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

[Trailblazer]

That would be a lot more convincing if different religions didn't contradict one another.

The spiritual truths do not contradict each other.
Religions are different for the logical reasons I have formerly explained in those two passages I posted. Below is another passage that explains why they are different.

“The Purpose of the one true God, exalted be His glory, in revealing Himself unto men is to lay bare those gems that lie hidden within the mine of their true and inmost selves. That the divers communions of the earth, and the manifold systems of religious belief, should never be allowed to foster the feelings of animosity among men, is, in this Day, of the essence of the Faith of God and His Religion. These principles and laws, these firmly-established and mighty systems, have proceeded from one Source, and are the rays of one Light. That they differ one from another is to be attributed to the varying requirements of the ages in which they were promulgated.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 287-288

It leaves us needing some method that allows us to find the truth (or at least, as close to the truth as we can get) and that method is science.

You can't use science to find out the truth about religion since science fall under a completely different purview.

Special pleading. You claim that it doesn't apply to science, but you don't give any good reason why it doesn't.

I just gave my reason: You can't use science analogies and try to apply them to religion because religion and science falls under a completely different purviews.

Perhaps you are calling me biased simply because I do not share your biases.

Perhaps you are calling me biased simply because I do not share your biases.

You obviously do not understand science and you do not understand peer review.

Peer review is NOT believing something just because other people believe it.

Peer review is accepting something as more likely to be accurate because other people have examined your work and found that there are no parts where your personal biases could be influencing the results, and because these other people have tried your results and gotten results that agree with yours.

I know what peer review is and I already explained why it is not useful for deciding whether a religion is the truth.
Peer review of a religious belief and accepting something as more likely to be accurate because other people have examined your review of that religion is the fallacy of ad populum -- if many other people believe it it must be true. A personal opinion is what we want. We never want to believe based upon someone else's opinion because we are all accountable to God for what we believed at the end of this life, so if we say I did not believe in Baha'u'llah because not very many people believed in Him, that won't fly with God.

“Suffer not yourselves to be wrapt in the dense veils of your selfish desires, inasmuch as I have perfected in every one of you My creation, so that the excellence of My handiwork may be fully revealed unto men. It follows, therefore, that every man hath been, and will continue to be, able of himself to appreciate the Beauty of God, the Glorified. Had he not been endowed with such a capacity, how could he be called to account for his failure? If, in the Day when all the peoples of the earth will be gathered together, any man should, whilst standing in the presence of God, be asked: “Wherefore hast thou disbelieved in My Beauty and turned away from My Self,” and if such a man should reply and say: “Inasmuch as all men have erred, and none hath been found willing to turn his face to the Truth, I, too, following their example, have grievously failed to recognize the Beauty of the Eternal,” such a plea will, assuredly, be rejected. For the faith of no man can be conditioned by any one except himself.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 143

That's my point. Peer review DOESN'T work for religion because religious beliefs are not accurate representations of reality.

So now you are shifting gears? No, religion is not an accurate representation of material reality but it is an accurate representation of spiritual reality, just as science is an accurate representation of material reality but it is not an accurate representation of spiritual reality..

 

[Trailblazer]

That is my point. Note my emphasis.

I see that your commission of the fallacy of hasty generalization flew right over your head. Let's try again.

That is true that the world is full of men who claim to speak for God, but logically speaking that does not mean that there are no Messengers who did speak for God.

A = true Messenger; B = false Messenger.

The only reason you should believe that Baha’u’llah was a true Messenger of God is because of the evidence that indicates that. It is irrelevant how many false messengers there have been.

There have been many false messengers, (a) ones who thought they got a message from God (psychotics) or (b) ones who were lying (con-men), but logically speaking that does not mean that there was no true Messenger of God because it is the Fallacy of Hasty Generalization to assume that just because many or most messengers were false all messengers were false.

I can guarantee that none of those false messengers wrote 15,000 tablets or had a 40 year mission that was successfully brought to completion, or established a thriving world religion.

And Mr.B has as much evidence that he is God, or that God speaks to him, as has someone who is deluded.

Do those deluded men write 15,000 tablets or have a 40 year mission that was successfully brought to completion, or establish a thriving world religion?

But that is not what I’ve done. You’re very good at C/Pasting but not so good at understanding your C/Ps.

And just like many atheists, you are really good at telling me I am wrong but have nothing to say about WHY I am wrong.

I understand that fallacy better than the back of my hand because I have been discussing it with atheists for nine years and I have 14 Word documents I have saved in which I explained how they commit it in various ways.
It is clearly you who does not understand it.

Illogical. It’s up to you to prove the POSITIVE statement (MrB IS a messenger). I ought to add that this is something you will never be able to do.

Sorry, but if you CLAIM that Baha'u'llah was not a Messenger of God, it is up to you to prove it.
I do not claim that Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God, I just believe His claim. Baha'u'llah claimed that He was a Messenger of God and He provided ample evidence to support His claim.

No man can ever prove that He was a Messenger of God, I have told you that numerous times. All we have is evidence that indicates that.

Nor will you EVER be able to prove that Jesus was anyone at all, and there is much less evidence for the 'alleged' claims of Jesus than there is for the claims of Baha'u'llah, given none of the New Testament can EVER be verified to have been the actual words of Jesus. By stark contrast we know exactly what Baha'u'llah wrote.

Do you know which logical fallacy you have just committed?

Why don't you tell me what 'you think' fallacy that is?

I asked a question, one you apparently cannot answer, so you accused me of committing a logical fallacy.
What you just did is called deflection and it is the red herring fallacy.

What logical fallacy is deflection?

Avoiding engagement with an argument by creating a new one. Also called 'whataboutery', this is the classic red herring or deflection tactic. In the form of 'relativism' it is used to make one's own errors (or crimes) appear smaller by comparison with greater errors (or atrocities, calamities, etc) elsewhere.

Errors of Rhetoric: Logical Fallacies - Kirby Mountain

Why can't you just answer the question instead of trying to deflect?

What MORE evidence do you have that God spoke to Jesus than I have that God spoke to Baha'u'llah? I am still waiting for that evidence.

 

[Trailblazer]

You miss my point, once again.

Until Mr B is supported, then we can't take ANYTHING of his as evidence that he really was who he claimed to be.

Supported by what?

Why should I do that when I don't believe it?

I guess you missed the point I was trying to make.

I see lots of people trying to get me to believe their claims about religion are true while resorting to logical fallacies.

You just deflected by ignoring what I said which is the red herring fallacy.
What lots of people do is not related to what I am doing. I am not trying to get you to believe anything. My point was that with such a bias as you have you cannot think logically.

Ah, so for accurate information about Islam, go to a Muslim. For accurate information about Judaism, you speak to a Jew. Yet you would have me believe that Baha'is are better qualified than Christians to tell me the correct interpretation of the Bible.

Funny, that.

Interpretation is not the same as information. The information about Christianity is in the Bible. I already explained why the Baha'is can better understand and interpret the Bible (Daniel 12).

Not always.

If a person is seeking to deceive, or if a person is mistaken, then their information is not going to be accurate, even if they are the source. How many cult leaders have written manifestos? But that doesn't mean that those manifestos are accurate, does it?

I am not saying it would be accurate information but It would still be the most accurate information regarding what that cult believes.

 

[Trailblazer]

Because we don't elect messengers from God.

There's a big difference between trying to decide if a person can do a particular job well and a person who claims that reality is a certain way.

There is a big difference but the way you go about investigating them is similar.

You do not elect Messengers of God but you if you choose to believe they are Messengers that decision should be based upon what kind of person they were and how well they did the job that God gave them to do.

 

[samtonga43]

Why isn't it a good thing?

Do you know what it means, Tb -- "to have your cake and eat it
eat it too"?

 

[samtonga43]

There is a big difference but the way you go about investigating them is similar. You do not elect Messengers of God but you if you choose to believe they are Messengers that decision should be based upon what kind of person they were and how well they did the job that God gave them to do.

Another assumption (and you lecture others on their logical fallacies!)
You are assuming that God gave Mr.B.a job to do.

Come to think of it, you often say that YOU have a job to do. Are YOU a messenger?

 

[Trailblazer]

Do you know what it means, Tb -- "to have your cake and eat it
eat it too"?

It means you can't eat a cake and continue to possess that cake once you've consumed it. The use of the phrase, therefore, is to tell someone that they can't have two good things that don't normally go together at the same time, like eating a cake and then continuing to possess that same cake so you can eat later.Dec 12, 2016

Here's what 'have your cake and eat it too' really means

Why do you answer a question with a question?
So why can't I have my cake and eat it too, in the CONTEXT of this discussion?

 

[Trailblazer]

Another assumption (and you lecture others on their logical fallacies!)
You are assuming that God gave Mr.B.a job to do.

There is no logical fallacy there but it you care to post the name of the fallacy you think I committed I will tell you why I did not commit it.

I do not assume that, I know that by reading about the job God gave Baha'u'llah to do.
Reading is also how I know what job God gave Jesus to do.

Come to think of it, you often say that YOU have a job to do. Are YOU a messenger?

I never said having a job makes one a Messenger of God, as that would be illogical.
I only ever said that Messengers of God have jobs to do and there is nothing illogical about that.

What would be illogical is if a Messenger of God had no job to do. What then would be His purpose for coming to earth?
The job God gave Jesus to do was to bear witness to the truth about God.

John 17:4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.

John 18:37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

 

[CG Didymus]

If you don't see it and you don't believe it do you think repeating that over and over is going to change that?
If any progress is being made then there might be a reason to discuss it further but if you have made up your mind why discuss it?

Because I expect a good reason why Baha'i believe those prophecies have been fulfilled. As I recall one of them was about the number 666. A Baha'i said that it is a prophecy, I think, about the year the Umayyads took power, which was 661AD. To make the "prophecy" work they added five year, because they said... Jesus was not born in year zero, but four or five years earlier. Sorry, that's flaky.

Now about "repeating"... you and other Baha'is keep repeating, as if true, "prophecies" and those verses where Jesus says his "work" is finished. As if that means he's not coming back. Of course to a Baha'i he's not coming back, so you use those verses as "proof" that he is not coming back. But the other problem, Baha'is only use some verses in a literal fashion... The ones that support their beliefs. Great, but expect your interpretations to be challenged. And if you keep throwing them out there as if true, then expect to be continually challenged.

 

[CG Didymus]

I could go over those Bible prophecies again, but what would that prove or disprove? You will always find a reason to believe that Baha'u'llah did not fulfill them and that is easy for anyone to do depending on how they interpret the prophecies. It is ALL about interpretation.

All I wanted was a reason why in two prophecies from Daniel, that mention the stopping of the daily sacrifice and the setting up of the abomination, why starting counting the years from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem? Apparently, you had already said that you don't know. Well, I think Baha'is should know. Abdul Baha' should have known, but it seems Baha'is don't care to know. Which, to me, sounds like Baha'is are satisfied with what Abdul Baha said. He gave an interpretation that works very well for Baha'is, but it includes ignoring part of what the prophecy said... and adding in what it didn't say... that the years begin with the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

 

[CG Didymus]

The Baha'is could not care less what the Bible prophecies say because THAT is not why we believe in Baha'u'llah.

Anyone can try to use the Bible to prove or disprove anything they want to prove or disprove.

To investigate the truth about the Baha'i Faith people are supposed to look at Baha'u'llah, not at the Bible prophecies.

I totally disagree with that. Baha'u'llah claims to be the Messiah, Christ returned, Kalki, Maitreya etc. Some people do check those prophecies and Baha'is have to do some finagling to make them work. I know you don't care, but it seems to me that the tribulations happen before Christ returns, but with Baha'u'llah, things were bad, world leaders rejected him, and things got worse and getting worse. The Baha'is could be right. Things will get so bad that people will look to the Baha'i Faith for solutions to the world's problems. Or, the Christians could be right and there will be wars and rumors of wars but that is not yet the end. There will be plagues and famine and it will be so bad that people will want rocks to fall on them... then Jesus comes. Between the two I'd rather have the Baha'is be right, 'cause I'm in much more trouble if the Christians are right. But... in so many ways I don't trust either. Unprovable proofs and flaky fulfilled prophecies, and not having a good answer or not being able to answer questions is not helping. Or, am I being too unreasonable to think that a man who claims to be a messenger of God should have all the answers?

 

[CG Didymus]

It is only common sense based on your assumption that there actually IS an Age of Prophecy and an Age of Fulfillment.
If there is not it is non-sense.

Well, they also call it the "Adamic" cycle. But they don't believe the Adam story is literal. But... they believe that Adam was a manifestation? I don't get it. It's like they're making it all up as they go. But, actually, this is what they are being told in the Baha'i writings... and, to them, it makes perfect sense.

NO!!! Careful, CG Didymus. You have been warned.

Playing the field or questioning the field. There's a lot of religions out there. And lots of sects and denominations of religions out there. When I was learning about the Baha'i Faith they were going out on "Mass Teaching" trips to minority parts of town and to Indian Reservation. They expected, and I guess still expecting, "Entry by Troops". Didn't happen.

I was told that the "Lessor Peace" would be established by the year 2000. Didn't happen. Ended up that was not an "Official" statement from the Guardian and Grand Son of Baha'u'llah, Shoghi Effendi. But it was, apparently, what he "unofficially" told someone and that person wrote it down in a book called "Pilgrim Notes." Which is filled with things he said while people visited him at the Baha'i Headquarters in Haifa, Israel, while on pilgrimage.

But, like I said, if you're right about Jesus, I'm in much more trouble.

 

[CG Didymus]

The difference between what Baha'u'llah wrote and the Bible is that what Baha'u'llah wrote cannot be misconstrued and interpreted in many different ways, like the Bible. In addition, Baha'u'llah appointed two interpreters of His Writings to explain what He wrote, for anyone who cannot understand it.

Here's some of his words... What's it talking about? Noah exhorted people for 950 years? How do you construe it?

Among the Prophets was Noah. For nine hundred and fifty years He prayerfully exhorted His people and summoned them to the haven of security and peace.
​

Here's the rest of what he said about Noah. Has nothing to do with the Bible story of Noah. So where did this story come from?

None, however, heeded His call. Each day they inflicted on His blessed person such pain and suffering that no one believed He could survive. How frequently they denied Him, how malevolently they hinted their suspicion against Him! Thus it hath been revealed: “And as often as a company of His people passed by Him, they derided Him. To them He said: ‘Though ye scoff at us now, we will scoff at you hereafter even as ye scoff at us. In the end ye shall know.’”3 Long afterward, He several times promised victory to His companions and fixed the hour thereof. But when the hour struck, the divine promise was not fulfilled. This caused a few among the small number of His followers to turn away from Him, and to this testify the records of the best-known books. These you must certainly have perused; if not, undoubtedly you will. Finally, as stated in books and traditions, there remained with Him only forty or seventy-two of His followers. At last from the depth of His being He cried aloud: “Lord! Leave not upon the land a single dweller from among the unbelievers.”4​

 

[CG Didymus]

Since you mentioned nonsense, what is nonsense is for Christians to continue wait for Jesus to return given what Jesus said.

(John 14:19, John 17:11, John 17:4, John 19:30, John 18:36, John 18:37)

What is the Baha'i interpretation of this verse?

Acts 1:11 ...This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”​

 

[Trailblazer]

Because I expect a good reason why Baha'i believe those prophecies have been fulfilled. As I recall one of them was about the number 666. A Baha'i said that it is a prophecy, I think, about the year the Umayyads took power, which was 661AD. To make the "prophecy" work they added five year, because they said... Jesus was not born in year zero, but four or five years earlier. Sorry, that's flaky.

I don't know anything about that prophecy.

Now about "repeating"... you and other Baha'is keep repeating, as if true, "prophecies" and those verses where Jesus says his "work" is finished. As if that means he's not coming back. Of course to a Baha'i he's not coming back, so you use those verses as "proof" that he is not coming back.

The hundred dollar difference is that I might repeatedly POST those prophecies, but only when they are 'relevant' to a conversation I am having, but I am not repeatedly ASKING others to prove that they are are true.

But the other problem, Baha'is only use some verses in a literal fashion... The ones that support their beliefs. Great, but expect your interpretations to be challenged. And if you keep throwing them out there as if true, then expect to be continually challenged.

If I THROW them out as if true go ahead and challenge them, but I don't see you challenging the verses I THROW out; instead, you continually bring up prophecies I never threw out or prophecies I threw out before and explained before.....
That is what I mean about REPEATING.

 

[Trailblazer]

All I wanted was a reason why in two prophecies from Daniel, that mention the stopping of the daily sacrifice and the setting up of the abomination, why starting counting the years from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem?

You will have to get your answer from another Baha'i. I think you know who the other Baha'is are on this forum. By the way, Tony is back on the forum and he believes everything that Abdu'l-Baha says. Why not ask him?

 

[Trailblazer]

I totally disagree with that. Baha'u'llah claims to be the Messiah, Christ returned, Kalki, Maitreya etc. Some people do check those prophecies and Baha'is have to do some finagling to make them work. I know you don't care, but it seems to me that the tribulations happen before Christ returns, but with Baha'u'llah, things were bad, world leaders rejected him, and things got worse and getting worse. The Baha'is could be right. Things will get so bad that people will look to the Baha'i Faith for solutions to the world's problems. Or, the Christians could be right and there will be wars and rumors of wars but that is not yet the end. There will be plagues and famine and it will be so bad that people will want rocks to fall on them... then Jesus comes. Between the two I'd rather have the Baha'is be right, 'cause I'm in much more trouble if the Christians are right. But... in so many ways I don't trust either. Unprovable proofs and flaky fulfilled prophecies, and not having a good answer or not being able to answer questions is not helping.

Go head and waste the rest of your life trying to prove something with prophecies. It's your life.
You just tie yourself in knots but apparently you are unaware of what is so obvious to me.

If you think the Christians are right, why keep looking at the Baha'i Faith? Isn't over 50 years a little long to STILL be undecided?
If the Christians are right then you are saved and forgiven and going to heaven, why would you be in trouble?
If the Christians are right you can sin your life away and still go to heaven, what could be better than that?

I think on some level you know the Christians are wrong and the Baha'is are right.
Wake up and smell the coffee and look around you at the world situation! Everything that Baha'u'llah, Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi predicted is coming true! But instead of looking at the Baha'i prophecies that are being fulfilled you look at the past to see if Baha'u'llah fulfilled Bible prophecies.

But maybe that is what you want, to remain undecided. I cannot make any difference, it is your choice.

Or, am I being too unreasonable to think that a man who claims to be a messenger of God should have all the answers?

Baha'u'llah offered the proofs but you refuse to look at those proofs. It is not good enough for you. You want to decide that prophecies are proof when they can never be used as reliable proofs, at least not for you, since you will ALWAYS find a reason to say that Baha'u'llah did not fulfill those prophecies.

 

[Trailblazer]

Here's some of his words... What's it talking about? Noah exhorted people for 950 years? How do you construe it?

Among the Prophets was Noah. For nine hundred and fifty years He prayerfully exhorted His people and summoned them to the haven of security and peace.
​

Here's the rest of what he said about Noah. Has nothing to do with the Bible story of Noah. So where did this story come from?

None, however, heeded His call. Each day they inflicted on His blessed person such pain and suffering that no one believed He could survive. How frequently they denied Him, how malevolently they hinted their suspicion against Him! Thus it hath been revealed: “And as often as a company of His people passed by Him, they derided Him. To them He said: ‘Though ye scoff at us now, we will scoff at you hereafter even as ye scoff at us. In the end ye shall know.’”3 Long afterward, He several times promised victory to His companions and fixed the hour thereof. But when the hour struck, the divine promise was not fulfilled. This caused a few among the small number of His followers to turn away from Him, and to this testify the records of the best-known books. These you must certainly have perused; if not, undoubtedly you will. Finally, as stated in books and traditions, there remained with Him only forty or seventy-two of His followers. At last from the depth of His being He cried aloud: “Lord! Leave not upon the land a single dweller from among the unbelievers.”4​

I do not concern myself with what Noah did because I don't care what happened thousands of years ago, since Baha'u'llah said we should be concerned about the age we live in, not in the ages that are long past.

“The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.

We can well perceive how the whole human race is encompassed with great, with incalculable afflictions. We see it languishing on its bed of sickness, sore-tried and disillusioned. They that are intoxicated by self-conceit have interposed themselves between it and the Divine and infallible Physician. Witness how they have entangled all men, themselves included, in the mesh of their devices. They can neither discover the cause of the disease, nor have they any knowledge of the remedy. They have conceived the straight to be crooked, and have imagined their friend an enemy.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 213

 

[Trailblazer]

What is the Baha'i interpretation of this verse?

Acts 1:11 ...This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”​

There is no"Baha'i interpretation" but since I have explained that verse to Christians so many times, I have many different versions of my interpretation saved in several Word documents. Here is one of my briefer explanations:

Acts 1:9-11 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

The disciples were staring up into the sky as the spirit of Jesus was taken up to heaven out of their sight. The two men dressed in white (angels) came along and asked why they were staring up into the sky because they wondered why the disciples were staring up into the sky. Then the angels told the disciples that the same spirit of Jesus that was taken up to heaven will return just as it went to heaven, in like manner.

The verse does not say that the disciples saw a body go up. It was the Christ Spirit that ascended, not a body, which is why the angels wondered why the disciples were staring into the sky, since there was nothing to look at. That makes perfect sense since angels can see spirits.

Descending from heaven upon the clouds means that the spirit of Jesus, the Christ Spirit, will be made manifest from the heaven of the will of God and will appear in the form of a human being. Though delivered from the womb of Mary, Jesus in reality descended from the heaven of the will of God. Baha’u’llah descended in like manner, from the heaven of the will of God.

 

[David Weaver]

But his writings and all that, those ARE the claims!

Friend @infrabenji , please.
I posted following in another thread vide post #134 , please.
Do Atheists Have Faith?
Did the Atheism people ever say that they have not faith in Atheism, please?
They do have faith in Atheism. Right?
Regards
OOO
Do Atheists Have Faith?
If we say the Atheism people have no faith in Atheism, will they be happy with it?
I don't think so. Right?
Regards

Atheism doesn't mean they don't believe in anything...it mean they don't believe in a God....from (I believe) the Greek a - without theos - god