• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

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

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
The statement above is a way to control information, claiming only one group's view is "accurate".

Only ask a practicing Nazi if you want to understand Nazis? Don't talk to Jews, don't talk to anyone who doesn't practice it??!!??

Only ask a cattle rancher if you want to understand the meat industry? Don't talk to vegetarians about the meat industry - no "accurate" information there??

Plug in any group, and any other group who opposes them - to get the full picture, have listen carefully to everyone.
Why are you making up your own narrative? She never implied that.. Listening to everyone appeared to be what she was implying.
 

idea

Question Everything
Or in other words, if I asked you what you believe it would probably be far more accurate than if I asked your neighbor what you believed. i might ask your neighbor if your beliefs match your behavior.

I would encourage you to ask my neighbors, and encourage you to ask my students :). I read my "rate my professor " reviews, read criticisms and compliments - I know my view of myself is limited, and appreciate feedback from others to improve.

Our behavior does show our beliefs.

In our career center, for example, there are videotaped "mock interviews". Without seeing yourself on camera, it's difficult to realize posture, face expressions, nervous ticks and ums. You cannot see yourself. A more realistic understanding of yourself often comes from criticism.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
The reward is entering Paradise within the Ark of God. The reward comes after we die.

“Say: Is there any doubt concerning God? Behold how He hath come down from the heaven of His grace, girded with power and invested with sovereignty. Is there any doubt concerning His signs? Open ye your eyes, and consider His clear evidence. Paradise is on your right hand, and hath been brought nigh unto you, while Hell hath been made to blaze. Witness its devouring flame. Haste ye to enter into Paradise, as a token of Our mercy unto you, and drink ye from the hands of the All-Merciful the Wine that is life indeed.​
Drink with healthy relish, O people of Bahá. Ye are indeed they with whom it shall be well. This is what they who have near access to God have attained. This is the flowing water ye were promised in the Qur’án, and later in the Bayán, as a recompense from your Lord, the God of Mercy. Blessed are they that quaff it.”Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 45-46
“Blessed art thou, O My name, inasmuch as thou hast entered Mine Ark, and art speeding, through the power of My sovereign and most exalted might, on the ocean of grandeur, and art numbered with My favored ones whose names the Finger of God hath inscribed. Thou hast quaffed the cup which is life indeed from the hands of this Youth, around Whom revolve the Manifestations of the All-Glorious, and the brightness of Whose presence they Who are the Day Springs of Mercy extol in the day time and in the night season.”Gleanings, p. 302

Baha'u'llah has guaranteed it and that is good enough for me.
No spaghetti? No meatballs? How about the stripper factories?
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I would encourage you to ask my neighbors, and encourage you to ask my students :). I read my "rate my professor " reviews, read criticisms and compliments - I know my view of myself is limited, and appreciate feedback from others to improve.
Very good. That appears to be what she suggested. Ask the Baha'is about the Baha'i does not imply ignoring their neighbors.

As good or bad as any of us could be I am sure that there are people that you would not want to say what they think that you are like to others. And there are also people that you would want them to ask.

When trying to learn about others a diversity of voices is a good thing.
 

idea

Question Everything
I don't think that you'll get accurate information about the Baha'i Faith by asking a Wiccan, a Christian, or an atheist. I believe that if you want to learn more about a religion, you should ask people who practice it, not those who don't, and especially not antagonistic people who only want to discredit it.

I don't think that you'll get accurate information about the white supremist Nazis by asking a Jew, a JW, or an African. I believe that if you want to learn more about Nazis, you should ask people who practice it, not those who don't, and especially not antagonistic people who only want to discredit it.


The two statements above carry the same information controlling bias.

Critical review is essential within all fields.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Plug in any group, and any other group who opposes them - to get the full picture, have listen carefully to everyone.
No, what you will get is biased information from its detractors. The facts about the Baha'i Faith are the facts and Baha'is are the ones who best know those facts, especially Baha'is who have been Baha'is for 40 or 50 years.

Opinions are another matter. You can get opinions from anyone, but opinions are only opinions and they have nothing to do with facts.
You can listen carefully to peoples' opinions, but that will never inform you of the facts. I started with the facts and then I formed my own opinion and that is what we are enjoined to do before we join the Baha'i Faith. It is called 'independent investigation of truth.' Since we are all responsible for our own beliefs we all have to make up our own minds.
 

idea

Question Everything
Very good. That appears to be what she suggested. Ask the Baha'is about the Baha'i does not imply ignoring their neighbors.

As good or bad as any of us could be I am sure that there are people that you would not want to say what they think that you are like to others. And there are also people that you would want them to ask.

When trying to learn about others a diversity of voices is a good thing.

Criticism can be painful to hear.

Those willing to embrace honesty, open to learning and changing, able to ask forgiveness - if the criticism is false, let's talk it out for sure! If the criticism is true, hey - I'm not perfect, I'll apologize abd change.

In my profession, there's criticism, there's grading of one another, judging - painful on all sides to be sure, but it's how we grow. Open, honest, communication - considering everyone has "accurate" information, everyone has biases - it's important to be humble, and listen deeply to everyone - especially critics, especially competition.

The whole "we're accurate, everyone else is misled" mindset halts growth, halts learning - so important for everyone to listen to criticism.

Criticism is often quite accurate.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
The statement above is a way to control information, claiming only one group's view is "accurate".
The information about the Baha'i Faith is different from views about the Baha'i Faith.
The information is factual but views are only personal opinions.

When it comes to any religion, no particular view can be considered 'accurate' since religion is all a matter of opinion.
 

idea

Question Everything
You have to have been a Nazi for 40 or 50 years?

You have to have been a vegetarian for 40 or 50 years?

So many have been this or that for 40 or 50 years....

Length of time trapped in a bubble isn't proof of validity for anything.

That's the "truth", this is "fact" - binary thinking - there are no facts, no truth - no one who is all-knowing.

It's cognitive dissonance, just a flight/fight/survival response, herd preservation thing - clinging to anything as fact, fear of learning something new.
 

idea

Question Everything
The information about the Baha'i Faith is different from views about the Baha'i Faith.
The information is factual but views are only personal opinions.

When it comes to any religion, no particular view can be considered 'accurate' since religion is all a matter of opinion.

Yes, even one congregation to another, one member from another, one week someone thinks this, next week perhaps their view has changed.

We're herd animals, we need groups - but the best groups allow - embrace - criticism and change. By the people (not by pope, king, pro$$it), listen to all the people, let people guide it - admit it's not all-knowing, not all-petfect, not fact, not "true".

When I hear anyone say "This is the truth! This is fact!", it sounds quite insecure, close minded, prideful - the opposite of education and learning (which is my big thing)
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
Information is information and it is not biased. Only opinions can be biased.
The relaying of information is biased. Both of these describe the same situation:

@Trailblazer couldn't get to your wedding because she was home sick in bed.

@Trailblazer didn't go to your wedding because she took drugs the night before and slept through the ceremony.

Asking Baha'i about their religion yields the positive slant.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
So many have been this or that for 40 or 50 years....

Length of time trapped in a bubble isn't proof of validity for anything.
I never said it is proof or validity that the religion is true.
However, facts are facts and there are facts about the Baha'i Faith that are true.
Whether one believes those facts indicate that the religion is true (i.e., that Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God) is a matter of opinion. That is not a fact since it can never be proven true.
 

Orbit

I'm a planet
The relaying of information is biased. Both of these describe the same situation:

@Trailblazer couldn't get to your wedding because she was home sick in bed.

@Trailblazer didn't go to your wedding because she took drugs the night before and slept through the ceremony.

Asking Baha'i about their religion yields the positive slant.
We seem to have veered into epistemology. In social science, when studying groups of people, we recognize three general ways of knowing. The first is the emic, that is the view from within a group; the second is the etic, that is view of those outside the group about the group; and the third is the researcher's synthesis of the two. Knowledge is always partial and contextual, but that's not to say nothing can be known.

To apply this to the Baha'i, if I were trying to understand their beliefs, I would ask a cross-section of Baha'is first. Then I would take into account outsider perspectives, and place the whole thing in context. That's why I think ethnography is the best way to understand groups of people--it's rich, it's detailed, it's contextualized.
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
We seem to have veered into epistemology. In social science, when studying groups of people, we recognize three general ways of knowing. The first is the emic, that is the view from within a group; the second is the etic, that is view of those outside the group about the group; and the third is the researcher's synthesis of the two. Knowledge is always partial and contextual, but that's not to say nothing can be known.

To apply this to the Baha'i, if I were trying to understand their beliefs, I would ask a cross-section of Baha'is first. Then I would take into account outsider perspectives, and place the whole thing in context. That's why I think ethnography is the best way to understand groups of people--it's rich, it's detailed, it's contextualized.
Yep. Totally agree
 

ppp

Well-Known Member
Whether one believes those facts indicate that the religion is true (i.e., that Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God) is a matter of opinion. That is not a fact since it can never be proven true.
What keeps it from being a fact is that it is unfalsifiable.
 
Top