Proof against the existence of God?

[InvestigateTruth]

I would need a specific claim. I do it regularly with Christian apologetics. I do not know that much about Baha'i arguments so I cannot say for sure that they are guilty of the same poor argumentation.

Why do you think that your religion is right and what reliable evidence do you have for your beliefs?

In my post #213 in this thread, I gave some specific answers related to this OP.

 

[Trailblazer]

I am not aware of the counter responses though.

Many people on this forum have posted counter-responses.

I guess you have not been on this forum much so you have not seen my counter-responses.
In short, all suffering is not beneficial for all people at all times. Some suffering is gratuitous suffering.
Some suffering is the result of free will choices people make, so they are responsible for it, but other suffering people have no control over because it was was fated/predestined by God. This kind of suffering is either associated with choices other people make (e.g. rape) or it is the result of the natural disasters. God is left holding the bag for that suffering because God determines our fate. You can always say that all suffering is beneficial and everyone will realize that after they die, but that is an overly simplistic belief-based religious apologetic. It can never be proven, it is just a belief.

Questions that believers cannot answer

 

[Alien826]

I do not object o that possibility. I think it is a great idea and I believe it will be that way in the future.

Why would/should God create more people like that? The whole purpose of this life is for men to strive and 'become' moral by making the right choices and learning through experience. If God created people ready-made as moral beings then there would be no purpose for this life. Eat, drink, and be merry is not the purpose of life.

I don't know. The point is that he could.

Free will is also critical to my argument, because the ability to choose between good and evil is how people become moral or immoral, whatever the case may be.

The point of my post was not to discuss the purpose of free will or how people become moral. My point is that it is possible to limit free will without everyone becoming robots. For some reason theists tend to jump from God creating people nicer to this robot idea. If you haven't got the idea yet, nicer people would still have free will to choose what kind of good things they do. It's really not that different from how things are now.

 

[Trailblazer]

And how does reducing the number of choices that a person wants to make diminishing their lives? I'd say it would improve their lives if they could not commit acts of malice because it never occurred to them to do so.

If it never occurred to them to do do then they would not have freedom of thought and they would be like programmed robots. Would it improve your life if you were programmed to believe in God instead of having a choice to do so?

Incidentally, what are you expecting heaven to be like? Will souls have free will and urges to harm one another as they did when in bodies before death, or do you think God will remove all of that from their thoughts? And if He does, how is that not the mindless robot you just described and which believers say God does not want his devotees to be.

There is no free will (the same as we have it here) in the next world, aka heaven. Souls will gravitate towards other souls of similar moral development, so good souls will be with good souls and evil souls will be with evil souls. The evil souls will be far, far away from the good souls with no ability to harm anyone anymore.

Evil does not exist in heaven, only good. Evil exists only in hell, which is a mind state of a depraved soul, not a geographical location. There is no geography in the next world, only levels of existence.

 

[Trailblazer]

I don't know. The point is that he could.

The point of my post was not to discuss the purpose of free will or how people become moral. My point is that it is possible to limit free will without everyone becoming robots. For some reason theists tend to jump from God creating people nicer to this robot idea. If you haven't got the idea yet, nicer people would still have free will to choose what kind of good things they do. It's really not that different from how things are now.

Why should God create everyone nicer instead of expecting people to become nicer by themselves?
Since nice people exist, we know it is possible for people to become nicer, if they do what it takes to become nicer.

 

[nPeace]

Thanks for the response but there is too much to deal with in one post. I don't know how it spilled it in so many directions but it's gone way off topic and I have a busy day so I'll leave it there.

 

[osgart]

Why should God create everyone nicer instead of expecting people to become nicer by themselves?
Since nice people exist, we know it is possible for people to become nicer, if they do what it takes to become nicer.

So basically God wants true friends, not programmed non will robots. I would agree. God should have set up authority on earth though if God exists.

People don't seem to realize that their will is entirely their own will. That's the kind of freedom of will that we have as humans. It's not nature programmed will.

 

[Trailblazer]

Because that's what it means to say that something exists. It means to interact in space and time with other things that exist, and that makes all such things detectable.

That's what it means to say that something exists in the material world, and since things in the material world are made of materials we can detect them with instruments. Spiritual things that exists outside of space and time (as we know it from a material world vantage point) are not detectable by instruments designed to detect material things.

That's special pleading. That statement is not considered correct about anything else said to exist.

God is not like anything else in existence, so God is a special exception which is justified

Special pleading (or claiming that something is an overwhelming exception) is a logical fallacy asking for an exception to a rule to be applied to a specific case, without proper justification of why that case deserves an exemption. Usually this is because in order for an argument to work, a proponent needs to provide some way to get out of a logical inconsistency — Special pleading

So are you abandoning omnipotence as well as omnibenevolence? That's also a good choice. But for those who still believe in such a deity, it's a very relevant objection. A tri-omni deity ought to be able to create creatures with an irresistible and impeccable moral sense.

So what if God could have done that? Are you abandoning omniscience? If it was the *best course of action* an omniscient God would have known that and chosen it as the option.

Aside from that, why should God do that? The way it is now, humans are fully capable of making their own moral choices, thus differentiating themselves from each other. With the exception of psychopaths, all humans do have an innate sense of morality, but people can choose to act on it or act immorally.

They are the same thing qualitatively differing only by degree. Some evidence is proof. Sometimes, two pieces of evidence constitute proof where either alone leaves reasonable doubt.

Verifiable evidence is proof, but God can never be verified because God chooses to remain unverifiable. There are pieces of evidence that would constitute proof for some people, but it won't be proof to everyone.

I know what I missed out on by not believing - a lifetime of religion. Where's the value there for somebody comfortable living without it, especially somebody who has tasted and discarded it? Do you know what you missed out on by being a believer?

You know what you missed out on by not believing in this life, and as I said, if this life was all that exists then you would never know what you missed out on by not believing.

I pretty much led a lifetime without religion. I had no religion as a child, and I joined the Baha'i Faith when I was 17, but not until I was 60 years old did I do anything with the Baha'i Faith, aside from believing in Baha'u'llah and God. So I have led most of my life, all but 10 years, as if I had no religion.

I have not missed out on anything by being a believer, because for 43 years of my adult life, I did everything I wanted to do, went to many colleges and got many degrees, worked in many jobs, traveled a little, got married. I would not have done anything differently as a nonbeliever.

 

[Truthseeker]

If you like you could put it in a discussion thread where no debate is allowed.

And I am pretty sure I cannot even give it an approving frubal. They are turned off for me there since I never claimed to be Baha'i. In fact I could not respond there if I wanted to. Since it is a DIR in a religion other than mine comments are turned off for me too.

EDIT: I double checked. I can neither frubal nor comment there. The system won't let me. You could move it to "Interfaith Discussions". No debate is allowed there, and it is valid news.

The staff has to move it, I was told, and I requested moving it to general discussion and I got a message I just saw recently where I was told they were moving it to religious debates. I saw it was not there yet and requested to keep it where it's at then just recently. I've seen approving frubals in Baha'i dir from those who are not Baha'i, so I guess the person doing that was breaking the rules. I assumed it must be okay. I've made the mistake myself of posting in the Jewish dir because I didn't properly check what dir it was. (I made that mistake because I responded to a Jew I was following, if I remember right).

 

[InvestigateTruth]

Many people on this forum have posted counter-responses.

I guess you have not been on this forum much so you have not seen my counter-responses.
In short, all suffering is not beneficial for all people at all times. Some suffering is gratuitous suffering.
Some suffering is the result of free will choices people make, so they are responsible for it, but other suffering people have no control over because it was was fated/predestined by God. This kind of suffering is either associated with choices other people make (e.g. rape) or it is the result of the natural disasters. God is left holding the bag for that suffering because God determines our fate. You can always say that all suffering is beneficial and everyone will realize that after they die, but that is an overly simplistic belief-based religious apologetic. It can never be proven, it is just a belief.

Questions that believers cannot answer

Bahaullah says if you loose something unjustly in this world, God will compensate for it in the next life with spiritual things of the other world. So, here we got an answer

 

[Dawnofhope]

Why, exactly? Are you agnostic about ogres and fairies? How about banshees or werewolves? Or maybe geese that lay eggs of pure gold, or Rumpelstiltskin, who can spin straw into gold?

You are not agnostic about any of those, because you've never seen any evidence of those -- which is also the case with gods, so why be agnostic about them?

The argument comparing the God of Abraham to a belief in faries appears weak but if it works for you that's fine. The belief in the God of Abraham is founded in the life and Teachings of the Prophets of God. The historicity of Jesus and Muhammad for example has strong evidence. The influence of their Teachings on the course of human history and civilization is clear. The millions who have been positively affected by Jesus and Muhammad is impossible to ignore. So while I may support a degree of agnosticism in regards God, there is no such agnosticism in these other matters.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The argument comparing the God of Abraham to a belief in faries appears weak but if it works for you that's fine. The belief in the God of Abraham is founded in the life and Teachings of the Prophets of God. The historicity of Jesus and Muhammad for example has good evidence. The influence of their Teachings on the course of human history and civilization is clear. The millions who have been positively affected by Jesus and Muhammad is impossible to ignore. So while I may support a degree of agnosticism in regards God, there is no such agnosticism in these other matters.

The problem is that those "prophets of God" often do not appear to be any more real than fairies. Abrahams is probably a mythical character. The writings about him seem to have appeared during the Babylonian captivity. The oldest parts of the Bible are not the Pentateuch. All of those appear to be of more modern origin.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Agreed. I suspect that all phenomena including consciousness are seeing the same primeval substance in different ways. The history of science has included a series of unifications, and the trend suggests that space, time, matter, energy, force, and consciousness will all be unified eventually. Maxwell unified electricity, magnetism, and light (EM radiation), then the nuclear forces were unified to that, matter and energy (E=mc2), particle and wave, space and time, etc.. It's why I like neutral monism best as an account of the relationship of mind and matter, where neither is an epiphenomenon of the other, but rather, both are faces of a prior substance manifesting in different ways.



You are describing what I call metaphysical reality with no projection into conscious content (experience) - items said to exist but are not testable (claims about it are not falsifiable). Such things aren't worth thinking about. Their ontological status is indistinguishable from nonexistence. I'm thinking of Plato's cave, where experience (Kant's phenomena) is limited to observing the shadows of objects not directly visible (Kant's noumena, or ding an sich). Suppose we posit the existence of something among the noumena outside the cave (outside the theater of consciousness) that doesn't cast shadows or modify the shadows from things that do. That would be a metaphysical object with no physical manifestation, its existence indistinguishable from its nonexistence, and our apathy on the matter justified. These are the things the claims about which are neither correct nor incorrect, but "not even wrong."



How is that misrepresentation? Misrepresentation occurs when context that reverses the meaning is omitted, as when someone says that scripture there is no God, when what it says is that that is the belief of a fool. You know who does that a lot? Believers, when they cite one of two or more conflicting scriptures to imply that the Bible offers a clear and consistent message when in fact the opposite is the case.



The laws of physics are abstractions that exist in some minds and summarize what can be experienced.



You might have seen my comment above to Alien. Consciousness is an aspect of reality, of nature. It can activate muscles through willpower. It interacts with real things and thus is real itself.



The words of the prophets *HAVE* influenced history. Is that part of an argument that the gods they believed in exist as well as more than ideas in their minds?



Their effect is not evidence for their god's existence, just evidence that that is believed to be the case..



Perhaps that's what we are. How can you know otherwise? By the way it feels? There are good arguments that free will is an illusion.

And how does reducing the number of choices that a person wants to make diminishing their lives? I'd say it would improve their lives if they could not commit acts of malice because it never occurred to them to do so.

Incidentally, what are you expecting heaven to be like? Will souls have free will and urges to harm one another as they did when in bodies before death, or do you think God will remove all of that from their thoughts? And if He does, how is that not the mindless robot you just described and which believers say God does not want his devotees to be.



Yes, in many areas.

You may know that I am an American expatriate living in Mexico. We have local Facebook chat groups. A recent arrival asked where he could get a gun to carry legally. He was told that he can't, that getting a gun permit is difficult and impossible for a carry permit. He was surprised and upset, asking if he's expected to just be a sitting duck in this country. The consensus was that we prefer a country like this one, are glad that he does not have that choice, and glad that nobody else does, either.



No, that idea did not originate with Moses.



None of that is the result of a god belief or requires a god belief to value. In fact, humanism and secular institutions like social democracies do all of that better. I was just involved in a discussion with locals regarding the church. None of us was aware of even one nickel from the collection plate being spent on the community in any way. Look at the States, and the battles between the church and humanists. Who's embodying the Golden Rule there, the Christians banning books, besetting LGBTQ+, and voting for Republicans to impose their beliefs on others using the force of government, or the humanists opposing them at every turn?

My understanding about religion is that each age and people receive teachings and laws from God for their age. But once their time has ended some of the laws will become redundant or even harmful in a new age. This is what I believe many people are coming across that past religions don’t work for this age so are opposing, discarding or disbelieving in them.

But I believe to abandon religion entirely is to abandon the most powerful uniting force in the world. Religion unites billions of people. Whether Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or Christian there has never been nor will ever be a more potent force to unite people than religion and I believe to ignore it a grave mistake. What else can we put in its place that can unite our world and bring peace to humanity? Humanism has great ideas but cannot unite humanity as the majority of the world believes in God. At best it can help better some conditions.

On the other hand a cross section of humanity with representatives from all nations, cultures, religions and races already has formed a world community which is the nucleus of a future world civilisation. It works because it is meant for this age of division and disunity and it comes from God. As I pointed out before, the religion which is appointed by God for each age will work and the one for this age speaks with one united voice in todays world of division.

According to Baha’u’llah we are living in an age which will witness the ‘coming of age of the entire human race’ which will ‘signalise in its turn, the inauguration of a world civilisation such as no mortal eye hath ever beheld or human mind conceived’

Just as the organic evolution of mankind has been slow and gradual, and involved successively the unification of the family, tribe, the city-state and nation so too has the Revelation of God evolved and been adapted to the degree of social progress of humankind and is now prepped for the establishment of a world civilisation.

Only through a teachings revealed by God for THIS AGE can a world torn by strife and conflict be transformed into a world civilisation and a golden age of peace and prosperity.

 

[Dawnofhope]

The difference in the narrative between the Old Testament and New testament are striking, and if not the classic good/evil twins scenario, it is either a God that suffers from a personality disoder, or has matured from an angry adolescent to a wise adult. But then we have the Quran and the God that has mixed feelings again, and then the Baha'i texts which don't clarify very much but does reveal that God is a bigot that prejudices against gays.

The texts do not progress. That is a serious flaw in the lineage of Abrahamic texts. The fact that Jews reject everything after the Old Testament is interesting. Christians reject the Quran and all other holy books and texts, including the Mormon Bible and the Urantia book. So it is all quite a set of divided tribes that offer no truth behind their decisions (except Jews) and no cohesive truth. Atheists like me just stand by watching the competition among believers.


In my experience this is a bad faith that claim comes out of the vast confusion and disagreement among the Abrahamic tribes, and the lack of consistncy between the many books. How can anyone take all the books literally and come away with a consistent and coherent concept of Yahweh? They can't. At best believers have to ipck and choose select bits and construct their personal vision of this God. So to say God is beyond comprehension aims to blame humans for the lack of consistency and lack of coherency in the texts.


That's how Westboro Baptist Church out of Topeka, KS can assert strongly that God hates (gay people). The religious texts are so controdictory that any believer can pick and choose what they like and create a God out of the pieces. It's like every sect has their own Frankenstein Monster of a God. Islamic terrorists can hijack planes and fly them into buildings and be doing God's will. Christian missionaries can go into remote jungles at the risk of being killed to spread the promise of salvation. Evangelicals can claim God created the universe 6000 years ago. Baha'i insist that gays are to be condemned for being gay. Jews largely mind their own business but they have been targeted by other religions for death, and Yahweh stands by watching.


Faith will justify anything, including ideas that are completely contrary to fact. To consider the lpausibility of any god existing is to fall back on the natural caacity for seeking truth via reason and fact. Theists have to face the temptation to believe and use reason, or set aside reason as a useful tool to discover truth.

One can amplify and exaggerate the differences. In regards the Abrahamics we have texts that may extend over three thousand years that have emerged in castly different cultures. Of course there is differences in the way the massage is presented and applied I wouldn't expect anything else.

 

[Subduction Zone]

One can amplify and exaggerate the differences. In regards the Abrahamics we have texts that may extend over three thousand years that have emerged in castly different cultures. Of course there is differences in the way the massage is presented and applied I wouldn't expect anything else.

As long as the happy ending is included it is all good.

 

[Trailblazer]

Bahaullah says if you loose something unjustly in this world, God will compensate for it in the next life with spiritual things of the other world. So, here we got an answer

I am happy for you that you have that much faith in God and Baha'u'llah, but even it that is true it does not remove the suffering in the here and now. We are in this world now, not in the spiritual world. Not to sound crass, but I think God is a day late and a dollar short.

 

[Heyo]

But I believe to abandon religion entirely is to abandon the most powerful uniting force in the world.

I believe to abandon religion entirely is to abandon the most powerful divisive force in the world.

Religion unites billions of people. Whether Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or Christian there has never been nor will ever be a more potent force to unite people than religion and I believe to ignore it a grave mistake.

Religion divides billions of people. Whether Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or Christian there has never been nor will ever be a more potent force to divide people than religion and I believe to ignore it a grave mistake.
Not even the people within one religion are united. Catholics and protestants fought a 30 year war in Europe. Shiite and Sunnite are bickering today in the Middle East.

What else can we put in its place that can unite our world and bring peace to humanity? Humanism has great ideas but cannot unite humanity as the majority of the world believes in God. At best it can help better some conditions.

The belief in God is the problem, not part of the solution. If we get to unite the world, it will be in spite of religion, not because of it.
We won't eliminate religion for a long, long time but maybe we can get people to not take it so damn serious.

 

[loverofhumanity]

I believe to abandon religion entirely is to abandon the most powerful divisive force in the world.

Religion divides billions of people. Whether Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or Christian there has never been nor will ever be a more potent force to divide people than religion and I believe to ignore it a grave mistake.
Not even the people within one religion are united. Catholics and protestants fought a 30 year war in Europe. Shiite and Sunnite are bickering today in the Middle East.

The belief in God is the problem, not part of the solution. If we get to unite the world, it will be in spite of religion, not because of it.
We won't eliminate religion for a long, long time but maybe we can get people to not take it so damn serious.

That is a very one sided view. Throughout history religion has made significant contributions to civilisation too numerous to mention on a forum but to believe only the negative, which I put down not to religion but disobedience to its laws of love and unity, is to be in denial.

If Jesus says to love and people hate and Moses says Thou shalt not kill and people kill then that’s entirely peoples fault for their disobedience to the laws of God.

 

[Heyo]

That is a very one sided view.

It's the other side to your very one sided view.

Throughout history religion has made significant contributions to civilisation too numerous to mention on a forum but to believe only the negative, which I put down not to religion but disobedience to its laws of love and unity, is to be in denial.

To see only the positive is also denial.

If Jesus says to love and people hate and Moses says Thou shalt not kill and people kill then that’s entirely peoples fault for their disobedience to the laws of God.

It seems that people kill with or without religion only that it is easier for the religious as they put the blame on their gods while the irreligious have no-one to blame but themselves.

Religion had at least a 6000 year trial period to end wars and unite humanity and failed. Maybe it's time to try something different.

 

[loverofhumanity]

It's the other side to your very one sided view.

To see only the positive is also denial.

It seems that people kill with or without religion only that it is easier for the religious as they put the blame on their gods while the irreligious have no-one to blame but themselves.

Religion had at least a 6000 year trial period to end wars and unite humanity and failed. Maybe it's time to try something different.

So if Christ says ‘love one another’ how can He be blamed if people hate instead? How is it His or God’s fault?

Moses gave the commandment from God ‘Thou shalt not kill’. So how is it God’s fault if people kill? The commandment does not condone killing but opposes it. So I cannot see your rationale in blaming God. If people obeyed God then they would obey the law not to kill and the law to love one another then we would all be living in peace and happiness.

Has religion really been tried? Are we obeying God’s law not to kill or to love one another? Humankind has mostly disobeyed these laws so yes our disobedience to the laws of God clearly has not worked but what if we obey these laws not to kill and to love one another? They will surely work if we obey them.