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How can you be a True Christian™ if you don't take the Eden story literally?

ppp

Well-Known Member
Okay, thanks for clarifying that.
You're welcome.
That depends upon what you mean by reality
I told you in the next sentence.

Yes, we share the belief that the objective reality of the physical world is real and we both share a logical mind, what Baha'is refer to as the rational soul.
That is not what I asked if you agree to. I said nothing about a logical mind. I said that:
  1. there is an objective reality that we both share
  2. That we appear to not be brains in vats
  3. That the logical absolutes apply. ( Identity, excluded middle, non contradiction)
Do Baha'i disagree?
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
I do not need to detect God in order to know some things about God.
Absurd, how can you know anything about something you can't detect?
How I describe (not define) God is according to scriptures. It is not a guess, it is my belief.
All of your religious belief is guessing that you believe is true. The evidence you cite is not adequate for critical thinkers, as we explain to you over and over again.
No, you cannot know one way or another, without scriptures.
Who says scriptures are reliable? Only those who want to believe. They are highly flawed to use as evidence for what they claim.
I make no assumptions, I only have beliefs. They are not based upon what you consider knowledge, they are based upon what I consider knowledge, which comes from God through Messengers.
Your religious beliefs are all based on assumptions. I understand you want to reject this fact.
The evidence that God exists is not found in science.
That's too bad, science is what is relable for knowledge.
No gods are known to exist by you.
And by you. And by everyone on earth.
Remember, I told you that we can detect God through His Messengers. That is how we can know the 'very little' we are able to know about God.
You told me. And you have no evidence that you are correct.
I have confirmed it to be true by the process of independent investigation. You can throw it out if you want to.
Your standards are very low, and not at the usual stadard for logic, law, and academics.
"I" can know God exists because of the Messengers.
That isn't knowledge, it is belief based on assumptions the Messengers are genuine. They have written nothing that suggests they had any contact with a God. You have bad belief, not knowledge. That you have to inflate your claim that you have knowledge indicates you are defensive about the weakness of your beliefs.
I have offered evidence of how "I" know Messengers are genuine. Obviously, not everyone is going to see the evidence as I see it.
It's not good enough, as has been explained to you over and over again. It just doesn't sink in.
You do not know if it is comforting for those who believe unless you ask people if they feel comforted, but even if they do, I highly doubt many people would say that is why they believe. If they were Christians they would say they believe because of the Bible and if they were Baha'is they would say they believe because of Baha'u'llah.
Of course it is comforting, why else would people believe in any religious framework except for the personal benefits and mental rewards?
The explanation is that I don't need a factual basis for belief. I only need a revelation from God.
That is why your belief is questionable. Why assume revelations are true?
No, I do not assume the Baha'i teachings are factual, I believe they are true. True means in accordance with fact or reality.
Whether your language is that you believe they are factual or you assume they are factual still means they aren't factual or true. Facts are demonstrably true. Truth is demonstrated, it isn't believed. You want your beliefs to be valid, but you don't have adequate evidence. Sorry.
The teachings can be in accordance with reality even if they have not been proven as a fact.
Why would a person want this? Not when the ideas lack evidence.
After all this time posting to me and reading my posts you should know I only have beliefs, not facts. I cannot give you something I do not have. Baha'i dogma is not evidence, Baha'u'llah is the evidence.
It's not convincing. There is nothing he wrote that suggests he was in contact with a God. Not credible.
I do not assume it is, I believe it is.. I do not expect it to mean anything to you or others.
You could be mistaken.
I am not trying to convince anyone. You do not know that I am motivated to believe, thus biased.
That cuts both ways. I could just as easily say that you are not motivated to believe, thus biased towards non-belief.
Your evidence is not credible. You have no argument.
I am not trying to convince anyone.
Well, you haven't.
I am willing to believe these claims are true with adequate evidence.
But you don't have adequate evidence for anyone who isn't biased.
You do not speak for me, I can speak for myself.
Most people were raised in a particular religion so that is what they belong to. I was not raised in any religion, I came to belief by myself was by reading what Baha'u'llah, Abdu'l-Baha, and Shoghi Effendi wrote, and by reading other information about the Baha'i Faith. The Baha'i teachings made logical sense to me so that is why I believed it. No emotions were ever involved.
So what, you have low standards. You want to believe this stuff.
I am happy but not because I belong to a tribe that has a dogma. I am happy because I know I have truth to live by, and nothing is more important that that.
It's ideological truth, not factual truth.
I have plenty of evidence. You just don't recognize it as evidence. We all look at the evidence through our own mind which differs from other minds.
I have high standards, you have low standards.
You are projecting 'what you believe' about believers onto believers. Since you don't believe there is any evidence, you cannot believe that believers believe on evidence, so you think there must be another reason why they believe.
No, I am considering your claims and they are weak. That is your dilemma.
It might help if you could at least try to look at this through the eyes of believers, because then you would understand why they believe. A long time ago I started looking at what atheists believe through their own eyes since I believed them when they told l me why they don't believe in God.
I'm not interested in the personal motives of believers, I'm interested in the evidence. That's because I seek truth, not dogma. If a person wants to explain why they want to believe, and what their bias is, let them be honest and share it. That won't mean that critical thinkers will be sympathetic and agree to believe. Frankly it's odd that you try to apeal to emotions like this when we explain to you that it's about evidence.
The key is to be able to separate and realize that believers have their own thought process just as atheists do, and to believe them when thye tell you why they believe. So for example if a Christian says he believes in God because of the Bible you can accept that he is telling the truth even though you could never believe in God because of the Bible.
Believers have low stndards. Critial thinkers have high standards. That is why believers believe in ideas that are not true and factual.
You are making assumptions, facts not in evidence. You are assuming that believers 'feel pressured or motivated to to adopt religious ideas.'
That is what studies reveal. No one comes to a rational conclusion that a God exists due to facts and reasoning, they believe for personal and social reasons.
A person can always look at something more objectively when they are looking from outside; so for example, I can look at the Bible more objectively since it is not my Holy Book. Similarly, I can look at atheist position more objectively since it is not my position.
Objectivity is about skilled thinking, not personal perspective.
What Baha'is believe is not inconsistent with what we observe and understand about reality, it is just outside the purview of the physical reality.
Yes it is. God isn't part of physical reality. What you think Messengers are is not factual.
If atheism could stand on its own merit, you wouldn't need to say religions require some level of illusion by the believer. What you refer to an illusory is simply something you do not believe is real.
Atheism isn't a claim or argument, it is the natural default of intellectual thought concering the idea of god.
I cannot speak for other religious believers, but Bahais can rationally explain their thinking and experience in ways that suggest they aren't imagining their version of truth. These "truths" are not fact-based, they are scripture-based.
You offer no rational basis for your assumptions and beliefs.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
Some may think it's a phenomenon, but why would you say it's a phenomenon anyway?
Because it is. It is the conclusion of hundreds of thousands of experiments in science.
Let's see -- definition of phenomenon -- one definition is: What is a phenomenon?
observed. How is macroevolution observed? Please do say, thank you. "A phenomenon, in a scientific context, is something that is observed to occur or to exist. It is simply a fact or event that can be observed with the senses, either directly or using equipment such as microscopes or telescopes. "
I agree that observing things through a microscope is fabulous, but how is macroevolution observed?
Do you know more than experts in biology?
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
That is not what I asked if you agree to. I said nothing about a logical mind. I said that:
  1. there is an objective reality that we both share
  2. That we appear to not be brains in vats
  3. That the logical absolutes apply. ( Identity, excluded middle, non contradiction)
Do Baha'i disagree?
I cannot speak for all the Baha'is, I can only speak for my self, but I do not disagree, and I don't 'think 'other Baha'is would disagree.
 

Colt

Well-Known Member
For those of you who don't take the story of the Fall literally. Adam, Eve, Tree, Serpent, etc, how do you envision the Fall of Man happening? And if it didn't happen, what use is Jesus?
Like many Biblical stories there is a grain of truth in the Israelites creation narrative.

The "fall" happened first in heaven in the mind of a high celestial administrator. The "war in heaven", a war of allegiance, spilled over onto the earth by corrupting our resident "planetary prince" who in turn mislead many loyal staff and subsequently confused the world.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Personally, I honestly don't know whether any gods exist, including the Abrahamic God. So I'm not willing to insist one way or another. I don't believe that it would be honest of me to do so since I don't think that I can actually prove or disprove their existence.
It sounds like you care about being right with your beliefs. You know that you have no way to rule gods in or out empirically or logically, so you remain agnostic about the idea. But throw that commitment to empirical confirmation before belief and being honest with yourself, and you are free to believe whatever you can imagine, which is exactly what belief by faith is - the willingness to untether yourself from reality and choose beliefs otherwise.
What does she mean to "know" something about God but not as a fact? What does she really know? Maybe that she believes it?
Trailblazer has a unique understanding of language. Knowledge is whatever she believes including what she believes by faith. Evidence for a belief is whatever she declares supports her belief according to personal rules for evaluating it that she agrees doesn't convince critical thinkers, although she calls herself one as well. She says that beliefs are neither assumptions nor claims. It's not helpful to explain why you disagree.
I make no assumptions, I only have beliefs. They are not based upon what you consider knowledge, they are based upon what I consider knowledge,
OK. These are nice illustrations of your idiosyncratic use of language.
No gods are known to exist by you.
Nor by anybody else, but then I'm using the standard definition of knowledge, which requires empirical confirmation.
I do not assume the Baha'i teachings are factual, I believe they are true. True means in accordance with fact or reality.
That's a statement that you believe by faith. You don't need facts to declare something true.
I do not assume it is, I believe it is.
OK. Everything I believe I assume is correct, the degree of belief being commensurate with the quality and quantity of available supporting evidence.
I have plenty of evidence. You just don't recognize it as evidence. We all look at the evidence through our own mind which differs from other minds.
This seems to be a statement that all conclusions attached to that evidence are equal.
"knowing something about, but it is not a fact" ----> that's called understanding
No, if your belief has not been confirmed empirically, it is neither knowledge nor understanding.
people tend to idolize knowledge
Where I usually see this kind of anti-intellectualism is from the faithful who resent the critical thinker's rejection of their faith-based claims. That is when we see words like myopic, materialist, and scientism wheeled out in objection to rigorous thought.
She's right about knowing about God without it being a fact.
That's faith, not knowledge. Unfalsifiable ideas have no relationship to fact, truth, knowledge, or understanding. They can only be believed by faith, and that world has nothing to do with any of those.

Apparently, it's difficult to simply declare that one didn't use evidence properly to arrive at his belief. Even though he may disesteem rigorous thinking ("people tend to idolize knowledge"), he feels the need to use the words of those who practice it. That's where the objection arises. You can have faith, but don't call it knowledge and don't claim sufficient evidentiary support unless you don't mind being corrected by people that "idolize knowledge"
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
Like many Biblical stories there is a grain of truth in the Israelites creation narrative.

The "fall" happened first in heaven in the mind of a high celestial administrator. The "war in heaven", a war of allegiance, spilled over onto the earth by corrupting our resident "planetary prince" who in turn mislead many loyal staff and subsequently confused the world.
That is an interesting take. Where doe Jesus fit into that narrative? If, at all?
 

Colt

Well-Known Member
That is an interesting take. Where doe Jesus fit into that narrative? If, at all?
In my understanding Jesus or Christ Michael is our Creator Son. His Father is in essence our grandfather. Lucifer and the other rebels were subordinate creations of the Son, they lived by faith in the unseen Father. At some point Lucifer rebelled against the existence of the Father. Of coarse he knows Michael but still rebelled against the entire administration!

So when the fragmented Book of Revelation says "war in heaven" that's actually retrospective, it happened long ago! Revelation 12:7-17

7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.


Adam and Eve came to a populated earth as previously planned. They would ordinarily replace the previous administration of the resident representative of Michael, however that celestial being (the Crafty Beast) joined the Lucifer rebellion and spread darkness and confusion on the earth. The world was fallen upon the arrival of Adam and Eve. He managed to outflank Eve and Adam! But they repented of their sin and worked to salvage what they could, eventually succumbing to old age.
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
Then that is the foundation for the construction of a evidenced explanation.
I have no idea what you are talking about.
Explanations are only explanations when the explainer starts at a common ground with the explainee. Then builds with sound argumentation towards the conclusion, all the while faithfully checking in with the explainee every single step of the way.
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
In my understanding Jesus or Christ Michael is our Creator Son. His Father is in essence our grandfather. Lucifer and the other rebels were subordinate creations of the Son, they lived by faith in the unseen Father. At some point Lucifer rebelled against the existence of the Father. Of coarse he knows Michael but still rebelled against the entire administration!

So when the fragmented Book of Revelation says "war in heaven" that's actually retrospective, it happened long ago! Revelation 12:7-17

7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.


Adam and Eve came to a populated earth as previously planned. They would ordinarily replace the previous administration of the resident representative of Michael, however that celestial being (the Crafty Beast) joined the Lucifer rebellion and spread darkness and confusion on the earth. The world was fallen upon the arrival of Adam and Eve. He managed to outflank Eve and Adam! But they repented of their sin and worked to salvage what they could, eventually succumbing to old age.
What religious tradition is this?
 
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