Can we change our mind about what we believe?

[muhammad_isa]

The title of the thread is "can-we-change-our-mind-about-what-we-believe."

Yes..

A tri-omni god certainly ought to be able to do that..

Umm .. it not about whether G-d can change our minds or not..
It is about whether we, as a person, can do that.
If G-d had wanted mankind to be without independent thought, He could have done so.

..and a deity that can control thought directly by reprogramming minds wouldn't attempt to communicate in words.

You know better than G-d?
You speak as if you have experience of creating a universe, or something.

 

[Trailblazer]

Authentic spirituality involves a connection to nature that creates a warm and pleasant feeling of belonging. Abrahamic religion breaks that bond. He is taught to feel like he doesn't belong in this world, which is fit for fiery apocalypse.

It sounds like you are talking about a certain version of Christianity. As a Baha'i, I am not taught feel like I don't belong in this world.
I have a connection to nature that creates a warm and pleasant feeling of belonging. In fact, I feel closer to nature than to any God.

That creates a sense of alienation, which, as I alluded, is the opposite of connection and a sense of belonging. The believer is an alien in his own body, which is scoffingly referred to as "the flesh." Worldly becomes a dirty word in this conception of reality.

Again, you are alluding to Christianity. The Baha'i Faith has no such teachings.

As a result, too many people live life as if they were at a bus stop waiting for something to take them away to something better.

Just because we believe there is something better that does not mean that we are waiting to be taken there, like at a bus stop.
I for one am not waiting for that. I am waiting for this life to become better!

But it was seen as evidence, as is everything else that is evident to the senses.

Evidence is anything that you see, experience, read, or are told that causes you to believe that something is true or has really happened.
Objective evidence definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary

The skillful part is correctly ascertaining what it is evidence of. What I saw was a believer carting out flowery words that millions of others could have written and which he has accepted uncritically in the face of contradictory evidence.

"flowery words that millions of others could have written and which he has accepted uncritically"
1. You do not know that millions of others could have written those words because you cannot prove that, so all you have s a personal opinion.
2. How do you know that @Truthseeker has accepted those words uncritically?

"in the face of contradictory evidence."
What is the contradictory evidence?

Evidence for a god is something evident to the senses that make the existence of a god more likely. I can't imagine what that would be that couldn't also be accounted for by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization, a naturalistic explanation.

A Messenger of God is something evident to my senses that makes the existence of God known.
No, you can't imagine what that would be evidence for you that could not be accounted for by something else, and that is precisely the reason you will never believe in God. You can always find reasons why the evidence that exists is not good enough, because you are looking to explain it away, rather than looking to understand how it could actually be evidence.

Of course. Some will find value where others don't. Some will find beauty where others don't. And some will derive sound conclusions about what that which they are viewing tells us about reality while others will be unable to do that.

So who is the judge of what a sound conclusion is and how can we know it is sound?

In the first two example, there really is no right or wrong, and all opinions are as valid as any other, but in the third, there is such a thing as being correct or not. Thus, all opinions about what is valuable or beautiful to them are equal, but not all opinions about what evidence implies. Some opinions are better than others, such as those that can be shown to be correct.

Can you show your opinions to be correct?

If the deity can't communicate except through messengers and it wants to communicate, it'll need to settle for that. More powerful deities would have other options.

Even if there were other options, if a deity exists, the deity has chosen to communicate through Messengers. What does that tell you?

A deity that can create brains and program minds to, for example, have free will or not, ought to be able to download its message directly and nonverbally into minds by rewiring neuronal synapses to alter memory and change what they believe and how they think.

So what if a deity could do that? Obviously, if a deity exists, the deity did not choose to do that. What does that tell you?

Disagree. The majority of the world is monotheistic or polytheistic, and their thousands of religions describe different conceptions of a god. The Catholic god is not the Protestant god, and neither are the Muslim god. They most assuredly are not being communicated to by the same divine source. And the communication that makes people theists is not scripture or messages from messengers. It comes from other people exhorting them to believe and then handing them a book and a set of religious beliefs that they absorb uncritically. That was the case for me as well.

My point was that most people believe in a God or gods. I offered a logical explanation as to why people have different religious beliefs.

They most assuredly are being communicated to by the same divine source since there is only one God who reveals all the religions.

Messengers of God tailor their message according to the needs of the times and the ability of the people who the message is addressed to to understand. What was communicated differed in different ages of history because the people who God was communicating to were different. Not only did they have different needs, they had a different ability to comprehend God.

My understanding is that the pot and kettle are both black: "The pot calling the kettle black - used to convey that the criticisms a person is aiming at someone else could equally well apply to themselves." If one is going to draw a cartoon, I think both should be shown as black. Otherwise, it means nothing more than the pot calling the kettle a kettle.

I just happened to pick the cartoon that was most visually appealing to me. Perhaps they should both be black because they are both calling each other black.

 

[Trailblazer]

a deity that can control thought directly by reprogramming minds wouldn't attempt to communicate in words.

How do you know that?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Jesus is evidence that God exists.

There's another very human life doing very human things and speaking very human words. Jesus' words are evidence to me that he had no contact with any god. Jesus believed that the story of Noah was history. Jesus offered a lot of poor advice.

because of how you view the Bible, you will never see that, not unless you change your views.

I think you mean that unless he changes the way he evaluates evidence or stops using evidence to arrive at beliefs, he will never believe what that a god exists or that messengers are what they claim to be.

You do not know that millions of others could have written those words

Yes, I do. I'm pretty familiar with what ordinary humans can do. So are you, which is why it's puzzling that you disagree with me. That needs an explanation. Fortunately, I have one. This is how faith modifies thought. You believe a priori that the words have a superhuman source, and the rest follows. If one believes that a god wrote them and even calls them evidence of a god, then he will see words that he knows were written by other men as less.

How do you know that @Truthseeker has accepted those words uncritically?

Because he believes them. Critical analysis forces one to reject some of what he has accepted.

As a Baha'i, I am not taught feel like I don't belong in this world. I have a connection to nature that creates a warm and pleasant feeling of belonging. In fact, I feel closer to nature than to any God.

Good to know.

Just because we believe there is something better that does not mean that we are waiting to be taken there, like at a bus stop.

How many believers have told us that our lives are meaningless if there is no god or heaven? How many are hoping for death soon to be with Jesus and their deceased loved ones? They want to be released from the flesh and the world. Those people live like they're waiting for a bus.

Evidence is anything that you see, experience, read, or are told that causes you to believe that something is true or has really happened.

I word it a little differently. Evidence is whatever is evident to the senses. What it is evidence of (or evidence of) and what that implies about reality requires the application of reason and memory to that evidence. So, yes, I agree with you that the words of the messenger are evidence as soon as they are read or heard (become evident to the senses), but where we disagree is what they are evidence of. The evidence shows you a man channeling a god where I see just a man doing things people do and saying things people say.

You can always find reasons why the evidence that exists is not good enough, because you are looking to explain it away, rather than looking to understand how it could actually be evidence.

Now you're describing faith, where one begins with a belief and THEN looks at the evidence to see if it comports with his faith-based belief. I don't do that. I begin with the evidence and review it dispassionately letting it lead me to whichever conclusions reason justifies, that is, belief follows observation (seeing is believing) rather than precede it (believing determines what will be seen).

So who is the judge of what a sound conclusion is and how can we know it is sound?

The academic community. We can know a conclusion is sound by examining the chain of reason connecting it to its original premises or observations, assuming that the premises are true premises. You may recall my explaining to you that a method exists for both arriving at correct conclusions and confirming that they are correct. That is, one can be correct and know it, but only that method can do that. Many others are aware of the method, but cannot apply it themselves, so they go to others who can for help and advice. Unfortunately, it seems like most of the world is unaware that it is possible to do that.

How do you suppose that would manifest if I were correct? What if there were people, maybe quite a few, who didn't know what justified belief is or what justifies a belief? How would we know that about them? I've answered that for you in the past, but you may have forgotten. Even so, you should be able to imagine how that appear on your own.

Spoiler: my answer

Unaware that some opinions can be known to be correct, unaware that there is any method to justify belief, they would consider all opinions equal.

Even if there were other options, if a deity exists, the deity has chosen to communicate through Messengers. What does that tell you?

Assuming that you mean better options, that the deity was content with whatever level of penetration its message into human culture that such messages are able to accomplish. If the deity has nothing better either because it has nothing else or it has nothing else that would do a better job, then it isn't powerful enough to make itself known better.

it not about whether G-d can change our minds or not.. It is about whether we, as a person, can do that.

You asked, "In what way do YOU think G-d should communicate to us .. through a loud-hailer from the sky?"

You know better than G-d? You speak as if you have experience of creating a universe, or something.

I have experience communicating effectively. If I had the power the god of Abraham is said to have and I wanted you to know I was real, you would. If I wanted you to know something in particular, you would. The arguments that say the equivalent of, "you can't judge a god if you're not one" are wrong. If you tell me that a god exists and its purpose includes being known and understood, then I will judge how effectively that occurred, and if I know a better way of doing it, I'll tell you.

Like many other believers, I think that you don't allow yourself to think like that, and reject the opinions of others who do, which, unfortunately, means that if you are wrong, you will continue to be wrong, since that kind of thinking is the only path to knowledge about what is true and what is real. Faith in the Abrahamic god often leads to the state of being trapped with a wrong belief supported by nothing more than the willingness to believe it. It precludes that kind of speculation and assessment.

 

[muhammad_isa]

If I had the power the god of Abraham is said to have and I wanted you to know I was real, you would. If I wanted you to know something in particular, you would..

..and we do.
..but some people aren't interested .. they find a way to refute what G-d teaches us.

..by suggesting it can't be proved .. or that there are so many creeds, which shows
its all bunkum etc.

That's the thing .. we are all free to believe what we like .. and G-d knows why we say what
we say, and do what we do.
Do I "psychologically need" G-d? Yes.
Is that why I believe? Absolutely not !

I believe, because it makes sense to me, and not in existence being mere coincidence.

 

[jes-us]

You may call it what you like .. and 'brain' does not equal 'mind'.

The brain is a physical organ in the body, whereas the mind encompasses a
non-physical concept of self.

Correct , you get my intelligence vote

 

[muhammad_isa]

The arguments that say the equivalent of, "you can't judge a god if you're not one" are wrong. If you tell me that a god exists and its purpose includes being known and understood, then I will judge how effectively that occurred, and if I know a better way of doing it, I'll tell you..

You're a joker..

I cannot believe in your "better way" .. because it makes no sense to me.
The nature of mankind is not an accident.
..and G-d reveals what He wills, and knows that some will believe and some disbelieve.
The sequel is for those who ward off evil.

 

[Trailblazer]

There's another very human life doing very human things and speaking very human words. Jesus' words are evidence to me that he had no contact with any god. Jesus believed that the story of Noah was history. Jesus offered a lot of poor advice.

Yes, Jesus was human because had a human nature, but Jesus also had a divine nature. There is no reason to believe that everything in the NT are the words of Jesus, so there is no reason to believe that Jesus believed that the story of Noah was history.

Mírza Abú'l-Fadl has been justifiably called the most learned and erudite Bahá'í scholar[16]​

​

Concerning the Book of Christ, he wrote that "The Holy Gospels alone contain teachings which can be regarded as the true Words of God; and these teachings do not exceed the contents of a few pages."[18]​

​

A Baháí View of the Bible​

Regarding the advice that Jesus purportedly gave, whether it was good or poor is only a matter of personal opinion.

I think you mean that unless he changes the way he evaluates evidence or stops using evidence to arrive at beliefs, he will never believe what that a god exists or that messengers are what they claim to be.

Yes, pretty much.

Yes, I do. I'm pretty familiar with what ordinary humans can do. So are you, which is why it's puzzling that you disagree with me.

My point still stands, unrefuted. You do not know that 'millions of ordinary humans' could have written those words unless you can prove that millions of ordinary humans have written the same words. What is your evidence? If you have no evidence (millions of ordinary humans who have written those words) all you have is a personal opinion that millions of ordinary humans could have written those words.

That needs an explanation. Fortunately, I have one. This is how faith modifies thought. You believe a priori that the words have a superhuman source, and the rest follows. If one believes that a god wrote them and even calls them evidence of a god, then he will see words that he knows were written by other men as less.

Logically speaking, the converse also applies. This is how lack of faith modifies thought. You believe a priori that the words do not have a superhuman source, and the rest follows. If one believes that a god did not write them and even says they are not evidence of a God, then he will see words of the Messenger of God as words that were written by an ordinary man.

Because he believes them. Critical analysis forces one to reject some of what he has accepted.

Sorry but no. Critical analysis does not force anyone to reject any of what he has accepted.
Again, your confirmation bias rears its ugly head, making it impossible for you to see anything other than what you already believe.

How many believers have told us that our lives are meaningless if there is no god or heaven? How many are hoping for death soon to be with Jesus and their deceased loved ones? They want to be released from the flesh and the world. Those people live like they're waiting for a bus.

Maybe believers have said that our lives are meaningless if there is no God or heaven, but I don't know any believers who are waiting for death, even those who want to be with Jesus or their deceased loved ones. In fact, there are certain believers such as the JWs who don't want to be released from the flesh or this world, they want to live forever IN the flesh IN this world.

I word it a little differently. Evidence is whatever is evident to the senses. What it is evidence of (or evidence of) and what that implies about reality requires the application of reason and memory to that evidence. So, yes, I agree with you that the words of the messenger are evidence as soon as they are read or heard (become evident to the senses), but where we disagree is what they are evidence of. The evidence shows you a man channeling a god where I see just a man doing things people do and saying things people say.

Fair enough. We view the words of the Messenger differently. However, it is important to note that the evidence for the Messenger being a Messenger is not mainly his words, it is his character and deeds, mainly his earthly mission and the effect he had upon humanity. I know you will say that lots of men have had a good character, but you won't find any men who completed a mission similar to Jesus or Baha'u'llah.

Now you're describing faith, where one begins with a belief and THEN looks at the evidence to see if it comports with his faith-based belief. I don't do that. I begin with the evidence and review it dispassionately letting it lead me to whichever conclusions reason justifies, that is, belief follows observation (seeing is believing) rather than precede it (believing determines what will be seen).

No, I am not describing faith, where one begins with a belief and THEN looks at the evidence to see if it comports with his faith-based belief.
If one already has a belief and faith in that belief why would they need to look at the evidence?

The Baha'i principle called Independent Investigation of Truth is what you are describing. We are supposed to look at the evidence and review it dispassionately letting it lead us to whichever conclusions reason justifies. Belief follows observation rather than preceding it.

What I was saying is that you can always look at the evidence and find reasons why the evidence that exists is not good enough, because if you have confirmation bias at the get-go, you are looking to explain it away, rather than looking to understand how it could actually be evidence.

The academic community. We can know a conclusion is sound by examining the chain of reason connecting it to its original premises or observations, assuming that the premises are true premises.

No, the academic community does not evaluate religion and determine if there are sound conclusions.

As I have said on this forum dozens of times, religious claims are not subject to formal logical reasoning because they can never be proven true, since it can never be proven that God exists; and since it can never be proven that God exists, it can never be proven that Messengers of God exist. Thus we can never assume, or prove, that the premise God exists or the premise Messengers of God exist are true, meaning we can never assert that the conclusion God exists or Messengers of God exist is true.

You may recall my explaining to you that a method exists for both arriving at correct conclusions and confirming that they are correct. That is, one can be correct and know it, but only that method can do that.

Sorry, but you cannot make any 'correct conclusions' about God or Messengers of God, nor can I, since neither one of us can prove that God and Messengers of God do or don't exist.

How do you suppose that would manifest if I were correct? What if there were people, maybe quite a few, who didn't know what justified belief is or what justifies a belief? How would we know that about them? I've answered that for you in the past, but you may have forgotten. Even so, you should be able to imagine how that appear on your own.

What you totally miss is that what is justified to one person is unjustified to another person, and vice versa, and you don't get to determine what is justified or unjustified for another person.

What justifies a belief in God or a religion is only a personal opinion. We all have personal opinions regarding what is justified, but when a person claims that their personal opinion is the only correct one that is arrogant.

Unaware that some opinions can be known to be correct, unaware that there is any method to justify belief, they would consider all opinions equal.

If an opinion could be known to be correct it would be a fact, not an opinion. All opinions are equal unless there is proof, in which case it would not be an opinion, it would be a proven fact.

Opinions about God or religions cannot be known to be correct or incorrect, they can only be believed to be correct or incorrect.

Assuming that you mean better options, that the deity was content with whatever level of penetration its message into human culture that such messages are able to accomplish. If the deity has nothing better either because it has nothing else or it has nothing else that would do a better job, then it isn't powerful enough to make itself known better.

What the deity chooses to do to make its message known has nothing to do with how powerful the deity is.
In addition to being All-Powerful, the deity is All-Knowing and All-Wise, so the deity uses those qualities to decide how to reveal itself to humans, according to what the deity is trying to achieve, which is not necessarily what you think it would be trying to achieve.

If the deity has nothing better either because it has nothing else, or it has nothing else that would do a better job of making itself known, then the deity doesn't care to make itself known better. Making itself known to everyone is not necessarily what the deity considers better.

 

[Trailblazer]

I have experience communicating effectively. If I had the power the god of Abraham is said to have and I wanted you to know I was real, you would. If I wanted you to know something in particular, you would. The arguments that say the equivalent of, "you can't judge a god if you're not one" are wrong. If you tell me that a god exists and its purpose includes being known and understood, then I will judge how effectively that occurred, and if I know a better way of doing it, I'll tell you.

But you don't know a better way of doing it, you only believe that you know a better way. Only if your way had been tested and proven to be better could you say it was better. Otherwise, all you have is a personal opinion that your way would be better.

God's purpose includes being known and understood, but not necessarily to any more people than now know and understand God.

Like many other believers, I think that you don't allow yourself to think like that, and reject the opinions of others who do, which, unfortunately, means that if you are wrong, you will continue to be wrong, since that kind of thinking is the only path to knowledge about what is true and what is real. Faith in the Abrahamic god often leads to the state of being trapped with a wrong belief supported by nothing more than the willingness to believe it. It precludes that kind of speculation and assessment.

Like many other nonbelievers, you reject the opinions of believers, which, unfortunately, means that if you are wrong, you will continue to be wrong.
Lack of Faith in God often leads to the state of being trapped in disbelief, supported by nothing more than a personal opinion of what actually constitutes evidence for God.

 

[Truthseeker]

Yes, I got that. I translate it as yet another exhortation for the critical thinker to lower his analytic filter and let belief in unexamined, in this case, to avoid being lifeless and withered. I've heard the claim, but my experience contradicts it. The lifelessness I see isn't in the critical thinker.

You're entitled to your opinion. Some believers have an analytic filter as well. I do.

This is the same message another RF poster repeatedly posts wherein he disparages materialism and what he calls scientism. Those are also code for, "You need to change the way you assess reality and start thinking like I do." He and you are both correct.

We do need to live within the material world. That doesn't mean that the spiritual world doesn't exist. They should complement each other.

I'm not into Chopra, he is on the wrong track.

But if you open your eyes around you and look at the unbelievers in the real world - the Sagans and Tysons, Twain and Lennon, Hemingway and Rushdie, Nicholson and Maher - these people are overflowing with life and passion.

I'm a big fan of Sagan. Twain had good insights. The rest I don't know very well.

Authentic spirituality involves a connection to nature that creates a warm and pleasant feeling of belonging. Abrahamic religion breaks that bond. He is taught to feel like he doesn't belong in this world, which is fit for fiery apocalypse.

The Baha'i Faith believes in a connection to nature. The world is not just a place for fiery Apocalypse. It has value. Nature reflects God's attributes.

 

[Willamena]

Can we change our mind about what we believe?

@PureX said that one CAN change their mind, but they won't because they don't want to deny their current understanding of 'what is'. #523

I disagree. One CAN change their mind, and they sometimes do, if they get new information that causes them to change their mind. However, if they don't change their mind, it is because they truly believe that what they believe is true according to their current understanding. It is not that they won’t change their mind, as if they are stubbornly refusing to change their mind, it is that they have no reason to change their mind.

Why should anyone deny that what they believe is true?

Conversely, why should anyone accept any belief as true if they don’t believe it is true?

Why should atheists accept that God exists when they see no evidence for God’s existence?

I do not think that atheists are stubbornly refusing to believe in God. I take them at their word when they say that they see no evidence for God. It is not that they won’t believe in God, it is that they can’t believe in God because they see no evidence for God. The same holds true for me. It is not that I won’t disbelieve in God, it is that I can’t disbelieve in God because I see evidence for God.

Obviously since our minds are made of information and information constantly adjusts and changes, our minds are constantly changing. When we get stubborn about a belief it's only because of stubbornness, not because of belief.

I don't believe that anyone denies what they believe is true. What they believe is truth to them, based, of course, on information. We each comprise a unique database of information. Some deny information to preserve the integrity of their database, but that's on them. We don't deny beliefs, per se.

I believe that each of us cannot help but accept a belief as it appears as true. It is informed by information and selects for itself a place in our unique database. (Thank you, Dogen).

Atheists should not accept any stated belief based on information that has not inserted itself comfortably into their database. I hope that made sense.

From the last paragraph, you appear to be an agnostic atheist.

 

[Trailblazer]

Obviously since our minds are made of information and information constantly adjusts and changes, our minds are constantly changing. When we get stubborn about a belief it's only because of stubbornness, not because of belief.

I don't believe that anyone denies what they believe is true. What they believe is truth to them, based, of course, on information. We each comprise a unique database of information. Some deny information to preserve the integrity of their database, but that's on them. We don't deny beliefs, per se.

I believe that each of us cannot help but accept a belief as it appears as true. It is informed by information and selects for itself a place in our unique database. (Thank you, Dogen).

I agree. I like the analogy about the mind as a database full of information. We all have a different database and that is why no two people believe exactly the same way.

Atheists should not accept any stated belief based on information that has not inserted itself comfortably into their database. I hope that made sense.

Again, I agree. If the information conducive to a belief in God is not in their database they cannot draw from it.

From the last paragraph, you appear to be an agnostic atheist.

No, I am a confirmed believer in God because I see evidence for God. My mind contains a database full of information about God.

 

[CG Didymus]

Their sincerity doesn't help me decide that they are correct. They can still be mistaken.

I do believe it is significant that they are sincere... and each can be sincerely certain completely different things. Like Trinitarian Christians vs. Muslims and Baha'is. Christians that believe Jesus is coming soon, and Baha'is that believe "Christ" has already come as Baha'u'llah.

 

[CG Didymus]

Authentic spirituality involves a connection to nature that creates a warm and pleasant feeling of belonging. Abrahamic religion breaks that bond. He is taught to feel like he doesn't belong in this world, which is fit for fiery apocalypse. That creates a sense of alienation, which, as I alluded, is the opposite of connection and a sense of belonging. The believer is an alien in his own body, which is scoffingly referred to as "the flesh." Worldly becomes a dirty word in this conception of reality.

As a result, too many people live life as if they were at a bus stop waiting for something to take them away to something better.

Here's an article about what Baha'is believe about reality that quotes Abdul Baha...

All the religions, all the prophets, all the great teachers had no other purpose than to raise mankind from the animal to the divine nature. Their purpose was to free man and to make him an inhabiter of the realm of Reality. For although the body of man is material, his reality is spiritual; although his body is darkness, his soul is light; although his body may seem to imprison him, his soul is essentially free. To prove this freedom, the prophets of God have appeared and will continue to appear, for there is no end to divine teachings and no beginning. – Abdu’l-Baha...​

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So I started studying the Baha’i view of reality, and it upended every notion I’d ever had of what qualified as real. I gradually learned that this material world, so mutable and transitory, has no lasting reality. Especially for us humans, who leave it so soon, the physical world is quite temporary. The spiritual world, which has lasting permanence and where we spend an eternity, is the true reality.​

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Because the "spiritual" world is the real world for some Christians and some Baha'is, it gets them to sacrifice the comforts of their material, not real, world to go do things for their religion... Like go off to foreign lands and spread the word and sometimes get killed. But that's okay, because they are promised a heavenly reward.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You believe a priori that the words do not have a superhuman source

I'm an agnostic atheist and a critical thinker. I have no such belief. There is insufficient evidence to justify the belief that any messenger ever spoke for any deity. If that changes, so will my opinion. My mind is open. I'm still waiting for your evidence, and I don't mean that list of categories of evidence like life, words, mission, or character. I mean the specific words or deeds that you claim reveal a god's presence in that life.

your confirmation bias rears its ugly head

My bias is that I want to accumulate as many correct ideas as possible while avoiding false and unfalsifiable beliefs.

the academic community does not evaluate religion and determine if there are sound conclusions.

The rules of reason and of the evaluation of evidence apply everywhere claims of fact are made. These are the same rules used in law and science. They are the rules that professors of philosophy teach. Their violations are called fallacies and are named. And they are the same rules that allow one to recognize when an idea shouldn't be believed. They are the rules that lead to sound (correct) conclusions when applied flawlessly.

religious claims are not subject to formal logical reasoning because they can never be proven true

Then they should not be believed.

you don't get to determine what is justified or unjustified for another person.

I decide if their beliefs are justified by those criteria I just described.

you don't know a better way of doing it, you only believe that you know a better way.

I DO know a better way of deciding such matters.

Did you see this from yesterday? If so, you chose to not respond to it:

"How do you suppose that would manifest if I were correct? What if there were people, maybe quite a few, who didn't know what justified belief is or what justifies a belief? How would we know that about them? I've answered that for you in the past, but you may have forgotten. Even so, you should be able to imagine how that appear on your own.

My answer: Unaware that some opinions can be known to be correct, unaware that there is any method to justify belief, they would consider all opinions equal."

Only if your way had been tested and proven to be better could you say it was better.

But it has.

You do not know that 'millions of ordinary humans' could have written those words unless you can prove that millions of ordinary humans have written the same words.

That is incorrect. I'll bet that sentence of yours has never been written in those same words, but that's a typical human thought that millions could have articulated. I could have. You did.

If an opinion could be known to be correct it would be a fact, not an opinion.

You seem to consider fact and opinion mutually exclusive categories. That's fine, but I use the word fact when an opinion is established to be correct. It doesn't cease becoming one's opinion when it is shown to be a correct one. The words opinion and belief are interchangeable here. And some opinions (beliefs) are facts, although not everybody will know or be able to know that they are.

You may recall that during the pandemic, many people believed that the vaccine was safer than the virus and many were of the opposite opinion/belief. The question was answerable if one could read and interpret the morbidity and mortality data, but many could not, and were unaware that a correct answer to that question could be derived from it. Thus, you had two populations - one that could say with confidence (and they were correct and knew that they were) that the risk/benefit ratio leans heavily toward all eligible candidates taking the vaccine, and others saying, "That's just your opinion."

Likewise with the claims of election fraud. It was clear to critical thinkers before January 6th, 2021 that there was no evidence of significant irregularities in the election and that claims to the contrary were false. Unfortunately for them and the rest of the world, many, who also would have answered such people with, "That's only your opinion," did serious damage to others, to property, and to their own lives because they were unable to think critically. No, it wasn't only an opinion. It was a correct opinion, and moreover, those who were correct could know they were, whereas those who were incorrect could only guess what to believe and guessed badly. And many of them now know what others knew sooner - that they were wrong. Their wrong opinion became a correct one as I use the words.

you won't find any men who completed a mission similar to Jesus or Baha'u'llah.

Plenty of people have devoted their lives to promoting a particular religious dogma.

Making itself known to everyone is not necessarily what the deity considers better.

So the mission that you say is evidence that the messenger was channeling god was to spread a message even now not believed by most people?

the evidence for the Messenger being a Messenger is not mainly his words, it is his character and deeds

That's unfortunate, because most people are aware of none of those, and if they know only some of it, it's the words. This is the result that you consider not just mission accomplished, but exemplary enough to conclude that this must have been a messenger of a god.

Jesus was human because had a human nature, but Jesus also had a divine nature.

You simply make these kinds of claims about ordinary people living ordinary lives. People like Jesus are all around us. He happened to live in a time and place where his words were launched into prominence by others like Paul, and then Constantine, the Catholic church, the crusaders, the missionaries, the conquistadores right up until the televangelists and commercials for Jesus in the last Super Bowl. But none of that makes the man, his words, or his life extraordinary much less divine.

 

[Trailblazer]

I'm an agnostic atheist and a critical thinker. I have no such belief. There is insufficient evidence to justify the belief that any messenger ever spoke for any deity. If that changes, so will my opinion. My mind is open. I'm still waiting for your evidence, and I don't mean that list of categories of evidence like life, words, mission, or character. I mean the specific words or deeds that you claim reveal a god's presence in that life.

Fair enough. There is insufficient evidence for you to believe that any messenger ever spoke for any deity so it is not justified for you to believe that.

The specific words or deeds that I claim reveal God's presence in that life ARE to be found by looking at the categories of evidence like life, words, mission, or character. When I look in those categories I see God's presence in that life but you don't see it since you are looking with a different set of eyes. Also, I think you are looking for something different from I am looking for if a God was present, so I think you are expecting to find something that can never be found.

What would you expect to see if God was present in Baha'u'llah? How would you know? I think those are the questions that need to be answered.

My bias is that I want to accumulate as many correct ideas as possible while avoiding false and unfalsifiable beliefs.

Fair enough. I think that is a good approach but that is not a bias. A bias could prevent you from accumulating ideas that might be correct if you are biased against them. I think we all have biases that come from our previous experiences and they can prevent us from seeing things as they really are. For example, I am biased against the Bible so I miss things that might be valuable that are contained in it.

The rules of reason and of the evaluation of evidence apply everywhere claims of fact are made. These are the same rules used in law and science. They are the rules that professors of philosophy teach. Their violations are called fallacies and are named. And they are the same rules that allow one to recognize when an idea shouldn't be believed. They are the rules that lead to sound (correct) conclusions when applied flawlessly.

My point stands. The academic community does not evaluate religion and determine if there are sound conclusions. We are responsible to do that for ourselves and we should use the rules of reason and avoid committing fallacies when we evaluate the evidence.

Then they should not be believed.

I said "religious claims are not subject to formal logical reasoning because they can never be proven true."

It is fallacious to say that religious claims are false because they have not yet been proven true.

Argument from ignorance asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there may have been an insufficient investigation, and therefore there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four,

1. true
2. false
3. unknown between true or false
4. being unknowable (among the first three).[1]

Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia

Religious claims are unknown between true or false since they cannot be proven true or false, and as such they are unknowable. They have to be believed on faith and evidence, since there is no proof.

To avoid committing that fallacy you can say that unless they are proven true by formal logical reasoning, I am not going to believe the claims.

I decide if their beliefs are justified by those criteria I just described.

My point stands. You don't get to determine what is justified for another person. When you do that you are judging other people and their reasoning and that is very arrogant. I am sorry if you cannot understand that. I don't tell you that your non-belief is unjustified but rather I try to understand why you don't believe. Your reasons are justified for you and I don't say they are unjustified.

I DO know a better way of deciding such matters.

Did you see this from yesterday? If so, you chose to not respond to it:

"How do you suppose that would manifest if I were correct? What if there were people, maybe quite a few, who didn't know what justified belief is or what justifies a belief? How would we know that about them? I've answered that for you in the past, but you may have forgotten. Even so, you should be able to imagine how that appear on your own.

My answer: Unaware that some opinions can be known to be correct, unaware that there is any method to justify belief, they would consider all opinions equal."

I did see that yesterday and I responded to the last part, but I will answer it again.

You said "What if there were people, maybe quite a few, who didn't know what justified belief is or what justifies a belief? How would we know that about them?
My answer: Unaware that some opinions can be known to be correct, unaware that there is any method to justify belief, they would consider all opinions equal."

Your reasoning is faulty right out the door since your opinion about God and Messengers of God cannot be known to be correct.

Also, what you consider a justified belief is only what is justified for you, so it is nothing short of an ego projection. It is rather sad that you do not even understand that.

But it has.

It absolutely has not been tested since God has never communicated via your better way..

I have experience communicating effectively. If I had the power the god of Abraham is said to have and I wanted you to know I was real, you would. If I wanted you to know something in particular, you would. The arguments that say the equivalent of, "you can't judge a god if you're not one" are wrong. If you tell me that a god exists and its purpose includes being known and understood, then I will judge how effectively that occurred, and if I know a better way of doing it, I'll tell you.

But you don't know a better way of doing it, you only believe that you know a better way. Only if your way had been tested and proven to be better could you say it was better. Otherwise, all you have is a personal opinion that your way would be better.

That is incorrect. I'll bet that sentence of yours has never been written in those same words, but that's a typical human thought that millions could have articulated. I could have. You did.

My point stands and it stands on a logical basis. What you responded with is obfuscation and the fallacy of deflection.

You do not know that 'millions of ordinary humans' could have written the same words that Baha'u'llah wrote unless you can prove that millions of ordinary humans have written the same words.

(Continued on next post)

 

[Trailblazer]

You seem to consider fact and opinion mutually exclusive categories. That's fine, but I use the word fact when an opinion is established to be correct. It doesn't cease becoming one's opinion when it is shown to be a correct one. The words opinion and belief are interchangeable here. And some opinions (beliefs) are facts, although not everybody will know or be able to know that they are.

You may recall that during the pandemic, many people believed that the vaccine was safer than the virus and many were of the opposite opinion/belief. The question was answerable if one could read and interpret the morbidity and mortality data, but many could not, and were unaware that a correct answer to that question could be derived from it. Thus, you had two populations - one that could say with confidence (and they were correct and knew that they were) that the risk/benefit ratio leans heavily toward all eligible candidates taking the vaccine, and others saying, "That's just your opinion."

Likewise with the claims of election fraud. It was clear to critical thinkers before January 6th, 2021 that there was no evidence of significant irregularities in the election and that claims to the contrary were false. Unfortunately for them and the rest of the world, many, who also would have answered such people with, "That's only your opinion," did serious damage to others, to property, and to their own lives because they were unable to think critically. No, it wasn't only an opinion. It was a correct opinion, and moreover, those who were correct could know they were, whereas those who were incorrect could only guess what to believe and guessed badly. And many of them now know what others knew sooner - that they were wrong. Their wrong opinion became a correct one as I use the words.

When one's opinion is shown to be a correct one then it is considered a fact, such as the fact that there were no significant irregularities in the election and that claims to the contrary were false. One can hold an opinion that is later proven to be a fact, but unless it is proven to be a fact, with evidence, it remains an opinion. An opinion can be based on fact or knowledge, but not necessarily. Any opinions you or I hold about religion or God are not based on fact or knowledge.

Opinion: a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. opinion meaning - Google Search

Fact: something that is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information:
fact

Plenty of people have devoted their lives to promoting a particular religious dogma.

Devoting one's life to promoting a particular religious dogma is not the same as what Messengers of God do.
My point stands. You won't find any men who completed a mission similar to Jesus or Baha'u'llah.

So the mission that you say is evidence that the messenger was channeling god was to spread a message even now not believed by most people?

There are reasons why the message is not yet believed by most people in the world and they are logical reasons since they make sense.

Below are the seven reasons why more people have not recognized Baha’u’llah yet.
None of them have anything to do with God or Baha'u'llah. All of them are related to human behavior.

1. Many people have never heard of Baha’u’llah, so they do not know there is something to look for. It is the responsibility of the Baha’is to get the message out, so if that is not happening, the Baha’is are to blame. However, once the message has been delivered the Baha’is are not to blame if people reject the message.

2. But even after people know about Baha’u’llah, most people are not even willing to look the evidence in order to determine if He was a Messenger of God or not.

3. Even if they are willing to look at the evidence, there is a lot of prejudice before even getting out the door to look at the evidence.

4. 84% of people in the world already have a religion and they are happy with their religion so they have no interest in a “new religion” or a new Messenger of God.

5. The rest of the world’s population is agnostics or atheists or believers who are prejudiced against all religion.

6. Agnostics or atheists and atheists and believers who have no religion either do not believe that God communicates via Messengers or they find fault with the Messenger, Baha’u’llah.

7. Baha’u’llah brought new teachings and laws that are very different from the older religions so many people are suspicious of those teachings and/or don’t like the laws because some laws require them to give things up that they like doing.

That's unfortunate, because most people are aware of none of those, and if they know only some of it, it's the words.

That's right, and that is one reason why the Baha'i Faith is still small, as I noted above.

1. Many people have never heard of Baha’u’llah, so they do not know there is something to look for. It is the responsibility of the Baha’is to get the message out, so if that is not happening, the Baha’is are to blame. However, once the message has been delivered the Baha’is are not to blame if people reject the message.

2. But even after people know about Baha’u’llah, most people are not even willing to look the evidence in order to determine if He was a Messenger of God or not.

This is the result that you consider not just mission accomplished, but exemplary enough to conclude that this must have been a messenger of a god.

How many people believe in Baha'u'llah to date has no bearing upon whether His mission was accomplished and it has no bearing on whether He was actually a Messenger of God.

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."

This type of argument is known by several names,[1] including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to democracy, appeal to popularity, argument by consensus, consensus fallacy, authority of the many, bandwagon fallacy, voxpopuli,[2] and in Latin as argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), fickle crowd syndrome, and consensus gentium ("agreement of the clans"). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect. The Chinese proverb "three men make a tiger" concerns the same idea. Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia

The converse of this is that if many or most people do not believe it, it cannot be so, and that is fallacious.

The Narrow Way

13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because[a] narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)

You simply make these kinds of claims about ordinary people living ordinary lives. People like Jesus are all around us. He happened to live in a time and place where his words were launched into prominence by others like Paul, and then Constantine, the Catholic church, the crusaders, the missionaries, the conquistadores right up until the televangelists and commercials for Jesus in the last Super Bowl. But none of that makes the man, his words, or his life extraordinary much less divine.

Jesus might have appeared to be an ordinary man when He walked the earth, but ordinary men do not change the world. That is illogical.

You can come up with all kinds of reasons why Christianity took off as it did, but it would have had no basis if Jesus had not been behind it. Not only that, it would not have grown and endured as long as it has if Jesus was just an ordinary man. Show me one ordinary man who has garnered the belief of one third of the world population.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Fair enough. There is insufficient evidence for you to believe that any messenger ever spoke for any deity so it is not justified for you to believe that.

Yes, agree.

I think you are looking for something different from I am looking for if a God was present, so I think you are expecting to find something that can never be found.

That's consistent with there being no God, a possibility that cannot and should not be dismissed without compelling evidence that a god exists.

What would you expect to see if God was present in Baha'u'llah?

To begin to suspect that, I'd need to see something no man could do or write.

that is not a bias.

Wanting to accumulate correct ideas only and using the method of critical thought to do that are biases as I use the word. They are rational biases like avoiding foods that one is allergic to or disapproving of drunk driving. Learning is the accumulation of such biases, and living by them is rational (based in reason) and constructive. What most people mean when they use words like bias, prejudice, presupposition, or preconception is irrational (unjustified) bias, like bigotry or superstition. But when any of those are arrived at empirically using fallacy-free reasoning, they are also knowledge.

My responses to three common objections:

[1] "That's biased."
"Yes it is. It's a rational bias acquired empirically."

[2] "That's semantics."
"Yes it is. Being clear on meaning is important."
(That one came up this week after explaining the difference between physical and material)

[3] "That's out of context."
"Yes it is, like any sentence. We rarely reproduce an entire speech or book when we quote. But none of the surrounding and missing context changes the meaning of the citation except perhaps to add to it without contradicting the apparent meaning of the citation by itself. If you think otherwise, please restore the missing context that you think does that."

I am biased against the Bible

So am I, at least as a source of what reality is like and how the world works, what happened in the past, how to decide truth, and how to live. I hope your bias is rational. Mine is. An irrational bias against the Bible would be because it contradicts that which one believes by faith.

The academic community does not evaluate religion and determine if there are sound conclusions.

What I said is that the academic community has agreed upon the standards by which any claim ought to be evaluated by, which a method that generates sound conclusions, and the only one that can do that.

It is fallacious to say that religious claims are false because they have not yet been proven true.

Agreed. Also, that's not what I said, which was "Then they should not be believed" in response to your words, "religious claims are not subject to formal logical reasoning because they can never be proven true"

you can say that unless they are proven true by formal logical reasoning, I am not going to believe the claims.

Agreed again. That's my position, although it's not how I would word it. I would change it to "unless they are convincingly demonstrated empirically, I am not going to believe the claims." Implied is, "nor call them false without a convincing demonstration that they are."

You don't get to determine what is justified for another person. When you do that you are judging other people and their reasoning and that is very arrogant.

I know that you consider me arrogant, and maybe you're right, but if so, it's not for making critical judgments. That's my duty to myself and the people I affect with those judgments. You also called it arrogant when I said that I can know at times that I am right and another person is wrong when they are unable to make such a judgment themselves about my opinion or theirs.

You said "What if there were people, maybe quite a few, who didn't know what justified belief is or what justifies a belief? How would we know that about them?
My answer: Unaware that some opinions can be known to be correct, unaware that there is any method to justify belief, they would consider all opinions equal."

I was looking for your answer. Is it the same as mine?

what you consider a justified belief is only what is justified for you, so it is nothing short of an ego projection. It is rather sad that you do not even understand that.

Agree up until your comma. I've never claimed otherwise.

Didn't you say that you had a graduate degree in psychology? What does any of the above have to do with ego projection?

And would you define that phrase, I Googled it and none of the hits were scientific sources:

It absolutely has not been tested since God has never communicated via your better way..

You wrote, "Only if your way had been tested and proven to be better could you say it was better" and I answered that it has. My way is critical thought

What you responded with is obfuscation and the fallacy of deflection.

You wrote, "You do not know that 'millions of ordinary humans' could have written those words unless you can prove that millions of ordinary humans have written the same word" I answered, "That is incorrect. I'll bet that sentence of yours has never been written in those same words, but that's a typical human thought that millions could have articulated. I could have. You did."

That wasn't obfuscation or deflection. It was rebuttal. I contradicted your claim and offered a supporting argument.

Devoting one's life to promoting a particular religious dogma is not the same as what Messengers of God do.

How is it different? This is what my former pastor does. He not only preaches Chirstianity from a home church pulpit, he has a travelling ministry where he does the same abroad. Here's a link: Leadership Development Resources – Leadership Coaching and Mentoring He's developing other Christian teachers. And this is what he sounds like, which to me is what all such people sound like including the two messengers you named:

Below are the seven reasons why more people have not recognized Baha’u’llah yet.

Those are reasons not to use messengers.

How many people believe in Baha'u'llah to date has no bearing upon whether His mission was accomplished and it has no bearing on whether He was actually a Messenger of God.

It has a bearing on how effective he has been at disseminating his message.

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."

That's not relevant here. I am not claiming that the messenger was wrong because so few people believe him. I am arguing that that small number reflects on the inefficacy of his mission.

Jesus might have appeared to be an ordinary man when He walked the earth, but ordinary men do not change the world.

Nor did Jesus. Christianity was not his doing. Jesus was a fundamentalist itinerant rabbi and religious reformer like Luther except for the Jews rather than the Catholic church. As I explained, others, especially Paul, invented Christianity, elevated Jesus to demigod, and began selling the new religion to the gentiles when it was largely rejected by the Jews. Jesus never left the Levant and NE Egypt. It was Paul and his team of epistle writers that spread the new religion they invented to Rome, the Balkan peninsula, and Asia Minor (Anatolia). Later, the Catholic church did the same throughout more of Europe and eventually into the New World, then Africa.

Paul's travels:

 

[muhammad_isa]

That's consistent with there being no God, a possibility that cannot and should not be dismissed without compelling evidence that a god exists..

I don't believe in "a god" as such..
I believe that this life has significance beyond "what is apparent"
i.e. we are born, we die .. and so what?

As I explained, others, especially Paul, invented Christianity, elevated Jesus to demigod, and began selling the new religion to the gentiles when it was largely rejected by the Jews..

This is one theory out of many.
Paul/Saul was not necessarily the one who "sold Christianity" as it is in its present form.
It is a lot more complex, as the Roman state controlled beliefs and texts, for example.

There were many different creeds around, and the Roman elite / priests enforced
a creed closer to their culture, and away from its Jewish roots.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

I don't believe in "a god" as such..

I'm just curious. If you don't believe in God, why the nickname of Muhammed?