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Alien826

No religious beliefs
So because Baha'u'llah wrote that religions come from the same God, that means that He was trying to deceive and trick people? What would be His motive? It seems to me that if He was trying to deceive and trick people He would have said that the Baha'i Faith is the only true religion and all the other religions are false, which is what Jews and Christians believe about their religions. Baha'is do not believe they have the only true religion.

Here's something that seems totally reasonable to me. I don't know how close it is Baha'i beliefs.

Let's take as a premise that there exists "something" beyond what we we currently know of the material universe, that has some power and some knowledge. Let's also say that it has some kind of "emanation" that cause people to have some kind of feeling that it exists (I'm trying to be as vague as I can). It seems reasonable to me that this would generate a multitude of different religious beliefs, as people tried to systematize these feelings.

In that case we could correctly say that all religions were triggered by the same entity, but none of them have a correct description of this entity because there simply isn't enough data available to support these beliefs.

(I'm not suggesting this is true. But the idea that is some common factor from which all religions spring is attractive to me.)
 

John53

I go leaps and bounds
Premium Member
As a short diversion into humor, thank goodness God doesn't use a recorded "phone tree". Imagine.

<ring ring>

"God is now busy helping other customers. The current waiting time is seven weeks, three days, four hours. To help direct your call, please supply some information. If you are a Christian, press 1. If you are a Muslim, press 2 ... <long list follows>".

<Caller notes that Baha'i is not on the list. Presses 0.>

"I'm sorry, I don't understand that. If you are a Christian press 1 ....".

<Caller shouts "Baha'i Baha'i Baha'i".>

"I'm sorry, I don't understand that. If you are a Christian, press 1 ...".

Caller says "Look, I'm a Messenger of God, I'm supposed to get through quicker than this!"

<Clicking noises, whirr, ring ring>

"Please specify which messenger you are. If you are Moses, press 1, if you are Jesus, press 2 ...".

Baha'u'llah slams the phone down, curses loudly and pours himself a drink.

And the operator said 40 cents more for the next 3 minutes....
 

muhammad_isa

Veteran Member
..it is extremely ironic when you claim that "Many people state things about God with little knowledge". You would be included in that group.
It is certainly possible, as I claim to be no more than human. :)

However, what God the Most High, says in the Qur'an is a different matter.
They are not my words.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Okay, good point. So far there does not appear to be any reliable evidence for a god. The number of believers is not reliable evidence.

Does anyone have any?
No, the number of believers is not evidence at all.
Sorry, there is no reliable evidence for God, according to the following definition.

Reliable Evidence means reports and articles with scientifically valid data published in authoritative, peer reviewed medical and scientific literature.

Reliable Evidence Definition: 209 Samples | Law Insider
 

muhammad_isa

Veteran Member
I know many Muslims who drink alcohol, enjoy sexual pleasures with people of their own sex or with people of the opposite sex who are not their spouses. Do they really believe in quite the way that you mean?
Almighty God is aware of what is in our hearts.
He knows whether people are just careless, or whether they disbelieve.

I have a Muslim name and a Christian name .. it is not my name which defines my religion .. it's my intentions and actions.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Well, I've posted thoughts on this before as well. You continue to insist, for example that some number (you said 93%?) of people "believe in God." But I contend that quite a good portion of those might be better described as "believing they believe in God."
You raise a fair point. I don't think most believers really believe in God because if they did, they would fear God, as I do, and they would not be breaking the Laws of their religions. I think a fair number of believers just like the idea of believing in God, without any of the responsibilities, and many of them say they believe to get the reward they believe they will be getting.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Why do you say that? The people that you are claiming that about merely want to know as many true things as possible.
That is what I said, that most atheists want to know the truth about God.
I could say that what is true does not matter to you, you only want to believe. Would that be fair? Don't make the same sort of accusation against others.
I made no such accusation.
Many atheists have said that to me, that I believe because I want to believe, but it is like water off a duck's back, because I know why I believe, and it is not because I want to. I cannot even recall how many nights I spent talking to my late husband about why I don't want to be a believer and how many times he told me I should become an atheist. We argued about God a lot.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
It is certainly possible, as I claim to be no more than human. :)

However, what God the Most High, says in the Qur'an is a different matter.
They are not my words.
No, they were just the words of another whose own life tended to refute his claims. People that are not Muslim do not tend to be very impressed by his work. There is a very good reason for that.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
No, it is not my guess, it is my belief.

It's both. You believe your guess. And why is it called a guess? Because it's not demonstrably correct.

Men who wrote the Bible wrote that God talked to people. What reason do I have to believe that? I have no reason.

As a Baha'i who believes that messengers are the best method available to a deity to communicate with man, you are pretty much forced to reject it. If God can speak to man directly, then messengers are not necessary nor a good idea.

To compare God to human communication to human to human communication is the fallacy of false equivalence. Since God is not a human, God does not reach humans the same way a human would reach a human.

Disagree. You just wave away such thinking by declaring it off limits. Your argument is to declare that messengers are the best way a tri-omni deity could choose to communicate, I disagree, you say, "Put your money where your mouth is," I give better ways to communicate, and your reply is to declare that I compare how humans communicate to how a god could is off limits.

Your fallacy is special pleading. The rules change for gods whenever reasoning corners your argument. This is analogous to the creationist who claims that life is too complex to have arisen naturalistically, then when asked how a god, which presumably is orders of magnitude more complicated, could exist, the rules change.

I do not plan to try to prove that Baha'u'llah had a divine mind because that cannot ever be proven

It can't even be evidenced, just claimed. And, pointing to whatever you like and calling that your evidence is meaningless if there is no evidence of a god in what you point to. I could point to the vase I'm looking at and call it evidence that vampires exist, but it isn't that if it doesn't increase the likelihood that vampires exist.

To me, nothing could be more ridiculous than a God who needs excuses just because He does not do things the way you expect Him to do them. What that amounts to is a human who thinks they know more than God about how things should be done, which is not only arrogant but also logically impossible since no human is all-knowing, only God is all-knowing. That really puts atheists in a bind if they acknowledge it but since they refuse to look at it and that side-skirt it whenever I mention it in a post, they think they are still sitting pretty, saying what God should be doing, as if they could ever know more than God.

But it's you making the excuses - excuses for why this god can't do better than mundane messengers with mundane messages. And it's more of your special pleading. You attempt to defend your beliefs about your god from any criticism of the claims made for it disqualifying human judgment - except your own. You go on and on telling us about this god. And your argument depends on this god actually existing, which you assume to make these hand waiving arguments about what can and cannot be known about it. It's your arguments being judged, not any god, just as you judge those arguments with hand waves.

Your own arguments can be used against you. How with your finite human mind would you know what a message from a god looked like to judge the one you have believed? [Here comes my hand waiving:] Anything said about a god is ridiculous and arrogant such as that he sends messengers. It's logically impossible, since no human is all-knowing. That puts you in a bind (defeats your argument), but since you refuse to look at the arguments made, you think you're on the catbird seat saying what God did, as if you could know that.

So because Baha'u'llah wrote that religions come from the same God, that means that He was trying to deceive and trick people? What would be His motive?

The same as Pauls' affixing Christianity to Judaism and the Mormons piggy-backing onto that.

It seems a bit odd to me that the evidence for God's existence, most of which comes by way of religion, is compelling to 93% of the world population, yet it is not compelling for atheists. The atheist claim that atheists are just more intelligent than believers, critical thinkers, etc, just does not cut the mustard, and it is very arrogant. It makes no logical sense that all those people who have recognized the evidence for God are stupid idiots who cannot think their way out of a paper bag.

Critical thinkers process information more accurately than all but a few of the 93%. These are the people who improve the human condition with the results of such thinking. There is nothing arrogant about that. It very believable that those people don't know how to evaluate evidence properly. Most people can't do it beyond the simplest examples such as interpreting what a red traffic light or a ringing doorbell signifies. Correlating and interpreting larger amounts of data is an acquired skill uncommon among those without a good liberal arts education, so no surprise that most of the world can't do it

You are 'assuming' believers are irrational and arrived at irrational conclusions that a God exists with no reasoning.

Faulty reasoning. And you seem to think that it's not possible to declare somebody's argument fallacious. Yes, every theist holds an irrational belief, since none can justify it with reason. Every one. And that is a fact just as 6+7=13. And if you can't see that, and want to bring your own rules to addition, then your sums will be wrong in the eyes of anybody trained in addition. Protesting that those are just opinions and they cannot be asserted as fact without that being arrogant is merely demonstrating one's inability to add or to even recognize that it is a method that generates correct sums every time it is applied without error. Every time.

All you have is a personal opinion but you state it as if it is a fact. That is nothing more than your biased personal opinion, a way to knock believers down so you can feel superior.

This is what you do. He is correct. You are not, and your inability to see or understand that is your limitation, not his.

that's how it works when you have a huge bias against religion and an absurd standard for evidence, expecting evidence for God that is not logically possible to ever obtain.

The critical thinker has a bias against unjustified belief. He won't hold such beliefs, and he is uninterested in them in others. The standard for evidence is only absurd to those who don't understand it's importance, and who choose to believe whatever they like and say that they have evidence despite what they present being rejected as supporting that belief. This is a world you neither inhabit nor understand, and which it seems you don't know exists. That is why you object to your thinking being rejected, which you consider equally valid.
 

QuestioningMind

Well-Known Member
1. God is not weak because He chooses to use Messengers to communicate. God uses them because the all-knowing God knows that Messengers are the *best way* to communicate to humans.

-- This is a claim but it is not based upon flawed logic.

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 is my perfectly valid circular argument:
If the premise Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God is true, then the conclusion God exists must be true.

2. God is not ineffectual because the Messengers have had an effect on the vast majority of humans. I am not saying that *proves* God exists, as nobody can ever prove that God exists. You want verifiable evidence, which is proof, but there is no such proof, so you will just have to continue disbelieving.

-- This is not about whether the Messengers are from God or not. That can never be proven as a fact. This is about the fact that most people in the world believe in God because of a Messenger, Prophet, or Holy man, an intermediary between God and man.
1. God is not weak because He chooses to use Messengers to communicate. God uses them because the all-knowing God knows that Messengers are the *best way* to communicate to humans.

-- This is a claim but it is not based upon flawed logic.

Sure it's based on flawed logic. Stating that god is not weak because He chooses to use Messengers to communicate is a premise that you have not demonstrate to be true. You've failed to provide any evidence that this god being even exists, let alone that it sends messengers.

2. God is not ineffectual because the Messengers have had an effect on the vast majority of humans. I am not saying that *proves* God exists, as nobody can ever prove that God exists. You want verifiable evidence, which is proof, but there is no such proof, so you will just have to continue disbelieving.

-- This is not about whether the Messengers are from God or not.


Of course it's about whether or not these proposed messengers were sent from some god being. IF in fact these messengers had an effect on society but were NOT sent by your proposed god, then the existence of the messengers CANNOT be used to claim that your god is not ineffectual. If your god didn't send the messengers then your god had no effect upon society, and that makes your god ineffectual.
 

muhammad_isa

Veteran Member
You've failed to provide any evidence that this god being even exists, let alone that it sends messengers.
Oh, plenty of evidence has been shown.
..but you don't want to see it .. you can't see it .. it doesn't exist. :D

..when asked by my Lord on the day of judgment, "who is your Lord?", I have my answer ready .. no hesitation, God willing.
..whereas you .. you'd better hope you are not asked. ;)
 
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