Atheists: Would you like to believe in God if there was good evidence for God?

viole said:

I am afraid there is so much evidence that God exists as there is evidence that my garden is infested by invisible fairies.

Ciao

- viole

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I guess you must have a lot of invisible fairies in your garden.

viole said:

You say so. I can say there 34 different gods, with exactly the same evidence.

Ciao

- viole

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You can say whatever you want to. Providing evidence to support it will be another matter.

viole said:

Yes, very convincing. The problem with that is that i can make up any theory, and justify it by using exactly your arguments. In other words: it has zero explanatory power.

So, what you say is not right....it is not even wrong.

Ciao

- viole

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Anyone can make up anything. Providing evidence to support it will be another matter.

wandering peacefully said:

I'm not sure I understand. I thought the entire purpose of religions was to find God (g's) in order to be able to live for eternity. I thought this material life was just a jumping off/returning place which is temporary and if you want the real life which is the eternal one with God, you have to believe one of the religions to be able to achieve that? And believe in God, which ever one and whatever that is?

I thought you hated this life and think it's useless?

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No, that is not it at all. We have to live in this world for a number of years so we have been enjoined by Baha’u’llah to make it a better place for ourselves and the generations to come. This life is preparation of the next life in the spiritual world, so we are supposed to prepare by living a good life here and acquiring spiritual virtues, but we are not supposed to be focusing on the world beyond, and that is one reason Baha’u’llah did not reveal much about it. He said that if we *knew* what the next world was like it would destroy the whole fabric of society because nobody would want to remain in this world.

I am not your *average* Baha’i, so don’t go by what I say or do. I do not like this life that much because I have been faced with so many difficulties throughout life, and in that sense I am not average either. It is not that I have not struggled to make my life better, but some things cannot be changed, my genetic predisposition and life circumstances.

I certainly do not think this life is useless. I just do not find the material world all that attractive or enjoyable, except for nature, animals, and people. Now that I have discovered my real purpose in life, I want to make the rest of my life matter, not just for myself but for other people.

lewisnotmiller said:

Sorry, can't quite fit my answer against your three points.
If there was evidence of God (obviously this is my opinion) I'd believe. Regardless of if I wanted to. Like believing in my coffee table.

Whether I would worship God is a far trickier question, to which I'd say almost certainly not.

Despite his flaws, I might like God if I had evidence he was trying his best, or if I really thought children dying of diseases was part of a grand plan.

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That is a good answer. It makes sense to believe if you have evidence regardless of whether you want to believe.

Liking God is another matter altogether.

So if you came to like God because you had evidence He was doing His best, then would you worship God?

Polymath257 said:

I see, so retreat to solipsism and quantum woo. Not very convincing, I have to say.

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Maybe the problam exists in your unwillingness to use your brain.

Trailblazer said:

That is a good answer. It makes sense to believe if you have evidence regardless of whether you want to believe.

Liking God is another matter altogether.

So if you came to like God because you had evidence He was doing His best, then would you worship God?

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Probably not. I might respect him though.

Trailblazer said:

That is true. Verifiable evidence is proof, and there will never be any proof of God.

There is no verifiable evidence for God but there is evidence. There is no evidence at all for magical pixies. That is the salient difference.

Magical pixies would not have any *real bearing* on our lives, but if God exists, He would have a lot of bearing on our lives.

As Jesus said, some people have eyes to see and ears to hear and others don’t. He was referring to spiritual eyes and ears.

You can claim anything you want to about magical pixies and Hercules but you have no evidence they did anything at all. By contrast, the Holy Bible is evidence that Jesus did a whole heck of a lot. Most people would not deny that. Even people of other religions acknowledge Jesus.

“But in the day of the Manifestation the people with insight see that all the conditions of the Manifestation are miracles, for They are superior to all others, and this alone is an absolute miracle. Recollect that Christ, solitary and alone, without a helper or protector, without armies and legions, and under the greatest oppression, uplifted the standard of God before all the people of the world, and withstood them, and finally conquered all, although outwardly He was crucified. Now this is a veritable miracle which can never be denied. There is no need of any other proof of the truth of Christ.” Some Answered Questions, p. 101

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I didn't write the quotes you attributed to me here.

Trailblazer said:

What attitude should they take?

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That's what we're discussing. I've already given you my position.

There is a real possibility that God exists. The odds are extremely high, but we could calculate the probability and it would be near 100%.

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How do you figure?

You atheists are more fun than a barrel of monkeys. A side benefit of posting to atheists 24/7 is that maybe someday you will become believers, but I am not holding my breath. There is nothing in it for me, I just care about people.

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At this point, I'm not looking to be convinced of a god. However, you mighg be able to convince me that there's something in your belief system worth respecting.

You're failing so far, but I try to hold out hope.

Before I got into religion I was into psychology because I wanted to help people but now I believe the best way to help people is to get them on board the God ship. The danger has always been I would go overboard and become an atheist but if that has not happened yet it probably won’t. I listen to a lot of Christian music to keep my faith up. Baha’is don’t inspire me all that much.

Unless you atheists can show that MY God is not likely, why should I dump Him overboard?

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I'm not asking you to dump your beliefs. I'm also not asking you to persuade me that I should adopt your beliefs.

What I'm trying to do is figure out whether there's even an internal logic to your beliefs and other theistic beliefs. If there is, I haven't seen it yet.

Edit: what I'm also trying to do is correct any misrepresentations or misunderstandings of my own position.

Peter Sawrie said:

Maybe the problam exists in your unwillingness to use your brain.

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Or the fact that I actually understand quantum mechanics. And unless you have actually dealt with self-adjoint operators on a Hilbert space, you don't.

Trailblazer said:

Right. And, there are potentially people that will be *thought* to be messengers from God if a God exists.

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And some that would be thought to be messengers that are not even if God does exist.

But as I said before, the only way to know that God exists is because the Messenger *reveals* God. However, you could go at it from a different angle. You could try presuming that God exists and then look at what the Messenger has to say about God.

But if you were willing to consider the *possibility* that a Messenger spoke for God, you would have to look at ALL the evidence that supports His claim with an open mind, realizing that you have nothing to lose but something to gain.

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And I have trouble even imagining what *could* support such a claim.

“If a man were to declare, ‘There is a lamp in the next room which gives no light’, one hearer might be satisfied with his report, but a wiser man goes into the room to judge for himself, and behold, when he finds the light shining brilliantly in the lamp, he knows the truth!” Paris Talks, p. 103


I really like your list and your conclusions that follow below. Can I share this with the atheists on my forum?[/QUOTE]

Sure, of course.

No, I do not think we have evidence for the existence of God to this degree. We cannot *know* that God is there in any scientific sense and we cannot *know* what God is.

But the default position is not always the *right* position. That is why it is wise to look under every rock.

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But you have already agreed that any evidence for God will be weak. And that must include the evidence that some person is a messenger. So, that default position is considerably strenthened.

What rock would you suggest to look under that would give high enough quality evidence to support a belief in the existence of a God? You claim that there can be evidence someone is a messenger *prior* to there being evidence that there is a God.

I think you would have to understand more about the two *stations* of Messengers of God, at least the concept and what it means to be a Messenger of God. A Messenger of God is not just a human being, because an ordinary human being cannot receive messages from God.

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 others 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 and a divine station that they can 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 ours and that is why God only speaks to them directly and through Them God communicates to humanity.

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OK, now you have to provide evidence for this 'spiritual station'. Why should I believe such a thing exists?

In short, I would *never* believe that anyone claiming to be a Messenger from God unless I thoroughly researched His claim and looked at *all* the evidence that supports it. This is exactly what Baha’u’llah has enjoined us to do.

“Bahá’u’lláh asked no one to accept His statements and His tokens blindly. On the contrary, He put in the very forefront of His teachings emphatic warnings against blind acceptance of authority, and urged all to open their eyes and ears, and use their own judgement, independently and fearlessly, in order to ascertain the truth. He enjoined the fullest investigation and never concealed Himself, offering, as the supreme proofs of His Prophethood, His words and works and their effects in transforming the lives and characters of men.” Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, p. 8

Actually, that book I cited is a very good book, one of the first books about the Baha’i Faith I read. That brings me to another thought. I did not join the Baha’i Faith because of God, I joined because of the teachings. I was not searching for God or a religion, I just stumbled upon it. I did not think much about whether God existed, I just assumed He did, but that had no real meaning to me until about six years ago when I started to read what Baha’u’llah wrote about God. Then a light went off inside my head and I *knew* God existed. That was in June 2014, and I never looked back. I have been on a constant search to know more about God and His significance to my life.

So that’s my little story.

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Hmmm...it seems to me that even having the best 'teachings' is far from being evidence for a God. At best, it shows that someone is wise in some capacities.

Trailblazer said:

There is a real possibility that God exists. The odds are extremely high, but we could calculate the probability and it would be near 100%. Sorry, I could not resist. I chide the nonbelievers on my forum all the time and it is reciprocal.

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Good luck with that one. I'd like to see the calculation.

Unless you atheists can show that MY God is not likely, why should I dump Him overboard?

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If the existence of *any* God is unlikely, then the existence of *your* God is unlikely. Are you interested in the argument that the existence of *any* God is unlikely?

Trailblazer said:

But as I said before, the only way to know that God exists is because the Messenger *reveals* God.

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The ONLY way? I think that's being a little bit arrogant honestly. Doesn't this presume you have tried all ways and this "only" way is the one that works alone? But we know we cannot possibly even live long enough to try all ways, so therefore this appears to be on the proud side of things, not the humble side of things. In an infinite amount of possibilities, there may not be an only way.......Who's to say there aren't many roads to Rome instead of only one way? The same with heaven, God, whatever......

ToGodorNottoGod said:

The ONLY way? I think that's being a little bit arrogant honestly. Doesn't this presume you have tried all ways and this "only" way is the one that works alone? But we know we cannot possibly even live long enough to try all ways, so therefore this appears to be on the proud side of things, not the humble side of things. In an infinite amount of possibilities, there may not be an only way.......Who's to say there aren't many roads to Rome instead of only one way? The same with heaven, God, whatever......

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I did not mean to say that as I was in a hurry, as usual.
Do you see how many posts I have to answer, and they are not Only on This thread?

Of course there are other Ways that people can know that God exists....
What I MEANT to say is that Messengers of God are the Only Way we can know anything about God's Will for us, and they are the best way to know God's Attributes, although we can know God's Attributes in other ways, since they are reflected in Creation.
Now, in a hurry again, off to work, I will catch you later...

But speaking of Reality and Truth, there are many roads to Rome:

“The first principle Baha’u’llah urged was the independent investigation of truth. “Each individual,” He said, “is following the faith of his ancestors who themselves are lost in the maze of tradition. Reality is steeped in dogmas and doctrines. If each investigate for himself, he will find that Reality is one; does not admit of multiplicity; is not divisible. All will find the same foundation and all will be at peace.” – Abdu’l-Baha, Star of the West, Volume 3, p. 5.

“What does it mean to investigate reality? It means that man must forget all hearsay and examine truth himself, for he does not know whether statements he hears are in accordance with reality or not. Wherever he finds truth or reality, he must hold to it, forsaking, discarding all else; for outside of reality there is naught but superstition and imagination.” – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 62.

QuestioningMind said:

Again, unless you have evidence of someone magically starting to exist without being the product of two human's procreating, then NO it is NOT just a hearsay claim. My understanding of basic biology tells me that I MUST be the product of human procreation.

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It is incorrect, I mentioned no magic, nothing of that sort.
When one/you first gained consciousness, you never knew as to how you came to exist except from the hearsay, you had no personal knowledge from your own observation that you were born of two specific individuals/ parents except from the hearsay. When they procreated you did not observe them to do that. Right, please?

Regards

paarsurrey said:

It is incorrect, I mentioned no magic, nothing of that sort.
When one/you first gained consciousness, you never knew as to how you came to exist except from the hearsay, you had no personal knowledge from your own observation that you were born of two specific individuals/ parents except from the hearsay. When they procreated you did not observe them to do that. Right, please?

Regards

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So? Originally I was ignorant. Now I am less so. I don't need to observe my parent having sex to know that this is how new people are formed. And, for the most part, there is no good reason to doubt the statements that they were the ones involved. Clearly *someone* was.

Trailblazer said:

I guess you must have a lot of invisible fairies in your garden.

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According to your standards of evidence? Sure.

Ciao

- viole

Trailblazer said:

You can say whatever you want to. Providing evidence to support it will be another matter.

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The same is valid for you.

Ciao

- viole

paarsurrey said:

It is incorrect, I mentioned no magic, nothing of that sort.
When one/you first gained consciousness, you never knew as to how you came to exist except from the hearsay, you had no personal knowledge from your own observation that you were born of two specific individuals/ parents except from the hearsay. When they procreated you did not observe them to do that. Right, please?

Regards

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Do you understand how human biology works? If you do then you realize that your questions are really quite ignorant and childish. One does not need to witness the act of procreation to know that it occurred.

QuestioningMind said:

Do you understand how human biology works? If you do then you realize that your questions are really quite ignorant and childish. One does not need to witness the act of procreation to know that it occurred.

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All sciences and other sources of knowledge one comes to know at a later stage, when one gets consciousness for the first time one knows nothing of them. The first source is hearsay. Right, please?

Regards