What evidence was there that he was talking to God?
There is no proof of that and that is why we have to look at the other evidence that indicates that He was telling the truth about hearing from God.
Anyone can talk to God, in prayer, but only Messengers of God hear God speak through the Holy Spirit.
Then what's to say I can't claim that my religion is one that says yours is wrong? Mine is just as valid as yours, so we can't both be right. Do you see where we get into problems? If religion tries to make some statement about reality, it CAN'T just be a matter of making claims. We need to be able to verify the claims, and peer review is the best tool for that.
You can claim anything you want to. You can say your religion is just as valid as mine, but reality is reality, and what people believe does not determined reality, reality simply exists. All we can do is discover it, or fail to do so.
Peer review
is not how the truth of a religion is determined or verified because that would be like saying that other people’s opinions matter and that by getting a consensus we can determine which religion is true, but there is no reason to think other people will be correct in their evidence evaluation, they could all be wrong.
That is why peer review is not how we determine which religion is true. It has to be an individual determination and an individual decision because at the end of the day we are all responsible for our own beliefs.
Evidence evaluation is the best tool to determine if a religion is true. Whether a religion is true or not is determined by the evidence, but not everyone will view the same evidence the same way, and that is why it has to be an individual determination as to whether a religion is true or not.
You are correct that if religions contradict they cannot both be right. It is our responsibility to determine which religion is right, by looking at the evidence for ourselves.
I suspect that religious folk claim that peer review shouldn't be applied to religious belief simply because every time it is, it undermines that belief, and the religious folk don't like that.
Can you give me an example of how peer review might be applied to religion?
As I said, that doesn't work for anything that is making any kind of statement about reality.
Why doesn’t it work? Why would a consensus of opinion apply to a religion and indicate that it is the true religion? Do you believe that Christianity si the one tryu religion just because it claims a majority of the world population? This is
the fallacy of argumentum ad populum
In
argumentation theory, an
argumentum ad populum (
Latin for "
appeal to the people") is a
fallacious argument that concludes that a
proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so."
The converse of this is that
if many or most people do not believe it, it cannot be so, and that is fallacious. [/quote]
Whenever a new Messenger of God appears, He is the narrow gate by which we can attain eternal life. That is why Jesus said…
Matthew 7:13-14 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
There are many logical reasons why only a
few people recognize the new Messenger when He appears on earth. The main reason is because most people are steeped in religious tradition or attached to what they already believe. Secondly, if they do not have a religion, most people are suspicious of the new religion and the new Messenger. Thirdly, if they are atheists they do not like the
idea of Messengers of God or they think they are all phonies. You are a case in point.
It is difficult to get through the narrow gate because one has to be willing to give up all their preconceived ideas, have an open mind, and think for themselves. Most people do not normally embark upon such a journey. They go through the wide gate, the easy one to get through – their own religious tradition or their own preconceived ideas about God or no god. They follow the broad road that is easiest for them to travel.
As I said, your argument essentially boiled down to, "Any legitimate evidence must state that our position is correct." That is a logical fallacy.
Why is that a logical fallacy?
Why? When you decide that any evidence that suggests Baha'u'llah was not a messenger of God, that is the very definition of cherry picking. You are picking and choosing what evidence you accept and what evidence you reject based on whether it agrees with your preconceived notions or not.
No, I am looking at ALL the evidence but if we see something that is
not relevant to determining if He is a Messenger then it is not evidence so we can discard it. For example, someone might say that because Baha’u’llah had several wives that means He could not have been a Messenger of God. That is irrelevant because Muhammad also had many wives because that was customary in Muslim culture back then and it was within the laws of Islam.
But didn't you just say that the process of checking - peer review - is the last thing you want when it comes to religion?
I did say that (see above). Checking the objective evidence involves independent investigation of truth, i.e., doing our own homework and judging for ourselves.
“If a man were to declare, ‘There is a lamp in the next room which gives no light’, one hearer might be satisfied with his report, but a wiser man goes into the room to judge for himself, and behold, when he finds the light shining brilliantly in the lamp, he knows the truth!” Paris Talks, p. 103
