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Atheist looking for religious debate. Any religion. Let's see if I can be convinced.

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Why wouldn't it be? As I said before, these events happened in the exact order the Jesus predicted and then Baha'u'lah came. Coincidence?
So there were no other earthquakes or meteor showers after those? Oh yeah, they're still happening. There was a smoky day in South Lake Tahoe a couple of weeks ago and there's been several earthquakes, and probably meteor showers happen regularly. So I call that "weak" evidence of prophecy being fulfilled. Oh and in which verse did Jesus predict this order? And here again, suddenly you're going to take a NT verse literally? Even though you don't believe it is wholly authentic?
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
That was more than 2000 years ago, so why would it now be an issue?

How do we know what it was like to live then?

Regards Tony
An issue? All I'm trying to say is that is seems like the people, probably the religious leaders, made up these laws. If you think the real God had Hindus worship animals and the Hebrews chop them up and sacrifice them to him, that's okay.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Christians don't take it in context. They take one verse. How is that "in context"? So many things in the Bible, Baha'is blow off as not literally true. Why would the virgin birth be "literally" true and not allegorical?
How do you know that Christians do not read the chapter in context?

Why would the virgin birth have to be allegorical and not literally true? What bothers you so much about it being literally true? Miracles do happen.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
So there were no other earthquakes or meteor showers after those? Oh yeah, they're still happening. There was a smoky day in South Lake Tahoe a couple of weeks ago and there's been several earthquakes, and probably meteor showers happen regularly. So I call that "weak" evidence of prophecy being fulfilled. Oh and in which verse did Jesus predict this order? And here again, suddenly you're going to take a NT verse literally? Even though you don't believe it is wholly authentic?
I guess you never read about these events. They were not ordinary, they were unprecedented.
Some verses are obviously literal events, others are figurative. It's not that difficult to distinguish between the two.
 

TransmutingSoul

One Planet, One People, Please!
Premium Member
An issue? All I'm trying to say is that is seems like the people, probably the religious leaders, made up these laws. If you think the real God had Hindus worship animals and the Hebrews chop them up and sacrifice them to him, that's okay.

Personally I would be looking behind what it means to sacrafice that specific animal to our spiritual well-being.

Regards Tony
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
What is different about the Baha'i Faith is that we do not believe"we have it right and all the other religions have it wrong."
Do Baha'is believe they have it right? I said that Baha'is probably do. Baha'u'llah is infallible. But do Baha'is believe the other religions have it wrong? I think that's a yes. Just a couple examples... 'Cause we've been through this before. Hinduism... if they believe in multiple Gods and reincarnation they are wrong. Christianity? Well, if they believe Jesus is God and physically resurrected they're wrong. If they believe Jesus is coming back, they are wrong. So, are you sure about what you said? You really believe that? And what are you still doing up?
 

Tiberius

Well-Known Member
Hi…
I’m coming in late to the story, but I noticed the Star Trek analogy, and it caught my attention, I love Star Trek!

Me too, I'm a huge Star Trek fan, seen every episode more times than I can count!

Can you provide 1 or 2 examples of the inconsistencies that you say exist in the Bible?

Please, not a Gish. Just a couple we could hash over, maybe.

No worries. I'm not the sort to use Gish's overload technique, it's intellectually weak, I think.

Here are two examples of inconsistencies.

The two different creation accounts.

Genesis Chapter 1 gives the sequence as:
  1. Heaven and Earth
  2. Light
  3. Firmament
  4. Dry land
  5. Plants
  6. Stars and planets (the lights in the firmament), along with the Sun and Moon
  7. Water creatures and birds
  8. Land creatures
  9. Man and woman
Genesis Chapter 2 contradicts this. It says that plants had already been created, they just hadn't grown because it hadn't rained yet and no man had tilled the ground. Genesis 2 also states that God created Adam first, then created the animals as potential companions (specifically saying that birds and land creatures were formed on the same day), and it was only after the animals had been created that God made Eve from Adam's rib.

So there are definite contradictions between the two accounts.

The other contradiction I'll present is the inconsistency of who was at the tomb when they discovered Jesus was gone.

  • Matthew says it was the two Marys who went, the tomb was closed, and they saw a single angel sitting outside.
  • Mark says it was the two Marys and Salome who went, the tomb was already open, they saw a young man sitting inside.
  • Luke says it was the two Marys, Joanna and at least two other unnamed women who went, the tomb was already open, and they saw two men in shining garments inside.
  • John says that Mary Magdalene went alone, the tomb was already open, and she saw two angels inside.

So three of them agree that the tomb was open, but Matthew contradicts this. Two say there was only one figure waiting, two say there were two figures. Three say that the figure/figures that were seen were inside, but Matthew says the figure was outside. There's an even split as to whether they were young men or angels. And none of them agree on who went there.

Many believers I have spoken to about this have said that we can't expect complete agreement, but given the drastically different nature of these differing accounts, I don't think we can conclude they are based on an event that actually happened.

I mean, if two people told you what I did today, and one person said I went out, saw a movie with a friend in the morning, then had steak for dinner, while the other person said I slept in until after lunch time, stayed home and did the laundry, then ordered a pizza, you would conclude that one or both of them must be wrong, right?
 

Tiberius

Well-Known Member
I was following you until the last sentence. How does religion 'deliberately' hide itself from the one method we have of verifying that claims are true?

Because the believers make claims that can't be tested by using vague terms and relying on feeling things in the heart. They deliberately keep religion unfalsifiable.

Why wouldn't it need to if the claims were true?

Because if the claims were true, why would they want to keep them from being tested? I would think they would love the chance to show that their religious beliefs actually work.

Back to what you said about gravity while it is on my mind.
You said: "But there could possibly be a single experiment tomorrow that contradicts everything we know about gravity, showing us that our theories about gravity are wrong. We can never prove that something is true, no matter how many experiments we have that support our theories. Because no matter how many experiments we do that support it, it could always be the very next experiment that proves it wrong. But it is easy to prove a theory wrong, because we only need one experiment to show that it's wrong."

So if we an never prove that something is true, no matter how many experiments we have that support our theories, why do you think we can prove that the claims of any religion are true? And if a religion cannot be proven true are you going to discount it?

But the thing is this. We can conduct experiments to test the theory of gravity, and we can gather clear objective evidence that gravity works the way the theory describes. It's not proof, but it is a huge amount of data that can be tested by anyone, and which gives completely consistent results.

Religion doesn't have this. Religion can't be tested in any objective way, the results that one person gets can't be tested by anyone else, and lots of different people who have put religion to their own subjective tests have gotten results that vary widely.

And I already explained that the Bible does not mean that a mountain would literally move because someone said a prayer, so that test is not a valid test.

And I've also explained that that's only because any other claim would leave us with a testable claim that would clearly fail. This is what I was talking about when I said how believers have ways of explaining away anything that doesn't work so as to keep religion unfalsifiable.

How about the claim given by Mark 16:17-18?

17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;

18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
These are also testable claims, and they have been held to be literally true by believers. And yet many of those believers have put them to the test and failed. Unfortunately, their failure has meant that they were bitten by deadly snakes and they died.


It is still verification. Scientists verify things to the best of their ability and they are fallible so religious people can also verify things to the best of their ability, although the methods of verification is not the same. Only God and His Manifestations are infallible but fallible humans can still verify things to the best of their ability and a point is reached where we are satisfied with our results.

I don't see how you can claim it is verification when you then turn around and say that the methods are different.

It's like if I had a dream I had a million dollars in my bank account, I could say that I verified it. I don't need to actually CHECK my account balance. I've verified it in my mind, and that's good enough! So I'm a millionaire, regardless!

I don't really want to bring it up again, but scientists verified that the Covid vaccines are safe to the best of their ability so them they were approved and released. However, as you said, "no matter how many experiments we do that support it, it could always be the very next experiment that proves it wrong. But it is easy to prove a theory wrong, because we only need one experiment to show that it's wrong." One year of testing is not enough to verify that the vaccines are completely safe but the vaccines were needed to save lives so they were approved. Under normal circumstances experiments would have been conducted for 6-10 years before the vaccines could be approved and if there had been anywhere near as many adverse reactions and deaths as from the Covid vaccines a vaccine was not approved for use in the past.

Again, we've known about coronaviruses for about a century. Why do you think that vaccines for them have only been worked on for the last year or so? That's like claiming that a new car's airbags aren't safe because they only started designing the car a year ago and concluding that they only started working on the airbag technology then as well.

What do you mean by real world?

What actually exists.

You are a smart guy so I cannot understand why you don't understand that the Bible never intended to mean that praying will move an actual mountain. Didn't you read that article that explains what Jesus meant?

"Faith that can move mountains is not meant to imply a faith that can literally move literal mountains. The point Jesus was making is that even a little bit of faith—faith the size of a tiny mustard seed—can overcome mountainous obstacles in our lives."

Read more: Can faith really move mountains? | GotQuestions.org

My point is that the only reason people say that is because any other position on what it means would lead to the conclusion that the belief is wrong.

So by those standards, since the Human mind of a scientist is fallible, we cannot be sure that what the verification of the Covid vaccines safety and efficacy by scientists is accurate.

However, as I have pointed out many times already and has been apparently either ignored or forgotten, the scientific method has measures in place to reduce or even eliminate any individuals fallibility by having other people check it (so any biases from one person can be detected and removed) and most importantly, put to the test.

When it comes to religious beliefs, you have freely admitted that these can't be done.
 

Tiberius

Well-Known Member
I would offer that Susan has very much verified her Faith with the available data and logic.

I personally have used much the same methods to verify the Faith I also embraced.

That may not be how you would choose to verify a point of interest, but it is the way a Messenger of God asks us to verify what they offer.

Regards Tony

An example of someone accepting as legitimate that which agrees with their pre-existing beliefs. "I believe that Susan's method works because I have used the same method myself."

And since you presumably believe the method is reliable, you see Susan using it and getting the same results as you as supporting the idea that the method is reliable.
 

Tiberius

Well-Known Member
That is not what we were talking about. We were not talking about a religion having something that proves it is correct. We were talking about a religious person being different from other religious people

Tiberius said: Every religious person thinks they are different than the others. The difference they believe they have is that they think they have it right and other people of different faiths have it wrong.

Trailblazer said: What is different about the Baha'i Faith is that we do not believe"we have it right and all the other religions have it wrong."

And then you made it about the faith itself, not the indivisuals when you said, "What is different about the Baha'i Faith..."

The proof is right in the authoritative Baha'i Writings. The Guardian of the Baha'i Faith wrote the following and he was one of the two appointed interpreters of Baha'u'llah's Writings.

Every faith claims that their holy texts proves that their faith is true.

And so? The same applies to you since you are part of everyone.

Yes, that is true.

That's why I use the only method we know of to reduce and eliminate any personal biases. It's called science.

You mean you' believe' I committed them. I disagree.

I did not do any of the following things you accused me of doing.

Tiberius said:
Yes, you did. You've decided that the Bible needs to match your religious beliefs, which leads you to end up with a different interpretation than Christians.

That's not the part of my post I was talking about.

I was talking about the bit where you said, "Of course I believe in the evidence that supports what I believe." The clear implication there was that you believe the evidence that supports what you believe, and you DISBELIEVE the evidence that contradicts what you believe. Thus, confirmation bias.

Special pleading is a form of fallacious argument that involves an attempt to cite something as an exception to a generally accepted rule, principle, etc. without justifying the exception.[1][2]

Special pleading - Wikipedia

And you have said that religion has to use a different verification method which can't be shared with anyone else and can't be tested at all, and it gets to do things differently because it's religion.

Saying that religion gets to do it differently because it's religion is not justifying the exception. Thus, you commit the special pleading fallacy.

No, there are no ways of knowing some claim is true without testing it. You are again committing the special pleading fallacy by assuming that religious claims are different for some reason.


No one casts stones at a tree without fruit. No one tries to extinguish a lamp without light! …….

And I say unto you that no calumny is able to prevail against the Light of God; it can only result in causing it to be more universally recognized. If a cause were of no significance, who would take the trouble to work against it!

But always the greater the cause the more do enemies arise in larger and larger numbers to attempt its overthrow! The brighter the light the darker the shadow! Our part it is to act in accordance with the teaching of Bahá’u’lláh in humility and firm steadfastness.” Paris Talks, pp. 105-106

What on earth does this have to do with anything?

In both those cases I justified the exceptions so it was not special pleading.

Your "justification" was "religion gets to do it differently because it's religion."

Asking for verifiable evidence and saying I have no evidence.

But you don't have verifiable evidence. What verifiable evidence have you presented that I have argued against?

Accusing me of committing fallacies I did not commit.

You have committed them. Saying religion gets to do it differently because it's religion is not an adequate justification.

Saying all religions are the same.

I never said that all religions are the same in every aspect. I said that they all share similarities. Like all being unfalsifiable.

Telling me I have the burden of proof to prove my religion is true...

The burden of proof rests on the person who makes the claim. If you say there is a God, it is up to you to support it. Otherwise anyone can make any claim and say that it's true until someone disproves it. And since religion (as I have stated) has been rendered unfalsifiable, there is always some way to explain why any point raised against religion doesn't count.

I was not referring to a viewpoint that contradicts my viewpoint. I was referring to people contradicting what I say, such as when I say I have verified my beliefs and you say no, I haven't.

No, I don't feel disrespected when someone disagrees with me. It is HOW some people disagree that I object to.

Then please use a word that more accurately describes what you have done.

That is just YOUR bias. Does that definition below say anything about requiring my conclusions to be tested? No, it does not.

There is more than one way to verify something and the methods we use depend upon what we are trying to verify. Testing is for science, religion cannot be tested. The way we verify that a religion is true is to look at all the facts that surround that religion such as the history, and we also have to look at the Writings of the Messenger and the character of the Messenger.

verify: make sure or demonstrate that (something) is true, accurate, or justified.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=verify+means

Yes it does. The bit where it says MAKE SURE and DEMONSTRATE.

That is the only way it can happen, in the human mind. However, we should do our due diligence and research the religion so we know why we are believing it.

As I think I pointed out the only way of knowing that is infallible is through the bounty of the Holy Spirit and that is why when we are guided by God we can be sure. Of course the problem with that method is that many people say they are guided by the Holy Spirit and they have false beliefs such as that Jesus is God. That will have to be a discussion for another day.

“Know then: that which is in the hands of people, that which they believe, is liable to error. For, in proving or disproving a thing, if a proof is brought forward which is taken from the evidence of our senses, this method, as has become evident, is not perfect; if the proofs are intellectual, the same is true; or if they are traditional, such proofs also are not perfect. Therefore, there is no standard in the hands of people upon which we can rely.

But the bounty of the Holy Spirit gives the true method of comprehension which is infallible and indubitable. This is through the help of the Holy Spirit which comes to man, and this is the condition in which certainty can alone be attained.”
Some Answered Questions, pp. 298-299


Read more: 83: THE FOUR METHODS OF ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE

The claim that we can only get infallible knowledge from the Holy Spirit is not supported. Anyone can make a similar statement like that, doesn't mean it is true.
 

samtonga43

Well-Known Member
No, it is not ad populum because I never said it is true because many or most people believe it is true.
Please quote me saying that or stop claiming I said it..
Certainly...
Tb #2405
"It is highly unlikely that so many people (*Christians) are wrong about Jesus and that only the Jews are right. Part of the reason it is unlikely is because there are only 14.7 million Jews".
*My parenthesis.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Do Baha'is believe they have it right? I said that Baha'is probably do. Baha'u'llah is infallible. But do Baha'is believe the other religions have it wrong? I think that's a yes. Just a couple examples... 'Cause we've been through this before. Hinduism... if they believe in multiple Gods and reincarnation they are wrong. Christianity? Well, if they believe Jesus is God and physically resurrected they're wrong. If they believe Jesus is coming back, they are wrong. So, are you sure about what you said? You really believe that? And what are you still doing up?
Yes, we believe we have it right and the reason the other religions have 'some things' wrong is because the older religions misinterpreted their scriptures and/or they became corrupted by the religious leaders over time, but you already know that we believe that.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Certainly...
Tb #2405
"It is highly unlikely that so many people (*Christians) are wrong about Jesus and that only the Jews are right. Part of the reason it is unlikely is because there are only 14.7 million Jews".
*My parenthesis.
The Jewish interpretation is biased because it is based upon what Jews want to be true, that Jesus was nobody. This is ludicrous and why only there are only 14.7 million Jews in the world and 2.5 billion Christians. The Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament is messed up because they are still waiting for the Messiah. They don't believe any of the prophecies are about the Messiah because they are still waiting for the Messiah that has already come, twice. They believe that the Messiah is coming just for them, to vindicate them and restore the Torah so they, the chosen people, can be the ones who are above all others in the world. Nothing could be more wrong. It is much more elitist than Christianity because at least Christians want everyone to be saved.

#2356 Trailblazer, Yesterday at 3:49 PM

I never said it is true because many or most people believe it is true.

I said: "The Jewish interpretation is biased because it is based upon what Jews want to be true, that Jesus was nobody. This is ludicrous and why only there are only 14.7 million Jews in the world and 2.5 billion Christians."

So I did not commit the fallacy of Argumentum ad populum

In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so."
Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Quite right. Maybe the bodily resurrection of Christ was a miracle that did happen.
Maybe it did. Baha'u'llah never said it did or didn't happen so Bahais are free to believe what they want to believe.
But even if did happen, so what? What's the big deal about a physical body rising from the dead? That body dies eventually just like all bodies and then the soul ascends to the spiritual world aka heaven.

Jesus made it very clear that physical life is not important, only spiritual life is important.

Luke 9:60 Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.

John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.


As @CG Didymus said, even if Jesus did rise from the dead, that would not change who Baha'is believe Baha'ullah was or what the Baha'i Faith teaches.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Bill Sears "clearly" demonstrated?

Why wouldn't it be? As I said before, these events happened in the exact order the Jesus predicted and then Baha'u'lah came. Coincidence?
Here's an article about the book...
Many of the errors that occur in Thief in the Night are due to the fact that Sears relied upon his Christian sources without checking them, and this we can assume because he felt his audience (i.e., Christians) accepted the arguments. I think he would have been surprised to find Bahá'ís today religiously holding to these arguments even after Christians had mostly abandoned them. Although its prophetic arguments are often problematic and it does contain numerous errors...

Unfortunately other Bahá'í authors assumed that Sears' information was correct and copied ideas from it, giving them added attention and currency in the community. The absence of critical thought and independent investigation of truth among Bahá'í authors does not serve the community well. It perpetuates unnecessary mistakes and gives critics more opportunities...

Problems in Thief in the Night are not confined to ideas at variance with modern scholarship and contemporary biblical studies, but are on a more fundamental level. Sears appears, for example, to have relied solely on a surface reading of the King James Version of the Bible, i.e., he was reading the archaic English from a modern perspective and without the benefit of commentary on the original Hebrew and Greek. This caused him to misunderstand the meaning and to infer things that are not apparent in the manuscript evidence. Such misunderstanding caused mistakes that extend to matters that indicate a general lack of familiarity with major biblical themes and terminology. And this is one reason why even Christians without scholarly backgrounds can see problems in the book.​
So from Bill Sears book...
The signs of Revelation that would appear in succession, leading up to the day of the return of Christ were, in order: 1. The great earthquake 2. The darkening of the sun and the moon. 3. The falling of the stars from the heavens

These events which he listed were as follows: 1. The Lisbon earthquake, 1755. 2. The Dark Day, 1780. 3. The Falling Stars, 1833...

(B)etween AD 1800 and AD 1865, there occurred (within the limits of the old Roman Empire alone) no less than 35 great and disastrous earthquakes, arresting the attention of the historian … In the Scandinavian Peninsula and in Iceland, from AD 1700 to 1850, (there have been) 224; in Spain and Portugal 178; in France, Belgium and Holland 600 … On the Italian Peninsula and the Eastern Mediterranean, upwards of 800 earthquakes have occurred within the period of fifty years between 1800 and 1850.​
So... He could have started with any earthquake. Some before the dark day and the stars falling or some after. So no wonder the "order" is right. But when a Baha'i article says there were errors in his book, then what are you going to do? Keep supporting it as if it is the "God's honest" truth?

I looked up meteor showers too. Lots was said about the one in 1833, but then one article said. "The largest meteor shower ever recorded in recent history had nearly 70,000 rock fragments.The meteor shower took place on January 30, 1868, over Poland with impacts occurring across the region near the town of Pultusk. So why not use that one and some big earthquake and the dark day in Portland when St. Helens blew up?
 
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