Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I sure hope those changes are good changes.
My life is about the same boring life although the last year has seen some major sorrow and grief.
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Atheists what should God do to make you believe in ?
- Thread starter chinu
- Start date
My life is about the same boring life although the last year has seen some major sorrow and grief.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Ubetcha.
That was also what I found although I was not even searching for God or a religion at that time. Also, unlike you, I had not been raised in any religion so I had nothing to compare the Baha'i Faith to. I just recognized it as the Truth when I read about it and two weeks later I was a Baha'i. Now, over 50 years later, I am still a Baha'i. No other religion makes sense to me as a standalone.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
So in effect you disregard the possibility of an existing but unknown God,
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
The way God is usually defined is that he/ she is very powerful. I reject that.
God would have to be more natural, and very limited to exist.
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
I sure hope those changes are good changes.
My life is about the same boring life although the last year has seen some major sorrow and grief.
Some good, and some bad. I lost my mother. So I have sorrow and grief as well.
So I hope God is extra special in the hereafter.
. Something more than a intellectual curiosity. I sometimes hope in things I have no belief in and no knowledge of.Sorry bout your troubles
!!
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
So sorry for your loss. I lost my mother in 2007.
I have had some good and some bad too. We have lost six of our cats in the last year. We adopted three cats during this time, but we are still down by three cats.
I am not sure how much more grief I can take. I just lost some great tenants so am on the verge of re-renting that house but my other long-term tenant is 12,000 behind on rent.
I do not hope, I know that there is an afterlife and that you will see your mother again, but I am not as sure I will ever see my cats again even if they do continue to exist in the spiritual world.So I hope God is extra special in the hereafter.
Likewise.Sorry bout your troubles
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
So here is your axiomatic system and the limitations of it:
We need only one axiom, i.e. that we can trust our experiences to be about objective reality, or what you call real. From one axiom everything else follows with reason, logic and evidence.
Well, it doesn't. You need more than just this one axiom. You need to test how reality works and if there are limitations to reason, logic and evidence. That is where your system fails and where I do it differently.
Your argument is that because we share the same axiom as per above, we do everything else the same way with only reason, logic and evidence. That is what you don't understand. You take your subjective understanding of how reason, logic and evidence works for you for the everyday world and then you claim we must be doing everything in same manner, because we share the same axiom.
You don't understand the everyday world is a combination of science, abstract reasoning(logic), social interactions and personal values and how we can combine those with some variation. As an invalid deduction, you in effect do the following:
Premise/axiom: The objective reality is real.
Therefore everything in practice follows form that with reason, logic and evidence.
You in effect don't understand that reason, logic and evidence are not axiomatic, but can be tested and shown to have limits. That is where you fail as a skeptic.
Regards
Mikkel
No. Before our senses can inform us of anything there must exist a world external to the self, assumption 1. And before we can make sense of that world, reason must be a valid tool, assumption 3. Assumption 2 on its own won't cut it.
From the very start I've said I had three assumptions.
That's what the physical sciences do, along with medicine, psychology and anthropology and perhaps some others.
The answer to what you ask will vary depending on the question. For example, it's very common with humans for emotion to override or qualify reason; indeed it's very common not to employ reason at all, as Qanon shows. Logic tends to be analytical, rather than synthetic. And more generally, there are no absolute statements except this one. Truth varies from time to time. It was once true that the earth was flat, which will serve for an example of how truth, while not absolute, is retrospective.
You've asserted but never defined that failure, possibly because you don't pay enough attention to the qualifications I keep mentioning.
I didn't say that. I pointed out that when you were attacking my assumptions, you were in that very act employing the assumptions you were attacking,
That is not what I claimed. Instead I pointed out that your deeds contradicted your words. I said nothing about having to do everything in the same manner.
I hesitate to brag, but my efforts at being a dad and a grandpa haven't been all that unsuccessful; and my politics are about decency, respect and inclusion.
Tick. That's the definition of 'real'.
See above. For example, as my assumption has always read, reason is a tool. It has no purposes of its own. And one of the questions is, "Is statement X an accurate statement about objective reality?" (a question that as a rule can be answered more precisely in the physical than the social sciences)
That reason is a valid tool must be an assumption, since any attempt to justify it convincingly can't be done without assuming it already is.
Give some illustrations of this claim, please.
I'm not a Skeptic in the Old Greek meaning of the word, I'm skeptical. In Old Greek terms, I'm closest to a Stoic.
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Christians believe God did show up. He was Jesus Christ. He performed miracles to prove Himself.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Would totally depend on which god.
Also, if it concerns an omniscient god, then that god would know exactly what it would take to convince me.
Sand Dancer
Crazy Cat Lady
Maybe show him/herself like he/she did in religious texts.
Sand Dancer
Crazy Cat Lady
If it were objective, that wouldn't be so bad.
Sand Dancer
Crazy Cat Lady
But Yahweh and Jesus had such different values. Jesus was benevolent.
According to my beliefs no. Yahweh gave them the law of Moses because they couldn't understand. They sacrificed animals without blemish. Jesus was a sacrifice without blemish. He made it so we all will be immortal and we can each be exalted.
Sand Dancer
Crazy Cat Lady
Yahweh is violent, narcissistic, jealous and vindictive. Jesus was for the poor, sick and marginalized, and put people before dogma. So very different. The Old Testament and New Testament don't really even go together, IMO.
Dave Watchman
Active Member
I think it's nice that you capitalize Yahweh, Jesus and even Old and New Testament.
Much respect.
But I think that the pre-incarnate Jesus WAS the Yahweh of the Old Testament.
He and the Father are One.
If you're seen Jesus, you've seen the Father.
Paul talking to the Old Time Jews:
"For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.
Remember Moses and the Red Sea?
That Rock was Christ.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I do not believe that Jesus is God incarnate but I believe that Jesus and God are one.
Jesus was the Son of God, but the Son is not the Father, even though the Father is in the Son.
Jesus was a clear mirror, and God became visible in the mirror. This is why Jesus said, “The Father is in the Son” (John 14:11, John 17:21) meaning that God is visible and manifest in Jesus.
“I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) means that the Manifestation of God, in this case Jesus, and God are one and the same; so whatever pertains to Jesus, all His acts and doings is identical with the Will of God Himself.
1 Timothy 3:16 King James Version (KJV)
16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
That is why Jesus said to the Jews:
John 10:25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.
John 10:37-38 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.
Please note that Jesus differentiated Himself from the Father in those verses above. That alone should tell you that Jesus is not God.
Dave Watchman
Active Member
I pretty much agree with how you have this written.
No doubt we will learn more when we see more clearly.
Jesus is for sure a separate entity along side the Father.
I've speculated that before time began, the Father duplicated, or cloned Himself.
All the life, all the energy that existed from infinity past was contained in he Father.
And He reproduced Himself in His only begotten Son.
The main difference between the Two, One not having a birthday and an experience of an infinite past.
Having realized what had taken place, the Son bowed down to the Father, giving thanks, and remains the Son with whom we are all well pleased.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I would say that God manifested Himself in Jesus. God did not reproduce Himself because there is and always has been only one God. So what we see in Jesus is all the attributes of God that can be manifested in a man, but Jesus cannot be God because God has attributes that are unique to God
The attributes that are unique to God: Only God is Eternal, Unchanging, Impassable, Infinite, Omnipresent, All-Powerful, All-Knowing, All-Wise, Self-Existent, Self-Sufficient, Sovereign, and Immaterial, so nobody except God can have those attributes.
As a Manifestation of God, Jesus manifested all of God's attributes to a superlative degree, except the unique ones noted above.
A few of those attributes that both Jesus and God possess are Benevolence, Loving, Gracious, Merciful, Just, Righteous, Forgiving, Patient. Humans can also manifest these attributes to a greater of lesser degree, depending upon how spiritual they are. But as the Son of Man, Jesus was a perfect human, so Jesus perfectly reflected these attributes, to a degree that no other human ever can.
chinu
chinu
When God told you that he already showed him/herself in religious texts ?