about god non exist

[syo]

Maybe.... and MAYBE the Hindu Vedas are testimony. Just because it's written in a book and CLAIMS to be testimony does not make it so. For some silly reason you've decided that the myths written in the bible are REAL and the myths written down by all other religions are FAKE. And I suspect that the only reason you believe this is because some fallible human being TOLD you the bible is true and all of the others are fake.

actually i think all religious texts hold elements of truth, not just the bible.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The Qur'an has an answer for this:

Surah Al-An'am 6:111


"Even if We sent down angels to them, and the dead spoke to them, and We gathered together everything in front of them right before their eyes, they would still not have iman unless Allah willed. The truth is that most of them are ignorant."

Similarly

"And even if We had sent down to you, [O Muhammad], a written scripture on a page and they touched it with their hands, the disbelievers would say, "This is not but obvious magic."

"And they say, "Why was there not sent down to him an angel?" But if We had sent down an angel, the matter would have been decided; then they would not be reprieved."

In other words people would disbelieve regardless if they saw metaphysical beings.

So then you're saying that people who don't believe in gods because of the lack of evidence for them would also be unbelievers even if there were such evidence?

Is that a good argument?

• "We're not two sides of the same coin, and you don't get to put your unreason up on the same shelf with my reason. Your stuff has to go over there, on the shelf with Zeus and Thor and the Kraken, with the stuff that is not evidence-based, stuff that religious people never change their mind about, no matter what happens ... I'm open to anything for which there's evidence. Show me a god, and I will believe in him. If Jesus Christ comes down from the sky during the halftime show of this Sunday's Super Bowl and turns all the nachos into loaves and fishes, well, I'll think ... "Oh, look at that. I was wrong. There he is. My bad. Praise the Lord." - Bill Maher

Yours (or the Qur'an's) argument is precisely the kind of argument that we would expect in a godless universe with religions claiming that a god exists.

The other arguments that we would expect to see on such moons and planets would be that skeptics hate God, want to sin and avoid accountability, and prefer to make ourselves gods.

Do you doubt that in a godless universe, that on every moon or planet with sufficiently intelligent life to invent religions, that the same arguments are not being offered?

 

[Epic Beard Man]

So then you're saying that people who don't believe in gods because of the lack of evidence for them would also be unbelievers even if there were such evidence?

Is that a good argument?

• "We're not two sides of the same coin, and you don't get to put your unreason up on the same shelf with my reason. Your stuff has to go over there, on the shelf with Zeus and Thor and the Kraken, with the stuff that is not evidence-based, stuff that religious people never change their mind about, no matter what happens ... I'm open to anything for which there's evidence. Show me a god, and I will believe in him. If Jesus Christ comes down from the sky during the halftime show of this Sunday's Super Bowl and turns all the nachos into loaves and fishes, well, I'll think ... "Oh, look at that. I was wrong. There he is. My bad. Praise the Lord." - Bill Maher

Yours (or the Qur'an's) argument is precisely the kind of argument that we would expect in a godless universe with religions claiming that a god exists.

The other arguments that we would expect to see on such moons and planets would be that skeptics hate God, want to sin and avoid accountability, and prefer to make ourselves gods.

Do you doubt that in a godless universe, that on every moon or planet with sufficiently intelligent life to invent religions, that the same arguments are not being offered?

No the Qur'an is saying even if God showed you angels, dead people talking to you etcetera there would still people who disbelieve. We would in this world amount such an odd experience as either mass hysteria, or something drug induced or we would assume it would be aliens or some other anomaly.

In this world where psychedelic drugs are used I would assume this would be a partial reason. My argument as well as the Qur'an's argument, is that we would still be skeptical which is an aspect of unbelief. It may not apply to you. But I bet there are a great many people that would assume an angelic being would be an alien of some sort not some being from God.

If you look at the stories in various scriptures humans have always been afraid and the beings that appeared had to announce themselves. I think in this technological age we would be more skeptical because those experiences are way less commonly experienced especially in secular countries.

 

[Windwalker]

Actually, I believe that atheists would immediately accept God, once they saw the evidence. Their minds are not cluttered with religious baggage, and so acceptance is straightforward.

This post is leaving my mind in a whirl. There are a great deal of assumptions here that I don't think would hold up to scrutiny. First off, if it is a God that can be verified using scientific tools at that level, that's really not God, now is it? That sounds more like a Yeti, or the Loch Ness Monster (unless you do understand God on mythological level like these creatures, in which case we could find evidence such as a footprint or something). Secondly, many atheists are former believers, so there is in fact a ton of baggage. Ex Christians have a great deal of clutter from their religious pasts. Those atheists who just never were a believer from early on in life, if they were presented with evidence, like the discovery of Bigfoot, the result would not be a "conversion", but just simply accepting an intriguing novelty, like the discovery of an Extraterrestrial.

Lastly, as mentioned, conversion to religious thought has nothing to do with rational arguments and evidence. It is a matter of Faith, and as such it operates at the non-rational level, like love. You don't fall in love with someone because you were presented with a list of logical reasons as well as evidences the other person exists. Life does not work this way.

I'll be interested in hearing your response to this.

 

[QuestioningMind]

actually i think all religious texts hold elements of truth, not just the bible.

I agree that every religious text I've ever read contained a few elemental truths. But they're also all filled with obvious myths, like someone being god or the son of god and performing miraculous feats.

 

[Jumi]

Actually, I believe that atheists would immediately accept God, once they saw the evidence. Their minds are not cluttered with religious baggage, and so acceptance is straightforward.
Unfortunately, the things you mention are not evidence.

This is correct.

Many religions tell stories of what is supposedly the truth, but objectively little proof is given. All is left to choice, often taken by parents or ancestors. Smaller are religions that focus on personal quest for ultimate truth and those often sound like madness to outsiders, both religious and irreligious.

What religion could offer objective proof of their God would soon have the large majority of western atheists as members...

 

[Straw Dog]

Even if a "God" did exist, the simple matter of her existence shouldn't necessitate unquestioning devotion. Any way that you spin monotheism specifically still results in a "soft fascism" at best. An authoritarian dictatorship predicated on "love" is still inhuman. You either believe in freedom or you don't. Do you enjoy being a slave??

 

[Jumi]

Even if a "God" did exist, the simple matter of her existence shouldn't necessitate unquestioning devotion. Any way that you spin monotheism specifically still results in a "soft fascism" at best. An authoritarian dictatorship predicated on "love" is still inhuman.

I disagree. You are thinking of some religion or religions that require unquestioning devotion and making them be the whole picture.

 

[Straw Dog]

I disagree. You are thinking of some religion or religions that require unquestioning devotion and making them be the whole picture.

That's not what I'm thinking at all. This manner of questioning isn't exclusive to religions, by any means. If you have a question without any means or methods of ascertaining a clear solution, then you have a question that either doesn't want to be answered or cannot be answered because the formulation of the question itself is nonsensical. Mystery is always sexy, until we go about the business of actually solving it, then it just becomes knowledge.

 

[Jumi]

That's not what I'm thinking at all. This manner of questioning isn't exclusive to religions, by any means. If you have a question without any means or methods of ascertaining a clear solution, then you have a question that either doesn't want to be answered or cannot be answered because the formulation of the question itself is nonsensical. Mystery is always sexy, until we go about the business of actually solving it, then it just becomes knowledge.

What question or what type of question are you thinking about?

 

[Sanzbir]

atheists say they don't believe in god because he isn't observable. but 2000 years ago god was very observable, he came as jesus. jesus was god on earth. isn't that enough of evidence? jesus didn't even have a flaw. and what about the miracles he performed? and his empty grave? isn't jesus the proof of god?

So my own Faith teaches not to use miracles as a proof of things to others for one good reason: Miracles are only proof to those that witness them.

That being said, there's still plenty of proofs you can find for yourself. But miracles you did not personally witness are not really a good proof.

 

[Jumi]

So my own Faith teaches not to use miracles as a proof of things to others for one good reason: Miracles are only proof to those that witness them.

Agreed. They're not well enough documented to believe them without a reason.

That being said, there's still plenty of proofs you can find for yourself.

What could those be outside of personally experiencing God?

 

[Sanzbir]

Any way that you spin monotheism specifically still results in a "soft fascism" at best.

Any way?? Challenge accepted.

What if the god is an extreme libertarian?? Like it creates the world and then thinks it isn't its place to interfere with how things go out of some extreme sense of moral code it has towards non-interference.

 

[Sanzbir]

"We're not two sides of the same coin, and you don't get to put your unreason up on the same shelf with my reason. Your stuff has to go over there, on the shelf with Zeus and Thor and the Kraken, with the stuff that is not evidence-based, stuff that religious people never change their mind about, no matter what happens ..." - Bill Maher

I'm in a really nitpicky devil's advocate mood today.

The kraken was proven, though. The giant squid is a real creature.

 

[Sanzbir]

What could those be outside of personally experiencing God?

That's a pretty good one right there.

 

[Jumi]

That's a pretty good one right there.

One that it seems very few really have access to.

 

[sealchan]

atheists say they don't believe in god because he isn't observable. but 2000 years ago god was very observable, he came as jesus. jesus was god on earth. isn't that enough of evidence? jesus didn't even have a flaw. and what about the miracles he performed? and his empty grave? isn't jesus the proof of god?

Scientists can't reasonably accept the Christian story and reject the stories of other religions. Do you admit the equal validity of the reporting of miracles from the other major religions?

 

[syo]

Scientists can't reasonably accept the Christian story and reject the stories of other religions. Do you admit the equal validity of the reporting of miracles from the other major religions?

yes, of course. all religions have elements of truth.

 

[Sanzbir]

One that it seems very few really have access to.

If you say so.

 

[sealchan]

yes, of course. all religions have elements of truth.

Given that the four gospels are our main sources of knowledge about Jesus how to you understand that the gospels appeared to use similar sources as if the authors used sources and not their own direct knowledge of Jesus which they presumably had? Also how do you understand the conflicts between the accounts?

These aspects of the gospels seem to me to indicate that most of what we know about Jesus was the result of the creative efforts of the gospel authors based on second hand accounts which themselves may have been creative efforts.

Consider also the hundreds of years old story of the Buddha as well as the contemporaneous story of Apollonius of Tyana. To what extent should we consider the account of the life of Jesus as based in history and to what extent mythic literature?

The author of the Gospel of Matthew shows signs of an awareness of a diverse world of spiritual perspectives. He tells the story of Jesus that most closely parallels the Buddha's own story.