Are Religions and Gods manmade?

[joelr]

I have posted what “I consider” to be evidence of Baha’u’llah’s station as a Messenger of God dozens of times on this forum. Not one person has ever accepted it as evidence so why should I keep posting it over and over and over again? Atheists always say “that’s not evidence.” I have heard that so many times it is coming out of my ears. Why would I think you would be any different?

Which thing? The one where Baha. explains why God uses messengers? He just explains it? That literally isn't evidence.
That's the same as people proving Jesus was real because the Bible says so?

Believe whatever you want to, if that is what the evidence indicates to you. I am not into “I am right and you are wrong.” Calling other wrong is insisting you are right is all about ego.

No no this was directly about the Israelite myths you said :
"All the evidence indicates that God has always revealed Himself by sending Messengers who establish religions"

That is WRONG. ALL OF THE EVIDENCE in scholarship shows these are myths, not messages from God.
Moses Wiki:

"Scholarly consensus sees Moses as a legendary figure, w"
we can go on like this for a long time. The evidence shows that these stories are no different than the Cananite stories and so on. They are made up. We can go over all of the historicity of the old and new testament and none of it is considered to be supernatural in origin.

That is fine if you choose to believe that, but you are not going to convince me of that, so why keep discussing it after it has already been discussed? You cannot prove that there were never any Messengers if God and I cannot prove that there were, so it is just a matter of what we chose to believe.

No but I have mountains of evidence that shows myths were taken from older sources, endless prophecies that did not happen and many lines of evidence that these religions are myth. So I can show it's very logical that there were no god-messages.

As I said in the previous post, your knowledge of older scriptures and apparent inability to stop clinging to them places a veil over your eyes, and it is apparently irremovable. I was not raised in any religion and never had a religion other than Baha’i so I never had my vision obstructed by the Bible. I thank God for that.

I have no idea what you mean. What you seem to not know is how extremely likely these other religions are mythologies.
It's like if Baha. instead of mentioning the Bible and Eastern religions he was mentioning Lord of the Rings and the Oddesy as other god-messages. Well that's how mythic the religions he is talking about are so it demonstrates it's just a man starting a new movement.
The amount to which you are ignoring this past evidence shows you do not care about what is true but will blindly believe anything in your scripture.

 

[joelr]

But since I have the Baha’i Writings to straighten out the mess I know which tales and which are real so it is not a mess for me.

Except those writing have zero proof they are from a God.

You know that? How do you know that, were you there?

Starting with Thomas Thompsons work in the 1970's and accepted and peer reviewed into the field, this PhD work demonstrated that Moses and the Patriarchs are definitely made up stories.
Biblical Archeologist William Denver here can confirm the OT is not historical, exodus did not happen, the Israelites came from the Canaanites, Yahweh was originally paired up with Ashrea and many other lines of evidence that suggest this is myth writing rather than historical writing. we can go onto many lines of evidence from here.
Archeology of the Hebrew Bible

But yeah, we know.

Fine, if that is what you choose to believe. I certainly do not expect people to believe what I do.

I don't care about beliefs. I care about evidence.

Clearly, your knowledge makes it impossible to see because you believe you already know. I will leave you to this one last statement
In seeking God one must put aside all acquired knowledge and all attachments to what one wants; one must put aside both love and hate; one must wash away both pride and vain-glory; and one must cling to patience.

I get this a lot. Each religious person has these qualities one must use to gain understanding. Except they forget or cannot fathom that when these qualities are used to see if the religion is true and it shows it's not then I must have done it wrong. You think the outcome is pre-ordained. This shows your mind is closed, you do not look at things objectively and you do not care about truth. A guy says a bunch of spiritual stuff. Anyone who uses their mind to determine if he's making up the "god" part is thrown a bunch of verses saying he's not coming at it correctly.
This is cult behvior.

These are some of the requirements of the True Seeker.

Tablet of the True Seeker

Yes I have seen fundamentalist Christians prey on college students and turn them into these "enlightened" people who walk around smiling and believing they are born again and are gazing with the eye of God and see the divine manifestation. It's still not true.
Funny he only seems to know about the religions he has access to the books of?


He spoke of science and math and botched both of them up in an embarrassing way that a God of this highly mathematical and scientific universe would never do. The rest is fluffy vague praise and "be nice to everyone"
The Seth Material is FAR denser than this and is a lady Jane Roberts channeling Seth. Channeling is God-messengering. It's impressive and still fiction. The evidence has to match the claim. Claim to be a god-messenger you can't botch some basic science and start in with numerology.[/QUOTE]

 

[joelr]

If that were really the case - that He only loved worshippers - then He wouldn’t have provided a resurrection for “the unrighteousness.” Acts of the Apostles 24:15; John 5:28-29
“Resurrection of Judgement” means they’re judged on how they act, after their resurrection. Death is the payment for sins, while they were living. (Romans 6 7,23) They already paid that.
A new lease on life, will be their opportunity. And if they still don’t want to live under their loving Father’s direction, well, eternal destruction (IOW, forever nonexistence), is vastly better than conscious torment!

Please, I ask you to read Isaiah 11:6-9 & Revelation 21:3-4. Who wouldn’t love that? As well as seeing all their loved ones again?

Non-believers still go to hell. A God who needs magic blood atonement sacrifice for rules he created is archaic bronze age nonsense.
Eternal punishment for imperfect beings who this God supposedly created, free-will or no is a crap God and not loving to humanity.

End of the world and seeing loved ones is a great idea but the idea was imported during the 2nd temple period while the Persians occupied Judea.

"
Some scholars believe that many elements of Christian mythology, particularly its linear portrayal of time, originated with the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism.[29] Mary Boyce, an authority on Zoroastrianism, writes:

Zoroaster was thus the first to teach the doctrines of an individual judgment, Heaven and Hell, the future resurrection of the body, the general Last Judgment, and life everlasting for the reunited soul and body. These doctrines were to become familiar articles of faith to much of mankind, through borrowings by Judaism, Christianity and Islam.[30]
"

 

[joelr]

The Bible’s account of Noah’s Ark, describes Noah building a vessel w/ genuine ratios, a 3(H):5(W):30(L), ratio that modern-day shipbuilders within the last 2 centuries have utilized to construct a non-powered vessel of that size and maintain seaworthiness (stability)!

On the basis of that evidence, alone... the Bible reveals itself to be a divinely-inspired account of the Deluge!

The Gilgamesh epic provides nothing like it...those ideal dimensions weren’t understood back then. (Sumerian sources say it’s Ark was, I think, 90 cubits square by 120 cubits tall? That would not ever be stable!)

Epic of Gilgamesh - Wikipedia
Various themes, plot elements, and characters in the Epic of Gilgamesh have counterparts in the Hebrew Bible – notably, the accounts of the Garden of Eden, the advice from Ecclesiastes, and the Genesis flood narrative.

he Genesis flood narrative matches that in Gilgamesh so closely that "few doubt" that it derives from a Mesopotamian account.[42] What is particularly noticeable is the way the Genesis flood story follows the Gilgamesh flood tale "point by point and in the same order", even when the story permits other alternatives.[43] In a 2001 Torah commentary released on behalf of the Conservative Movement of Judaism, rabbinic scholar Robert Wexler stated: "The most likely assumption we can make is that both Genesis and Gilgamesh drew their material from a common tradition about the flood that existed in Mesopotamia. These stories then diverged in the retelling."[44] Ziusudra, Utnapishtim and Noah are the respective heroes of the Sumerian, Akkadian and biblical flood legends of the ancient Near East.


As to the ratio even answers in Genesis concluded that they were reasonable safe but not used as the standard measurements in modern day?

"In conclusion, the Ark as a drifting ship, is thus believed to have had a reasonable-beam-draft ratio for the safety of the hull, crew and cargo in the high winds"
Safety Investigation of Noah’s Ark in a Seaway

And that's an apologetics site. I have a feeling an actual ship building site would not agree.
But so they knew how to build ships?

The world flood is a myth every religion had and scientific evidence has not confirmed any such thing.
List of flood myths - Wikipedia

But because humans knew how to build ships in those times (and earlier) this to you demonstrated some divine scripture? The Egyptians has many size ships? This is where the Canaanites came from and eventually split into the Israelites.

 

[Mock Turtle]

You STILL here trying to tell me what you believe did or didn't happen in my life???

Ego much?

Ego? That's you, matey. I'm not the one defending a belief. I'm suggesting an alternative explanation for your early childhood experience which you seemingly will reject offhand - supposedly knowing all about children and what goes on in their heads and what they might or might not experience.

 

[PAUL MARKHAM]

You are free to believe that if you want to, but it is just a personal opinion, not a fact.

That has nothing to do with the myths such as the resurrection story.

That is probably true, but that is not proof that I am deluding myself. You cannot know that, so it would just be a personal opinion. We all have those.

Just because the Holy Spirit has not been demonstrated that does not mean it does not exist. Spiritual things cannot be demonstrated because they are not material.

It is logical to say some things in the Bible are myths but not all things are myths.


You do not know that. It is just your personal opinion. Since you cannot prove that is true, asserting that It was definitely created by a man is an argument from ignorance.

Argument from ignorance asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there may have been an insufficient investigation, and therefore there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false.

Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia

You are sure, lol. Another personal opinion/argument from ignorance.

Can you prove God is fiction? If not, that is just a personal opinion and to assert it is an argument from ignorance.

Not everything in the Bible is myths.

It does demonstrate that to me and other Baha’is. It is all in one’s perspective. It cannot be expected that everyone will see it the same way because all humans are unique.

The evidence has been put forth but you do not consider it evidence. I have been going round this block with atheists 24/7 for seven years, so I know the drill. Why should I believe you are any different from the others?

That is another dogmatic personal opinion. You cannot speak for me and if you do that demonstrates arrogance. I know I have not been manipulated by anyone. I believe because of what I consider to be good evidence. It is bad to you but that does not make it bad because you do not determine what is bad for anyone except yourself.. Do you even understand what I am saying?

Prove what? I cannot prove that the Baha’i Faith is true to other people, but that does not mean it is not true, logically speaking. Besides, proof is not what makes anything true. Truth simply exists. Proof is just what people want in order to believe. It’s amazing how everyone misses that.

That’s right, I cannot talk you out of your beliefs and I cannot make you see what I see in the evidence. We are separate people with separate backgrounds and separate thought processes.

That is an expansive subject and one I have addressed over and over and over on this forum from many different angles.

In short, God requires Messengers because God is Spirit so God cannot “show up” and bring the message Himself. But there are many reasons God uses Messengers aside from that.

Baha’u’llah explained why the Messengers are unimpressive and that is God’s intention. In short, God does not want it to be obvious who the Messenger was. Try this on for size and if you do not understand what it means I will explain what it means.

“That the Manifestations of Divine justice, the Day Springs of heavenly grace, have when they appeared amongst men always been destitute of all earthly dominion and shorn of the means of worldly ascendancy, should be attributed to this same principle of separation and distinction which animateth the Divine Purpose. Were the Eternal Essence to manifest all that is latent within Him, were He to shine in the plentitude of His glory, none would be found to question His power or repudiate His truth. Nay, all created things would be so dazzled and 72thunderstruck by the evidences of His light as to be reduced to utter nothingness. How, then, can the godly be differentiated under such circumstances from the froward?” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 71-72.

The reason you cannot see what the Baha’i scripture is saying is because you cannot divest yourself is all your knowledge of the older religious scriptures. I see the same thing in other people on this forum. Those other religions put a veil over their eyes because they cannot separate the Baha’i Faith from those older religions. They see some similarities because of course there are similarities, since they all came from the same God, but they cannot see the differences or how the Baha’i Faith is related to those older religions.

Fundamental Principle of Religious Truth

Since you do not understand what Baha’u’llah meant by “Knowledge is the most grievous veil between man and his Creator” you jump to conclusions, which is a fallacy.

When He wrote: “Knowledge is of two kinds: Divine and Satanic. The one welleth out from the fountain of divine inspiration; the other is but a reflection of vain and obscure thoughts.” That has nothing to do with a being called Satan, because Baha’is do not believe in any such being. See how you jumped to conclusions? In Baha’i, Satan is symbolic for the lower selfish nature of man, so Satanic knowledge is knowledge that is a product of our own mind (vain and obscure thoughts) as opposed to knowledge from God that comes to us via the Messenger.

You should not buy it when a man claims to speak for God. You should be wary and you should do the fullest investigation before you would believe His claim.

“Bahá’u’lláh asked no one to accept His statements and His tokens blindly. On the contrary, He put in the very forefront of His teachings emphatic warnings against blind acceptance of authority, and urged all to open their eyes and ears, and use their own judgement, independently and fearlessly, in order to ascertain the truth. He enjoined the fullest investigation and never concealed Himself, offering, as the supreme proofs of His Prophethood, His words and works and their effects in transforming the lives and characters of men.” Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, p. 8

By contrast, cult leaders do not tell you to check them out because they don’t want you to find out about them.

That is not what I meant by what I said. One should do the fullest investigation before they would be willing to believe in a religion.

If I hear the word evidence one more time I am going to lose my mind. Let’s start with the definitions of evidence:

Evidence: anything that helps to prove that something is or is not true: EVIDENCE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid: https://www.google.com/search

There is no such thing as universal evidence.
What is evidence to one person is not evidence to another person.
What is evidence to me is what indicates to me that my beliefs are true.
What is evidence to me will not be evidence to you unless it indicates to you that the Baha’i Faith is true.

TB you show little respect for others and seem amazed when no respect is shown to you. I high lighted tour mistake.

Argument from ignorance asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there may have been an insufficient investigation, and therefore there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false.

Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia

Clearly, you are breaking your own rules. You can't prove anything in the bible is true other than it was written. A lot has been disproven and yet you cling on to the parts you believe are true even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

You have no evidence that convinces others. I said billions aren't convinced about Baha'is. You replied I can only talk for myself. 1.2 billion are atheist, so not convinced, then there are the billions of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc.

There is evidence that some evidence is plainly silly.

You claim we can question, but what if Man, being each one of us unique, don't reach the same conclusion as you?

Just dial down your beliefs over other people beliefs and facts.

 

[PAUL MARKHAM]

Yes.
The Creation account is not dealing w/ people. (Until the end, that is.) The others are.
Even w/ the Flood & Exodus, some time had passed by, before the events transpired.



It does inform us that there are differences between the animals, by saying “according to their kinds.” (Why include that phrase, if it wasn’t inferring a difference...maybe between family-level taxa?) More later, on this.

It's proven that Hominids took millions of years to evolve. 55 million years ago First primitive primates evolve So god needed many attempts to create Man. Slowly taking him out of the trees to walk upright. Some attempts we mated with and still contain their DNA. Not very impressive god who can create things in a day.

You’ll find that my understanding of Scripture, although it is the same as 8.5 million other JW’s, mostly does not agree w/ mainstream Christendom; they teach Hellfire, & trinity, YEC (I guess YEC is more common than OEC..idk), etc.


Before I discuss this with you... what is Eart?

Have a great evening!

Try reading a bit more facts rather than the bible.

Eart is Earth, a wise man can work that out.

 

[PAUL MARKHAM]

The Bible’s account of Noah’s Ark, describes Noah building a vessel w/ genuine ratios, a 3(H):5(W):30(L), ratio that modern-day shipbuilders within the last 2 centuries have utilized to construct a non-powered vessel of that size and maintain seaworthiness (stability)!

On the basis of that evidence, alone... the Bible reveals itself to be a divinely-inspired account of the Deluge!

The Gilgamesh epic provides nothing like it...those ideal dimensions weren’t understood back then. (Sumerian sources say it’s Ark was, I think, 90 cubits square by 120 cubits tall? That would not ever be stable!)

The Jews changed the dimensions to make it more seaworthy.

Evidence against the Flood ever happening is everywhere. There is no continuous layer of evidence the world was enveloped in a great flood, such as bones. DNA proves the Flood never happened. There is evidence that in the late Ice Age the melting Ice caps caused seas around to rise slowly, turning lakes into seas. The population soon after the time of the Flood was too large for a few couples to create, the "evil" that Man does has carried on since the Flood so a wasted exercise.

List of flood myths - Wikipedia there are flood myths, stories all over the world. The explanation is simple. Tsunamis, the recent one shows how devastating they can be. To Stone Age and Bronze Age men, they must seem like an act of god. Many religious stories start out in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. There was a period of seas rising due to the melting of the Ice Cap Last Glacial Period - Wikipedia. .Seeing the Black Sea go from a lake to a sea would seem like an act of god to Neolithic Man.

 

[PAUL MARKHAM]

Baha’u’llah explained why the Messengers are unimpressive and that is God’s intention. In short, God does not want it to be obvious who the Messenger was. Try this on for size and if you do not understand what it means I will explain what it means.

Yes please explain why god keeps choosing nobodies rather than the leaders in his effort to convert us all.

Please do not tell us the leaders will just ignore it. Because if god can't get them to change then it's not a very great god. It can just kill the non-compliant leaders and let the next guy do it, on pain of death again.

Of course, if it's intention isn't to convert anyone, then it's doing a grand job.

 

[PAUL MARKHAM]

In seeking God one must put aside all acquired knowledge and all attachments to what one wants; one must put aside both love and hate; one must wash away both pride and vain-glory; and one must cling to patience.

Classic cult practice. Separate people from what they believe to get them to believe the cult's will.

 

[PAUL MARKHAM]

I have posted what “I consider” to be evidence of Baha’u’llah’s station as a Messenger of God dozens of times on this forum. Not one person has ever accepted it as evidence so why should I keep posting it over and over and over again? Atheists always say “that’s not evidence.” I have heard that so many times it is coming out of my ears. Why would I think you would be any different?

Believe whatever you want to, if that is what the evidence indicates to you. I am not into “I am right and you are wrong.” Calling other wrong is insisting you are right is all about ego.

That is fine if you choose to believe that, but you are not going to convince me of that, so why keep discussing it after it has already been discussed? You cannot prove that there were never any Messengers if God and I cannot prove that there were, so it is just a matter of what we chose to believe.

As I said in the previous post, your knowledge of older scriptures and apparent inability to stop clinging to them places a veil over your eyes, and it is apparently irremovable. I was not raised in any religion and never had a religion other than Baha’i so I never had my vision obstructed by the Bible. I thank God for that.

Couldyour evidence be wrong? The problem is you are into I'm right and you're wrong.

 

[Trailblazer]

TB you show little respect for others and seem amazed when no respect is shown to you. I high lighted tour mistake.

Argument from ignorance asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there may have been an insufficient investigation, and therefore there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false.

Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia

That is funny. I am not calling anybody ignorant. An argument from ignorance is just a logical fallacy.

 

[Trailblazer]

You have no evidence that convinces others.

It is not my job to convince others.

 

[Trailblazer]

You claim we can question, but what if Man, being each one of us unique, don't reach the same conclusion as you?

I never said that you would or that you should come to the same conclusions as I did.

We all have to come to our own conclusions.

 

[Trailblazer]

Could your evidence be wrong? The problem is you are into I'm right and you're wrong.

I believe what I believe, so I consider it true.
This is not about right and wrong.
Evidence is not right or wrong.

Evidence: anything that helps to prove that something is or is not true: EVIDENCE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid: https://www.google.com/search

There is no such thing as universal evidence because what is evidence to one person is not evidence to another person. It might be evidence to another person if they both consider it evidence, or it might not be, if they don't both consider it evidence.

Something is evidence to me because it indicates to me that my beliefs are true.
Something will not be evidence to you unless it indicates to you that the beliefs are true.

 

[CG Didymus]

No but I have mountains of evidence that shows myths were taken from older sources, endless prophecies that did not happen and many lines of evidence that these religions are myth. So I can show it's very logical that there were no god-messages.

One thing, you have a little over 1000 messages in 6 years. Some people have more in a month. So why this thread? What is it that makes this thread so important to you?

So now about Baha'is and myths... Since Baha'is don't believe the Bible stories, including the physical resurrection of Jesus, literally, I've asked them... doesn't that make if fictional and mythical? Or, because the stories are presented as being true, doesn't that make them lies? The usual answer I got from them was "no". They are not "literally" true. They are "symbolically" true. So they went out of their way to give me examples. One was about Lazarus. The Baha'i said that Lazarus was "spiritually" dead and Jesus made him "spiritually" alive. Similar with some of the healings... the person was "spiritually" blind and Jesus made it so he could "spiritually" see. Here's Abdul Baha's interpretation of the resurrection...

(W)e say that the meaning of Christ’s resurrection is as follows: the disciples were troubled and agitated after the martyrdom of Christ. The Reality of Christ, which signifies His teachings, His bounties, His perfections and His spiritual power, was hidden and concealed for two or three days after His martyrdom, and was not resplendent and manifest. No, rather it was lost, for the believers were few in number and were troubled and agitated. The Cause of Christ was like a lifeless body; and when after three days the disciples became assured and steadfast, and began to serve the Cause of Christ, and resolved to spread the divine teachings, putting His counsels into practice, and arising to serve Him, the Reality of Christ became resplendent and His bounty appeared; His religion found life; His teachings and His admonitions became evident and visible. In other words, the Cause of Christ was like a lifeless body until the life and the bounty of the Holy Spirit surrounded it.
Such is the meaning of the resurrection of Christ, and this was a true resurrection. But as the clergy have neither understood the meaning of the Gospels nor comprehended 105 the symbols, therefore, it has been said that religion is in contradiction to science, and science in opposition to religion, as, for example, this subject of the ascension of Christ with an elemental body to the visible heaven is contrary to the science of mathematics. But when the truth of this subject becomes clear, and the symbol is explained, science in no way contradicts it; but, on the contrary, science and the intelligence affirm it.​

What's strange to me is Baha'is do believe Jesus was born of a virgin. But they don't believe the details of the gospel stories. Some of us tell them that these things could easily have been borrowed from the other religions. Several religions had virgin born God/men that died and came back to life. And, now that I think about it, I don't remember any Baha'i addressing that? That things like the resurrection were just things borrowed from other religions.

But, to do that doesn't fit the Baha'i story. Making the stories "true" in a symbolic way does. It gives Baha'is a way to say that God inspired the writers to write the gospel and other Bible stories, but it was the fault of the religious leaders for misinterpreting those stories and taking them as actually being literally true... when in realty, they were meant to be taken symbolically.

I hope you followed all that. It makes me dizzy just trying to explain it. So then I ask, if the stories aren't literally true and are symbolic, doesn't that make the stories fictional? or mythical? In the end, Baha'is believe what ever they want to believe in the Bible. And they decide what that is and how to interpret it.

 

[Trailblazer]

No it's a fact. If it isn't provide evidence. Otherwise the millions of examples we have of people deluding themselves to believe things we both know are myth provide excellent evidence that your religion is doing the same.

It is that fallacy of hasty generalization to say that just because some religious people are deluded the Baha’is are also deluded. Moreover, you cannot prove that Baha’is are deluded unless you can prove the religion is false.

Are you now claiming the resurrection was myth but Jesus was an actual god-messenger?

Yes, that is what I believe. Why on earth would the resurrection “stories” have to be true in order for Jesus to be a Messenger of God? That does not comport with logic as there is no relationship whatsoever. Moreover, not all Christians believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead.

What many liberal theologians believe about Jesus' death

“Many liberal and some mainline Christian leaders believe that Jesus died during the crucifixion, did not resurrect himself, and was not bodily resurrected by God. At his death, his mind ceased to function and his body started the decomposition process. Returning to life a day and a half later would have been quite impossible. The story of having been wrapped in linen and anointed with myrrh seems to have been copied from the story of the death of Osiris -- the Egyptian God of the earth, vegetation and grain. The legend that he visited the underworld between his death and resurrection was simply copied from common Pagan themes of surrounding cultures. One example again was Osiris. "With his original association to agriculture, his death and resurrection were seen as symbolic of the annual death and re-growth of the crops and the yearly flooding of the Nile." 1

They also believe that Paul regarded the resurrection to be an act of God in which Jesus was a passive recipient of God's power. Paul did not mention the empty tomb, the visit by a woman or women, the stone, the angel/angels/man/men at the tomb, and reunion of Jesus with his followers in his resuscitated body. Rather, he believed that Jesus was taken up into heaven in a spirit body. It was only later, from about 70 to 110 CE when the four canonic Gospels were written, that the Christians believed that Jesus rose from the grave in his original body, and by his own power.”

http://www.religioustolerance.org/resur_lt.htm

First we know he was just one of many demigods and this version happened to become popular. So he was a myth. But most of Jesus messages are about how bad it's going to be for non-believers, false prophets and eternal torture.

You now claiming that that was all wrong and just the occasional "be nice to people" were the real messages and everything else is wrong?

All the scholars agree that Jesus in fact existed, so He was not a myth. What is attributed to Him in the NT is another matter because it was written by men who did not even know Jesus, so all the verses about how bad it's going to be for non-believers, false prophets and eternal torture were not necessarily anything Jesus ever said.

The Mark gospel alone is a masterpiece of literary devices by a very talented and educated writer. He knew it wasn't true but probably thought it would help bring people together.

Maybe you are right, but you cannot know that the author knew it was not true, so that is just a personal opinion.

Not when you base it on writings from a person in the 1800's who gives no demonstration he is getting messages from a God but relies on flowery space filling praise to make points all mystic teachers would say. Using that as a guide to what is myth is not logical.

I would not need the Writings of Baha’u’llah to know that some things in the Bible are myths and others are not. All I need is a logical mind.

I know argument from ignorance, people employ it's defense when they are cornered. As if you don't get my general meaning. I read Vedic scripture often. I find some of it very deep. Still not God messages. Baha scripture is fan fiction.

You cannot prove that, that is just a personal opinion.

You are not going to convince me that Baha’u’llah was not a Messenger of God, and I am not trying to convince you that He was, so what is the purpose of this conversation? I have no interest in arguing with you over who is right and who is wrong.

We see good evidence that the origins of this God looks like a myth. –

"and he, not Yahweh, was the original "God of Israel"—the word "Israel" is based on the name El rather than Yahweh.[39] He lived in a tent on a mountain from whose base originated all the fresh waters of the world, with the goddess Asherah as his consort.[38][40]
The Israelites initially worshipped Yahweh alongside a variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses, including El, Asherah and Baal.[7] In the period of the Judges and the first half of the monarchy, El and Yahweh became conflated in a process of religious syncretism.[45] As a result, 'el (Hebrew: אל‎) became a generic term meaning "god", as opposed to the name of a worshipped deity, and epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone, diminishing the worship of El and strengthening the position of Yahweh.[46] Features of Baal, El, and Asherah were absorbed into the Yahwistic religion, Asherah possibly becoming embodied in the feminine aspects of the Shekinah or divine presence, and Baal's nature as a storm and weather god becoming assimilated into Yahweh's own identification with the storm.[9] In the next stage the Yahwistic religion separated itself from its Canaanite heritage, first by rejecting Baal-worship in the 9th century, then with prophetic condemnation of Baal, the asherim, sun-worship, worship on the "high places", practices pertaining to the dead, and other matters.[47]

It doesn't get better but continues to show a make believe story changing over time

Yahweh - Wikipedia

The origin of God is not the Bible so the Bible does not prove that God is a myth. Just because there are myths in the Bible, that does not mean there is no God. I consider that illogical, because other religions not based upon the Bible also reveal a God, Hinduism for example.

Historical scholarship is in consensus here that Jesus was either a man who was mythicized later into a demigod or a complete myth. So if your scripture says otherwise it's also fiction.

Believe whatever you want to believe, you have no proof. I believe what I do about Jesus because of what Baha’u’llah wrote, which I consider scripture, so I do not need the Bible to know who Jesus was.

I don't believe you there. I think you decided it was true because you want it to be true and make some odd claim that cannot be investigated without reading all the scripture. I don't even believe a God would make something so difficult to show is a message from God.

I do not care what you think about why I believe what I do, because I know why I believe what I do. I never read one page of the Bible until eight years ago and I have been a Baha’i for 50 years. I do not need the Bible in order to know who Baha’u’llah was. To me it is self-evident. Moreover, I know why God makes it difficult as Baha’u’llah explained it and it makes sense to me.

But before we decide words are actually a message from a God (who hasn't been shown to exist) excellent evidence is needed.

I believe I have that evidence. What is excellent to me will not be excellent to others unless they are also a Baha’i. You need to have evidence that is evidence to you if you are going to believe. I have no idea what that would be, only you know that.

 

[Trailblazer]

Uh, no you can make me see evidence. Present it. Good evidence speaks for itself. Crappy ambiguous evidence that requires emotional attachment up from is not good evidence.

No, I cannot make you see anything. There is no such thing as good evidence because what one person considered good others won’t consider good. I am not going to argue about whether it is good or not.

The idea that a God cannot "show up" sounds like a great excuse to explain why some random guy is writing God-messages. We have thousands of years of stories about Gods showing up then one dude gets a message that Gods cannot do that and you find this reasonable?
Even if this was the case. God can communicate with all humans at once.

You have stories of God showing up, but those are just stories. Do you believe these stories just because they are in the Bible? I don’t. As for that being an excuse for God sending Messengers God does not need an excuse.

No, God could not communicate with all humans at once and reveal everything contained in the 15,000 Tablets that Baha’u’llah wrote. Nobody could even understand God if God spoke to them directly, and that is one reason why God uses Messengers, because they can understand God.

No, I knew that. But you were attempting to block my knowledge that suggests religion is myth by posting this quote.
There is no "knowledge from God" as you have not demonstrated any Gods or any reason to believe in a messenger.

I have no interest in convincing you that religion is not a myth. It is not my job to demonstrate Gods or reasons to believe in a Messenger.

I don't think you did that.

You have no way of knowing what I did. I consider it a personal boundary violation when people speak for other people and it is the result of projection.

 

[Trailblazer]

Which thing? The one where Baha. explains why God uses messengers? He just explains it? That literally isn't evidence.
That's the same as people proving Jesus was real because the Bible says so?

No, that is not what I meant by evidence.

No no this was directly about the Israelite myths you said :
"All the evidence indicates that God has always revealed Himself by sending Messengers who establish religions"

That is WRONG. ALL OF THE EVIDENCE in scholarship shows these are myths, not messages from God.
Moses Wiki:

"Scholarly consensus sees Moses as a legendary figure, w"
we can go on like this for a long time. The evidence shows that these stories are no different than the Cananite stories and so on. They are made up. We can go over all of the historicity of the old and new testament and none of it is considered to be supernatural in origin.

I do not care about scholarly consensus, as I do not consider that evidence that Moses did not exist.

No but I have mountains of evidence that shows myths were taken from older sources, endless prophecies that did not happen and many lines of evidence that these religions are myth. So I can show it's very logical that there were no god-messages.

You will never convince me that religions are myth, so there is no reason to continue this conversation. That there are myths in religious scriptures does not mean that religion is a myth.

The amount to which you are ignoring this past evidence shows you do not care about what is true but will blindly believe anything in your scripture.

What is written in older religious scriptures is not evidence that my religion is not true. There is no reason for me to try to explain why I think that because you have made up your mind.

I think this conversation is over. As soon as people start speaking for me and telling me what I care about and why I believe it is over.

 

[Trailblazer]

Except those writing have zero proof they are from a God.

I have all the proof that I need.

I don't care about beliefs. I care about evidence.

I have evidence but it would not be evidence to you.