Maximilian
Energetic proclaimer of Jehovah God's Kingdom.
This is an argumentum assertio fallacy.
And this is an argumentum ex silentio fallacy.
Try again.
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Only the 'saved' will get into heaven!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Thread starter JJ50
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This is an argumentum assertio fallacy.
And this is an argumentum ex silentio fallacy.
Try again.
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
Translation: I do not have any evidence that God exists.
Since I don't believe in either (spirit or soul - the mind I do believe in), it might be difficult to persuade me, but I am not going to be repenting for all my past mistakes when this will likely cause more angst than just doing the best I am capable of in the present - as sensibly as I see it. I would certainly turn back time to erase some of my mistakes if that were possible though.
Hi again dear friend... I hope you are doing better and your ankles are healed....
Nobody really knows what is on the other side, in the spiritual world, but I got mad that more had not been revealed I scriptures so I did a little digging... As it so happens what I found was eerily similar to what is in the Baha’i Writings, as much as has been revealed, which is very little.....
To make a long story short, I think there are three states we can wind up in, heaven, hell, or points in between.... In between is the World of Spirits, which is kind of a receiving room, a waiting room, where souls gets sorted out. Nobody stays there indefinitely; from there, souls go to either heaven or hell, and it depends on if they are teachable whether they go to heaven or not...Some souls will never love God and Truth but rather they love only self and the world, and those souls will go to hell because heaven would be very uncomfortable for them since they would hate the Light of God that is in heaven.
Moreover, there are three levels of heaven. Only angels live in heaven, and there are different kinds of angels who go to the different heavens, depending upon how close they are to God and Truth...
That is it in a nutshell, but I can tell you more if you are interested.
I have read more than one book on this subject, but the one with the most detail is entitled Heaven and Hell.
I suggest everyone read that book, because the afterlife is really no laughing matter.
I am not saying that everything in the book is exactly what we will experience, but I think that the general lay of the land is fairly accurate.
Hello
I hope you are well too, and that you have tamed your problems. It has taken a surprising amount of time for the ankles to heal (one at least) but they are reasonably OK now. The garden has become overgrown and I am currently battling obstinate nature to regain control. I WILL win. As I've probably mentioned before, I am very slightly agnostic as to any creator, very, very slightly, but that doesn't extend to religious beliefs - of which I have none and can't see any that we humans have as being at all relevant - apart from their comfort value. The vastness of space, numbers of stars, planets, and galaxies etc., together with the distances involved, has me feeling rather humble when contemplating all this and the short lives we have.
Somehow all this doesn't have me seeking after any truth offered by a religious viewpoint though, especially when messy old humans are much more likely to be creating their own problems than obtaining relief from any possible divine source.
I've been doing quite a bit of reading too - even some anti-religious stuff (Harris, AJ Taylor, Loftus, etc.) - when Dawkins was probably the only one I had read previously. I've read Harari's two main works, along with many other books too. I'm afraid it would feel like torture to read any pro-religious books when the fundamental premises I just cannot accept, and where that is the starting point all too often.
As for an afterlife, I will have to accept what will be, but I'm not expecting anything.
Bye for now.
Tiny edit: AJ Taylor should be AC Grayling.
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Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Evil is not a created thing.... evil is the absence of good.
God created humans with free will, and humans are responsible for the evil in the world because they choose evil over good.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
God did not write the Bible.
Not at all, Baha’u’llah believed what He said to be true, which doesn’t make Him a liar, just a person who made a mistake, and to err is human after all.
Maximilian
Energetic proclaimer of Jehovah God's Kingdom.
God did not write the Bible.
Yet he is its author, as Bahá'u'lláh certainly understood.
It seems you dispute his teachings.
Maximilian
Energetic proclaimer of Jehovah God's Kingdom.
Then why would anyone follow his teachings?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Well, I am glad that they have healed, it has been a long time...Hello
Our yard got so bad that I finally hired a handyman to come and mow the lawn and cut back all the blackberry bushed as they were growing all the way across the back yard and approaching the house, it was scarier than aliens...
Well, I understand how you feel about religion. I am not involved with it, I just believe in the one I have because its teachings make sense to me...
God, well, is another story. I believe He exists, but that's about it. Humans sure have messed up what God revealed through the Messengers such that it is barely decipherable to be from God at all.
I like those afterlife books because they are not religious, or pro-religious... I am presently reading Heaven and Hell and it is rather deep and some of it is difficult to grasp so I will have to re-read it later.
That is a good attitude to have.... when we die it will BE whatever it will be, and there is not anything we can do about it, just as we cannot do anything about having been born into this world.As for an afterlife, I will have to accept what will be, but I'm not expecting anything.
Bye for now.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
What teachings say that God was the author of the Bible?
"of God" does not mean God wrote the Bible. Everyone knows that God did not write the Bible.
From the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh:
The Four Gospels were written after Him [Christ]. John, Luke, Mark and Matthew - these four wrote after Christ what they remembered of His utterances.
(From a previously untranslated Tablet)
The Bible
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Or it could have been mistranslated from Persian or Arabic into English..
But to say the verses were "of God" does not mean God wrote the Bible.
Some do it because they don’t believe that the Prophets erred, but I do it because I believe that as humans we are capable of sorting that which is true from that which is not to arrive at our own personal versions of truth.
I see personal truth as much more authentic than having to accept beliefs just because a religion dictates them.
That may be your personal truth, but the Baha'i teaching is that Shoghi Effendi was an infallible interpreter according to my understanding.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Baha'u'llah did not make a mistake, because He, like Jesus, was infallible.
But just as with Jesus, some people misunderstand what Baha'ullah meant by what He said.
Just as with Jesus, we have to read other scriptures that Baha'u'llah has written, not just one verse.
They are not contradictory if we understand what they mean.
Even the most avid Christians I know who have degrees in theology do not believe the Bible is inerrant. It can't be, given how it came to be recorded. Some authoritative Baha'i positions on the Bible are as follows and more can be found on that link at the bottom.
From the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh:
The Four Gospels were written after Him [Christ]. John, Luke, Mark and Matthew - these four wrote after Christ what they remembered of His utterances.
(From a previously untranslated Tablet)
From Letters Written on Behalf of the Guardian:
...The Bible is not wholly authentic, and in this respect is not to be compared with the Qur'an, and should be wholly subordinated to the authentic writings of Bahá'u'lláh.
(28 July 1936 to a National Spiritual Assembly)
...we cannot be sure how much or how little of the four Gospels are accurate and include the words of Christ and His undiluted teachings, all we can be sure of, as Bahá'ís, is that what has been quoted by Bahá'u'lláh and the Master must be absolutely authentic. As many times passages in the Gospel of St. John are quoted we may assume that it is his Gospel and much of it accurate.
(23 January 1944 to an individual believer)
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá states we believe what is in the Bible, He means in substance. Not that we believe every word of it to be taken literally or that every word is the authentic saying of the Prophet.
(11 February 1944 to an individual believer)
We cannot be sure of the authenticity of any of the phrases in the Old or the New Testament. What we can be sure of is when such references or words are cited or quoted in either the Quran or the Bahá'í writings.
(4 July 1947 to an individual believer)
Except for what has been explained by Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, we have no way of knowing what various symbolic allusions in the Bible mean.
(31 January 1955 to an individual believer)
From letters written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice:
In studying the Bible Bahá'ís must bear two principles in mind. The first is that many passages in Sacred Scriptures are intended to be taken metaphorically, not literally, and some of the paradoxes and apparent contradictions which appear are intended to indicate this. The second is the fact that the text of the early Scriptures, such as the Bible, is not wholly authentic.
(28 May 1984 to an individual believer)
...The Bahá'ís believe that God's Revelation is under His care and protection and that the essence, or essential elements, of what His Manifestations intended to convey has been recorded and preserved in Their Holy Books. However, as the sayings of the ancient Prophets were written down some time later, we cannot categorically state, as we do in the case of the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, that the words and phrases attributed to Them are Their exact words.
(9 August 1984 to an individual believer)
The Bible: Extracts on the Old and New Testaments
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I do not believe that Shoghi Effendi was infallible. That is a stretch.
Only Manifestations of God are infallible, but what we get from them has to go through fallible men so that can create some problems.
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
Well in that case a lot of Christian's faith is dead! They don't do anything worthwhile, forcing their faith down the throats of others certainly isn't a good thing.
You're preaching to the choir, my friend.
I don’t think He is responsible of people’s evil choices. If God would have made people to do evil things, then He would have responsibility of the actions.
Spartan
Well-Known Member
I've seldom seen anyone with a more screwed up view of the Bible than you do.
I don't see good and evil existing outside the human psyche. As I see it, they are nothing more than human constructs that serve no other purpose than to pass judgment.