I have an explanation for those who ask, but first let me remind you of
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."
This type of argument is known by several names,
[1] including
appeal to the masses,
appeal to belief,
appeal to the majority,
appeal to democracy,
appeal to popularity,
argument by consensus,
consensus fallacy,
authority of the many,
bandwagon fallacy,
Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia
The converse of this is that
if many or most people do not believe it, it cannot be so, and that is fallacious.
The Narrow Way
13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because[a] narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew 7:13-14 )
Why do you think that more people would believe the Baha'i Faith if it was indeed true? Why do you think that few find it believable? I can give you a list of reasons why they either don't find it and if they do find it why they don't believe it.
1. Many people have never heard of the Baha’i Faith, so they do not know there is something to look for. It is the responsibility of the Baha’is to get the message out, so if that is not happening, the Baha’is are to blame. However, once the message has been delivered the Baha’is are not to blame if people reject the message.
2. But even after people know about the Baha’i Faith, most people are not even willing to look the evidence in order to determine if it is true or not.
3. Even if they are willing to look at the evidence, there is a lot of prejudice before even getting out the door to look at the evidence.
4. 84% of people in the world already have a religion and they are happy with their religion so they have no interest in a “new religion.”
84 percent of the world population has a faith
5. The rest of the world’s population is agnostics or atheists or believers who are prejudiced against all religion.
6. Agnostics or atheists and atheists and believers who have no religion either do not believe that God communicates via Messengers or they find fault with the Messenger, Baha’u’llah.
7. Baha’u’llah brought new teachings and laws that are very different from the older religions so many people are suspicious of those teachings and/or don’t like the laws because some laws require them to give things up that they like doing.
Because those who became Baha'is LOOKED. They found out about the Baha'i Faith and they researched and investigated it and came to believe it is true.
How would people even KNOW about these prophecies unless they LOOKED for them?
All religions grow larger over time. There are
2.4 billion Christians because Christianity has been around for over 2000 years. There are
1.9 billion Muslims because Islam has been around for over 1400 years. The Baha'i Faith has only been around for about 160 years.
Moreover, as is noted on my list above, (#4) most people (84%) already have a religion so they have no reason to join a new religion unless they are dissatisfied with their religion, but since most religious people were raised in the religion they belong to they are entrenched in that religion.
See list of reasons 1-7 above.
See list of reasons 1-7 above.
No, because all 2 billion of them (let alone all 8 billion) have not LOOKED at these prophecies and HOW they were fulfilled by Baha'u'llah. Only a small handfull of people even KNOW about these prophecies and HOW they were fulfilled, as depicted in a book entitled
Thief in the Night by William Sears
I find it VERY reasonable given there are logical explanations as to why more people do not even know about the Baha'i Faith, let alone knowing about the prophecies that were fulfilled by Baha'u'llah. I have been a Baha'i for 52 years but I never knew about these prophecies until the last 10 years or so, because another Baha'i told me about them..
This explanation atheists give, that we believe it because we
want to believe it is just their way of saying that we have no other reason to believe it since there is no supporting evidence. However, the only reason I do believe it is because of the evidence. Being a Baha'i is not a walk in the park. It'd be much easier to be a Christian, saved and forgiven without having to do anything but believe in Jesus.
Simply put, the prophecies are valid and real because they have been fulfilled. All one need to is compare what the prophecy says with what actually happened on the ground to know they have been fulfilled. This is all a matter of history and geography.
