Hi Nimos, still my favorite atheist. You always make my day when you show up.
I am sorry I did not yet respond to that post but I plan to answer it as soon as I can climb out from under all these posts.
No, worries can see you are already in a heated debate here, so you don't have to reply to it
He can't prove that and that is why it can never be a fact but is rather a belief. However, a belief can be true or false, logically speaking, and it is up to us to determine if it is true or false, IF we want to know.
Agree, but in order for us to be able to do that, doesn't he first have to establish the truth of his claim? Because otherwise we are not really working with anything tangible right?
Sort of like you and me having a discussion about the color of someone's car, but haven't even establishing that this person even own a car to begin with. And when we finally realize that and ask about it, he/she answers that they won't tell. Then why would be bother discussing the color then?
We can verify the claims of Baha'u'llah for ourselves by looking at the evidence that backs up His claims.
We can only look at individual claims. If I made the following claims and we could somehow verify them as being true:
1. Cats loves me.
2. Dogs loves me.
3. Horses loves me.
Does that mean that, if I make a claim that "Pigs loves me" is also true?
The obvious answer is no, each claim has to be verified as being true or false. So when Baha'u'llah claim that there is only one God, then we have to verify that. Exactly as we would have to verify that he is a messenger of God. And all the claims he makes we would have to verify individually.
And even if we could verify a lot of these, does still not mean that he is a messenger of God until that itself have been verified as being true.
We can never prove that as a fact that will be universally accepted as true. That is why after over 2000 years two thirds of the world population still does not believe in Jesus Christ. It can never be proven that He was who He claimed to be.
Exactly, which is why we call it faith. People have faith in Jesus, God and the bible as being true. But it is based on faith, which means that it lacks knowledge. I have said it before, but will do it again. You only need faith when you don't have knowledge, otherwise there is no need for faith.
We can prove to ourselves that Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God, but for obvious logical reasons not *everyone* will be able to prove that to themselves.
This is where I believe you take a wrong approach. Proof, knowledge and "truth" are connected, if I can prove to you that something is a particular way, I need to have so much knowledge about it, that it is without a doubt the best possible explanation there is and therefore we refer to it as being true (not absolute). That is basically what a proof gives us, right.
And if your proof is good or valid then that will convince pretty much everyone, because when tested it will keep confirming what you say.
If I told you that aliens are real, because I can prove it to myself, then its not really worth anything, because if you don't agree and have no way of verifying my claim, then you can't confirm my proof, its impossible.
And therefore you would be correct in saying that I do not have proof of aliens, but merely have a belief that they are true. But this is not a representation of the actual truth, because either aliens exist or they don't. Its not like aliens exists for me, but not for you.
One reason they won't be able to is because they never even give that evidence a fair shot.
I don't think that is correct. As I said just above with the example of the car and we do it again.
You make the claim that someone's car is red, and to that I answer, this person haven't even demonstrated that he has a car, so it doesn't matter what color it might be. And to that you reply, it is red, if you simply listen to what this person have said about it, then its obviously red!!
Do you see the issue here? Baha'u'llah need to demonstrate that the God he is talking about is even real, before it makes sense to talk about whether he is a messenger or not. Its jumping over the whether or not he has a "car" to begin with, you simply assume that he does and what he is saying proves that it is red, and given that it is red, that proves that he own a car.
But what you describing are not proof, but faith.
Another reason they won't be able to do that is because not all people will view the same evidence in the same way since all people are very different.
I agree, evidence can point to different things and even several things at once at the same time. But it still doesn't change that Baha'u'llah can't provide evidence for his claim of there being only one God or even one to begin with, given that you don't believe this is possible for anyone.
So from this we should be able to agree on the following, that absolutely no amount of evidence will ever result in him being able to proof that his claim is correct about God. Which means that it will natural follow that it is also impossible to establish that he is a messenger of God. And therefore we won't be able to prove it, so it has to be based on faith.
Wouldn't you say that this is how it would logically make sense, given the criteria that you have put forward, that no one can ever prove God?