Atheist looking for religious debate. Any religion. Let's see if I can be convinced.

[rational experiences]

Further to a theist. Spirtuality is human. Honouring self said parental form.

So if we de evolve heal and science possession in mind wanted to be repracticed you would search for biological evidence in dead bodies that one state had harmed all types of life.

So you did.

Involved was with a human biologist saying don't look back past a monkey God body or a pigs body as they prove to be beasts biologically supporting your owned life form. By body cell conditions.

Only said by humans the living intelligence making all claims about honouring life on earth.

For no other egotistical reasoning.

A God theist is a human who pretended they spoke on behalf of a creator.

A human theist spoke on behalf of being human who honoured their human parents spirituality.

A satanist is a human who meddles with natural bodies claiming cloud changes the reason why any form is varied.

Clouds burn fallout DNA in any body is affected. Satan angels images only. Clouds are natural.

Reason as mass radiation a one of body had changed all bodies. Including cloud formation.

Never had it created all bodies.

Science discussed changes. In self human observed reasoning.

 

[infrabenji]

Further to a theist. Spirtuality is human. Honouring self said parental form.

So if we de evolve heal and science possession in mind wanted to be repracticed you would search for biological evidence in dead bodies that one state had harmed all types of life.

So you did.

Involved was with a human biologist saying don't look back past a monkey God body or a pigs body as they prove to be beasts biologically supporting your owned life form. By body cell conditions.

Only said by humans the living intelligence making all claims about honouring life on earth.

For no other egotistical reasoning.

A God theist is a human who pretended they spoke on behalf of a creator.

A human theist spoke on behalf of being human who honoured their human parents spirituality.

A satanist is a human who meddles with natural bodies claiming cloud changes the reason why any form is varied.

Clouds burn fallout DNA in any body is affected. Satan angels images only. Clouds are natural.

Reason as mass radiation a one of body had changed all bodies. Including cloud formation.

Never had it created all bodies.

Science discussed changes. In self human observed reasoning.

Dude are you on mushrooms? In any case I dig your style as always. Hope you’re having a great night!

 

[Mock Turtle]

Yes, I can see how that could be a problem but the flip side of that is if you don't want to believe in God you won't do what it takes to search for evidence for God. You won't even bother. I mean since I don't want a new car I am never going shopping for a new car.

I still don't see the want as an issue for many of us who just can't bring ourselves to believe. Want shouldn't drive such enquiries but purely an appreciation of all the evidence. I don't have a want in either direction - unlike many it seems who do want to believe, and where they end up with one faith over another or switch faiths as they feel suitable for them. And for some of us there are better explanations - for any particular religion and for them all. I just don't believe one would gain from an intensive study of any particular faith apart from any truths within and which could be gained from other areas.

 

[rational experiences]

U

Dude are you on mushrooms? In any case I dig your style as always. Hope you’re having a great night!

Unlike the scientist who believes chemical imbalanced minds gives him satanic advice. I eat plate mushrooms as real food.

Maybe if I eat a plate mushroom he might think I am a carpenter eating earth plates into an earthquake. As he studies bio life by computer attacks claiming he will find an alien machine themed Jesus.

 

[Trailblazer]

I still don't see the want as an issue for many of us who just can't bring ourselves to believe. Want shouldn't drive such enquiries but purely an appreciation of all the evidence. I don't have a want in either direction - unlike many it seems who do want to believe, and where they end up with one faith over another or switch faiths as they feel suitable for them. And for some of us there are better explanations - for any particular religion and for them all. I just don't believe one would gain from an intensive study of any particular faith apart from any truths within and which could be gained from other areas.

But if you do not want to believe then why would you bother looking at any evidence? That is what I was trying to say before.

And if you don't think you would have anything to gain from any particular faith why would you bother to look at the evidence for any faith?

 

[night912]

Yes, I can see how that could be a problem but the flip side of that is if you don't want to believe in God you won't do what it takes to search for evidence for God. You won't even bother. I mean since I don't want a new car I am never going shopping for a new car.

Nope, you're wrong about that. The reason why is because even if you want to believe in God, you don't have to search for evidence for God. If convincing evidence is presented to you, you would accept that God exist. Just like if you want a new car, you don't have to go shopping for a new car (perhaps knowing that you don't have the funds to buy a new car). If someone gives you a new car as a gift, you would accept it as your new car.

 

[Trailblazer]

Nope, you're wrong about that. The reason why is because even if you want to believe in God, you don't have to search for evidence for God. If convincing evidence is presented to you, you would accept that God exist. Just like if you want a new car, you don't have to go shopping for a new car (perhaps knowing that you don't have the funds to buy a new car). If someone gives you a new car as a gift, you would accept it as your new car.

Nobody is responsible to present convincing evidence to anyone else, not anymore than they are responsible to buy someone a new car. If people want evidence they have to go searching of it because other people's evidence will not be evidence to them.

 

[Mock Turtle]

But if you do not want to believe then why would you bother looking at any evidence? That is what I was trying to say before.

And if you don't think you would have anything to gain from any particular faith why would you bother to look at the evidence for any faith?

Why? Well, unless one was born with 'satisfaction guaranteed' as to what one sees in life and accepts such, most of us will ask questions - the usual ones - and hence we are virtually forced to look at the basic ones of how did we (as a species) come to be as such, are there any reasons for why we are here, let alone asking about how the universe came into existence and all the rest. I think anyone with a reasonable mind has to ask such questions, but giving weight to religious beliefs doesn't and shouldn't come naturally despite the numbers who believe in whatever version they hold to be true. That was one basic thing I accepted long ago, that it was up to me alone to accept/reject whatever I came across and with whatever ability I had.

As I think I have mentioned before, I think one has to go higher than such beliefs, and assessing why we tend to have them, rather than looking at any individual belief system and appraising such. I think there is better evidence for their production solely by humans than ever coming via spiritual sources and/or deities, for me at least.

 

[night912]

Nobody is responsible to present convincing evidence to anyone else, not anymore than they are responsible to buy someone a new car. If people want evidence they have to go searching of it because other people's evidence will not be evidence to them.

And I didn't say anything about someone being responsible for presenting evidence to you. The convincing evidence is there regardless of whether you search for it or is presented to you. Same as with a new car. There's no difference in your new car, whether you went out shopping and bought the car or it was a gift, it's still your new car.

Are the evidence for the messengers of God in which convinced you to believe in the existence of God the same or are they different from the ones that someone present to you? To clarify what I'm getting at, are the religious scriptures of your religion that you've found, the same ones the ones that I can present to you? If they are not the same, then you have a different concept of what convincing evidence is.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Nope, you're wrong about that. The reason why is because even if you want to believe in God, you don't have to search for evidence for God. If convincing evidence is presented to you, you would accept that God exist. Just like if you want a new car, you don't have to go shopping for a new car (perhaps knowing that you don't have the funds to buy a new car). If someone gives you a new car as a gift, you would accept it as your new car.

And if God gives you the awareness of His or Her presence in your life, you would presumably accept that as a new, life changing gift?

 

[Tiberius]

What form of evidence would you say you need, for you to kind of believe God exists?

My standard answer to that is this. If the Bible said something like:

"And the Earth moved in a great circle around the sun, held in place by the sun's mass. And the circle was not perfect, but was longer in one direction than the perpendicular, and the passage of the Earth swept out equal areas in equal times. And the sun shone with the light of its tiniest parts coming together."

I would indeed take it as evidence for God, because it describes knowledge that the people of the time could not possibly have.

 

[Tiberius]

Same here, so I guess you and I are on the same page.

I want to believe in the truth and since I believe that I have "the evidence" that God exists that is why I believe in God.

From what you've said to me, it appears to me that it's more a case of you believing unsupportable claims because the supportable claims have been supported.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

My standard answer to that is this. If the Bible said something like:

"And the Earth moved in a great circle around the sun, held in place by the sun's mass. And the circle was not perfect, but was longer in one direction than the perpendicular, and the passage of the Earth swept out equal areas in equal times. And the sun shone with the light of its tiniest parts coming together."

I would indeed take it as evidence for God, because it describes knowledge that the people of the time could not possibly have.

That is not evidence of God. You have to rule out other possible explanations.

 

[Tiberius]

Because if he was a sincere seeker he would not be an atheist. An agnostic or non theist would fit that description.

This is a common misconception. A person can be both an atheist and an agnostic.

Atheist simply means a person lacks a belief in God, just as theist means the person does have a belief in God.

Agnostic is not a halfway point. An agnostic is someone who does not claim to know for a fact they are right, and a gnostic does claim to know for a fact.

I am an agnostic atheist: I don't believe in God, but I would not claim to know for a fact that there is no God.

A Gnostic Atheist would claim to know for a fact that God does not exist. Likewise, an agnostic theist would say, "I believe in God, but I don't claim to know for a fact God exists."

Most of the atheists I've seen are agnostic atheists. The gnostic position tends to be held by the theists, at least in my experience.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

This is a common misconception. A person can be both an atheist and an agnostic.

Atheist simply means a person lacks a belief in God, just as theist means the person does have a belief in God.

Agnostic is not a halfway point. An agnostic is someone who does not claim to know for a fact they are right, and a gnostic does claim to know for a fact.

I am an agnostic atheist: I don't believe in God, but I would not claim to know for a fact that there is no God.

A Gnostic Atheist would claim to know for a fact that God does not exist. Likewise, an agnostic theist would say, "I believe in God, but I don't claim to know for a fact God exists."

Most of the atheists I've seen are agnostic atheists. The gnostic position tends to be held by the theists, at least in my experience.

Good post.

Yes, most atheists are agnostics. But there are a few that are gnostics. I seem to recall one on this site, who claimed to be able to prove with logic and science, that there were on gods.

 

[ratiocinator]

Below are the seven logical reasons why more people have not recognized Baha’u’llah, yet.

1. Many people have never heard of the Baha’i Faith, so they do not know there is something to look for. It is the responsibility of the Baha’is to get the message out, so if that is not happening, the Baha’is are to blame. However, there are so few Baha’is and they are busy building the New World Order, and there is only so much time, so they can only do so much.

2. But even after people know about the Baha’i Faith, most people are not even willing to look the evidence in order to determine if it is true or not.

3. Even if they are willing to look at the evidence, there is a lot of prejudice before even getting out the door to look at the evidence.

4. 84% of people in the world already have a religion and they are happy with their religion so they have no interest in a “new religion.”

5. The rest of the world’s population is agnostics or atheists or believers who are prejudiced against all religion.

6. Agnostics or atheists and atheists and believers who have no religion either do not believe that God communicates via Messengers or they find fault with the Messenger, Baha’u’llah.

7. Baha’u’llah brought new teachings and laws that are very different from the older religions so many people are suspicious of those teachings and/or don’t like the laws because some laws require them to give things up that they like doing.

So all logical reasons why the messenger system doesn't work.

There would have been no 'better way' for God to communicate to people.

Of course an omnipotent and omniscience god could do a better job of communicating than the absurd idea of sending messengers that give rise to contradictory religions.

If you never attended college you at least know that you will have work to do in order to pass an exam or get a degree.
If you are an atheist who knows nothing about God you should likewise know that you will have to do 'something' in order om acquire a belief in God.

God is nothing but superstition, as far as I can see - and I'm speaking as someone who believed in my youth.

Before you would be willing to do the research you would have to consider the 'possibility' that God exists.

I see no reason to think a god (or gods) exists, and even less to think that, if it did, any of the world's religions know anything about it. The endless different religions are direct evidence of that, because a real god could get its message across if it wanted to.

 

[Tiberius]

You formerly said: But you have reached the conclusion, "If A, B and C are correct, then claims D, E and F are also correct, even though there's no way to demonstrate that those are facts."

Your conclusion about D, E and F is unjustified.

So you are saying that the claim "He was a messenger from God" is unjustified, but I am not the one who made that claim so I am not the one who needs to justify the claim. Baha'u'llah made the claim so He is the one who needs to justify it. I just believe the claim He made and I have reasons to believe that I only need to justify to myself.

But you have no solid reason to believe those claims are correct.

Okay fair enough, but God did not become Jesus, God manifested Himself in the man Jesus.

And I would say they are functionally the same thing.

And what you believe to the contrary is only YOUR opinion.

And since I know that opinion by itself is not worth all that much, I make sure that my beliefs are based on what can be shown with science and verifiable evidence.

Sorry, you lost me with your analogy.
Le me rephrase that: When God was manifest in Jesus, Jesus became a Manifestation of God.

Okay, let's go back to my wine analogy.

What you are saying seems to be no different to saying, "When the Vinegar formed from the wine, the wine became vinegar."

To say that the fact that the vast majority of Christians DISAGREE with me means that Jesus actually rose from the dead is the fallacy of argumentum ad populum.

In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so."
Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia

And if you read what I wrote, you'll see that I anticipated your response and addressed it pre-emptively.

All I was doing was pointing out that not all Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

The point is that how may people believe something has no bearing as to whether it is true or not.

And if people believing something has no bearing on whether it is true or not, why did you bother pointing out that not all Christians believe it?

I asked HOW does that what Baha'is believe about Jesus being a Manifestation of God support Baha'i beliefs?
You did not answer. So in what way would that support Baha'i beliefs?

Because it supports the Bahai claim that Mr B was the return of Christ/The Messiah (you were using this as an example of a fulfilled prophecy in our discussion over on the other thread).

No, it absolutely does NOT mean that.

Manifest meaning

To show or demonstrate plainly; reveal.

Clearly apparent to the sight or understanding; obvious.

To enter in a ship's manifest.

Evident to the senses, especially to the sight; apparent; distinctly perceived.

Manifest is defined as to prove or make something clear.
An example of manifest is showing someone the facts about something.

Apparent to the senses, esp. that of sight, or to the mind; evident; obvious; clear; plain.

An itemized list of a ship's cargo, to be shown to customs officials.

To make clear or evident; show plainly; reveal; evince.

To prove; be evidence of.

To appear to the senses; show itself.

A list of the passengers and cargo on an airplane.

Obvious to the understanding; apparent to the mind; easily apprehensible; plain; not obscure or hidden.

(rare, used with "of") Detected; convicted.

A list or invoice of the passengers or goods being carried by a commercial vehicle or ship.

(computing) A file containing metadata describing other files.

To show plainly; to make to appear distinctly, usually to the mind; to put beyond question or doubt; to display; to exhibit.

His courage manifested itself via the look on his face.

To exhibit the manifests or prepared invoices of; to declare at the customhouse.

The definition of manifest is something that is clear to see or understand.
An example of manifest is someone knowing that something is true.

To become manifest; be revealed.
Depression can manifest as irritability.

A list of cargo or passengers carried on a ship or plane.

A list of railroad cars according to owner and location.

An invoice of goods carried on a truck or train.

Manifest Meaning | Best 22 Definitions of Manifest

Okay, so there's a lot of different meanings there. Let's get rid of the ones that are obviously irrelevant to this conversation (since I doubt you think that we could be talking about "a list of the passengers and cargo on an airplane."

To show or demonstrate plainly; reveal.
Clearly apparent to the sight or understanding; obvious.
Evident to the senses, especially to the sight; apparent; distinctly perceived.
to prove or make something clear.
Apparent to the senses, esp. that of sight, or to the mind; evident; obvious; clear; plain.
To make clear or evident; show plainly; reveal; evince.
To prove; be evidence of.
To appear to the senses; show itself.
Obvious to the understanding; apparent to the mind; easily apprehensible; plain; not obscure or hidden.
To show plainly; to make to appear distinctly, usually to the mind; to put beyond question or doubt; to display; to exhibit.
To exhibit the manifests or prepared invoices of; to declare at the customhouse.
something that is clear to see or understand.
To become manifest; be revealed.

Would you care to substitute one of these definitions into the passage in question for me?

You have no evidence at all that your interpretation is any more valid than mine so why are we still discussing it?

Because you claim that your interpretation is the correct one, whereas if you genuinely believed that your interpretation was as valid as mine, you would not hold the "But I know I'm right" point of view.

Did you even watch the video before you said that? The video proves -- with logic and scripture -- that Jesus cannot be God. There was no cherry picking, but you would never know that unless you watched the video. Instead, you committed the fallacy of jumping to conclusions. Obviously, you have no interest in knowing the Truth about God.

Given the fact that there are plenty of videos out there where logic and scripture are used to prove that Jesus was definitely God, there must have been some cherrypicking going on.

The Truth about God is all in that video and it has nothing to do with the Baha'i Faith. It was made by Muslims who also know the Truth about God. Jews also know the Truth about God. It is ONLY the Christians who believe that Jesus is God who don't know the Truth about God because they misinterpreted the scriptures.

Oh! It was made by MUSLIMS! Oh, that makes it all different, because they certainly don't have a bias against Christianity, do they?

Of course you won't watch it because then you might have to concede to the truth -- Jesus is not God.
The hundred dollar question is why you don't become a Christian if you actually believe that Jesus is God? Your search for God would then be over!

Unless you believe that Jesus is God you doing this just to try to prove that my Baha'i beliefs about Jesus are wrong. I consider that pretty childish and a waste of time.

You do realise that I'm an atheist, right? Of course I most definitely do NOT think Jesus was God. I do not believe that God even exists, and I am extremely doubtful that there was a figure named Jesus as depicted in the Bible.

 

[Tiberius]

That is not evidence of God. You have to rule out other possible explanations.

Given that it is highly unlikely that people who lived 2000 years ago would know about or understand the orbits of planets, mass causing distortions in spacetime that create the force of gravity, that orbits are elliptical, Kepler's second law of planetary motion (which states that the radius vector from the Sun to a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times) and nuclear reactions in the sun creating the energy that radiates from it, I think that such clear and unambiguous descriptions of these phenomena would certainly be enough to make people sit up and take notice.

Of course, I'm certainly open to alternative ways by which the people thousands of years ago could have known these things, if you have any suggestions.

 

[Tiberius]

Good post.

Yes, most atheists are agnostics. But there are a few that are gnostics. I seem to recall one on this site, who claimed to be able to prove with logic and science, that there were on gods.

I think the best we can do is to show that there is nothing that we know of where God is required.

(Just out of curiosity, are you able to link to the posts made by this particular atheist? I'd like to see his argument.)

 

[WonderingWorrier]

Hey! I haven’t forgot about you. My fiancé kicked me off the forum lol. Said I was spending to much time goofing around on the internet and not studying. So I took a break for a minute. I’m at my office and she’s home asleep so I’m sneaking back on here real quick. Hope you’ve been doing well. Look forward to speaking with you soon.

Hi. Thank you. Really appreciated.

Can you please tell me if you were able to still follow my point of view (wheel) when I showed you bible verses about putting the Ethiopians to the sword.

Were you were able to comprehend the concept of how I hear those verses without violence?