Choices

[Trailblazer]

It is also referred to as a false dichotomy fallacy, but the post you quoted didn't contain the fallacy. He was pointing out that the phrase completely unknowable deity, negated any possibility of knowing anything about it, which is true.

The phrase completely unknowable was in a certain context:

The Baháʼí teachings state that there is only one God and that his essence is absolutely inaccessible from the physical realm of existence and that, therefore, his reality is completely unknowable.
God in the Baháʼí Faith

God's reality is God's Essence, which is completely unknowable. However, some of God's attributes and God's will are knowable from what is revealed and reflected by the Manifestations of God.

You could present an argument that a deity exists that is not completely unknowable, but you'd need to evidence the assertion, which no one has done beyond bare subjective claims for personal experience.

I have already done that, myriad times, no need to do it again.

However you cannot argue that a "anything can be known about a completely unknowable deity," that's an oxymoron.

See above.

 

[Trailblazer]

Please demonstrate some objective evidence for your claim that anything is "preordained"? Accidents and injuries are not remotely preordained, they are caused by a series of events, sometimes they may be outside of our complete control but that doesn't make them remotely preordained or fate, and diseases are not preordained, they are explained by evolutionary science.

That is a belief, not a claim.
There is no objective evidence, sorry.
Everything has a cause, so accidents, injuries and diseases have causes, but that does not mean that they were not preordained.

 

[Lain]

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

(I selected "yes and no" and "I will explain with quotes" and "I will offer thoughts," all that follows is my opinion.)

It is a choice and from a different perspective is not a choice. The choice part is this: if one resists the gift of the Spirit then one will not receive it, for the Lord Jesus often posed the question to would-be followers which became their moment of accepting or resisting, like to the rich young man and others. The Scriptures also say "the Lord set fire and water, death and life before you" and also "choose life and not death." Therefore it is a choice in that degree.

But I also say "no" for God is the All-Conditioner, and I know for myself that I was prepared by my culture, the religion of my parents, who I met, what I understood or did not understand of other religions and cultures, and so on to believe in the Lord Jesus. Scripture speaks of this when it says "how shall they believe if they have not heard, and how shall they hear if there is no preaching?" God usually uses preaching and such as the vehicle for conversion and faith, meaning you'll likely never come to the faith if you did not first hear. It says explicitly also "faith comes by hearing the word about Christ." Therefore it is necessary in the overwhelming majority of cases for there to be preaching before faith.

I was conditioned/preached to via being raised in the US where the Lord Jesus is generally thought of as a good person (I frankly have no idea why after having studied Him why the average American seems to think that as He is diametrically opposed in almost everything to our culture, but He is anyway, blessed be He), my mother by her being a Christian (although not the type that I am) and reading the Bible to me as a kid and taking me to Church sometimes, and by me meeting wise and learned people who were Christians more than other sorts of people. I also was unfamiliar and therefore had little patience for other religious concepts especially those concepts that I considered to be stupid at the time (especially Dharmic religions) when I looked into them, not really understanding Islam, not even thinking of Judaism for the most part, and my own political inclinations when I was looking through religions for one to join. I had always believed in God so atheism has never been, no matter how educated the atheist I discussed with, a "real option" for me, it's just a life I do not understand and am not really interested in.

These and many other factors (which I was also extremely self-aware about during my search through various religions and belief systems, I can feel my own bias in myself and was aware it was there) assisted me in choosing Christianity, and then various other factors led me to converting specifically to Roman Catholicism.

In the light of all that I think it is both a choice and not a choice. I think this holds true for almost all people, for I see the same biases in them as they choose religion, or in my friend groups with how quickly we dismiss certain other religious concepts and options with single sentences.

(All the above is my opinion.)

 

[RestlessSoul]

Ah yes, I forgot the theists grandiloquent penchant for proclaiming to know better then me what I think. If you are prepared to leap to those kind of desperate rationalisations then no fact will dent any claim, but I know no deity is "in me" nor has ever been, and I have encountered many atheists who have asserted the same, and we are a subset of all, the claim was and is demonstrably false.

Though I have to take a moment here to acknowledge the hilarity of theists pretending unevidenced claims for personal experience represent evidence for a deity, but then hilariously then refuse to accept the word of an atheist for what they themselves think.

No one is questioning what you think, or what you believe. What each of us knows about ourselves, is another matter.

Many spiritual people, of all religious denominations and none, have expressed the belief that the Universal Spirit is present in all people, but that for most of us the sense of that presence is drowned out by the worldly clamour in our own heads; and that the ego, in order to protect it’s own primacy, is constantly working to drown out the knowledge of that divine presence.

 

[firedragon]

You could present an argument that a deity exists that is not completely unknowable, but you'd need to evidence

When you say evidence, what do you mean? Can you clearly and precisely explain what you mean by evidence, and if you can provide an example, its good.

Otherwise, its all just scripts being read out this way and that way. Hope you understand.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Can you prove it by quoting research?

Prove it? I have no need to prove it. You claimed that we were wired for the divine, although you seem to be steeping that back with, "I don't know about biological or neurological wiring mate."

You offered no evidence, and your claim was falsified by the presence of millions of people never drawn to religion by this hardwiring you assert exists in humanity. I classify your comment as your opinion, one you are unwilling or unable to support. Why would I be interested enough to go hunting for whatever research you think supports your position when you aren't interested enough to provide it or even summarize it? You should know by now how that will be received by a skeptic - just as Hitchens described: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

I have no burden of proof. Neither do you, unless you want to be believed by a skeptic. As you see, without compelling evidence, you have no power of persuasion with those requiring it before believing.

Why? If I were to accept your claim, I become a theist based on our error. That's not good. I don't want to go down that path again without better evidence than I had when I did. If you can't understand that, how about I tell you that you are hardwired for Scientology. If you believe me, you'll be in their office and under their sway by tomorrow. If you tell me you don't believe me because your experience has been the opposite, I'll ask you if you can prove me wrong, even though you just did, and even though I made no effort to show that I was right, offering only the fact that some people choose scientology as support for my bare claim. And you will reject it all.

 

[firedragon]

Prove it? I have no need to prove it.

Ah. Your prerogative.

 

[firedragon]

You offered no evidence

You should ask, with a tad bit of humility.

 

[Link]

We have a choice between misguidance and guidance. If we choose misguidance, we don't choose which type but rather Iblis takes control and chooses for us. If we choose guidance, then we will be attacked from all sides by sorcery and forces of Iblis till we succumb to misguidance, and so you have to refuge in the asylum of God. There the barriers are strong, the weapons sharp, and the sustenance powerful and luminous.

When you join God and his forces and friends, you have a choice on how you want to contribute and what goodly loan you want to give God to earn a place of honor in the next.

When you choose misguidance, you aren't free but rather intoxicated in love of Dunya and Satan controls all your decisions practically.

To be free we have to worship God sincerely. Then we can make real life decisions.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Nope. Are you? Its great if you are, but I dont think that's relevant.

I found this passage which I see supports the concept of predestination but shows that we are guided in the process, which would to me logically mean we face choices.

The Lord has created and balanced all things and has fixed their destinies and guided them (Surah 87:2-3) .

From what I understand, the Islam concept is that we are all born Muslim, that is, in a pure state.

I also see that is the Baha'i Teaching, that the potential is within us all. Yet the history of Islam (and all faiths) shows us that specific nature and nurture offers education that shapes our mind and our actions and moulds our choices of what we will become in the practice of that potential.

To me that logically means if there is One God, that many people will face a choice in Faith, but many may not see they need to. Some will stay with their nature, nurture and given education.

Then there is the concept that God always guides us to the acceptance of Islam (the potential within), so again logically we are all given that chance, a time to choose that potential.

These are just my thoughts nothing else.

Regards Tony

 

[TransmutingSoul]

New We have a choice between misguidance and guidance.

Yes I see that is the case. How else can the potential within be found, if we do not have the choice to find it?

Regards Tony

 

[firedragon]

From what I understand, the Islam concept is that we are all born Muslim, that is, in a pure state.

Its Haneefan Fithratha.

It doesnt say muslim. Its a fair inference, but the word is not mentioned there.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

The idea that there is a god program in man makes no sense unless a god programmed man, and there is no reason to believe that happened. If it didn't, that proclivity for religion needs another explanation, like the one above.

That if is a big choice.

As there are people that say they give a Message from God, it would also be a choice to read what they say about God.

If we are created in that image, then surely we will find if they are telling the truth.

If we are not, surely that would become very evident in that search.

Regards Tony

 

[firedragon]

I want to ask an irrelevant question if you dont mind. I need a bit of help.

How do you identify if a poster is male or female?

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Please demonstrate some objective evidence for your claim that anything is "preordained"? Accidents and injuries are not remotely preordained, they are caused by a series of events, sometimes they may be outside of our complete control but that doesn't make them remotely preordained or fate, and diseases are not preordained, they are explained by evolutionary science.

Can you conquer death?

Regards Tony

 

[TransmutingSoul]

In the light of all that I think it is both a choice and not a choice. I think this holds true for almost all people, for I see the same biases in them as they choose religion, or in my friend groups with how quickly we dismiss certain other religious concepts and options with single sentences.

That is a good post about the choices we face.

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

Regards Tony

 

[TransmutingSoul]

I want to ask an irrelevant question if you dont mind. I need a bit of help.

How do you identify if a poster is male or female?

If they choose to put it on their profile?

Regards Tony

 

[firedragon]

If they choose to put it on their profile?

Regards Tony

So do you have to click on their profile and go into their profile or does it just display on the side along with Joined, Messages, Ratings, religion like yours Tony?

Thanks a lot by the way.

 

[Sheldon]

"You could present an argument that a deity exists that is not completely unknowable, but you'd need to evidence the assertion, which no one has done beyond bare subjective claims for personal experience."

I have already done that, myriad times, no need to do it again.

I don't believe that claim.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

So do you have to click on their profile and go into their profile or does it just display on the side along with Joined, Messages, Ratings, religion like yours Tony?

Thanks a lot by the way.

When you go to their profile, it will be under the information tab, if they have chosen to display that information.

There is a lot of settings one can turn off.

P/S There are some very educated people posting here and some very interesting souls.

Regards Tony