Atheists: What would you consider credible communication from God?

[Bob the Unbeliever]

You might care later.

Ooooh... threats, now? As I said earlier: MONSTER describes your god perfectly.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

No, not at all, at all. Omniscience means KNOWS EVERYTHING. It has nothing to do with omnipotence, which means HAS UNLIMITED POWER..

Except: It does not know how to moderate it's communications with people.

Also: It is absolutely incapable of being CONVINCING to anyone (and I do not count your fake "messenger" dude, who is clearly just anoter charlatan.

But infallibility does, logically speaking.

But. Your god has FAILED--UTTERLY-- to be convincing. That's a rather sizable fail.

And demonstrates it is NOT all-powerful and NOT all-knowing.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

It is YOU saying this Bob and you say it just because you are not getting what you want; you are a grown man acting like a small child.

The fact that you are an atheist won’t get you off the hook for talking about God the way you do, which amounts to hating God. God does exist, and what you say and do is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. That is the ONE unforgivable sin.

The Holy Spirit is the light of God. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is detestation of the light of God, the divine perfections. In a sense then it is detestation of God since one hates the divine perfections (God’s qualities).

Jesus and the other Messengers of God were like lamps that brought the Holy Spirit; they brought the light of God to humanity because they reflected God’s attributes. It is forgivable to hate the lamp, because one might not recognize that the lamp is from God because they might not see the divine perfections of God in the lamp.

Matthew 12:31-32 “So I tell you, every sin and blasphemy can be forgiven—except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven.Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man can be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come.”​

In those verses Jesus said it is unforgivable to hate the Holy Spirit (light of God) and one will not be forgiven in this life or in the afterlife. This is pretty serious business.

I can only surmise why that is unforgivable. It is a Baha’i belief that heaven and hell are states of the soul, not geographical locations. Heaven is nearness to God and hell is distance from God. It is impossible to come near to God if one is repelled by the light of God because God does not force His love upon anyone. God only draws those near to Him those who reach out for His mercy. If one hates God they will not reach out for God’s mercy and they will thus be distant from God; in such a state they will make their own hell. Maybe that correlates with the unforgivable sin.

So I see, you cannot answer my question.

Here it is again:
Why should God be responsible to prevent what humans are fully capable of preventing?

THE SUM OF YOUR HATEFUL ARGUMENT? MIGHT MAKES RIGHT.

Which is an EPIC moral FAILURE on the part of your god.

Your god? Pure Evil. Or pure myth...

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

The information is available.

that would be a false claim by you.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

God does exist, and what you say and do is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. That is the ONE unforgivable sin.

LMAO! Oh look! your god has SUCH AN EGO, that it cannot muster up enough Got Magic to forgive, if it gets it's little feelings all hurted. Boo-hoo.

Your average 2 or 4 year old can manage to forgive, even after having his feelings hurt.

Yet ANOTHER thing that humans are BETTER AT than your monster-god! FORGIVENESS.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

God does exist, and what you say and do is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. That is the ONE unforgivable sin.

LMAO! Oh look! your god has SUCH AN EGO, that it cannot muster up enough Got Magic to forgive, if it gets it's little feelings all hurted. Boo-hoo.

Your average 2 or 4 year old can manage to forgive, even after having his feelings hurt.

Yet ANOTHER thing that humans are BETTER AT than your monster-god! FORGIVENESS.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

God does exist, and what you say and do is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. That is the ONE unforgivable sin.

Citation Needed. Not actually biblical...

 

[joelr]

Thanks for that bit of information about the Bible. I do not know much about the history of the Bible, how it came to be written. I was never a Christian and I was never interested in religion until quite recently.

God reveals Himself differently in every age of history, depending upon the people He is addressing and the *needs* of the times. That is why scriptures read differently in every age. God also reveals a new message in every age, and new social teachings and laws, again according to the *needs* of the times. This is called Progressive Revelation and it is really quite logical and simple theology.

“The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 213​

You say that like this explains why the bible reads as myth but history, metaphysics and philosophy are not written like that even back then. If written as myth then it's myth.

We have examples of millions of "revelations". None have been shown to be supernatural.
In fact the "god words" you just posted were already said by you in your above statement. A statement that can easily be made up by a person.
Knowledge easily created by a person. You just said it better than a supposed "god"??


Why do "gods" always say "ye" and "needeth". As if they have a special "god" style take on English?
Why does he add "th" at the end of words where it doesn't belong? Perceiveth? Prescribeth?

That's so ridiculous that it cannot possibly be a universe god. Only a man would be that ridiculous.
Show me where this god predicted relativity or solved the Reimann hypothesis.


If it looks like man words then it is. You called that a "revelation". Those words are not revealing anything anyone did not already know.
So not really a revelation. That's common sense plus "th" and "ye". Show me a revelation.

Interesting that he said "physician, disease and prescribe". Very literal language. Yet nothing about MRI tech or a cancer cure?
Does it get to that?

 

[Trailblazer]

Citation Needed. Not actually biblical...

Matthew 12
31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

The information is available.
That information can be reasonably and rationally determined to be true.

If you do not *like* the information that God provided, you cannot blame God for that.

This is not factually correct. I can point to literally thousands of scriptures, and I can easily demonstrate that they are frequently wildly different from one another.

But the most important thing about them all is that there is nothing to demonstrate that these were written by anything other than human beings, and contain zero actual information that would not have been available to humans at the time they were written. And as a consequence, there is absolutely nothing to show which might be true or false, or how to reconcile the differences.

Now, the fact that you might happen to believe that one set of scriptures is true and all the others false is neither here nor there. Your beliefs do not necessarily represent reality.

And if I don't "like" the information that mere humans provided, trust me, I do not blame any god for that.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Matthew 12
31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

Interesting twisted "version" you found to support your false claims. Ain't that cute?

How many different versions did you need to look at, before you found one as silly as you?

Moreover: Did you not say, earlier, that you don't believe the bible is True and Accurate?

What makes this particular piece of hate-speech "true" where other parts are not?

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

<hate speech redacted>

I am gratified you find my last set of posts ... FUNNY.

Clearly you cannot address ANY of my points in a rational fashion; but at least you were amused.

Sad, really.

 

[viole]

No, you do not have to believe what Baha’u’llah said in order to hear the logical explanation and consider whether it seems logical to you. It might not seem logical to you, but you cannot know that unless you heard it.

Yes, but that does not matter. Logical or illogical I will have no way to validate that he was inspired by God. How am I supposed to do that? Just believe him?

It’s not very difficult to make up something sounding logical, believe me.

There might be thousands of *conceptions* of God, but there is only one God. Why would it be necessary to have more than one?

Great.

Interpretation 1: all humans are born equal
Interpretation 2: all humans belong to one caste at birth

Surely, they describe the same God. Is that what you meant with sounding logical?

Generally speaking, you distinguish them by their fruits, as Jesus said. We do not *assume* anything until we have looked at the fruits.

Matthew 7:15-20 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.​

Fruits: the pleasant or successful result of work or actions: FRUIT | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary

Question begging. You make the assumption, for instance, that God is good. I could equally say, with the same evidence, that you will distinguish the true prophets by their fruits too, the bad ones.

So, back to square one.

There is really no way out: in order to validate the claims of a prophet, you need to make assumptions about God that come from....where?

If you look at the character, and the life and mission, and the Writings of Baha’u’llah it becomes abundantly clear that He did not delude himself.

How do you know? As I mentioned above, you have no way to validate His claims.

Many false prophets did delude themselves, but that does not mean that all Prophets deluded themselves. It is the Fallacy of Hasty Generalization to assume that just because many or most prophets were false all Prophets were false.

You have no rational way to say they are false prophets, either.

Suppose I tell you now that God spoke to me last night, and told ne that He actually spoke to baha’allah but that it was obvious that Baha’Ullah did not understand a word He was saying.

I hope you will hasty generalize and believe that I am a false prophet. For, you cannot, on pure logical grounds.

Why wouldn’t God talk only to selected people? Why would God talk to everyone when God could talk to selected people who can make the message available to everyone?

Because it is much more plausible that those people made things up. Between the natural and the supernatural, the former should always be preferred, if it explain the same thing.

Why would God do that? If God was evil, there would be no point believing in Him. Of course, the only way you can know anything about God is from the Messengers. That is how we know God is good.

What? Assumptions, assumptions all the time. How do you know He wants to be believed?

No, not at all. You can look at the evidence for Prophet X with an open mind, with no preconceptions. A wise man looks at Prophet X for himself rather than assuming He has to be a false prophet.

“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​

Ok, God has a huge blue nose.

Be a wise man and prove me wrong. With pictures, if possible.

Ciao

- viole

 

[BilliardsBall]

That would be a false claim by you: the bible was never the #1 best selling, most read *anything*. Classic false claims made by bible-believers for years, and absolutely not remotely accurate.

Heck, Harry Potter books outsold the bible years ago, and? People bought those to read.

The vast majority of all bibles ever printed were never read by anyone, at any time--- they languish on shelves, in pews, or in the corner because they were given, and the receiver has no desire to read the dammnable thing, but didn't want to just toss it out...

The majority of bibles were printed as propaganda anyway-- never to actually be read.


Because people are quite gullible? If the bible were 1/10 as "good" as people claim?

Why are there 40,000 different, competing, brands of "christian"? If the bible was all that?

THERE WOULD ONLY EVER BE ONE FLAVOR OF CHRISTIAN.


???? Both #1 and #2 above were 100% false... so...

I expect an actual DIVINE BEING to do BETTER than a bronze age book that says slavery is fine, rape gets you a free bride, and murder is not only okay? It's mandatory too-- for the most trivial of things.

Let's dig down and focus a bit, if we may?

You wrote: "THERE WOULD ONLY EVER BE ONE FLAVOR OF CHRISTIAN."

I thought you've read the Bible? Are you unaware of the dozens of passages prophesying sectarianism, and admonishing it against it, while also making apologetics for its necessity? Most NT books discuss sectarianism and schisms.

I don't mind arguing the scriptures with you, but not if you don't know them nor will do even cursory research online before trying to attach the Bible to a philosophical stance.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Let's dig down and focus a bit, if we may?

You wrote: "THERE WOULD ONLY EVER BE ONE FLAVOR OF CHRISTIAN.".

Yes, I wrote that-- can you address the consequences of this statement? Let's see:

I thought you've read the Bible? Are you unaware of the dozens of passages prophesying sectarianism, and admonishing it against it, while also making apologetics for its necessity? Most NT books discuss sectarianism and schisms..

Nope. Your comment in no way addresses my point. You don't even make an honest attempt!

Apologetics: Apologizing for the bible's ever-growing list of errors, mistakes and outright evil claims....

My fundamental point that my claim makes? Can mere human agencies compete with Divine Agencies-- or groups with Divine Guidance?

Absolutely not! Any group that had the help of an actual Knows Everything Being?

Would out-strip all others within a generation. No false group could possibly compete successfully.

The fact that your bible's fabricators recognized they were **humans** and that 100% of the bible is **human**created**? Only shows they knew they were running a giant con...

I don't mind arguing the scriptures with you, but not if you don't know them nor will do even cursory research online before trying to attach the Bible to a philosophical stance.

Extremely condescending hate-speech duly noted.

 

[Trailblazer]

God is a him and has goals you as a human understand. Cool. We all believe in things.

To address your question the existence of god if god was real wouldn't be any different from you came from your mom or the sun heats the earth. It would be a thing. Its currently a thing in 15 million different forms and has believers as devout as harry potter fans. God would know how to make their presence known... it wouldn't be a question or a debate item. No one is debating who birthed you. You came from another human who particpated in a certain act that led to you being here right now. This is not a debate. Right I have no idea who my dad is but I know my mom. We all had a mom.

God’s presence is known to almost everyone in the world, so obviously God knows how to make His presence known. Therefore a logical person would ask why only about 7% of the world population does not believe in God.
Demographics of atheism - Wikipedia

There has to be a reason why some believe and some don’t and why the percentage is skewed so heavily on one end.

I am not saying that God exists because 93% of people believe that God exists because that would be the fallacy of ad populum. I am saying that it is highly unlikely that 93% of people in the world are all deluded and only 7% got it right.

It makes a lot more sense that God does not provide proof because God chooses not to provide proof and that most people accept that and believe in God based upon the evidence God does provide.

 

[Trailblazer]

? This is an insult. Masked or not. Jesus. He or she said this. Think of the Marvel or DC universe this idea conjures. So far out there. So different from the interest rate on your Robinhood checking account or what stage your cancer is at. You are an ordinary human and just don't have the capacity. There are special humans that can hear the word of the all caps god and etc etc. And it came to be that this post was nonsensical ramblings of the messengers of tomorrow and of the past for the present is beckoning.

I do not view it as an insult at all. Animals do not have the same capacities as humans, but they are perfect in their own sphere. Messengers of God are above the human sphere, so they have more capacities than humans. That is why they can receive and disseminate messages from God.

 

[Trailblazer]

You say that like this explains why the bible reads as myth but history, metaphysics and philosophy are not written like that even back then. If written as myth then it's myth.

We have examples of millions of "revelations". None have been shown to be supernatural.
In fact the "god words" you just posted were already said by you in your above statement. A statement that can easily be made up by a person.
Knowledge easily created by a person. You just said it better than a supposed "god"??


Why do "gods" always say "ye" and "needeth". As if they have a special "god" style take on English?
Why does he add "th" at the end of words where it doesn't belong? Perceiveth? Prescribeth?

That's so ridiculous that it cannot possibly be a universe god. Only a man would be that ridiculous.
Show me where this god predicted relativity or solved the Reimann hypothesis.


If it looks like man words then it is. You called that a "revelation". Those words are not revealing anything anyone did not already know.
So not really a revelation. That's common sense plus "th" and "ye". Show me a revelation.

Interesting that he said "physician, disease and prescribe". Very literal language. Yet nothing about MRI tech or a cancer cure?
Does it get to that?

Atheists have certain expectations of what god would do if god existed. These expectations are just what they think a god should or would do. They are projections of their own thoughts and feelings onto God, what they want or consider reasonable. They are unwilling to look at what God might have actually done because their ego gets in the way.

The evidence indicates that God sends Messengers to communicate to humans. Baha’u’llah is the Messenger for this age in history, but there will be more Messengers in the future.

Some people recognized Baha’u’llah but most people have not, at least not yet. For those of us who recognize Him it is obvious that what He wrote came from God. The rest all falls into place when we read His Writings.

 

[Trailblazer]

This is not factually correct. I can point to literally thousands of scriptures, and I can easily demonstrate that they are frequently wildly different from one another.

Of course they are different. They were written in different ages of history. People change, the world changes,so scriptures change.

But the most important thing about them all is that there is nothing to demonstrate that these were written by anything other than human beings, and contain zero actual information that would not have been available to humans at the time they were written. And as a consequence, there is absolutely nothing to show which might be true or false, or how to reconcile the differences.

You mean there is nothing to prove it. No, nobody can prove anyone got messages from God, but there is evidence that indicates that they did.

The Writings of Baha’u’llah do contain information that was not available to humans at the time they were written.

There is no need to reconcile the differences because there is a logical explanation as to why they are different.

Now, the fact that you might happen to believe that one set of scriptures is true and all the others false is neither here nor there. Your beliefs do not necessarily represent reality.

I do not believe that one set of scriptures is true and all the others are false. I believe they are all true but the older ones have a message and social teachings and laws that are out of date. They were applicable to another time in history, not to this age.

And if I don't "like" the information that mere humans provided, trust me, I do not blame any god for that.

That’s good, because it would be illogical to blame God for what humans do.

 

[Trailblazer]

Yes, but that does not matter. Logical or illogical I will have no way to validate that he was inspired by God. How am I supposed to do that? Just believe him?

It’s not very difficult to make up something sounding logical, believe me.

I just said “you do not have to believe what Baha’u’llah said in order to hear the logical explanation and consider whether it seems logical to you.”

That means that you do not have to believe in Baha’u’llah or that He was inspired by God.

Great.

Interpretation 1: all humans are born equal
Interpretation 2: all humans belong to one caste at birth

Surely, they describe the same God. Is that what you meant with sounding logical?

No, this has nothing to do with what I said above about logical, but it is logical that there would only be one God, if God is Omnipotent and Omniscient, since we would only need one God. If God is the Creator of the universe how could there be more than one, would they be working on a team?

What you are citing as interpretations are not revelations from God, they are human interpretations of scriptures. Of course they are different because humans got a hold of them and altered the original meanings.

There is really no way out: in order to validate the claims of a prophet, you need to make assumptions about God that come from....where?

They come from the only place they can come from, from the Messenger of God aka Prophet.

How do you know? As I mentioned above, you have no way to validate His claims.

You mean I have no way to prove that He was actually a Messenger of God, and that is true. Such a claim cannot be proven. It can only be believed based upon the evidence that indicates that His claims were valid. That evidence is His character, His life and mission, and His Writings.

You have no rational way to say they are false prophets, either.

I can say they are false if they do not meet the *criteria* for a true prophet.

Suppose I tell you now that God spoke to me last night, and told me that He actually spoke to baha’allah but that it was obvious that Baha’Ullah did not understand a word He was saying.

I hope you will hasty generalize and believe that I am a false prophet. For, you cannot, on pure logical grounds.

It would not be a hasty generalization but unless you had *evidence that indicates* that you really heard from God, why would I believe that?

On logical grounds, I would be making a hasty conclusion unless I had sufficient evidence after considering all the variables.

Because it is much more plausible that those people made things up. Between the natural and the supernatural, the former should always be preferred, if it explain the same thing.

Why is it plausible that they made things up? How could all of the over 15,000 Tablets that Baha’u’llah wrote be made up? What would be the motive for Him to make all that up?

What? Assumptions, assumptions all the time. How do you know He wants to be believed?

I only know that because of what Baha’u’llah wrote, which is the same as what the scriptures of the other Abrahamic religions say.

Ok, God has a huge blue nose.

Be a wise man and prove me wrong. With pictures, if possible.

You could prove a Prophet wrong if He did not meet the criteria.