Can we change our mind about what we believe?

[muhammad_isa]

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

Personally, I don't equate belief in "a god" with believing in G-d.
Why?
..because I don't imagine God as "a god".
"a god" to me, is one that mankind imagine exists, and people can all have their own gods etc.

The word "God" to me represents the Creator of the universe, or that which is responsible for its existence
i.e. without God, there would no universe .. no nothing!

"a god" sounds like a person, to me. G-d is NOT a person.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Personally, I don't equate belief in "a god" with believing in G-d.
Why?
..because I don't imagine God as "a god".
"a god" to me, is one that mankind imagine exists, and people can all have their own gods etc.

The word "God" to me represents the Creator of the universe, or that which is responsible for its existence
i.e. without God, there would no universe .. no nothing!

"a god" sounds like a person, to me. G-d is NOT a person.

God with a capital G usually denotes the monotheistic god. So anyone who believes in God believes in a god, just this one specific god.

It is unsual to hear a person say God is not a person. What do you think God is, if not a person? Energy?

 

[muhammad_isa]

It is unsual to hear a person say God is not a person. What do you think God is, if not a person? Energy?

There is nothing comparable .. God is Absolute .. Unique .. has no children or parents etc.
Every soul belongs to G-d .. the Infinite.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

There is nothing comparable .. God is Absolute .. Unique .. has no children or parents etc.
Every soul belongs to G-d .. the Infinite.

Again, please answer me, what is it you think God is, if not a person? Various possibilities include:
1. a lower life form that has not developed sentience
2. an inanimate object
3. energy

 

[muhammad_isa]

Again, please answer me, what is it you think God is, if not a person?

How can I answer, when it is hidden from me?
..it's like I will 'wake-up' from this dream called life, and then remember what the ultimate reality is.

G-d is perfection, without flaw, Holy. A person has a soul. G-d does not HAVE a soul..
..He is responsible for an undeterminable AMOUNT of souls.
Can you answer your own question?

 

[Trailblazer]

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

It is possible that the reason we cannot find God is because God does not exist. The other reasons we cannot find God are:

1) God is an immaterial being who exists in another realm outside of this earthly realm of existence, so we cannot SEE God.
2) God exists but does not want to be found (the way many people want to find God).

God not being able to be found is not consistent with God not existing. That is illogical because it assumes that if God existed God would be able to be found, and there is no reason to assume that.

If God existed and did not want to be found then we would be unable to find God, since God has all power to prevent us from finding Him.

1) and 2) are the reasons I said: 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.

I believe that God wants to be found, but God has chosen the way by which we can find Him, which is in His Manifestation (Messenger).

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

I guess you mean no ordinary man, no man who was not a Messenger of God.

It is only a matter of opinion as to what no man could do or write.
The significance of what a man does and writes, i.e., whether it means he was a Messenger of God, is also a matter of opinion.
You still have not proven that any man could do or write what Baha'u'llah did and wrote, so it is only your opinion that any man could have done that.

No ordinary man could perform the miracles that Baha'u'llah performed, but that is not very helpful, because you would have to believe what is written about His miracles, since you cannot witness them now that He is no longer living on earth.

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."

Okay, fair enough. So your bias is in favor of wanting to accumulate as many correct ideas as possible while avoiding false and unfalsifiable beliefs.

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.

My bias against the Bible is for similar reasons that you are biased against it, not because it contradicts what I believe. I know others on this forum who will say my bias is because the Bible contradicts my religion, but that is not true, since the Bible does not contradict my religion, it prophesies it. The Baha'i Faith only contradicts Christianity, given my interpretation of certain Bible verses differs from the Christian interpretation.

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.

Fair enough.

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"

Yes, I know that is not what you said.

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."

How do you think that God can be demonstrated empirically, given the definition below?
How do you think a man can be demonstrated empirically to be Messenger of God, given the definition below?

demonstrated empirically meaning

in a way that is based on what is experienced or seen rather than on theory: She proved empirically that the treatment works. New theories can be empirically tested.

EMPIRICALLY | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary​

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.

It is only your personal opinion that your judgments are correct, or that you are right and they are wrong, unless you have proof to back up your judgments. That is why I think it is arrogant and wrong to judge other people. I also believe what is in the New Testament is true, whether Jesus actually said it or not.

Matthew 7:3-5 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Baha'u'llah wrote something similar to that.

26: O SON OF BEING! How couldst thou forget thine own faults and busy thyself with the faults of others? Whoso doeth this is accursed of Me.
The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 10

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

No, my answer is not the same as yours.

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?​

​

Your 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."​

What justifies a religious belief is a personal matter, based upon what a person considers justified. I might not think the Bible justifies a belief in God, but I would never tell a Christian that his belief is unjustified.

Opinions about God and religion cannot be known to be correct. There might be methods that help us justify a belief, such as rigorous examination of the evidence for the belief, but they are still opinions, and I am not going to say my opinion is 'better' than someone else's opinion even if I think so.

Opinions about religions are not unlike opinions about sexual behavior.
In your opinion, having sex out of wedlock is justified but in my opinion it is not justified. Who us to say which one of us is correct?

(Continued on next post)

 

[Trailblazer]

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?

Sorry, I used the wrong verbiage to say what I was trying to get across. I meant it would be egotistical if you think you set the standards for justification of beliefs for everyone.

If you agree that what you consider a justified belief is only what is justified for you, then what I was trying to say about ego is a moot point.

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

My way is also critical thought. Using my critical thought process I have reasoned that whatever way God chooses to communicate has to be 'the best way' for achieving His purposes, of all the available options, if God is All-Powerful, All-Knowing, and All-Wise. If God does not possess these attributes then you can make up any method you want to and think it is better than God's Method.

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.

It was deflection because we were discussing the words of Baha'u'llah, not my words, so those words refers to the words of Baha'u'llah.

If you were trying to say that what Baha'u'llah wrote is a typical human thought that millions could have articulated I beg to differ with you.
That is so absurd that I need to now go and grab a Coke from the fridge just to keep going!

Right out the door that is illogical, since a typical human would have NO WAY to know anything about God.

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:

How is it different? For one thing, pastors are not Messengers of God, nor are they qualified or by God appointed to represent them!
For another thing, I don't know about Jesus, but Baha'u'llah never had a ministry where He preached the Word. He had some followers and He wrote Tablets but nobody even knew who He was until He declared that about 10 years into His mission. When He did declare who He was He did so in Tablets that He wrote to the kings and rulers of the world and to the religious leaders.

Those are reasons not to use messengers.

No, those are not reasons not to use Messengers, since it doesn't matter to God how many people recognize Baha'u'llah since God knows that in the future 'everyone' will recognize Him.

“Warn and acquaint the people, O Servant, with the things We have sent down unto Thee, and let the fear of no one dismay Thee, and be Thou not of them that waver. The day is approaching when God will have exalted His Cause and magnified His testimony in the eyes of all who are in the heavens and all who are on the earth.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 248​

God's Cause is the Cause of Baha'u'llah. There is no hurry and the Baha'is are getting the job done despite the small numbers.

That brings me to my next point. If God did not use Messengers, what method would God use that would garner more followers as well as conveying the Message that Baha'u'llah conveyed in over 15,000 Tablets?

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

Baha'u'llah was not responsible for disseminating His message, as that was not the job that God gave Him to do. His job was only to garner a few followers and carry out His mission, including writing the 15,000 Tablets. It is the followers of Baha'u'llah, the Baha'is, who were charged with the duty of carrying His message far and wide. If they have not done a good enough job that has no bearing upon whether His mission was accomplished and it has no bearing on whether He was actually a Messenger of God.

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.

The small number does not reflect on the ineffincacy of His mission. It only reflects upon the Bahais who are charged with the duty of carrying the message and it reflects on and the people to whom the message is delivered.

How many people do you think believed in Jesus in the first centuries?

“Most scholars of Christian origins tend to exaggerate the size and importance of the early Christian church. This is understandable in the light of the discipline’s intense concentration on the New Testament texts. By confining ourselves in particular to the letters of Paul, the Gospels and Acts, it is all too easy to create a limited and false impression of the ancient world and the place of the Christians within it. Yet the reality is that for all of the first century the Christians were a tiny and insignificant socio-religious movement within the Graeco-Roman world (Hopkins 1998:195-196). Christianity did of course grow considerably in later centuries and it eventually became the religion of the Roman empire, but we should take care not to retroject its later size and importance into the initial decades of its existence.

Just how small was the Christian movement in the first century is clear from the calculations of the sociologist R Stark (1996:5-7; so too Hopkins 1998:192-193).Stark begins his analysis with a rough estimation of six million Christians in the Roman Empire (or about ten percent of the total population) at the start of the fourth century... There were 1,000 Christians in the year 40, 1,400 Christians in 50, 1,960 Christians in 60, 2,744 Christians in 70, 3,842 Christians in 80, 5,378 Christians in 90 and 7,530 Christians at the end of the first century.

These figures are very suggestive, and reinforce the point that in its initial decades the Christian movement represented a tiny fraction of the ancient world.”
How many Jews became Christians in the first century?

At the end of the first century there were only 7,530 Christians whereas at the end of the first century there were five million Baha’is. If more Baha’is would get of their duffs and teach the Faith there would be a lot more Baha’is by now.

In the heroic age of the Baha’i Faith before we had mass communications or the internet the Baha’i Faith grew a lot faster than it is growing now, and that can be explained by the human element, the willingness of the Baha’is to make the necessary sacrifices to see the Faith grow.

The goal of the Baha’i Faith administration has not always been to increase numbers of adherents but rather to expand to as many locations as possible around the world. These goals have been met. The Baha’i Faith has spread to over 250 countries and territories and is almost as widespread as Christianity. Most of this happened during the “formative age” of the Baha’i Faith (1921-1944) FOURTH PERIOD: THE INCEPTION OF THE FORMATIVE AGE OF THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH 1921–1944

Growth of the Baha’i Faith has slowed down since 2000 because the new goal is consolidation and community building, so the emphasis is not spreading the Faith all over the world as it was before in the 20th century. I think it is really sad that teaching the Faith is no longer the primary goal, but I have nothing to say about how the Baha’i Administration functions.

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.

No, Jesus did not spread Christianity, not anymore than Baha'u'llah spread the Baha'i Faith. My point was that it was because of Jesus that Christianity took off and why it has endured the test of time. The fact that Paul changed the course of Christianity and elevated Jesus to demigod is another topic altogether. That just reminded me of a thread that I posted several years ago.

How Paul changed the course of Christianity

 

[YoursTrue]

Again, please answer me, what is it you think God is, if not a person? Various possibilities include:
1. a lower life form that has not developed sentience
2. an inanimate object
3. energy

I'm going to help out a little, if I can. From the holy scriptures, we can tell that God is a person. We simply cannot personally understand all this. He existed before anything else. In fact, his name has been understood to mean "I am that I am." Or something similar to that. Hope that helps and perhaps @muhammad_isa can take off from that, if he would like to.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

How can I answer, when it is hidden from me?
..it's like I will 'wake-up' from this dream called life, and then remember what the ultimate reality is.

G-d is perfection, without flaw, Holy. A person has a soul. G-d does not HAVE a soul..
..He is responsible for an undeterminable AMOUNT of souls.
Can you answer your own question?

I am reluctant to try to nail God down, but I do believe God interacts with me, and that is something a person does.

 

[Trailblazer]

Abrahamic religions​

Judaism​

Jewish theology states that God is not a person. This was also determined several times in the Torah, which is considered by Jews to be an indisputable authority for their faith (Hosea 11 9: "I am God, and not a man". Numbers 23 19: "God is not a man, that He should lie". 1 Samuel 15 29: "He is not a person, that He should repent"). However, there exist frequent references to anthropomorphic characteristics of God in the Hebrew Bible such as the "Hand of God." Judaism holds that these are to be taken only as figures of speech. Their purpose is to make God more comprehensible to the human reader.

Christianity​

In mainstream Christianity, Jesus (or God the Son) and God the Father are believed to be two persons or aspects of the same God. Jesus is of the same ousia or substance as God the Father, manifested in three hypostases or persons (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). Nontrinitarian Christians dispute that Jesus is a "hypostasis" or person of God. Whether the Holy Spirit is impersonal or personal,[7] is the subject of dispute,[8] with experts in pneumatology debating the matter.

Islam​

Islam rejects the doctrine of the Incarnation and the notion of a personal god as anthropomorphic, because it is seen as demeaning to the transcendence of God. The Qur'an prescribes the fundamental transcendental criterion in the following verse: "There is nothing whatever like Him" [Qur'an 42:11]. Therefore, Islam strictly rejects all forms of anthropomorphism and anthropopathism of the concept of God, and thus categorically rejects the Christian concept of the Trinity or division of persons in the Godhead.[9][10][11]

Islamic theology confirms that Allah (God) has no body, no gender (neither male nor female), and there is absolutely nothing like Him in any way whatsoever.

Baháʼí Faith​

In the Baháʼí Faith God is described as "a personal God, unknowable, inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and almighty".[24][25] Although transcendent and inaccessible directly, his image is reflected in his creation. The purpose of creation is for the created to have the capacity to know and love its creator.[26] God communicates his will and purpose to humanity through intermediaries, known as Manifestations of God, who are the prophets and messengers that have founded religions from prehistoric times up to the present day.[27]

Personal god - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Nimos]

Can we change our mind about what we believe?

Hi Trailblazer hope everything is well

I agree with you, I don't think anyone can change their mind simply because they feel like it. Something has to convince us to do it which is why critical thinking and skepticism are as important as they are, since they allow us to evaluate information presented to us. Not all information ought to change our minds, given that they might be wrong or none conclusive.

The real issue as I see it is not so much what people believe, but rather when people lack the ability to process new information and update their beliefs based on these.

 

[YoursTrue]

I am reluctant to try to nail God down, but I do believe God interacts with me, and that is something a person does.

Which reminds me of the experience recorded about God and Moses, including when he went before Pharaoh and the serpents. And the magicians of pharaoh. It's not like it was a cut and dried experience that Moses had as if it was a one time occurrence with Pharaoh and voila the situation was solved.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Which reminds me of the experience recorded about God and Moses, including when he went before Pharaoh and the serpents. And the magicians of pharaoh. It's not like it was a cut and dried experience that Moses had as if it was a one time occurrence with Pharaoh and voila the situation was solved.

I am personally struggling with this topic. As I started out by saying, I'm highly reluctant to make statements about God's nature. Because I interact with God, it is very difficult for me not to think of him in terms of a "person." However, it is also true that I perceive God imperfectly. It is the temptation for all humans to make God in our own image. But we know this is not the case. There are all sorts of references to "the hand of God," "the face of God," "the arm of God," etc. But we know that all of these are anthropomorphisms. In that same respect, I may very well simply be succumbing to the temptation to think of God in human terms when he is certainly not human. At any rate, I think I should say no more, since I am entirely out of my league here.

 

[ppp]

I am personally struggling with this topic. As I started out by saying, I'm highly reluctant to make statements about God's nature. Because I interact with God, it is very difficult for me not to think of him in terms of a "person." However, it is also true that I perceive God imperfectly. It is the temptation for all humans to make God in our own image. But we know this is not the case. There are all sorts of references to "the hand of God," "the face of God," "the arm of God," etc. But we know that all of these are anthropomorphisms. In that same respect, I may very well simply be succumbing to the temptation to think of God in human terms when he is certainly not human. At any rate, I think I should say no more, since I am entirely out of my league here.

Irrespective of the existence of God, how do you know that you interact with God?!

 

[Trailblazer]

Hi Trailblazer hope everything is well

I agree with you, I don't think anyone can change their mind simply because they feel like it. Something has to convince us to do it which is why critical thinking and skepticism are as important as they are, since they allow us to evaluate information presented to us. Not all information ought to change our minds, given that they might be wrong or none conclusive.

The real issue as I see it is not so much what people believe, but rather when people lack the ability to process new information and update their beliefs based on these.

Howdy stranger. I have missed seeing you around these parts.
I hope all is well with you.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Irrespective of the existence of God, how do you know that you interact with God?!

I do not know it. I believe it. It is my experience. But experiences can be misperceived. Generally speaking, however, it is not a good idea to question our experiences. If we walked around wondering, "Is that person real, or am I hallucinating" we would drive ourselves to madness.

 

[joelr]

That is not good evidence at all. Miracles are only evidence for the most part for people who witness them.

No, I'm saying if one buys the stories than they have supernatural evidence, to them,

It is the same as with Baha'u'llah. His actions or personal qualities, and the profound things he said.

Right, that isn't evidence of anything except a man did actions and said things. Lot's of people say profound things. I'm not a fan of his writing so I don't find his words profound.

Also there is the historical record of how this faith triumphed over time with only a few scattered believers at first.

All religions start with a few people. Mormonism started with 1 man and 12 witnesses.

The character of the Christians also appear to have been good for about 3 centuries before everything deteriorated, though the knowledge of what they did is limited after all this time.

But character isn't evidence either. Chinese Monks have good character.

 

[joelr]

Yes, I noticed, so why do YOU keep repeating things?

Because you offer the same responses over and over.

The problem will be you if you continue rambling on about what 'you believe' is not evidence when it is not in response to anything I posted.

Which is a fictional issue. I responded to the link you posted which supposedly contains evidence and then the "personal criteria".
You posted both.

What is not evidence 'to you' is evidence to other people. You just cannot seem to wrap your head around that because you cannot step outside of yourself. You are so biased by your own views you cannot even grasp the concept I am presenting.

A truer way to say this is that you have become so convinced by a cult that not-evidence is actually evidence that you can non longer use reason to see that you are being taken for a ride.

You ALREADY don't buy other religions who have the same general evidence. You don't even investigate the evidence is so lousy.

Words, claims of revelations, character and self, are NEVER evidence a God has spoken to that person. NEVER.
Unless the words were so remarkable and contained facts that could be verified (100 numbers at the trillionth decimal of pi), and even then we would not have evidence of a God. It could be an alien, it could be an actual premonition of the future. But that is hypothetical., His prophecies were actually WRONG. Dead wrong at times. And those were the cherry-picked prophecies.

If the world announced there would be a new religion, official religion of all earth, by law, and it was Jesus in AU. The return of Jesus, and they said they knew because of his words, his self, his life, his claims, I'm certain you would be like, "that isn't evidence"??????

I am not bias. Words, self, life, NOT EVIDENCE of teh supernatural. Not evidence of a God. Not evidence of revelations. EVER.
You can be brainwashed and think so, but it is not evidence.

By definition, what I have is evidence to me since it indicates to me that Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God.

By definition Heavens Gate had evidence their soul would go into a ufo if they died by poison on a certain day. They evidence was, the leaders words, his life, his being, his knowledge, his attitude.

Yeah, not evidence. Brainwashing.
I can meet a woman and look into her eyes and declare her eyes are so beautiful, it's evidence she is an actual angel.

Not evidence. Evidence isn't an opinion.

By definition, what I have is evidence to me since it causes me to believe that Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God.

You just described faith.

Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid: https://www.google.com/search

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1&q=evidence+definition

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

Which is why I stated, up front, I hold a logical, skeptical, rational, evidence-based epistemology to find truth.

That would include not accepting anecdotal, mundane claims such as "his life, his work, his words".......
And his "prophecies" are a complete joke. Political, pretty bad and obvious predictions, also being made by political media.
Science, just terrible, literally WRONG. Plain wrong. Elements into gold, alchemy? Didn't happen.
No missing link? That happened. Says electricity and magnetism are non-physical? WTF??????????

FAILED to say, atoms are real, nucleus and orbit particle, light is constant speed, time is relative. Atom nucleus made of 3 smaller particles. So many things he could have said if a deity was actually speaking to him.

People believe all sorts of batship nutty things. Roswell alien crash, alien abductions, Big Foot, all of those things have "evidence".
It's crap evidence. Like this evidence. It convinces you, so what? When people want to believe something they allow really bad evidence to overwhelm them.

There is evidence of gravity, conservation of energy, Bahai man wrote a book and was a writer. Maybe he lived a good life. The evidence is reasonable enough to believe that is true.
If one is going to posit a God, they need corresponding evidence to back it up.

Some people already believe Jesus in AU. They buy the evidence. They will say "he gave evidence". "He said so, he sounds like Jesus, he knows Jesus, he lives a good life"..........is that working for you? No? Because it shouldn't. It does with Bahai, but that sounds more like faith.


You don't get to claim good evidence just because you already believe. Every religious person does it, it does not make it good evidence. If so, everyone would believe.

 

[joelr]

You are never going to have any empirical evidence of someone speaking to a God, for obvious logical reasons.

That isn't true.
A God could appear, perform superhuman feats, and speak to people. You will default to "a god doesn't......." you don't know what a god can or cannot do. You said that to me and than reversed it when you wanted to say what a god can or cannot do.

Even if a god could only speak in a persons mind, the god could ensure others would know something was up. I already described a few details a person in late 1800 knowing would be very very strange and would either be ESP, an alien, or a deity. He could go further and tech him all modern science, beyond where even we are. He could show us all quantum mechanics, all aspects, plus solve Hilberts 10 math problems, especially the Riemann Hypothesis, with the correct math. He could build an A.I., unify gravity with QM, cure cancer, solve for dark energy, dark mater, multi verse, big bang and then let us move on from there. It took the smartest humans over 100 years collectively to get some of that and will take much longer to finish. That would be either a God or alien supermind with supertech. At that point it wouldn't matter if he could demonstrate an afterlife as well.


In reality you are NEVER going to have empirical evidence because God is a fiction. The modern concept of God is just a trendy syncretic mix of Graeco-Roman and modern ideas.

 

[joelr]

I never said that my list of criteria that I believe a Messenger of God would have to meet is evidence, so I never presented a different set of criteria for evidence. That is where the misunderstanding started.

There is no misunderstanding. You are playing games agin.

Originally you claimed evidence was your criteria:

#322
"I do not assume if someone claims to be this messenger it's true. I believe it's true because of the evidence.
It is not begging the question since my premise doesn't lack support. My premise is supported by the evidence.
I do not believe Baha'u'llah is a Messenger because He claimed to be a Messenger.
I believe it because of the evidence that supports His claim.
Any logical person could see that this is the evidence. You can say that it is not enough evidence for you to believe, but it is the evidence."

Then you claimed your own set of criteria, which really also is evidence
#324
" said: I have my own set of criteria that true Messengers of God have to meet. No non-God messengers could meet these criteria."w

My personal criteria of what I believe a Messenger of God would have to meet is not evidence.

The evidence would be a personal set of criteria. But you are actually correct, the criteria are not evidence at all.

It was neither untruthful or deceptive. You just misunderstood what I was saying.

No comment. I really don't care.