Is it Reasonable to Compare Gods with Bigfoot, Fairies, Unicorns, and Leprechauns?

[TagliatelliMonster]

Of course you don't see the point - why would you see the point in expressing gratitude and thankfulness towards anything in your life? You never celebrate anyone's birthday or do nice things for anyone, that would be silly! Why would you ever experience awe, wonder, and fascination towards anything? You think the world is a massive snorefest not worth of your precious attention! Why would you ever think there are powers and forces in the universe bigger than you and beyond your control? You're the best thing ever and everything bows to your mighty power! The rest of us should all tremble before you, O Mighty Tagliate! You are the one True God! You re the only thing worthy of celebration, the only thing worthy of wonder, the most powerful and maximal of all things! Not that stupid old Sun, without which our planet wouldn't even exist and we wouldn't even be having this discussion - forget that! Only YOU are the most mighty, powerful, worthy of worship and awe and wonder and thankfulness because our existences depend only on the greatest of great power that is YOU.

If the above sounds stupid and ridiculous - and it should - maybe you'll start to get the point.

I certainly agree that was stupid and ridiculous. And I still don't see the point of calling the sun god if you don't mean anything different by it then what I mean by the word "sun".

And understand why comparing the gods to bigfoot is asinine.

Did you even read my posts in this thread?
Sounds like you didn't.

Tbh, it's kind of depressing to witness people come back to that claim after having taken the time to clearly explain how that is a misapprehension.
Oh well.

 

[Stevicus]

The messages that were revealed thousands of years ago were not reliable because they were written by men, not by a Messenger of God...
The only message that I consider reliable is the message of Baha'u'llah, since He is the only Messenger who wrote His message in His own pen.

I have met and conversed with people who claimed to be messiahs and that their message was the word of God. I had no reason to believe anything they were saying, but I had no reason to disbelieve either. They may have been a bit odd or non-conformist, but speaking with them, they seemed to be somewhat coherent and lucid - not raving madmen or anything like that. One of them used to call out local preachers and politicians and called them "apostates" and told them they would all burn. He delivered quite a few fiery sermons and was actually kind of colorful and charismatic; known to the locals - but hated by the local Chrisitan community. Ironically, many of his fans were atheists. He even spoke to the local chapter of American Atheists, as they accepted him, but the churches did not.

But at the end of the day, there was no real way of verifying if any of what they said was true, even if I might still take the message under advisement. A sound and coherent message can still be useful, even if it just comes from a human and not from some divine source.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

if you can't ask your question clearly and precisely, then don't blame others when you get answers that you don't like or can't understand.

The question is clear and precise. "is x real?" / "does x exist?" is pretty straightforward.
You playing silly games with the world "real" doesn't change that.

The fact is that all those entities exist in a number of very well evidenced ways.

"real" not being one of those ways.

If you had taken the time to think about the questions you ask, and the claims you make, you would have easily seen this.

Your silly semantics are noted.

But instead you want to attack everyone else and blame them for your own lazy mind.

Everyone else understands that when people ask "is x real" / "does x exist" in contexts such as this, they don't mean as characters in cartoons or dolls at the toy store or alike.

Is that really do difficult for you to understand and accept?

Apparantly it is for you.
When you have a burgler in your house, do you turn on your bat signal or do you call 911 (or whatever the number is where you live)?

Please explain why it's untrue or dishonest besides the fact that it's more precise than your own lazy, biased, presumptions.

You know the answer to this question.
I refuse to believe you are this simple minded.

 

[MikeF]

I have met and conversed with people who claimed to be messiahs and that their message was the word of God. I had no reason to believe anything they were saying, but I had no reason to disbelieve either.

I find the statement that you had no reason to disbelieve them interesting. Do we not have countless examples of people claiming things that are not true, both religious and non-religious? Given that, do we not start with doubt?

To my mind, it is almost as if your position is similar to the concept in law of innocent until proven guilty. In this case, assumed correct or true until proven not to be. I think, given the knowns of human nature, our acknowledge fallibilities, a more appropriate stance would be to assume it is wrong or untrue until proven otherwise. In other words, approach all with rational skepticism.

 

[McBell]

You also need to know where and how to look. Did they define that for you, too? Or did you just presume your own bias without ever actually investigating it.

Some of them in fact have.
God is everywhere
God is everything
God is love
Just to name a few

 

[The Hammer]

How, then, can they be considered reliable

Reliable for them that found it, no?
Not really about you, or provability.
It's bout what works for others.

 

[PureX]

The question is clear and precise. "is x real?" / "does x exist?" is pretty straightforward.

"Real" compared to what? "Exist" in what ways? There is nothing strait forward about any of this. Great minds have been pondering these questions for eons. And the precision of their answers depended on the specificity of their questions.

You playing silly games with the world "real" doesn't change that.

You aren't in charge of what the word means. Sorry. And I'm not averse to the complexity involved in investigating it. So when the discussion goes over your head, because you don't like the complexity of it, that's not my fault.

Everyone else understands that when people ask "is x real" / "does x exist" in contexts such as this, they don't mean as characters in cartoons or dolls at the toy store or alike.

Fools always think they understand things that they don't understand. It's because when they're confronted with something they don't understand, they fight it and dismiss it instead of trying to understand it. They aren't interested in learning anything, only in protecting the pretense that they already know everything they need to.

 

[Trailblazer]

The errors are exasperatingly familiar to scholars and non-believing posters everywhere, yet with every new religious poster, up they pop again.

You might want to bear in mind that every religious poster is not the same, nor is every religion the same.
If you are reading what Christians say that is easy to debunk, but it is not as easy to debunk what Baha'is say.

 

[PureX]

Fact and reality are not even remotely the same things.

Yes, they are. One derives from the other. A fact is a linguistic string (sentence, paragraph) that accurately maps a piece of sensible reality. If I say that I live five blocks north and three blocks east of the pier, and a walk from my front door of five blocks south and three blocks west gets me to the pier, then the claim is a fact derived from testing reality and useful for accurately predicting outcomes.

These "facts" (directional proclamations) only correspond to reality in one very specific time and place. Everywhere else in the entire universe they will be shown to be false (not 'real'). So this is hardly a good example of how facts equal reality. Reality (your mythical 'objective' reality, not the idea of reality that we all hold in our minds) is always true and always real. No exceptions. While facts are only true, if they are true at all, within the very limited context of a specific time, place, and cognitive perspective.

You make this too difficult for yourself with such grandiose and obviously incorrect beliefs.

So far not one of you complainers has managed to show how I am incorrect about ANYTHING I've posted. Saying it is not showing it. I just showed you how facts are not even remotely the same thing as reality even though you claimed I was wrong about this. So how was I wrong? I just explained to you why what I stated is true. So let's see you show us all how what I stated was not true. Instead of just repeating empty accusations.

But then, you're an epistemic nihilist - all is illusion, nothing is knowable if everything isn't known, etc..

Realty is both real AND illusory. Because the illusion of it that we hold in our minds is also part of reality. I have no idea why you and others here have so much difficulty grasping this.

 

[Trailblazer]

Then He should make himself known and his message clear and unambiguous; surely a simple task for the author of the universe.

God has made Himself known, you just don't like the way He did it. Why should God care about what you like?

The message from God for this age is clear and unambiguous, but you can't get that message unless you read what Baha'u'llah wrote.

Thus far, though, the only "benefits" have been endless wars, disputes, bloodshed and repression. It shows every indication of a colossal screw-up.

That is what you see since you are looking only at the old world order. You don't know what is going in in the background, how Baha'is are working to build a better world, a new world order.

How do you know that? How do you know there even is a God?
Evidence, please.

Sorry, I am not going around that block again. What I consider evidence is always rejected by atheists.

How can these be construed as evidence? How can they be assessed? How are they fundamentally any different from the messages of a thousand other Messengers, with a thousand other messages?

All of these can be assessed for Baha'u'llah since there is information about them which is readily available, given this is contemporary history, not ancient history.

The message of Baha'u'llah is fundamentally different from all the messages of the past because this is a whole new age which is fundamentally different from past ages. THis is the age of science and technology, a whole era.

In this new age we will see the fulfillment of all the promises of past religions.

I suspect that whatever message resonates best with the attitudes of the hearer, will be the message believed. No confirmatory evidence needed.

The message will have to resonate with the attitudes of the hearer, but it should be confirmed by an independent investigation of the Messenger.

 

[Koldo]

Reality (your mythical 'objective' reality, not the idea of reality that we all hold in our minds) is always true and always real. No exceptions. While facts are only true, if they are true at all, within the very limited context of a specific time, place, and cognitive perspective.

That is, once again, you using your own particular definition of a term (fact) that others in general simply don't share.

 

[MikeF]

These "facts" (directional proclamations) only correspond to reality in one very specific time and place. Everywhere else in the entire universe they will be shown to be false (not 'real'). So this is hardly a good example of how facts equal reality.

I think it would be more accurate to say that they factually represent a relationship between the house and pier for as long as that relationship exists. This relationship is between the existing things explicitly and implicitly described in reality and remains true no matter where one is in reality. There is no expectation or implication that this specific relationship should exist anywhere else other than wherever these objects, the planet earth, the house and pier, town blocks and roads, actually are. Your comment, "Everywhere else in the entire universe they will be shown to be false (not 'real'). ", is not valid. It does not make sense.

 

[Audie]

The question is clear and precise. "is x real?" / "does x exist?" is pretty straightforward.
You playing silly games with the world "real" doesn't change that.



"real" not being one of those ways.



Your silly semantics are noted.




Everyone else understands that when people ask "is x real" / "does x exist" in contexts such as this, they don't mean as characters in cartoons or dolls at the toy store or alike.



Apparantly it is for you.
When you have a burgler in your house, do you turn on your bat signal or do you call 911 (or whatever the number is where you live)?



You know the answer to this question.
I refuse to believe you are this simple minded.

What do we call refusal to believe the
obvious and well documented?

 

[Trailblazer]

All of this has been addressed by others at length already with answers like mine, but I'll answer you myself.

There need not be fallacy in an argument, but if there is, the conclusions will be unsound, meaning not correct and not fit to believe. You repeatedly say that the life and words of the messenger are evidence that he is channeling a deity. They don't if one uses standard, valid reasoning. If you say that YOUR way of reasoning DOES connect them, then you are employing some rogue logic that would contain fallacy if you wrote your argument out.

I never said that the life and words of the Messenger are evidence that he is channeling a deity, NEVER.
I said that nobody can ever prove that a Messenger is channeling a deity, all we can do is believe that. Any logical person could figure out why it can never be proven.

I said that we need to look at the following in order to decide whether or not we will believe that Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God.

1. His own Self, who He was, His character (His qualities)

2. His Revelation, what He accomplished (His Mission on earth/ the history of His Cause)

3. His Writings are additional evidence because they show who He was as a person, what He taught about God and other things, and what accomplished on His mission.

Personally, I don't think there are any steps between your evidence and your conclusion, which is essentially that your evidence implies a god without explaining how or why you think that. That fallacy? Non sequitur.

A non sequitur (Latin for "it does not follow"), in formal logic, is an invalid argument.[1] In a non sequitur, the conclusion could be either true or false (because there is a disconnect between the premises and the conclusion), but the argument nonetheless asserts the conclusion to be true and is thus fallacious. Formal fallacy - Wikipedia

As I have told you before, the existence of God and Messengers of God is not subject to a formal logical argument, since it can never be proven true.
As such, I am not asserting that it is true, I am only saying 'I believe' it is true.

MY way of reasoning DOES connect Baha'u'llah to God, but YOUR way of reasoning does not connect them. There is nothing 'rogue' about my reasoning, and your reasoning is no better than mine, it is just different.

I cannot make you reason the same way I reason since we are reasoning with two different minds. I can only explain why I reason the way I do, what led me to believe that Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God. It is not only about 1-3 above, it is a lot more than that. Initially, before becoming a Baha'i, I did not even look at 1-3. I believed that the Baha'i Faith was true on another basis. Only later did I look at 1-3.

It means that there is insufficient evidence to justify a god belief according to the standards of academia, courtrooms, and scientific peer review.

And there never will be sufficient evidence to justify a God belief according to the standards of academia, courtrooms, and scientific peer review because religion is not academics, science or law. To expect the evidence for a religion to be the same as the evidence for science or law is to commit the fallacy of false equivalence.

False equivalence is a logical fallacy in which an equivalence is drawn between two subjects based on flawed or false reasoning. This fallacy is categorized as a fallacy of inconsistency.[1] A colloquial expression of false equivalency is "comparing apples and oranges".

This fallacy is committed when one shared trait between two subjects is assumed to show equivalence, especially in order of magnitude, when equivalence is not necessarily the logical result.[2] False equivalence is a common result when an anecdotal similarity is pointed out as equal, but the claim of equivalence doesn't bear scrutiny because the similarity is based on oversimplification or ignorance of additional factors.
False equivalence - Wikipedia

The Meaning of Comparing Apples to Oranges When you're comparing apples to oranges, you're comparing two things that are fundamentally different and, therefore, shouldn't be compared.
Comparing Apples to Oranges - Idiom, Meaning & Origin

OK, but if that person believes in a god, they do so by faith, not reason.

That is nothing more than a personal opinion.
In my opinion, I believe in God based upon both reason and faith.

To say that God has to be believed on either reason or faith, that it cannot be both, is the either-or fallacy.

An either-or fallacy occurs when someone claims there are only two possible options or sides in an argument when there are actually more. This is a manipulative method that forces others to accept the speaker's viewpoint as legitimate, feasible, or ethical. Jul 23, 2023
What Is the Either-Or Fallacy? | Examples & Definition

It is also is the fallacy of black and white thinking.

The Black-or-White Fallacy is the provision of only two alternatives in an argument when there are actually more options available. ... It's also sometimes called the Gray Fallacy, between black and white options, or the middle-ground fallacy, after a middle ground between two warring camps.
black and white fallacy examples in politics - nazwa.pl

Thanks for your concern, but I've got this.

I don't think so, because you continually disregard the human cognitive process.

 

[Audie]

Some of them in fact have.
God is everywhere
God is everything
God is love
Just to name a few

Who made up those " facts"?

 

[MikeF]

So far not one of you complainers has managed to show how I am incorrect about ANYTHING I've posted.

Interesting ......

 

[Trailblazer]

You didn't answer his question. Can't say I'm surprised.

Evangelicalhumanist said:
Then let me ask you a clarifying question:

If you were a juror, in a murder case with capital punishment as a possible punishment, would you accept the kind of "evidence, which makes it reasonable, justified and evidence-based" as sufficient to condemn another human being to death? Or might you ask for something just a little more concrete, more epestemically JTB ("justified, true belief")? Remember, in such a jury trial, you -- all by yourself -- might well have another person's life within your hands.

I would ask for something concrete in a murder case with capital punishment as a possible punishment, but to expect the evidence for the existence of God to be the same as the evidence in a court of law is to commit the fallacy of false equivalence.

False equivalence is a logical fallacy in which an equivalence is drawn between two subjects based on flawed or false reasoning. This fallacy is categorized as a fallacy of inconsistency.[1] A colloquial expression of false equivalency is "comparing apples and oranges".

This fallacy is committed when one shared trait between two subjects is assumed to show equivalence, especially in order of magnitude, when equivalence is not necessarily the logical result.[2] False equivalence is a common result when an anecdotal similarity is pointed out as equal, but the claim of equivalence doesn't bear scrutiny because the similarity is based on oversimplification or ignorance of additional factors.
False equivalence - Wikipedia

The Meaning of Comparing Apples to Oranges When you're comparing apples to oranges, you're comparing two things that are fundamentally different and, therefore, shouldn't be compared.
Comparing Apples to Oranges - Idiom, Meaning & Origin

 

[Trailblazer]

Yet you have claimed that you KNOW God exists. You want it both ways.

I do know that God exists. I know by means of the second way listed below: Cognitive (Rational)

3 Ways to Know Something

There are 3 main ways.

1. Experiential (Empirical)

With experiential, you know something because you’ve “experienced” it – basically through your five senses (site, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.)

2. Cognitive (Rational)

With cognitive, you know something because you’ve thought your way through it, argued it, or rationalized it.

3. Constructed (Creational)

With constructed, you know something because you created it – and it may be subjective instead of objective and it may be based on convention or perception.

3 Ways to Know Something

There are videos of Bigfoot but all of them are questionable and inconclusive. Yet you believe claims of a God existing by a messenger IS conclusive?

The Messenger is not the ONLY reason I believe in God. There is much more to it than that.

I would say that the existence of all the great religions is the main reason that I believe in God. Of course, the Messengers are behind those religions so Messengers are another reason I believe in God.

 

[Trailblazer]

But at the end of the day, there was no real way of verifying if any of what they said was true

That's true. As I have always said, there is no way of 'verifying' the claims of any alleged Messenger.

 

[Valjean]

You might want to bear in mind that every religious poster is not the same, nor is every religion the same.
If you are reading what Christians say that is easy to debunk, but it is not as easy to debunk what Baha'is say.

The epistemic arguments are the same -- Kalam, watchmaker, prophesy, complexity, &c.