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

[Tiberius]

Notice how I worded that. I said "I am not suggesting you believe in a Messenger before you get evidence for the Messenger that is sufficient for you to believe." Believe what? That He was a Messenger sent by God.

So you need evidence that indicates that the Messenger was sent by God, but there can never be proof that He was sent by God because such a thing can never be proven. However, if the evidence for the Messenger is sufficient for you to believe that He was sent by God then that will constitute proof for you and you will be a believer.

And that is why we have been enjoined by Baha'u'llah to look at all the evidence that He told us to look at.

“Say: The first and foremost testimony establishing His truth is His own Self. Next to this testimony is His Revelation. For whoso faileth to recognize either the one or the other He hath established the words He hath revealed as proof of His reality and truth. This is, verily, an evidence of His tender mercy unto men. He hath endowed every soul with the capacity to recognize the signs of God. How could He, otherwise, have fulfilled His testimony unto men, if ye be of them that ponder His Cause in their hearts. He will never deal unjustly with any one, neither will He task a soul beyond its power. He, verily, is the Compassionate, the All-Merciful.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 105-106

And ultimately, any evidence that he is a messenger from God is going to come from the messenger. Or from a previous messenger, in which case I need to verify HE was a legit messenger from God before I can accept him, and that leads into the same problem.

So my point stands.

 

[Trailblazer]

Ah yes, and of course, no explanation of what that actually means is ever given. It's an empty excuse that means nothing.

I just explained it. I said: "There is a good explanation as to why God did not do that before, and the reason is because humanity was not ready for a written Covenant in the past because people living back then were not spiritually evolved enough to adhere to such a Covenant. Everything God reveals is based upon what humanity is ready for.

Humanity could not bear to hear the "many things" that Baha'u'llah revealed until the present age and that is way Jesus did not reveal those things back in His Day."

Excuse for what? Why does my explanation mean nothing?

I don't think you understand what "proof" means. It does not, as you seem to think, mean "to be completely convinced."

I think it means that when we have proven it to ourselves then we are completely convinced.
What does proof mean to you?

Do you hear yourself?

Your conclusion that certain verses refer to Mr B is exactly what I'm talking about when I say you look for interpretations that suit your purposes!

You just contradicted what I said. The point is that you don't know what I am looking for or what my purposes are, ONLY I know that. I have no purposes to suit so I am not using the Bible to suit any purposes. You are projecting what you believe my thoughts are onto me, but those are not MY thoughts, they are YOUR thoughts that you imagine I have.

And yet you seem to get rather insistent that your interpretation is the only one that can be true...

When did I ever say that? Of course I believe my interpretation is true but there could be OTHER interpretations that are also true. After all, Baha'u'llah wrote that the Bible can have many meanings:

“Know assuredly that just as thou firmly believest that the Word of God, exalted be His glory, endureth for ever, thou must, likewise, believe with undoubting faith that its meaning can never be exhausted.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 175

You sure do a good impression of it then...

No, you just 'project' what you think my motives are onto me and imagine I have motives I do not have. Do you know anything about psychology? I do because I have a MA in psychology and I wore my psychology hat a lot longer than I have worn my religion hat.

So the accuracy of your beliefs is entirely dependent on things which you can't even prove. Or show to any degree.

I can and have proven the beliefs are true to myself but I cannot prove to others that they are true. All I can do is share why I believe they are true.

So then where did you get the idea that Mr B releasing the Holy Spirit is the reason we have computers?

I did not say that is the 'reason' we have computers, I said that the Holy Spirit that was released by the coming of Baha'u'llah had an all-pervasive effect upon humanity so it stimulated progress in the world, and that is why we have seen all kinds of scientific and technological advancements.

 

[Trailblazer]

And ultimately, any evidence that he is a messenger from God is going to come from the messenger. Or from a previous messenger, in which case I need to verify HE was a legit messenger from God before I can accept him, and that leads into the same problem.

So my point stands.

You are correct, any evidence that he is a messenger from God is going to come from the messenger, so you need to verify HE was a legit messenger from God before you can accept him.

What is the problem and what is your point that stands?

 

[Tiberius]

Here are some of these teachings:

• Independent Investigation of Truth
• Elimination of Prejudice of Every Kind
• The Oneness of Humanity
• One Essential Foundation for All Religions
• Religion Should Cause Love, Affection, and Joy
• The Harmony of Science and Religion
• A Universal Auxiliary Language
• Universal Compulsory Education
• Gender Equality
• Establishing a World Parliament
• The Abolition of the Extremes of Wealth and Poverty
• The Non-Involvement of Religion With Politics
• Human Rights for All

What Is the Baha'i Faith?

And all of those are happening. So why do you think that these teachings are ahead of their time?

Yes, these ideas are now commonly accepted but you might ask yourself why they are now commonly accepted when they were not accepted before the present age. Baha'is believe that what Baha'u'llah brought affected everyone in the world, not just those who knew about Him and read what He wrote. It was because He released the Holy Spirit that things began to change.

Of course nobody can predict the future, but in 300 years I think that many more people will accept those teachings I posted above.

Do you think it's going to take 800 years to get there? And I mean, even Jesus didn't really accomplish what he set out to do.

Now you are mixing up science and religion. Baha'u'llah did not come to write about new scientific technologies and how to use them because that is the domain of science, not religion. However, the Bahai Faith teaches that science is just as important as religion for the progress of humanity because both material progress and spiritual progress are necessary.

“All religions teach that we must do good, that we must be generous, sincere, truthful, law-abiding, and faithful; all this is reasonable, and logically the only way in which humanity can progress.

All religious laws conform to reason, and are suited to the people for whom they are framed, and for the age in which they are to be obeyed..........

Now, all questions of morality contained in the spiritual, immutable law of every religion are logically right. If religion were contrary to logical reason then it would cease to be a religion and be merely a tradition. Religion and science are the two wings upon which man’s intelligence can soar into the heights, with which the human soul can progress. It is not possible to fly with one wing alone! Should a man try to fly with the wing of religion alone he would quickly fall into the quagmire of superstition, whilst on the other hand, with the wing of science alone he would also make no progress, but fall into the despairing slough of materialism...”
Paris Talks, pp. 141-143

From: FOURTH PRINCIPLE—THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE RELATION BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Actually, I was talking about the morality of using those scientific advances. Or do you think religious teachings about how to use genetic modification won't be required for another 800 years?

No, I do not expect them to be since science and religion fall under different purviews.

So again, is there nothing religion has to say about the use of these technologies?

What's wrong with that? I cannot explain everything about the Bahai Faith in a few posts.

True. But what happened was an outright contradiction.

Apparently you are still misunderstanding the passages and what they are referring to. Three ages are being referred to, Age A, Age B and Age C.

Age A is a past age, an age previous to the age we are living in.
Age B is the present age, the age we are living in
Age C is a future age, the age that comes after Age B.

The first quote is someone in Age B saying, "What will be needed in Age C will be DIFFERENT to what we need in Age B, because our present day afflictions in Age B can never be the same as what will be afflicting us in a future age (Age C)."

The second quote is someone in Age B saying, "Why shouldn't the treatments that what we need today in Age B be THE SAME as what we needed in Age A?

Yeah, but sooner or later, someone in Age C is gonna say, "Why shouldn't the treatments that what we need today in Age C be THE SAME as what we needed in Age B?", which is a direct contradiction to what the guy living in Age B said about Age C.

In retrospect it might seem to us in this age that it might have been useful for those people living in past ages to know what we know now, but anything that God did not pass on in past ages was not passed on because humanity was not ready to hear it in previous ages.

Except according to you, Jesus literally DID pass on the stuff about having a high standard of morality, and we still had the crusades.

Jesus moved humanity further along towards a higher standard of morality from the standard that had been in place during the Mosaic Age, but humanity still has a long way to go, and Baha'u'llah is moving us further in that direction by revealing even higher standards of morality for us to follow.

And what about the figures from before Jesus who preached very similar things? Buddha lived 600 years before Jesus, and their stories have many similarities:

• Conceived in a miraculous manner
• Similar names of mother (Maya for Buddha, Mary for Jesus)
• Was a bit of a child prodigy
• Underwent a long period of fasting while traveling alone
• Tempted by, but overcame, the devil
• Began an itinerant ministry around the age of 30
• Had disciples who traveled with him.
• Performed miracles, such as curing blindness and walking on water
• Renounced worldly riches and required his disciples to do so also
• Rebelled against the religious elite (Brahmans for Buddha and Pharisees for Jesus)
• Dispatched disciples, shortly before his death, to spread his message

Krishna also lived long before Jesus, and his story has similarities as well.

So why did God send a messenger to tell us the same thing that earlier messengers had been telling us?

 

[Tiberius]

I just explained it. I said: "There is a good explanation as to why God did not do that before, and the reason is because humanity was not ready for a written Covenant in the past because people living back then were not spiritually evolved enough to adhere to such a Covenant. Everything God reveals is based upon what humanity is ready for.

Humanity could not bear to hear the "many things" that Baha'u'llah revealed until the present age and that is way Jesus did not reveal those things back in His Day."

Excuse for what? Why does my explanation mean nothing?

I said there is no explanation for what "humanity was not ready for it" means. Just some vague mumbo jumbo about not being spiritual enough.

I think it means that when we have proven it to ourselves then we are completely convinced.

People have convinced themselves of all sorts of utter nonsense. Being convinced of something doesn't mean it is true.

What does proof mean to you?

It means it is testable in an objective way, and it withstands that testing.

You just contradicted what I said. The point is that you don't know what I am looking for or what my purposes are, ONLY I know that. I have no purposes to suit so I am not using the Bible to suit any purposes. You are projecting what you believe my thoughts are onto me, but those are not MY thoughts, they are YOUR thoughts that you imagine I have.

I have said many times that your purpose (in this thread at least) is to justify your faith.

When did I ever say that? Of course I believe my interpretation is true but there could be OTHER interpretations that are also true. After all, Baha'u'llah wrote that the Bible can have many meanings:

“Know assuredly that just as thou firmly believest that the Word of God, exalted be His glory, endureth for ever, thou must, likewise, believe with undoubting faith that its meaning can never be exhausted.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 175

You have repeatedly claimed my interpretations were wrong and you went out of your way to write long justifications of those claims.

No, you just 'project' what you think my motives are onto me and imagine I have motives I do not have. Do you know anything about psychology? I do because I have a MA in psychology and I wore my psychology hat a lot longer than I have worn my religion hat.

So you are telling me that religious people never have a bias towards wanting their faith to be true? If you really have an MA in psychology, then I'm sure you'd agree that people are going to be more willing to accept things that support their viewpoints that things that disagree with their viewpoints, yes? Do you believe that this can never happen subconsciously? Do you believe it could never happen to you without you knowing about it?

I can and have proven the beliefs are true to myself but I cannot prove to others that they are true. All I can do is share why I believe they are true.

And good on you for that. Have whatever belief you want. But for someone who has freely admitted that, you seem incredibly unwilling to accept the fact that your subconscious may be affecting your attitude towards those beliefs.

I did not say that is the 'reason' we have computers, I said that the Holy Spirit that was released by the coming of Baha'u'llah had an all-pervasive effect upon humanity so it stimulated progress in the world, and that is why we have seen all kinds of scientific and technological advancements.

So that's a reason.

The reason we have computers is because when Mr B came it released the Holy Spirit and inspired everyone to be creative, and that lead to computers.

You say it's not the reason why it happened, but then say it's why it happened. Is English not your first language?

 

[Tiberius]

You are correct, any evidence that he is a messenger from God is going to come from the messenger, so you need to verify HE was a legit messenger from God before you can accept him.

What is the problem and what is your point that stands?

My point is that it's circular logic. You shouldn't believe his claims until you believe he was a messenger from God. But that he is a messenger from God is a claim from a messenger of God.

 

[night912]

You are correct, any evidence that he is a messenger from God is going to come from the messenger, so you need to verify HE was a legit messenger from God before you can accept him.

And the only way to verify that he was a legit messenger from God, is to accept his message and/or previous "messengers." So you accepted him as being a messenger before you verified him as being a legit messenger from God.

How are you supposed to verify someone as being a messenger when there are no verified messengers to begin with? And if your answer is the evidence from previous messengers, then you end up with a finite regression. Once you've reached the first ever messenger, then you cannot logically verify that that person is a messenger since the only evidence that a messenger is a legit messenger from God is from a messenger of God.

What is the problem and what is your point that stands?

The problem is that you've accepted him as being a messenger before you verified him as being a messenger. Or the problem of there's no evidence.

 

[night912]

No, you just 'project' what you think my motives are onto me and imagine I have motives I do not have. Do you know anything about psychology? I do because I have a MA in psychology and I wore my psychology hat a lot longer than I have worn my religion hat.

Whether you like it or not and/or accept it or don't accept it, that's still a fallacy, Argument from Authority. Having a MA in psychology and/or wearing your psychology hat longer than your religious hat, does not exclude you from cognitive dissonance.

 

[Trailblazer]

And the only way to verify that he was a legit messenger from God, is to accept his message and/or previous "messengers." So you accepted him as being a messenger before you verified him as being a legit messenger from God.

No, I verified that He was a legit Messenger from God by looking at the evidence that proved to me that He is a Messenger.
I did not believe that He is a Messenger from God because He claimed to be a Messenger from God because that would be circular reasoning.
What I believe has nothing at all to do with any previous Messengers.

you cannot logically verify that that person is a messenger since the only evidence that a messenger is a legit messenger from God is from a messenger of God.

The evidence that a Messenger is a Messenger comes from looking at the Messenger, His Person, His Revelation (the history surrounding His life and mission) and His Writings, which is perfectly logical.

The problem is that you've accepted him as being a messenger before you verified him as being a messenger. Or the problem of there's no evidence.

No, that is not a problem for me because I looked at the evidence before I accepted Him as being a Messenger.
I verified that He was a Messenger the only way it can be verified, as noted above.

 

[Tiberius]

No, I verified that He was a legit Messenger from God by looking at the evidence that proved to me that He is a Messenger.
I did not believe that He is a Messenger from God because He claimed to be a Messenger from God because that would be circular reasoning.
What I believe has nothing at all to do with any previous Messengers.

Okay, so then let's discount all of the evidence that comes from any messenger from God. What evidence is there that Mr B was a messenger from God? Remember, evidence from any other messengers is not allowed.

The evidence that a Messenger is a Messenger comes from looking at the Messenger, His Person, His Revelation (the history surrounding His life and mission) and His Writings, which is perfectly logical.

But you can't do that, because that's getting evidence that he is a messenger from the messenger himself, and you can't do that, because it's assuming that he's a valid messenger before verifying that he's a valid messenger.

 

[night912]

The evidence that a messenger is a messenger comes from looking at the messenger, His Person, His Revelation (the history surrounding His mission) and His Writings, which is perfectly logical.

No, that's illogical. It's not logically valid, let alone being logically sound. The reason why is because none of those leads to God.

No, that is not a problem for me because I looked at the evidence before I accepted Him as being a messenger.
I verified that He was a messenger the only way it can be verified.

Then you've accepted information that is not evidence to be evidence because none of those are evidence for him being a messenger of God. They are only evidence to support that he existed and did those things.

 

[Trailblazer]

Okay, so then let's discount all of the evidence that comes from any messenger from God. What evidence is there that Mr B was a messenger from God? Remember, evidence from any other messengers is not allowed.

Some time ago when asked for evidence I posted the claims of Baha’u’llah and the evidence that supports the claims of Baha’u’llah on this thread:

Questions for knowledgeable Bahai / followers of Baha'u'llah

But you can't do that, because that's getting evidence that he is a messenger from the messenger himself, and you can't do that, because it's assuming that he's a valid messenger before verifying that he's a valid messenger.

No, I did not assume Baha'u'llah was a valid Messenger BEFORE verifying that He was a valid Messenger.

No, that is not getting evidence that He is a Messenger from the Messenger himself, it is doing an independent investigation of the Messenger in order to determine if His claim to be Messenger is true.

This investigation involves looking at the Messenger, His Person, His Revelation (the history surrounding His life and mission) and His Writings.

 

[joelr]

So in this bleak, nihilist view of scripture there is no such thing as a Jew?

I don't know why you call the historical views on a combination of Judaism with Hellenism and Persian myths bleak? This is standard scholarship. They are not going to tell you this in church. Historians do not care if you want to go hang out with religious people and reinforce false beliefs. You have to care about what is actually true.

The word "Jew" did not start until much later. The archeological evidence is there was no armed conflict but rather Israelites emerged from Canaanite cities. Then they started their own mythology.

"
The settlements were founded not on the ruins of destroyed Canaanite towns but rather on bedrock or on virgin soil. There was no evidence of armed conflict in most of these sites. Archeologists also have discovered that most of the large Canaanite towns that were supposedly destroyed by invading Israelites were either not destroyed at all or destroyed by "Sea People"—Philistines, or others.

So gradually the old conquest model [based on the accounts of Joshua's conquests in the Bible] began to lose favor amongst scholars. Many scholars now think that most of the early Israelites were originally Canaanites, displaced Canaanites, displaced from the lowlands, from the river valleys, displaced geographically and then displaced ideologically."

Denver goes over the general consensus on Biblical archeology:
Archeology of the Hebrew Bible

No House of David? The stories have some truth but were definitely enlarged to make the stories much grander.

"Now, archeology can't either prove or disprove the stories. But I think most archeologists today would argue that the United Monarchy was not much more than a kind of hill-country chiefdom. It was very small-scale."
William Denver biblical archeologist

No Isaiah?
No Ezekiel?

Don't know. Moses and the Patriarchs are considered myth archeologist Meyers explains that and what Exodus means and why it was created.

NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets | Moses and the Exodus | PBS

No Jesus?

Historians who work on NT times believe 1 of 2 things. He was a real man, a Rabbi who was later mythicized by th egospels as a Hellenistic savior demigod. Or that there was even no man, it's just all mythology. Bart Ehrman favors historicity (a man did live who the legends were based on) and Richard Carrier favors it all being myth. If you are interested you can read their work. All others fall somewhere between the 2. Elain Pagels, Crossan, Goodacre, Thompson, F. Stravopopolou...

No Jerusalem temple?

Yeah, why wouldn't there be a temple?

Just copy and paste pagan beliefs?

It's called religious syncretism and every religion ever draws heavily from older religions and then puts their laws and wisdom into messages from their God. Early OT stories mirror Mesopotamian myths. The Persian and Greek myths are where all the familiar Christin ideas come from. Messiahs, savior Gods who get you into the afterlife, God vs evil God, resurrection, end of the world, 2nd coming, baptism

You ok with the Carthagian General Hannibal ??
Socrates ?

No one is claiming these are Gods. But it's a common misunderstanding that Christians bring up other historical figures as if to make a point. The evidence for Jesus is terrible. All the gospels are believed to be sourced from Mark. Mark is written in a highly mythic style using verbatim lines from the OT and other sources as well as creating earthly events from things in Pauls letters. The gospels are anonymous and do not claim to be eyewitnesses. All other mentions are historians saying that there are people who believe what the gospels say. That's it.
Other historical figures sometimes have poor evidence sometimes there is amazing evidence.


Here is an article that compares the evidence for Jesus to Caesar. It gives an understanding of what actual good evidence is and why the evidence for Jesus is poor.
Is Evidence for Jesus Really as Good as for Caesar? • Richard Carrier

 

[joelr]

Some time ago when asked for evidence I posted the claims of Baha’u’llah and the evidence that supports the claims of Baha’u’llah on this thread:

Questions for knowledgeable Bahai / followers of Baha'u'llah

No, I did not assume Baha'u'llah was a valid Messenger BEFORE verifying that He was a valid Messenger.

No, that is not getting evidence that He is a Messenger from the Messenger himself, it is doing an independent investigation of the Messenger in order to determine if His claim to be Messenger is true.

This investigation involves looking at the Messenger, His Person, His Revelation (the history surrounding His life and mission) and His Writings.

Yes several links were posted. One book gave several criteria a messenger of God must have.
I demonstrated that none of the criteria were met. He did not come up with new philosophy, the science which was supposed to be correct and new was completely false across the board and the prophecies were vague. No one contested my findings but rather just ignored me and moved on. I will direct anyone interested to this information.

 

[Trailblazer]

Then you've accepted information that is not evidence to be evidence because none of those are evidence for him being a messenger of God. They are only evidence to support that he existed and did those things.

It is evidence *for me* but it is not proof. There is no proof that anyone was ever a Messenger of God and there never will be, for obvious logical reasons. How could a man ever *prove* that a God that cannot ever be *proven* to exist spoke to him? That is logically impossible. So we either accept his claim based upon what he offered as evidence to support his claim or we walk away. It's a choice.

 

[Trailblazer]

Yes several links were posted. One book gave several criteria a messenger of God must have.
I demonstrated that none of the criteria were met. He did not come up with new philosophy, the science which was supposed to be correct and new was completely false across the board and the prophecies were vague. No one contested my findings but rather just ignored me and moved on. I will direct anyone interested to this information.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I never said that these were criteria for a Messenger of God.

 

[Tiberius]

Some time ago when asked for evidence I posted the claims of Baha’u’llah and the evidence that supports the claims of Baha’u’llah on this thread:

Questions for knowledgeable Bahai / followers of Baha'u'llah

I'm not going to divide this discussion between two threads. Please copy the relevant sections into this thread.

No, I did not assume Baha'u'llah was a valid Messenger BEFORE verifying that He was a valid Messenger.

No, that is not getting evidence that He is a Messenger from the Messenger himself, it is doing an independent investigation of the Messenger in order to determine if His claim to be Messenger is true.

This investigation involves looking at the Messenger, His Person, His Revelation (the history surrounding His life and mission) and His Writings.

So you look at THE MESSENGER, you look at the person of THE MESSENGER, you look at the revelation of THE MESSENGER and you look at the writings of THE MESSENGER, yet you expect me to believe you when you say you don't get your evidence from THE MESSENGER?

 

[joelr]

I have no idea what you are talking about. I never said that these were criteria for a Messenger of God.

I don't know if it was you. Someone posted a book as evidence for Bahai and the book claimed several things that must be met to prove one is a messenger of God.
One criteria was new philosophy, new scientific facts and possibly prophecy. Then the book went on to explain all the things said by the messenger and how they met each criteria.
They did not. The science was completely wrong for one. They messed up evolution, cellular biology and other things There was numerology that was also gibberish and the prophecies were very vague.
There was no new philosophy as predicted.

But every time I asked for evidence this was the book posted. So I took the time to see what it had to say and nothing met the actual criteria set by the author. I posted my results and the topic was just brushed aside. But anyone inquiring about evidence I can dig it all up and they can form their opinion.

Thief in the Night was also debunked as containing much mis-information and the dates were based on on person doing numerology.

 

[Trailblazer]

I'm not going to divide this discussion between two threads. Please copy the relevant sections into this thread.

I do not know what parts of that post would be relevant to you.

So you look at THE MESSENGER, you look at the person of THE MESSENGER, you look at the revelation of THE MESSENGER and you look at the writings of THE MESSENGER, yet you expect me to believe you when you say you don't get your evidence from THE MESSENGER?

I did not get those from the Messenger, I got them from doing my own research on the Messenger.
How do you think I am going to KNOW anything about the Messenger if I don't do research on the Messenger?

 

[Trailblazer]

I don't know if it was you. Someone posted a book as evidence for Bahai and the book claimed several things that must be met to prove one is a messenger of God.
One criteria was new philosophy, new scientific facts and possibly prophecy. Then the book went on to explain all the things said by the messenger and how they met each criteria.
They did not. The science was completely wrong for one. They messed up evolution, cellular biology and other things There was numerology that was also gibberish and the prophecies were very vague.
There was no new philosophy as predicted.

But every time I asked for evidence this was the book posted. So I took the time to see what it had to say and nothing met the actual criteria set by the author. I posted my results and the topic was just brushed aside. But anyone inquiring about evidence I can dig it all up and they can form their opinion.

Thief in the Night was also debunked as containing much mis-information and the dates were based on on person doing numerology.

That must have been a long time ago and I don't recall it. It was not me who said any of those things.