is why we are not responsible to prove our beliefs are true to anyone else.

So, on judgment day, God is not going to ask how many people we convinced.

“I have perfected in every one of you My creation, so that the excellence of My handiwork may be fully revealed unto men. It follows, therefore, that every man hath been, and will continue to be, able of himself to appreciate the Beauty of God, the Glorified. Had he not been endowed with such a capacity, how could he be called to account for his failure? ”If, in the Day when all the peoples of the earth will be gathered together, any man should, whilst standing in the presence of God, be asked: “Wherefore hast thou disbelieved in My Beauty and turned away from My Self,” and if such a man should reply and say: “Inasmuch as all men have erred, and none hath been found willing to turn his face to the Truth, I, too, following their example, have grievously failed to recognize the Beauty of the Eternal,” such a plea will, assuredly, be rejected. For the faith of no man can be conditioned by any one except himself.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 143
 
Last edited:

Soandso

ᛋᛏᚨᚾᛞ ᛋᚢᚱᛖ
There is an irrefutable logical necessity for existential origination. And that, by definition, transcends the nature of existence as it is now being expressed. Being cannot logically have occurred from non-being. If we label this transcendent mystery source "God" (as most people do), then logically this God must be.

If this were true, I'd be curious to know how this logical necessity doesn't also apply to the transcendent mystery source. Also, how do we know the mystery source is a thinking being? Who's to say it isn't just a natural occurrence?
 

PureX

Veteran Member
I don’t know why you think there’s something there for me to wrap my head around. You’re speaking in random platitudes, and mixing terms in a way that indicates you don’t understand what you mean yourself.

Of course science doesn’t address purpose - that is a given. This idea of a ‘mystery source’ is just a mash-up of something you haven’t properly understood.
No one understands the source of all that is. That's why it's a mystery. And science will never resolve it because science cannot reach beyond the physical mechanisms, to their source. These aren't "platitudes". They're just facts.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
If this were true, I'd be curious to know how this logical necessity doesn't also apply to the transcendent mystery source.
To be transcendent of existence as we know it, and reason with it, would be to transcend that question. There would be no reason to think it would apply.
Also, how do we know the mystery source is a thinking being?
We don't. That's just an imagined characteristic people like to apply to it.
Who's to say it isn't just a natural occurrence?
I think it's a safe bet that "natural occurance" and "transcendent source" are one and the same.
 

Tomef

Well-Known Member
No one understands the source of all that is. That's why it's a mystery. And science will never resolve it because science cannot reach beyond the physical mechanisms, to their source. These aren't "platitudes". They're just facts.
Now you believe there are facts? Inconsistencies in how you express yourself are one reason why your posts are confusing - not because you are expressing something profound or meaningful, but because you are not expressing yourself clearly. It may be the case that there is some non-physical mechanism involved in the origins of the universe, it may be that there isn’t. Neither of those things is a known fact. Neither is it a fact that science will never resolve the question of where everything originated or comes from - maybe it will, maybe it won’t. So your post is not about facts but rather about some idea you have, poorly expressed, using terms in ways other than according to their meaning.
 

Soandso

ᛋᛏᚨᚾᛞ ᛋᚢᚱᛖ
To be transcendent of existence as we know it, and reason with it, would be to transcend that question. There would be no reason to think it would apply.

So all things must logically abide by this necessity except for this one unexplainable transcendent mystery thing? Eh... That don't sit right with me

We don't. That's just an imagined characteristic people like to apply to it.

Ah ok

I think it's a safe bet that "natural occurance" and "transcendent source" are one and the same.

How is that so different than a big bang due to a totally mundane reason? What's the point of adding the "transcendent" element?
 

PureX

Veteran Member
So all things must logically abide by this necessity except for this one unexplainable transcendent mystery thing?
Once we have transcended "all things" we have transcended the logic that we derive from them. Even our questions run out of road at that point.
Eh... That don't sit right with me
Sure. It's a mystery as profound as it gets. And that means beyond even the reach of our speculations.
How is that so different than a big bang due to a totally mundane reason? What's the point of adding the "transcendent" element?
The problem that "natural causes" can't resolve is the problem of POSSIBILITY. What made ANYTHING that happened, mundane or not, possible? And what made everything that did not happen NOT POSSIBLE? The issue is not causation, it's possibility.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Now you believe there are facts? Inconsistencies in how you express yourself are one reason why your posts are confusing - not because you are expressing something profound or meaningful, but because you are not expressing yourself clearly. It may be the case that there is some non-physical mechanism involved in the origins of the universe, it may be that there isn’t. Neither of those things is a known fact. Neither is it a fact that science will never resolve the question of where everything originated or comes from - maybe it will, maybe it won’t. So your post is not about facts but rather about some idea you have, poorly expressed, using terms in ways other than according to their meaning.
I'm sorry that your mental vision is so darkened by frustrated bias that you can't understand simple words like "fact" and "existence" and "mystery" and so on. But I can't do anything about that. It's not my job to fix you.
 

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
Once we have transcended "all things" we have transcended the logic that we derive from them. Even our questions run out of road at that point.

Sure. It's a mystery as profound as it gets. And that means beyond even the reach of our speculations.

The problem that "natural causes" can't resolve is the problem of POSSIBILITY. What made ANYTHING that happened, mundane or not, possible? And what made everything that did not happen NOT POSSIBLE? The issue is not causation, it's possibility.


Or more precisely, probability. And probabilities are things that we can - with varying degrees of accuracy- assign values to.

Penrose Number
 

Soandso

ᛋᛏᚨᚾᛞ ᛋᚢᚱᛖ
Once we have transcended "all things" we have transcended the logic that we derive from them. Even our questions run out of road at that point.

I'm not sure we can entertain ideas of "transcending all things" without leaving the realm of reality and stepping into the realm of fantasy. What would it even look like for something to "transcend all things?" Seems like an impossible concept that cannot exist such as the concept of "nothingness."

Sure. It's a mystery as profound as it gets. And that means beyond even the reach of our speculations.

You aren't wrong. I do struggle to find what the point is, though

The problem that "natural causes" can't resolve is the problem of POSSIBILITY. What made ANYTHING that happened, mundane or not, possible? And what made everything that did not happen NOT POSSIBLE? The issue is not causation, it's possibility.

Eh... But anything is possible. Reality being just a simulation is as possible as anything else as well. What value is there in entertaining possibilities when there's nothing to ground them, though? Possibilities don't seem worthy of much time and effort if they don't have something of substance to give them credence let alone allowing them to shape or influence our world views, seems to me
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Of course, debate is NOT about the existence of God.
OP debate is about -- Assuming the existence of God. IF God exist, why the burden of proof lies on God ?
Logic and burden of proof is human thing concerning the insecurity, fears and subjective nature of whether God exists or not.

If the 'Source' some call God(s) exists, God is a Universal Source indifferent to human logic attempts to justify the existence or non-existence of Gods).
 

Tomef

Well-Known Member
I'm sorry that your mental vision is so darkened by frustrated bias that you can't understand simple words like "fact" and "existence" and "mystery" and so on. But I can't do anything about that. It's not my job to fix you.
Is this what you actually think?
 

chinu

chinu
Why would proof be necessary?
Some people believe in God 1%
Some people believe in God 25%
Some people believe in God 50%
Some people believe in God 75%
Some people believe in God 99%
But, when believe in God is 100%, the word "believe" cease to exist. Thereafter, the word BELIEVE is replaced with SURE.

Proof is necessary in order to change this BELIEVE into SURE.
 
Top