Choices

[TransmutingSoul]

If you didn't read my post my would you say I see it as a choice?
What people with evidence and good arguments do when they see descriptions they don't like is explain what they think it isn't true. Clearly you don't have any of this. So my accusations about silly metaphors remains unchallenged.

It will remained unchallenged.

Regards Tony

 

[Sheldon]

If you make you feel better to point out other people's mistakes have at it.
I wonder why you have the need to do that constantly.

I don't, but you kept denying there was a contradiction, even after I stated that when I inevitably make a mistake I find it best to admit it and move on.

The mistake was of course a contradiction, and has some relevance as you seem to believe that asserting to believe something is not a claim, which I have to say I think is just wrong. The context of course is that you were asked to demonstrate objective evidence for the beliefs / claims.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Well, as this OP winds down. I see it is just plain logical that Faith can be a choice.

From beginning of time faiths have been given and faiths have changed. People choose to move from.one faith to another.

I see the next choice may be to embrace them all and look for and find that oneness.

Regards Tony

 

[Sheldon]

Well, as this OP winds down. I see it is just plain logical that Faith can be a choice.

I've read this entire thread and I see no logical arguments to support that position at all?

From beginning of time faiths have been given and faiths have changed. People choose to move from.one faith to another.

That rather suggests that faith is meaningless to me.

 

[Trailblazer]

I don't, but you kept denying there was a contradiction,

And then I SAW the contradiction and said what I really intended to say, correctly.
Iows, I admitted I made a mistake and as soon as I realized it I SAW it and admitted to it. I make mistakes every day... As my atheist friend @John53 said to me "I make at least 10 mistakes every day!" What's the big deal with making a mistake? Do you ever make any mistakes?

My point to @TransmutingSoul was that you do not have to beat it into the ground and keep repeating that I make a mistake. It does not bother me one iota to make a mistake unless it hurts other people or is related to life or death. This is just a forum conversation, not real life.

 

[Sheldon]

What's the big deal with making a mistake? Do you ever make any mistakes?

As I explained there was no big deal, only confusion as to why you denied what you'd said. I already said my making mistakes was inevitable, I said it more than once.

Don't take this personally, but you seem overly defensive. I was under the impression this forum was for broad religious debate, it's silly to take critical observations of beliefs personally in here.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

I've read this entire thread and I see no logical arguments to support that position at all?

The whole bible unfolds as a choice of faith.

So why is that not seen as choice. Those that followed Abraham had to then embrace Moses and in turn thay had to embarce Jesus then One had to accept Muhammad.

Those that say it is not a choice continue as they were. Those that see it does becomes a choice, undertake a search and make a choice to change.

The history is full of those choices of Faith.

Regards Tony

 

[Trailblazer]

As I explained there was no big deal, only confusion as to why you denied what you'd said.

I denied it because I did not see it, not until looking at it later, but once I saw it and realized the contradiction I admitted to it.

Don't take this personally, but you seem overly defensive. I was under the impression this forum was for broad religious debate, it's silly to take critical observations of beliefs personally in here.

I am not a defensive person, but I will defend myself when people say things about me that are untrue because that is in accord with justice.

If you had a pack of believers criticizing you and calling you illogical, unreasonable and irrational and you knew you were not what they were accusing you of being, what would you do?

 

[Sheldon]

The whole bible unfolds as a choice of faith.

So why is that not seen as choice. Those that followed Abraham had to then embrace Moses and in turn thay had to embarce Jesus then One had to accept Muhammad.

Those that say it is not a choice continue as they were. Those that see it does becomes a choice, undertake a search and make a choice to change.

The history is full of those choices of Faith.

Regards Tony

You said " I see it is just plain logical that Faith can be a choice."

Perhaps I misunderstood, you meant it is logical that one can make a choice, rather than that faith was a logical choice?

Which was how I read it when I responded.

 

[CG Didymus]

I cannot prove that God exists but I know that God exists because the Messengers of God and everything that surrounds their Revelations including the scriptures constitute proof for me.

Hmmm? She says, "I cannot prove that God exists"? But then says what constitutes proof? So messengers, their revelation and their scriptures that she doesn't take literally? So I have to think that what a Baha'i really means is that they believe their prophet. And whatever he says about God and the other religions is true. And it was his character, his mission and his writings that convinced her that he was a messenger of God. So what is that? Evidence? Really? It sounds like taking his word that what he claims is true. And why not just say that? He claims that what he says about who God is and what God wants is true, because he was sent by God. And Baha'is choose to believe that claim. Why go on and on about not being able to prove God exists, but that there is proof and evidence?

 

[Trailblazer]

And it was his character, his mission and his writings that convinced her that he was a messenger of God. So what is that? Evidence? Really? It sounds like taking his word that what he claims is true. And why not just say that?

I do not say that because the claims are not the evidence. Clearly, the claims of Baha'u'llah are separate from the evidence that support those claims, as I explained in this post.

#1597 Trailblazer

 

[CG Didymus]

So do you see it is a choice, just because the way you started, I chose not to read your post.

Regards Tony

The important point is that some religious beliefs are false. Yet, people choose to believe in them. And some of those religious movements were very dangerous. In this day and age lots of people do have a choice in what to believe. How many of those choices of religious beliefs do Baha'is say are good and true? If the Baha'i Faith is the truth, then I'd say it is the only choice. All the others, according to Baha'is, have been abrogated. The Baha'i Faith is the only one that has the current and correct message from God that will lead the world towards peace and unity.

 

[Sheldon]

Why go on and on about not being able to prove God exists, but that there is proof and evidence?

I never ask for proof, only objective evidence, and neither of those is objective evidence, they amount to nothing more than subjective claims.

 

[Lain]

That is a good post about the choices we face.

Do you think a choice will be offered when Jesus Christ returns?

Regards Tony

I think the choice is offered now, and even if people are not Christians in life they are "Christians in soul" so-to-speak, and at the Final Judgment will simply realize explicitly their union with Christ. That's the doctrine on the matter at least as to how non-Christians, or those who deny Christianity, are or can be saved.

 

[rational experiences]

As just a human living in a fixed position on earth only I can think.

Like any thinker I can ask what existed first before creation.

And in thinking say hence no space or form would exist.

I would qualify a human reason that said a living presence who never died or changed had first existed.

As a human infers the quote the eternal form.

One form only origin.

Then in a human experience change I would then quote two positions.

One first the eternal.
Now position two is creation and my experience.

Two holy thought about status of holiness

To state I am no longer the eternal.as a human.

I live in holy creation. Do no more changes.

And be realistic by intention no more harm to self consciousness.

Hence I would conclude a lovelier Baha'i message not Romes irradiated aware Jesus writing personal....would in fact relate how a thinker would explain why the eternal is not in creation.

And hence how just a human theist misrepresented their number two position as holy in natural life.

Rationally without it being ridiculed.

 

[joelr]

It will remained unchallenged.

Regards Tony

Truth always wins.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Truth always wins.

That is what God offers and that is what the world is balanced upon. Trustworthiness and Truthfulness.

They are the greatest choices we all can make.

Regards Tony

 

[Clara Tea]

The purpose of this OP is to explore our Choice of Faith, is it a choice, is it not?

I have read in other OP's on RF where people say it was not a choice, that their Faith was a natural process that required no choices.

To an extent I agree, as I see God has created us all in the same image, with the same potential of Spirtual Virtue.

On the other hand I see we need education to find that potential and that if we go it alone thinking we do not have a choice, then it may be we miss many choices that are available. My guess is, as I am yet to do so, is that if I searched all the Holy Books, we would find the advice, that to embrace faith, one must make a choice between what was offered by God, over preference to ones own ways. I do know the Bible offers that as a choice to be 'Born Again' from the flesh to the spirit.

As a Baha'i there is clear guidance as to how God offers it is a choice, this is one such passage.

"O My servants! Through the might of God and His power, and out of the treasury of His knowledge and wisdom, I have brought forth and revealed unto you the pearls that lay concealed in the depths of His everlasting ocean. I have summoned the Maids of Heaven to emerge from behind the veil of concealment, and have clothed them with these words of Mine -- words of consummate power and wisdom. I have, moreover, with the hand of divine power, unsealed the choice wine of My Revelation, and have wafted its holy, its hidden, and musk-laden fragrance upon all created things. Who else but yourselves is to be blamed if ye choose to remain unendowed with so great an outpouring of God's transcendent and all-encompassing grace, with so bright a revelation of His resplendent mercy?"

Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 327-328

Does your Faith have such guidance?

Is a faith and all we do in that faith based in choices we have made?

And/Or

Can we have a faith without making choices?

So all the best and it will be interesting to ponder the replies people offer.

Regards Tony

God won't let me tell you if my belief in God is by choice or was forced by necessity. The reason is that some would be prideful and brag about their close relationship to God. God doesn't like bragging. God doesn't want one person to seem they have special power or special closeness to His power. They might be worshiped if people found out, and God says that only He should be worshiped (doesn't want to share power).

Some people have to believe in God, and they don't have a choice (given what had happened to them).

 

[Ponder This]

I'd say that was a more interesting representation of what you said. Changing doubt in a deity no one can demsonrate any objective evidence is even possible, let alone real. to doubting a spouse.

Must faith, necessarily, be in a deity and not in anything or anyone else. Do you know what it really means to lack faith? Why do you say you have been accused of lacking faith when you really only mean that you don't believe in deities?

You also seem to be using "doubt" as a positive assertion here, when it is not. Atheism is the lack or absence of belief in any deity or deities, nothing more. Though of course an atheist is free to go further, but I personally do not. My lack of faith or belief in deities is not more significant to me than my lack of belief in mermaids, I see no evidence it carries any more risk either, nor does it cause me any despair.

Faith in deities and belief in deities is not the same thing.
You can believe that deities exist and also not have faith in them; or, not believe deities exist and have faith in someone or something else that is not a deity.

I'd rather face reality, than use the comfort blanket of faith. What if you trusted your spouse and they betrayed you? Your faith in them was misplaced, so your example seems doubly flawed.

That is, of course, your choice. Just to clarify, you assert that faith is "comforting". I would say, in other words, "more hopeful".
And you are suggesting that your faith in your spouse is misplaced because, in reality, your spouse really could betray you. That seems to me to be, obviously, "more despairing".

I think the deeper issue here is that there is some confusion about the difference between faith and belief as well as the difference between hope and expectation. People can meet your expectations, while you have no hopes for them, and you can have hopes for people even if they do not meet your expectations.

 

[rational experiences]

I had all the human faith needed to claim I am a spiritual being. As a human.

Who in awareness could see all wrongs. Proving my own self equally spiritual to my family. Information is innate.

To quote why I am right.

Hence if we owned everything we ever needed naturally. We did. Lived mutually and equally then it owns a story.....

What went wrong.

Man did. Man confessed. I caused my own sin.

A teaching.

So before you even consider what the sin was you look at the man.

Spiritual.
Living.
Loving.
Mutual.

To ask why. What reason did you invent change by machine as science?

The direct answer I wanted to go back to owning the eternal life only.

I did not want to be a human. I wanted to be the highest spiritual form.

Why we know our story is real.

So when you assess all causes you then realise why man of science had conjured the alien to take his place as a machine.

As if man would time shift into a body of metal spiritually. As time is burning.

As he personally theoried laws of space that earth and it's heavens owned. Built a metal machine by his conscious thought designer. First tried to time shift his own life.

Did not first try to time shift God as a nuclear reaction. The theory was about self first.

Hence he said the machine at his side and the maths space zero fake mother hurt him in life sacrifice.

As his human sister had nothing to do with his want.

Why I was taught believe in holy God earth. Holy God heavens and not your science brother just a human.