Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Natural death, do you mean like Adam and Eve?
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What "if" you are wrong
- Thread starter We Never Know
- Start date
idea
Question Everything
If there is a loving God, no one will be blamed for what they knew/didn't know, heaven for everyone, whoo hoo.
If there is an unloving God who sends ppl to hell, no thank you, not interested in spending time with monsters.
No God, eternal rest - sounds nice.
Right now, best to spend limited time on what is tangible and currently real, be present, enjoy life.
If there is an unloving God who sends ppl to hell, no thank you, not interested in spending time with monsters.
No God, eternal rest - sounds nice.
Right now, best to spend limited time on what is tangible and currently real, be present, enjoy life.
For example if they are truthful and just, I think they are good.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
We (atheists) know we are not wrong.
Some Reasons Why Humanists Reject The Bible - American Humanist Association
By Joseph C. Sommer Introduction Humanists reject the claim that the Bible is the word of God. They are convinced the book was written solely by humans in an ignorant, superstitious, and cruel age. They believe that because the writers of the Bible lived in an unenlightened era, the book...
americanhumanist.org
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TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
That's not actually an answer to the question.
It's also self-contradicting, because if the bible god doesn't exist, then the bible isn't truthful, now is it?
Anyhow, what is the standard by which you judge bible teachings as "good" (or "just")?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
How do you know? Do you have any proof? Sound familiar?
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
Yeah, familiar, because we have discussed it for hundreds of times.
Absence of proof is evidence. What proof do you have for existence of (one) God or the people who have claimed to be messengers of that entity?
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Actually, the saying is that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
If no proof is given in the last 5,000 years for existence of God or selection of uneducated middle-eastern people as his messengers, I take that as a proof of their non-existence. There is no elephant in my cupboard, however vehemently some one may argue.
It is not eternal rest, @idea. What we are composed of disperses in the environment (molecules) is recycled into many things, living and non-living. This cycle has been going on for 13.78 billion years (and will continue for many more).
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If Bible tells it is wrong to murder, how does it change, if God is not real? Is it then ok to murder?
The logic how the Biblical law is formed shows it is just. For example, why it is not good to murder, because you would not want that to be done to you. And if you would murder, you would give the same right for others, because there would be no reason why others would not have the same right than what you have.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
You need a bible to know it's wrong to murder?
The bible also says it's ok to stone disobedient children, that there are "contexts" where it is ok to engage in genocide / infanticide, that it's ok to keep slaves, that gay people who engage in sexual relations need to be killed,.....
Having said that, when you say "the bible is truthful" then it seems a tad dishonest to then cherrypick things everybody would agree on while ignoring all the nasty bits - including the claims about god in a context where we assume god doesn't exist.
I would say that, regardless if god exists or not, the bible isn't truthful because it has obvious falsehoods.
I agree with some things and disagree with plenty.
I, as an atheist, can go through the book and find truths in there. Just like I can find truths in the quran, the iliad, star wars, lord of the rings etc.
Now apply that same logic to stoning adulturers, executing gay people who engage in sex, keeping slaves, engaging in infanticide / genocide,...
It's not exactly honest to cherry pick the "murder" bit. There isn't a single culture in the world or history that thought murder is a-okay.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Absence of proof is not proof that there is no evidence. There is no proof that God exists, only evidence. Evidence is not proof.
There is and never will be proof that God exists.
The only way we could have proof that God exists is if God proved it in some manner.
If God wanted to prove that He exists He could easily do so, but instead all God offers is evidence.
God does not prove He exists is because God wants our faith. If God proved He exists then we would no longer need faith because we would know for a fact that God exists. So, it makes logical sense to me why there is no proof that God exists, because God wants us to believe on faith and evidence.
Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.
Believing in God requires faith since no man has ever seen God. Then we go looking for the evidence. I believe that God will reward those who earnestly seek Him by helping them find the evidence they need to believe.
PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
Do Manifestations know for a fact that God exists? Or do they have to have faith like everyone else?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I believe they know for a fact the God exists since God communicated to Them and they knew it was God.
How they know is not something that we can understand since we are not Them.
PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
So you believe they are some kind of gods or superhumans?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, I do not believe that at all. I believe that Manifestations of God are a different order of creation than ordinary humans because they have a 'twofold nature' that ordinary humans do not have. Ordinary humans only have one nature, a human nature.
The passage below explains what I believe about the Manifestations of God.
“Unto this subtle, this mysterious and ethereal Being He hath assigned a twofold nature; the physical, pertaining to the world of matter, and the spiritual, which is born of the substance of God Himself. He hath, moreover, conferred upon Him a double station. The first station, which is related to His innermost reality, representeth Him as One Whose voice is the voice of God Himself. To this testifieth the tradition: “Manifold and mysterious is My relationship with God. I am He, Himself, and He is I, Myself, except that I am that I am, and He is that He is.” …. The second station is the human station, exemplified by the following verses: “I am but a man like you.” “Say, praise be to my Lord! Am I more than a man, an apostle?”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 66-67
You're describing the pathway to motivated reasoning (confirmation bias), which follows when one believes something but the evidence doesn't support him. It's important when evaluating evidence to have no preconceptions about what it signifies and be able to deduce sound conclusions from it, to go where the evidence takes an experienced critical thinker.
I'm sure that you're familiar with what is meant by the phrase double-blinded, controlled, prospective studies used in medical efficacy and safety trials. You probably know that both the clinician and patient are kept in the dark regarding whether the patient is receiving the experimental therapy, or is in the control group receiving placebo, and for good reason - to prevent motivated thinking on the part of both of them, although we would hope that the clinician could be objective even knowing who got therapy and who got placebo. But patients wouldn't be expected to do that as well, and might be more likely to report a benefit if they knew they were getting the therapy, so they need to be kept in the dark.
Also, motivated reasoning is what caused the ID people to keep seeing irreducible complexity where there was none. They assumed it existed going into their studies, and so saw what others later pointed out to them wasn't there.
And I just saw this in a thread about Jesus and messianic prophecy, and commented on motivated reasoning there. I think you participated on that thread as well. Two posters were discussing how well or poorly Jesus fit the OT criteria for a Messiah, and specifically, it was pointed out that Jesus didn't achieve world peace as was foretold regarding the Messiah. The believer answered that there is no timeline for that world peace effectively removing it from the list of criteria for identifying the Messiah.
Now look at your words above again in the light of that. You're saying that in order to see evidence for a god, you need to believe it exists first.
I believe that if you look at that evidence AFTER choosing to believe that it supports one's belief that a god exists, that's what you'll see.
That's also motivated reasoning. No, they cannot know that they have heard from a god for a fact, although they might say so and even believe so. But if they believe that can happen, then that's what they see happening. I know that firsthand. I think I told you that I got married in the belief that the Holy Spirit was speaking to me to marry a particular person. I remember how I felt, and I understood it as a message received, and I would have called it a fact that a god communicated with me.
I've had similar spiritual experiences since, but no longer see a god involved in them. The belief shapes one's interpretation of events, which is why one is exhorted to believe FIRST, then interpret experience, which is the reverse of the proper order. The review of the evidence needs to precede belief and needs to be evaluated open-mindedly according to the principles of valid reasoning to acquire knowledge about oneself (what makes one happy and what makes him unhappy) and nature around us (how things are and how they work).
In this way, we manipulate circumstances to favor desirable outcomes resulting. No other method can do that. And belief by faith derails it.
If you assume that a god exists and channels messages only through certain people, then you'll also believe that those people must not be like us. They're not "ordinary human beings" and you'll believe their message. But if one begins by looking at the people making these claims and their messages without preconceptions, one sees ordinary people writing and speaking ordinary words.
the messengers are channeling a god, then they must be different
PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
In other words they are superhumans (=gods).
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Manifestations of God are MORE than human but they are not God.
Only God is God.
PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
Exactly. Gods (written with lower-case) are more than humans but they are not "God Most High".