ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
Amusing, but a different fallacy. @Trailblazer had circular reasoning, you've bagged affirming the consequent.
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ppp
Well-Known Member
Hey! Don't understimate me. LOL I bagged them both.Amusing, but a different fallacy. @Trailblazer had circular reasoning, you've bagged affirming the consequent.
I would hold that @Trailblazer implicitly entails affirming the consequent and special pleading.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
ppp
Well-Known Member
No. You are confusing the major and minor premises. You are constructing a syllogism that not only is not sound but isn't even valid in structure.No, that's not it.
If the premise that Baha'u'llah is your poolboy is true, then the conclusion poolboys exist must be true.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
It is a valid argument but it is not sound, since it can never be proven that Baha'u'llah was a poolboy, thus the conclusion poolboys exist cannot be asserted.
Circular reasoning is a logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with. The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. Wikipedia
So here are some perfectly valid circular arguments:
If the premise the Bible is true is true, then the conclusion God exists must be true.
If the premise Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God is true, then the conclusion God exists must be true.
Of course, since I can never prove that the Bible is true and I can never prove that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God is true, these are not sound arguments and thus they cannot be used to assert the conclusion that God exists.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
In order to point out that circular arguments cannot be used to prove that God exists.
Your choice, and since you already have a biased view from the get-go it would not be worth your time.
In effect you have made the decision before you even looked at the evidence.
You said: "As I keep on saying, nobody (sensible) is looking for proof. Just solid, objective evidence."
So what did YOU mean by solid, objective evidence?
You are preaching to the choir.
As I said before, creation is not evidence for God since it cannot be traced back to God and there are other explanations for how creation came to be. Nobody can link God with creation so we cannot accuse God of creating creation.It is more plausible that you are wrong than that God is an idiot. Do you think the Almighty God cares about the circular reasoning of humans?
And I am still waiting to hear what would be a better way for God to communicate than Messengers in order to make Himself known and relay a message to humans. I have been waiting for about 5.5 years now, ever since I came to this forum!
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
Or provide even the slightest hint that a God might exist. So my question stands. I've said they were worthless from the start.
In what way do you think I'm biased? If you mean wanting solid, objective evidence, then fine, if you want to call that 'biased', I'll admit to it.
I'd ask for your money back from the mind-reading course.
I mean objective evidence. That is, observable or testable facts that support the specific God hypothesis and don't support alternatives.
I've no idea. The idea of sending messengers as evidence is patently absurd as far as I can see. If a God exists, I can only use the intellect it created me with to assess these things.
I don't believe such a being exists at all. If, however, we assume a God exists, I think the evidence suggests that it doesn't give a damn about humans at all.
This is trivially easy and I'm sure I've done it before. Write its message in large letters across the surface of the moon. Make a personalised book, made of a substance that defies science to analyse, materialise for every individual on Earth, with a personal message. Use whatever method it uses to talk to messengers to talk to everybody directly. Or, don't do anything universal but tailor the message and its delivery to each individual knowing exactly how to get through to each one personally (being omnipotent and omniscient, an' all).
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
The deeper problem is that while objective evidence works in pratice on a part of the universe, it doesn't work on all of the universe.
So as a norm it is only relavent for the objective parts of the universe.
In effect as long as I do something subjective and keep it subjective even for religion, objective evidence doesn't apply.
The joke is that some religious people want more than the subjective and try to make faith into objective evidence.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, that is not why I think you are biased. I think you are biased becaue you have made up your mind that Messengers of God cannot be evidence for God. Your wanting solid objective evidence for God is another matter.
So you HAVE looked at Baha'u'llah the person, His life, and the history of the Baha'i Faith? Could've fooled me.I'd ask for your money back from the mind-reading course.
Sorry, there is no such evidence for God.
"The idea of sending messengers as evidence is patently absurd as far as I can see." That is what I meant by biased.
It is true that you can only assess these things with your intellect and what is in your mind, and that means that as long as you don't open your mind to possibilities that won't change your mind.
I see it from a completely opposite perspective. I think that if God exists God cares a lot about humans, and that is why He sends Messengers.
God does not need to send Messengers as He doesn't get anything from doing so. God only sends them for human benefit.
All of Baha'u'llah's message which is comprised of 15,000 tablets would not be visible on the moon from earth.
Aside from that, how would you know that it was God who wrote it?
How would you know that it was God who wrote the message? You'd have the same problem you have with Messengers, not knowing if what they wrote came from God.
That won't work either, since ordinary humans cannot understand communication from God.
How would each individual know that it was God who wrote the message? They'd have the same problem as some people have with Messengers, not knowing if the message came from God.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
I made up my mind after considering the proposition that they might be. There are multiple problems.
- Many of the 'messengers' may well be entirely mythical.
- They contradict each other.
- To the extent we have solid evidence that they existed, they left (at best) only words.
- It is very difficult to see how any words spoken by a human could constitute objective evidence for a real god. Insight into the future or knowledge before its time, is about the only thing that might be indicative. Say, if Bahá'u'lláh had (just as a random example) given us the answer to quantum gravity (or quantum mechanics itself, since his life pre-dated its development.)
- I can easily deduce that there was no such obviously miraculous insight from the fact that no Bahá'ís are telling us all about this wonderful evidence.
I'm not going to accept anything less. To do so would be irrational.
See above.
Back to worthless circular arguments.
A message that says to read them because they're endorsed by god, would do the job.
You asked for better ways, not perfect ways.
See above.
Not the same problem at all. I would know that it wasn't just another human-made religion/superstition. I would know it was from something that was more powerful and knowledgeable than humans and that had insight into every human on earth.
Not perfect, but far, far better.
Then make all humans like messengers. This god is supposed to be omniscient and omnipotant. It only has itself to blame if it made most humans unable to understand it.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
That's true, but those would not be the real Messengers I believe in.
They only 'appear' to contradict each other because:
(1) they bring a new and different message each time they appear, and
(2) the scriptures are misunderstood by the believers.
The older Messengers left only words which were written by others, but the Bab and Bahaullah wrote their own scriptures and thye also left a verifiable historical account of their coming.
Baha'u'llah did give us knowledge that predated its development:
Some of His predictions and how they came to pass are delineated in this book: The Challenge of Baha'u'llah
You do not have to accept anything less since belief in God is optional.
However, what I consider irrational is to expect objective evidence of God, since that is impossible to have.
Yes, that would do the job for some people who believed that message.A message that says to read them because they're endorsed by god, would do the job.
Fair enough. Those might be 'better' for you.
Making a personalised book, made of a substance that defies science to analyse, materialise for every individual on Earth, with a personal message might get more people believing in God, but if God wanted to do that He would already have done it since an omnipotent God could do it. As such we can assume that if God exists God does not choose to do that. What you are then left with is that God does not exist, the atheist position.
If God had wanted to do that He would already have done it since an omnipotent God could have done it, but what would be the purpose of making all humans like Messengers of God? There is no logical reason why people need to have their own personal message, when instead everyone can get the message from the Messenger. The fact that not everyone recognizes the Messenger as a Messenger of God is not a logical reason for God to change His method of delivering messages that has worked since the dawn of man.
Obviously, it doesn't matter to God if everyone believes He exists, because God could have used a method that assured that everyone believed in Him, if He had wanted to.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
So now we have a god that keeps changing its mind and leaves unclear scriptures. Incompetence is looking more and more likely as the only alternative to non-existence.
Still just words. As for their 'coming', you mean that they were born, lived and died. They may have been good and sincere poeple but there is still zero evidence that they were right in their claims about 'God'.
How about what you consider to be the most impressive example....? Sorry but I've chased down endless supposed 'fulfilled prophesies' only to find them to be rather comical. I'm certainly not going to read a book to find others.
It is. undoubtedly possible if God exists and is omnipotent. That's kind of what omnipotent means. I thought your contention was that it was God's choice not to provide it?
Exactly.
But they are cunningly disguised as just humans that founded, or were otherwise important, in (apparently) human-made religions that contradict each other.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, God never changes His mind, but God changes the message He reveals to humanity, since humanity news a new and different message in every new age. God did not change His mind because what is in the mind of God surrounds the realities of all things, before, during, and after they transpire on earth. In other words, God has always known that He would send a new message in 1852 AD.
It is all very logical. The medication you got from the doctor 20 years ago for an ailment you had 20 years ago is no longer needed if you no longer have that ailment. Today if you go to the doctor complaining of a new ailment the doctor will prescribe a new medication. That is what Messengers do, prescribe a new message for the age we are living in.
“The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.”
“No man, however acute his perception, can ever hope to reach the heights which the wisdom and understanding of the Divine Physician have attained. Little wonder, then, if the treatment prescribed by the physician in this day should not be found to be identical with that which he prescribed before. How could it be otherwise when the ills affecting the sufferer necessitate at every stage of his sickness a special remedy?”
There is evidence but there is no proof.
Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid: https://www.google.com/search
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 list of 30 predictions that Baha'u'llah made is on Pages 38-40
What is most impressive to me might not be the most impressive to you. #2 is the most impressive to me (pp. 43-46)
Prophecy 2: The defeat of Germany in two bloody wars, resulting in the 'lamentations of Berlin'.
While shouts of victory were still echoing throughout Germany, Baha'u'llah warned its rulers not to tread the same path of aggression the French Emperor had followed to his doom. In His book of laws, the Kitab-i-Aqdas (Most Holy Book), composed around 1873, Baha'u'llah addressed these words to Germany's Kaiser William I:
O King of Berlin!... Do thou remember the one whose power transcended thy power [Napoleon III], and whose station excelled thy station. Where is he? Whither are gone the things he possessed? Take warning, and be not of them that are fast asleep. He it was who cast the Tablet of God behind him, when We made known unto him what the hosts of tyranny had caused Us to suffer. Wherefore, disgrace assailed him from all sides, and he went down to dust in great loss. Think deeply, O King, concerning him, and concerning them who, like unto thee, have conquered cities and ruled over men. The All-Merciful brought them down from their palaces to their graves. Be warned, be of them who reflect. 63
Baha'u'llah then painted this amazing word-picture of a Germany broken and bleeding in the wake of two successive armed conflicts:
O banks of the Rhine! We have seen you covered with gore, inasmuch as the swords of retribution were drawn against you; and you shall have another turn. And we hear the lamentations of Berlin, though she be today in conspicuous glory. 64
During His Western tour in 1912, 'Abdu'l-Baha, citing this and other prophecies of Baha'u'llah, warned that a 'universal European war' was both imminent and inevitable. His predictions were widely reported at the time in the American, Canadian and European press, as were His appeals for a multinational peace process based on His father's principles. Returning to His home in the Holy Land, 'Abdu'l-Baha prepared for the coming upheaval by stockpiling food and medical supplies. Haifa, as the world centre of the growing Baha'i movement, was by now a site of pilgrimage for large numbers of believers from East and West. About six months before the outbreak of hostilities, 'Abdu'l-Baha imposed a moratorium on new pilgrimages and began sending away pilgrims already at Haifa. The timing of these phased departures was such that by the end of July 1914, no visitors remained. The wisdom of His actions became apparent when, in the opening days of August, World War I suddenly erupted, stunning the world and incidentally exposing Haifa and the Holy Land to grave hardships and danger.
While touring California in 1912, 'Abdu'l-Baha reportedly said the impending struggle would 'set aflame the whole of Europe', wreaking unprecedented havoc: 'By 1917 kingdoms will fall and cataclysms will rock the earth. '65* Subsequent events fully justified these projections. However, German victories during this period, and especially during its last great push in the spring of 1918, were so imposing that Baha'u'llah's vision of Germany in defeat was widely ridiculed throughout Persia by enemies of the Baha'i Faith. Only with the sudden, unexpected breakup of the German juggernaut did the truth of the prophecy become clear. Then the banks of the Rhine were, indeed, 'covered with gore' as the 'swords of retribution' were drawn against the nation.
Germany's national nightmare was, however, only beginning. Further disclosing the implications of His father's words, 'Abdu'1-Baha wrote in January 1920: 'The Balkans will remain discontented. Its restlessness will increase. The vanquished Powers will continue to agitate. They will resort to every measure that may rekindle the flame of war.'66 He still more explicitly stated that 'another war, fiercer than the last, will assuredly break out'.67 This came to pass with the rise of Hitler's Third Reich and the onset of World War II -although, as before, the German campaigns were at first so successful they seemed more apt to discredit than to confirm the prophecy of Baha'u'llah. The Allied victory seemed, till the very end of the war, anything but a foregone conclusion.
And still, events continued to unfold the meaning of the prophecy. The 'lamentations of Berlin', as predicted by Baha'u'llah, replaced the 'conspicuous glory' it had enjoyed in His day. After the first war, that once-great city was tortured by the terms of a treaty monstrous in its severity; after the second, it was carved into zones controlled by the Eastern and Western blocs. The infamous Berlin Wall, erected in 1961, became a concrete symbol of the tragedy and agony that for more than forty years continued to wrack the city. (As I first wrote these words in November 1989, the Berlin Wall was opened for the first time, and more than two million jubilant persons poured through it in a single day. Less than a year later, Germany was once again one nation, though still troubled by many difficulties.)
*These comments (from notes taken by Mrs Corinne True, a prominent American Baha'i of the period) were published in The North Shore Review, Chicago, 26 September 1914.
(Continued on next post)
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
What I said is that God could prove He exists to everyone if He wanted to. I don't know how God would do that, whether it would be by providing objective evidence or some other way.
You are left with God doesn't exist but that is not what I am left with, since there is too much evidence of God's existence for me to believe God doesn't exist.
The religions contradict each other because humans have tampered with them and corrupted them since they were revealed by the Messengers.
In a sense you are right. The Messengers are disguised as ordinary humans and that is in accordance with the Divine Purpose.
"... While the Manifestations of God all shine with the splendours of God's Revelation, they can reveal themselves in only two ways. The first is to appear in their naked glory. Should this happen, all human beings would witness their awesome power, would bow before their majesty and would submit their will entirely to God's Viceregent on earth. People would thus become puppets of God and lose their free will; all would follow the path of truth, not by their own volition but by capitulating to the irresistible power of the Manifestation of God………
The only other way that the Manifestations of God can reveal themselves, which ensures the preservation of human free will, is to conceal their divine power behind the veil of human characteristics. Although they possess majestic, divine qualities, it is, according to Bahá’u’lláh, against the law of God for them to reveal these to the generality of mankind. Through this method people can exercise their free will to accept or to reject the Message of God, to live in accordance with His teachings or to disobey Him."
Adib Taherzadeh, The Child of the Covenant, p. 17
The reason why the Manifestations of God always appear as ordinary humans is in accordance with the Divine Purpose.
“That the Manifestations of Divine justice, the Day Springs of heavenly grace, have when they appeared amongst men always been destitute of all earthly dominion and shorn of the means of worldly ascendancy, should be attributed to this same principle of separation and distinction which animateth the Divine Purpose.” Gleanings, p. 71
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
This really doesn't explain how radically different the various faiths are that arose from the supposed messengers. For example Christians thinking that Jesus was God incarnate, not a prophet or messenger, and that he was literally raised from the dead. And this seems reflected in relatively early writings. This is a direct contradiction with other faiths. So why? Were the messengers incompetent or was it God? Of course this is all simply explained by no God and no messengers of God.
Just how many times do I have to say that I'm not looking for proof. The problem is that there is no evidence. None, zero, zilch...Exactly. There are no such facts or information.
Singularly unimpressive. The original quote is vague and then somebody far closer to the actual events read the situation and related it to the vague original.
And yet you can't produce any that isn't worthless circular reasoning.
So back to God being an idiot, a bad communicator, a player of silly games, or non-existent.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
Then, exactly what are you yakking about?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Whatever you see me yakking about.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
I do not even need to say 'carry on', as we atheist know you would 'carry on' regardless of any other things. You accept that 1. you have no evidence of your God, 2. or whether that 19th Century uneducated Shiite Iranian was deputed by any God 3. or whether and what your 19th Century uneducated Shiite Iranian said was what your God wanted to communicate. Is it an obsession or a necessity (like working for a job)?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I just respond to people who post to me. If the atheists did not 'carry on' they would not hear from me.
Is it an obsession or a necessity for these atheists, like working for a job?
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
IMHO, it is great fun for atheists to show the mirror to theists. With the amount of information that we provide, we have a hope that at least we will be able to remove ignorance from some theist minds.Is it an obsession or a necessity for these atheists, like working for a job?