Can we change our mind about what we believe?

[ppp]

Thank you. I cannot tell from the nickname the gender of the person, and it is very likely that I will forget again. But I appreciate you telling me.

I doubt that forgetting will destroying the universe. Or anything else. I simply member because she repeatedly brings up her husband, and she is Baha'i

 

[YoursTrue]

Of course I wonder. I sense an agency behind the universe, but I also know that humans are notorious for intuiting agency where none exists, so I realize I may be wrong. However, it would drive me insane if I went around questioning every perception that might be wrong. So I go with it.

What do I believe about God? I believe that God is the creator of the universe, the source underlying all that is. I believe that God cares about how we treat each other. I believe that God is unified, not fragmented. I think that it is very bad idea to speculate about God because the finite cannot fathom the infinite, and that very likely the things I have already said are too much. Everything else is pretty much just icing on the cake. Thank you for asking.

The account of Abraham and his encounter with the angel leading to the eventual enslavement of the Hebrews for so many years and then freedom to the Promised Land even if geologists say it didn't happen or critics discount the events (that no longer impresses me) tells me that God exists, He is a definite person, that He cares about people and He is the deciding factor in people's lives in the long run. And short run, depending on their relationship with Him. This understanding makes me much happier in the long run than I was before I believed in -- the God of the Bible. Not some diaphanous figure. But one who communicated with Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Daniel and others as the centuries progressed.

 

[Trailblazer]

You. Your intent. Your ability to recognize or desire to have or obtain for a reliable methodology to discriminate fact from fiction. Your concern with those things. Without a that apparent I interest I do not but I he legitimacy or integrity of those questions.

 

[YoursTrue]

You. Your intent. Your ability to recognize or desire to have or obtain for a reliable methodology to discriminate fact from fiction. Your concern with those things. Without a that apparent I interest I do not but I he legitimacy or integrity of those questions.

Yes.
As I said to one person, I no longer read books by Alan Watts. If I met him in person I probably would not have a long discussion with him. I found out from someone a while ago that faith is a gift from God. The Bible says that. Only God can give you that faith. I did not join that person's religion, but I realized what he said is true. I "see" God with eyes of faith to the best of my limited ability through the writings in the Bible and my relationship with Him. (Not with some diaphanous mystical entity or some idea within myself. ) That is one reason why I do not try to express anything to some individuals here who don't make sense to me at a certain point. Although I do try to express my faith. Even Moses had a problem getting Pharaoh to believe who was backing him.

 

[ppp]

Even Moses had a problem getting Pharaoh to believe who was backing him.

In the Bible story? No he didn't.

 

[joelr]

So do you. If you keep asking for evidence and I have nothing more than I have already offered, so why ask again?
Why keep saying "that's not evidence" after you have already said it 100 times?

Because you are playing word games, tapdancing and doing everything you can by re-phrasing answers in order to achieve some goal which I do not know. Then, as usual, you try to put blame on me...."why do you.......why do you....", as if I don't recognize these argument styles.

For some reason you need to keep saying "that's not evidence" but I am not going to keep the cycle going by saying "oh yes, it is evidence" since I have already said it.

LOL, for some reason. Because you are saying the same things over and over as if they will be more true if you say it a different way. You say things that require a response, such as:

"It is all about the way you think and view evidence."

and then eventually get back around to the non-evidence

"However, the claim IS NOT evidence of any kind. The evidence is what supports the claim."

And the evidence is.......


- The first and foremost testimony establishing His truth is His own Self.
- Next to this testimony is His Revelation.
- For whoso faileth to recognize either the one or the other He hath established the words He hath revealed.

Self, claims of revelations, words, are not evidence a God is real and not evidence that God is speaking to someone without extreme examples of knowledge which I gave examples of.
His words reveal a man with knowledge only from 1870, nothing more. His predictions were mundane and wrong.

Who do you think you are going to convince, certainly not me, and others have already read it 100 times over.

You cannot force people to believe things. Just as if I were talking to a Mormon, they will not change their mind. I'm not interested in that. I'm only speaking up for a rational, skeptical, logical epistemology that should be applied to all claims and beliefs.

Other religions do not have the same evidence, not by a long-shot.

No, they have actual religious and supernatural evidence, by a long shot.
It may be stories that are fiction but at least they are based on Gods and very supernatural events like bodies raising from the grave, the sun going out, exorcisms, battles with devils, Gods smashing entire armies and so on.

Claiming someones life and words is evidence is mind boggling to say the least. At the very start it would be a curiosity if he knew things he had no access to like numbers we haven't yet found even with supercomputers and science like I mentioned about physics and cosmology.
But it isn't that at all. His prophecies are things that were all expected to happen or literally incorrect. Alchemy would be true? A missing link never found? It's been found many times over?
Cancer is communicable? How many cancer nurses get cancer from their patients? Magnetism isn't physical, electricity isn't physical? Yeah, because we didn't know what an electron or a field was at the time, so people thought that. So did he.

That is evidence for sure. It's evidence he was 100% a man, with man knowledge only. Everything else is praise language with weird old-english that makes no sense? The evidence is in. He's a man. No evidence of God being real, no evidence of revelations.

Theologians all based on Plato - Jesus, Agustine, Boethius Anslem, Aquinas, all made additions to what people think God is. Islamic theologians did as well. Western philosophers also did.
He added nothing to that and seemed completely unaware of any of it

 

[joelr]

It does not matter what God could do, it only matters what God does.

A tautology that means nothing.

God does not do what you want Him to do, God only does what God chooses to do. That is God 101 stuff.

And you wonder why I say the same thing. Here you go again with the god-splaining, when it suits you.
Of course when it doesn't work for the Bahai religion, then you suddenly can say what God can and cannot do. Then it's "God 101".

No, it isn't. Demonstrate to me how you know God exists and know God-101 stuff.

“Say: O people! Let not this life and its deceits deceive you, for the world and all that is therein is held firmly in the grasp of His Will. He bestoweth His favor on whom He willeth, and from whom He willeth He taketh it away. He doth whatsoever He chooseth.”​

Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 209​

God fan fiction is pointless. Even with the Shakespeare accent.
So once again, it can be demonstrated he is a fraud. He claims "progressive revelations". Yet here he summarizes the Book of Job in a far less poetic way.

http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/GWB/gwb-103.html#pg209

God does not 'care' if you know that 'something is up' because God does not need your belief. God has no needs. Humans are the ones who have needs.

Wrong. According to Bahai God wants us to know him and be closer to him.
In every religion ever created they imagine God revealing himself through supernatural acts. Like it's God 101. Bahai cannot do that because he's a man, but he's clever enough to convince some people that isn't needed.

Evidence is needed.

If you heard a voice in your mind you could never know if it was God or simply an auditory hallucination.

Of course you could. You could ask it for the 100 trillionth 10 digits of pi. Once we run it on a supercomputer you can verify it.
You could ask for winning lottery numbers for verification, 7 days in a row.
You could ask him to give you the knowledge of how to be a physicist immediately and to know all the math and to go further and unify QM with gravity.

You could write number 10 on the back of 1 index card and place it with 10 other cards, have a friend spread them out. God will show you the correct card every time you try. He could have you read the mind of a friend.

Give it up for lost. There is no evidence that is 'better' that what God has already been provided.

So the best evidence is no evidence at all? Pretty low standards I would say. That's good news for Jesus in AU because I guess he actually is Jesus then.

In reality you are NEVER going to have empirical evidence because God does not choose to provide any such evidence.

Wow, you know what God is going to do for eternity as well? The truth of what you are saying is, a person who is claiming revelations but is not actually having revelations will never be able to provide evidence.

Funny how just one post ago you claimed it cannot be known what God would do. And now, you know! This is the terrible argument style of "do what works for me in the moment, but no one else can use this"
The reason I keep posting is because you make so many fallacious posts it's too easy.

You cannot make an Almighty God do what you want Him to do, provide the kind of evidence that you want. That is drop dead illogical.

Ah, now we are back to you CANNOT make God do what you want. You CAN if it's something you don't agree with, like appear as human, have teeth, demonstrate evidence.

So basically I get it. God will NEVER do anything that will go against Bahai but anything else he will do. So inconsistent.

So besides that this is ridiculous, a 2nd fallacy here is you assume I'm saying I want God to provide evidence and he does not want to.

You forgot to even think about the fact that if a God were real, and he actually wanted to talk to someone on behalf of a religion, he would provide good evidence.


And, in most religions, people agree with this as God always shows up, does magic, fights monsters, raises many from the dead, repels evil beings who posess people and animals, gives people new shiny spirit bodies after death, sends angels to talk to people, floods the world, kicks down entire mountains, destroys armies. So when people write religious text, they always have God provide evidence. Because people know otherwise, it's likely a man attempting to fool everyone.

But mainly, it doesn't matter what God would or would not do. What matters is people are always going to claim they are speaking to a God.
Always. People should always have a logical, rational, skeptical, methodology of empiricism and only base beliefs on sufficient evidence.
Like why we believe in germs, gravity, atoms, elements, law of thermodynamics, and so on. Those things have evidence. We should not believe things that are fantasy or pleasing just because it's nice to believe.
You are justifying and making excuses. You want people to believe the evidence is such because God wants that. But again, you have no evidence of that, just claims by a man.

 

[joelr]

I NEVER said that my own set of criteria was evidence. It is not evidence of any kind.

And, back to word games.

I said:
Please bear in mind that the following criteria are my criteria which is based upon who I believe were Messengers of God, who met all these criteria. My criteria narrow the playing field and it will eliminate most claimants, since they will fail to meet all the criteria.

Nope,
you were responding to this:

post #310joelr said:- "2)explain what methodology you used to come to the conclusion that God messengers fit into that category and how you compared it to non-God messengers."

you said:
I have my own set of criteria that true Messengers of God have to meet. No non-God messengers could meet these criteria.

That is what I called dishonest. What is also dishonest, is to CHANGE HISTORY above and make the statement way longer.
Caught, once again.

AND, it was entered as a type of evidence.

Hmmmmmm, why am I still posting???? word games, changing the past, fallacies, dishonesty, q

The minimum criteria would be:

1. He had good character as exemplified by his qualities such as love, mercy, kindness, truth, justice, benevolence, gracious, merciful, righteous, forgiving, patient.

2. He believed he had been given a mission by God and did everything he could to see that it was carried out. He was completely successful before his death, and he accomplished everything that He set out to do.

3. He wrote much about God and God's purpose for humans both individually and collectively, or scriptures were written by others who spoke for him. He firmly believed that the work he was doing was for the Cause of God.

4. He had many followers while he was alive, and there are still millions who follow his teachings and gather in groups based on the religion he founded.

5. His followers have grown more numerous in recent times.

This is a starting point but there are other questions we would want to ask ourselves before we would be able to believe that a man was a true Messenger of God because that is a bold claim so there should be a lot of evidence to support such a claim.

whatever. Notice you try to sneak a little more on. Yes, there should be a lot of evidence. There is NO EVIDENCE.

unless you like horribly wrong prophecies and , uh, nothing.

Again, you ask why I say the same thing. Look at this, every post, adding a bit more, changing things. Making like there is "a lot of evidence to support such a claim."
There is not. There is no evidence.

 

[joelr]

No, that cannot be proven as a fact.
It is only a personal opinion. We all have those.

It is a fact that the evidence presented does not warrant belief in a God. Once gain, why are you not reading about Gods updates to Christianity in the Mormon Bible?

The evidence warrants a belief for some people but not for others. Any logical person would understand this.

Roswell warrants belief in aliens for some. But Matt Brazle found, rubber, sticks, eye beams, balsa wood and "considerable scotch tape".

It isn't about logical people. Some logical people bought into it. Because they wanted to believe in aliens and used confirmation bias to navigate away from testing their beliefs and asking questions. The fact remains that nothing there is evidence for a crashed alien ship.

 

[joelr]

For some reason you need to keep saying "that's not evidence" but I am not going to keep the cycle going by saying "oh yes, it is evidence" since I have already said it.

no, not "optimistic". You moved the goalpost, I responded and you tried to blame me for not listening. So we are sweeping that under the rug and making more attacks about me posting? When one of my post was defending myself? This is layers of poor rhetoric.






Yes, you were playing games and were definitely deceptive. And now, because you continue to blame this on me (classic) I will demonstrate

ALL along you were talking about evidence, beliefs, NEVER about a "personal set of criteria".


These are all your words:


#144
I did not say that His character ALONE is evidence. It is only PART of the evidence.


#163

1) he did do miracles. Famous Miracles in the Baha’i Faith

#234
Messengers of God are the evidence for God.

I don't use any method for proof since I have told you time and again there is no proof, only evidence.


#237

His own Self is not it says so


I believe it is true because my book says it is true.


#280

I believe it is true because of the evidence, not because the book says so, but the evidence is not what makes it true.

#307

I can explain why I believe the Baha'i Faith is a true religion, because all the teachings make logical sense to me.


Because the Baha'i Faith makes logical sense, it makes sense that Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God. That is how I think.


#310


The claims of Baha’u’llah and the evidence that supports the claims of Baha’u’llah are in this post:


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



So here you finally give links to this evidence you have been talking about over and over.

My response is both lines of evidence are fallacies and not good evidence at all.

Your response to that is to move the goalpost. Not only did you move the goalpost but you tried to act like I'm stupid and I haven't been paying attention. You actually feined being mad and acted like I've been "missing" this big thing you have been saying all along.
Except you NEVER SAID IT. That is really really poor tactics. People do this often in personal conflicts, gaslight, act as if the other person is somehow at fault.


#324
Do you read anything I write and understand it? I am starting to doubt that.

2/I have my own set of criteria that true Messengers of God have to meet. No non-God messengers could meet these criteria.




I said I have my own set of criteria, I did not say I laid out my own set of criteria. I did not lay that out.



You just committed the fallacy of jumping to conclusions.



Then when I questioned this practice and said it was dishonest you played semantic games, correcting me saying you "have" your own set of criteria, not "i laid out" a set of criteria. As if there is any difference? But still blaming me for anything. Then blamed me for a fallacy. Unbelievable. Also called be immature in the same post. Yep.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Roswell warrants belief in aliens for some. But Matt Brazle found, rubber, sticks, eye beams, balsa wood and "considerable scotch tape".

Deviation .. the topic is not about aliens.

It isn't about logical people. Some logical people bought into it. Because they wanted to believe in aliens..

..and you clearly do NOT "want to believe" in G-d.
It's your choice .. which has nothing to do with empirical evidence.

Yes, there is evidence that Jesus and Muhammad existed, and both Christianity and Islam
are believed by a substantial number of people.
..but not one of those people can show you physical evidence .. but that does not concern us,
because it is not about life in this universe, per se .. it is more about recognising spiritual truths
that were taught.

 

[Sargonski]

Well I can.

Would you believe me if I said I've seen god face to face? I doubt it. But it's true, at least in my reality. Yet I choose to look away. I no longer chase him. I no longer give him my faith or effort or good words.



I have seen god, and am a practicing atheist. Some call me stubborn.

I am the master and author of my beliefs.

One who has seen God can be agnostic.. but not aetheist I think

 

[ppp]

Deviation .. the topic is not about aliens.

Incorrect. The topic is about human beliefs and what constitutes evidence and justification for said beliefs. The topic of gods is not a special category.

 

[ppp]

One who has seen God can be agnostic.. but not aetheist I think

Without a reliable criteria for establishing that one has seen a god, I don't see how one can rationally be anything but an atheist. @an anarchist says, " But it's true, at least in my reality" as though they get their own personal reality. Pfui.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Incorrect. The topic is about human beliefs..

..specifically, about G-d.

@Trailblazer says in the OP:
"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."

..no mention of belief in aliens..

 

[an anarchist]

One who has seen God can be agnostic.. but not aetheist I think

Wrong. One who has seen god can be atheist if they choose so.

They just have to understand that the mind is not 100% reliable at discerning reality.

 

[ppp]

..specifically, about G-d.

That may be your end goal, but you are still trying to demonstrate that you are not babbling incoherent nonsense. That is a minimal level of competence that one has to achieve to be considered a credible interlocutor on whatever subject.

I get that you want for god beliefs to be in a special or distinct category. But they aren't. What we are talking about is whether it is reasonable to accept that you know or are capable of knowing the things that you claim. Gods. Ramekins. Aliens. Parrots. What ever.

 

[muhammad_isa]

What we are talking about is whether it is reasonable to accept that you know or are capable of knowing the things that you claim..

No .. we're not.
One might find it reasonable to believe in the existence of G-d, and another unreasonable..

What does that tell us .. that those that find it reasonable, are all deluded, and unable
to make reasonable conclusions?

No .. of course not.
If the Bible / Quran did not exist, it would not be possible for me to believe the
way that I do .. simple really.

 

[ppp]

No .. we're not.
One might find it reasonable to believe in the existence of G-d, and another unreasonable..

Is that second sentence supposed to be support for the first? The truth of your second sentence does not contradict the statement of mine that you are trying to negate. If anything, it reinforces my position.

What does that tell us .. that those that find it reasonable, are all deluded, and unable
to make reasonable conclusions?

By that, I assume you are referring to "One might find it reasonable to believe in the existence of G-d, and another unreasonable.."
No, it doesn't tell us any of that. The bare fact that someone find X reasonable and Y unreasonable doesn't tell us anything about their capacity for reason or their mental state. It is not the What that makes a conclusion reasonable or unreasonable, it is the methodologies for arriving at the conclusion.

I can come to the correct conclusion that there is a rock the shape and size of my foot at the south pole of Mars. But if I come to that conclusion merely because an ancient book says so, then I my conclusion is irrational, irrespective of the existence of that rock.

No .. of course not.
If the Bible / Quran did not exist, it would not be possible for me to believe the
way that I do .. simple really.

You say that like it is a meaningful point. I do not see the significance. Can you explain?

 

[Trailblazer]

Without a reliable criteria for establishing that one has seen a god, I don't see how one can rationally be anything but an atheist.

So you have to 'see God' in order to not be an atheist?