Prove god exists.

[tfree]

What? Read the bible? Been there, and done that. It wasn't very compelling, once I took a hard look at it, and some external sources regarding biblical and pre-biblical times.

Well the Bible isn't an easy text to understand, and if you take a hard look at something which is supposed to speak to your heart, well it's probably not going to be that effective is it.

Well, whether or not you're a theist who believes God selects his chosen lot for an everlasting state of sensual and intellectual bliss, based on their complete lack of cogency on earth, or on their moral character, don't you think there is some instrinsically deceitful and unjust element in your God's.... shall we say, "mind game"? If you think that God has a point to this truly cruel joke that life must be in his hands, and that he simply doesn't want to express it while demanding that I behave a certain way in circumstances he has orchestrated like a puppeteer, isn't he no better than a household managed by a tyrant?

I can totally understand that it might feel like that if you don't have any experience with religion. The only way we can possibly come to terms with His kindness and benevolence is through religion. Religion is the channel through which He speaks to us: if we have never felt His influence this way, how will we ever like Him? Without it we are bound to think negatively of God.

So then, what happens to us non-believers, in your view?

Well, that depends on the reason for which you don't believe. In many cases I would expect that you have found religious people to be lacking in logic, and if this is the case then surely it is as much their fault for dissuading you as it is yours for not believing. God's justice will surely take that into account. After we die I think things must however be harder for those who don't believe in God than for those that do, because it will be harder for them to adapt to the next life in which spirituality is so profoundly important. But there is nothing to say that they won't come to terms with those realities and then advance far beyond those who had believed in God.

There is nothing in the most fundamental teachings you list that humanity can't, and hasn't, arrive at on our own.

I agree it would be easy for humanity to presume that it had arrived at these teachings [be kind, generous, etc] on its own, however this overlooks the fact that in Europe for example, throughout the same period of time that it has progressed from the dark ages to today's relatively very civilised state, where countries are at peace and cooperation and harmony are far more prevalent, the entire population has been attending church more or less every week, a place where priests would give spiritual teaching on how to get on with one another, how to be kind, etc... all the same attributes which enable those people to live together in the (in relative terms) civilised way it does today. I would say it is more likely that people have learned these things from religion, given that this is the very purpose of religion.

It is secular society that is responsible for dragging religions kicking and screaming into modernity.

It is true that the world's well-known religions are beginning to look unsuited to the needs of today's world. In the view of the Baha'i Faith, in which I am a believer, these religions' time has passed and God has now provided a new set of teachings for this modern age of never-before-seen developments in science, technology, education, communication and many other fields. The Baha'i teachings go into far more detail than those of other religions and deal with all the most fundamental issues humanity faces today.

Rose tinted shades much?

Take a closer look at the civilizations built on the words of these so called prophets. Leave aside the dubious historicity of these characters for all I care. Just look at the bare bones of history and then come again on how they built unity and concord among the people.

War is all they brought.

Civilisation is what comes about when people live together in cooperation and reciprocity, and it's not a coincidence that these are exactly the things which religion teaches. This is why every major civilisation has been built around a core of spiritual teachings. Look at how the Middle Eastern civilisation rose after Mohammed: it went from being an area of warring tribes to being the most advanced civilisation in the world. And modern Western civilisation is built on the foundation of Christian teachings. The ancient Greeks had their gods and their mythology, and ancient Chinese civilisation reached its peak at exactly the same time as Buddhist influence peaked, in the Tang Dynasty. Yes there have been religious wars but people will go to war about anything which they feel strongly about: this doesn't mean that the overall influence of religion is a negative one, far from it.

Sweet baby Jesus wasn't exactly hiding it, either, with his riding in the blood of his enemies and all that. He flat out says "I come to bring a sword not peace". What's amazing is how some people read the bible and still maintain this hippie vision of Christianity. But I guess if you're lying to yourself, you might as well go full delusional.

What are you referring to with 'riding in the blood of his enemies'? Yes He said He came to bring a sword, and He followed that by saying He came to set family members against one another: early Christians' beliefs caused many families to be divided. But if you look at the teachings as a whole they are clearly all about reciprocity: just look at His two commandments for example.