Problems with the Baha'i faith

[Dawnofhope]

1.4
As to thy question concerning the heavenly Scriptures: The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and centre your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.


Thanks for providing the reference.
I agree with the argument given in the passage given above.
But it is from a tabernacle not from a Kitab/book written by Baha'u'llah.
My question is/was about the "Manifestations of God" which is a term used by Bahais, often. Baha'u'llah has not reflected on this in the passage.
Please quote from a Kitab/book written by Baha'u'llah on this or where he has claimed of himself being a prophet/messenger of God, and not a god per se, in unequivocal terms.
Regards

Baha'u'llah wrote many tablets and letters as well as books. They are all authoritative sacred scripture for us as the Quran is for the Muslims. Just because a tablet or letter is not a book, does not make it any less authoritative.

The quotation provided above as well as the other three are all from Baha'u'llah's or God's Revelation to humanity.

Accessing Baha'u'llah's writings in English is as easy as accessing an English translation of the Quran. I have provided you with the relevant links.

 

[Dawnofhope]

There is no doubt that I will have accept the outcome of my interpretative choices. I am always open to claims that run counter to my own, and at times have changed my mind about a few verses. However between your interpretations and mine I find fault with yours. I concluded the bulk of my core biblical doctrine in a vacuum. It was just me, the bible, the Holy spirit, Christ, and the father. I spent a year established me core beliefs and to my surprise they were almost exactly the same as mainstream Christianity. I find very few disagreements between my understanding of the bible and the great Christian theologians and commentators, but I find almost universal disagreement between Baha'ism and those same sources.

Here are some points of agreement between us:

We believe in an Omnipotent, All-Powerful God.
God has created the universe and all that exists
God has qualities of Love and Justice
God is concerned for His creation
Man is a special part of His creation and we have been created in His image
God out of concern for His creation and humanity has guided us through Great Teachers and/or prophets
One of those Great/Teachers or Prophets (Jesus) is exalted above all humans
God expects us to make a great effort to live in accordance with His teachings and to have Faith in Jesus
The OT prophets have provided God's guidance to the Jewish peoples
The Bible has a record of Jesus, the apostles, and the OT prophets
Jesus, the apostles, and the OT prophets we guided by God's unerring spirit
The Bible should be considered authentic and authoritative
We should love God with all our being and love our neighbours and enemies as Jesus taught
We should forgive others
We should be good as God is good
We believe that we have a soul and that there is an afterlife
We believe that evil is a real problem
We believe that Christ promised He would return and spoke of the signs that would accompany His Return.
The Returned Christ will bring in a new age or era in human history.
Jesus is the 'Son of God'
'Salvation' is intimately associated with Christ.
Jesus was crucified
His sacrifice enabled our salvation
The resurrection is a concept/reality of profound significance and importance

The bible concerns things that change little over time. It is concerned mainly with heaven, hell, sin, morality, salvation, meaning, purpose, origins, destinations, etc..... not technology, fashion, or anything that is opinion or preference based.

Not true. The bible concerns both things that change little over time and the exigencies of social/cultural circumstances.

How many of the 613 Jewish laws or Mitzvah?

In regards to the NT it is a male dominated world, slavery is the norm, and the world is run by empires. There is no global perspective.

How about this gem from the apostle Paul?

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.
And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
1 Corinthians 14:34-35

Eternal law of transient?

No, you just see that it contradicts your own interpretations of the bible. It's just one subjective opinion versus another. The weight of numbers is overwhelmingly on the side of my own interpretations but that doesn't make them right. We each have to do the best we can and live with the result.

I recall we previously agreed the numbers arguments was problematic? Playing the devils advocate, the 67% of the worlds population that are not Christian's must mean that Christianity is not true. Right!?

I do not know what part of the world you live in, but in my country (New Zealand) numbers of Christians are falling rapidly. It is anticipated that the number of those with no religion are set to overtake the numbers of Christians. Should we assume that having no religion is the best position?

Then why do billions claim to have received exactly what the bible promised in response to faith? We can't test each other, but we must each test our faith. God says that anyone who diligently seeks him will find him. I diligently sought him and actually found him. How is that untestable?

According to Pew research the world wide numbers of Muslims will overtake Christians by the end of the century. Does that mean Islam is right?

1. The point was that whatever God's nature is would determine what moral ontology would be by necessity.

That's reasonable.

2. If Allah exists I would consider him evil, yet Allah would exist just the same. There is no reason to suggest a God that we would consider evil couldn't exist. I just do not see any evidence that one does.

Allah is of course another word for God, and there is just one. The attributes of God in Islam seem remarkably similar to Christianity.

Yet there was only one philosopher's position that was actually right if they contradicted each other. There is only one true answer for each theological question, regardless of how many religions exist.

Heard of selective abstraction?

Yeah, were so hopeless we grow by the population of Nevada annually. We are also so much like everyone else we gather in exclusive groups between 1 and 3 times per week. We also compose the most generous demographic on Earth. You might as well have stated that bamboo is hopelessly stunted.

I've addressed the problem with this type of argument above.

If so I know which group corrupted them the most.

It could be a closer contest between Christianity and Islam than you think.

For pity's sake 78% of Nobel Laureates are Christian and much of the rest are Jews, science and the bible do quite well together.

So that makes genesis literally true?

As such, young Earth creationism is dismissed by the academic and the scientific communities. One 1987 estimate found that "700 scientists ... (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) ... give credence to creation-science".

Young Earth creationism - Wikipedia

So who has the numbers now?

That must be why we are the largest religion in human history then.

95% of Germany considered themselves Christian when Hitler was elected.

Heard of anti- Semitism?

Antisemitism - Wikipedia

How about the Hippocratic Oath:

Hippocratic Oath - Wikipedia

 

[CG Didymus]

Here are some points of agreement between us:

We believe in an Omnipotent, All-Powerful God.
God has created the universe and all that exists
God has qualities of Love and Justice
God is concerned for His creation
Man is a special part of His creation and we have been created in His image
God out of concern for His creation and humanity has guided us through Great Teachers and/or prophets
One of those Great/Teachers or Prophets (Jesus) is exalted above all humans
God expects us to make a great effort to live in accordance with His teachings and to have Faith in Jesus
The OT prophets have provided God's guidance to the Jewish peoples
The Bible has a record of Jesus, the apostles, and the OT prophets
Jesus, the apostles, and the OT prophets we guided by God's unerring spirit
The Bible should be considered authentic and authoritative
We should love God with all our being and love our neighbours and enemies as Jesus taught
We should forgive others
We should be good as God is good
We believe that we have a soul and that there is an afterlife
We believe that evil is a real problem
We believe that Christ promised He would return and spoke of the signs that would accompany His Return.
The Returned Christ will bring in a new age or era in human history.
Jesus is the 'Son of God'
'Salvation' is intimately associated with Christ.
Jesus was crucified
His sacrifice enabled our salvation
The resurrection is a concept/reality of profound significance and importance

Well, it's nice that you are trying to find common ground. However, how far past these statements do the two religions diverge?

 

[Dawnofhope]

Well, it's nice that you are trying to find common ground. However, how far past these statements do the two religions diverge?

• The Divinity of Jesus

• The sinful nature of mankind and its origins with Adam's fall

• Physical resurrection

• The Triune nature of the Godhead

• The manner in which Christ's sacrifice on the cross saves

• The existence of a physical being called Satan

• The exclusivity of Jesus's claims

• The return of Jesus: when, its purpose and what it will accomplish

• The nature of the afterlife

 

[1robin]

No it does not correlate. Culture is the atmosphere in which we live and breath, eat and sleep, and perceive and hold our ideas. It's very much as the Apostle Paul quoting the Greeks said, "In him we live and move and have our being". It is invisible to you, yet it is everywhere and in you, and you in it. Don't mistake seeing the artifacts of culture, such as dress and trends, with culture as a thing in itself. Until you become self-aware enough, you can't see it. And even then, when you can see it, it's still there in areas you don't even know about yet. To imagine your thoughts and ideas exists entirely independent of culture, is a signal of being completely asleep in its arms.

You reject my analogy, then go on to use it yourself. Remarkable.

Whatever culture is, it does not compel absolute submissiveness to it. That is why you find many theological world views in just about every culture on earth. Heck, the members of my tiny church have serious dogmatic differences.

Culture does not explain the resurrection, no resurrection had ever occurred in Hebrew culture before Christ. Christianity arose as a complete counter culture, Christ has been called the original revolutionary.

What on earth makes you think I am? Why would I need to?

Because that's exactly where you were heading. Any argument that mentions consciousness requires a definition of it.

No we don't need to look at that. I think we can just called it modes of awareness and be safe here. I think most anyone can agree on that. What Charles Tart is examining as a researcher are states of consciousness. It's not grappling with the "hard question" at all, but simply examining the various states of consciousness we all know that humans inhabit, such as a dreaming state, a waking state, and the various stages of higher states of consciousness that we can experience through meditation practices, peak experiences, and the like.

So before you even attempt to describe consciousness its self you introduce the "states" of what you failed to describe. No one knows much of anything about consciousness other than we apprehend it's existence.

Don't be ridiculous. He is a researcher using scientific methods of inquiry. He, and other researchers like him, have produced maps of human consciousness which prove to be consistent when examining people of any culture. These are states of the mind itself he is looking at where culture is not a factor.

Where culture is a factor in these ASCs (altered states of consciousness), is for example someone having a subtle level state experience such as a religious vision, that experience will manifest for that particular person with the images and symbols of his culture. For instance, a devout Christian believer may experience an encounter with the risen Jesus Christ, or the Virgin Mary, or one of the saints. A Buddhist practitioner may experience a thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara, a Bodhisattva, etc. A Hindu, the Lord Krishna, and so forth. Even at these levels of consciousness, culture is in fact there. But what Tart and others are examining are the types of experience, and the things experienced are recognized as cultural artifacts.

It's fascinating and highly informative to look into these. If you wish to expand your knowledge here, this might be a good read for you to : https://s3.amazonaws.com/cttart/art...me+kind+of+(self)hypnosis+-+a+deeper+look.pdf

Mr. Tarts conclusion was that everyone's entire worldview is imposed on them by culture and is not actually true. If so then his theory was imposed on him by his culture and by his own criteria is therefore not true. It's a tautology.

Regardless, I did not experience any cultural artifact. It was a spiritual experience, not a sensory experience. I had absolutely zero cultural expectations concerning what I experienced.

I wouldn't say that, I would say it's true in a great many differering ways to a great many people. It's true for them even when it contradicts its truth for other people. Heck, I'll bet you bottom dollar we disagree with what it teaches. Yet's is true for you in your way, and true for me in my way. Isn't it fun that way?

Truth claims are exclusive claims. There is only one answer to 2 + 2 =. Not a different answer for each person. Christ died on that cross or not, he was resurrected or not, he paid for my sins or not. God is not a schizophrenia. If our interpretations of a verse contradict each other then either 1 or neither of us are right.

And this is a law of the universe? In my understanding this is a rule of formal logic. But you know that logic has its limits, don't you? As many have said similar things, "...logic, the refuge of fools. The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logicians—and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and worse," ~ H. L. Mencken.

Actually it appears that abstract concepts (like logic and mathematics) if they exist, are less limited than the universe. They appear to transcend nature.

When it comes to things like "truth", while they have logical consistency, that is typically internally true, not universally true. Within a particular culture, they will hold certain truths to be valid for themselves, and they develop systems of logic to bolster and support that for themselves. But that same system of logic won't work in another culture with another system of truth. Yet, they are holding truth for themselves.

What particular "truth" are you talking about? All claims to knowledge have differing levels of reliability.

Truth, in cultural contexts, is a functional focal point of mutual agreement. They are not "laws" of the universe. They are not cosmic laws. And as I have said before, since humans live in a relative plain of existence because of the limits of the human mind, we are not capable of holding a truth absolutely.

Everything you say seems to be a premise for a conclusion you never make. Yes cultures exist, so what?

Now, you're going to make a big deal of me saying that as some "absolute", and thus falling into a performative contradiction. And I'll answer that this way. There is nothing in our experience to indicate our minds are capable of knowing absolutes as propositional truths. Every indication based on our knowledge of how our minds work, and due the fact that language itself is a dualistic construct artificially imposed on reality itself which would inherently limit absolute understanding, it is entirely safe to say there is virtually no hope whatsoever of that being possible.

There is no reason what so ever to claim that our brains cannot accurately account for much of external reality. In fact it is almost miraculous that our brains seemed to be specifically designed to apprehend facts external to its self. If you actually study consciousness this is called the "about-ness" issue. I have every warrant imaginable to trust my experience unless I also apprehend a defeater.

So virtually impossible, I can just shortcut a full paragraph explanation as say, "It's not possible", even though I understand I cannot make absolute statements, absolutely. Sure, it's "possible", but given the facts we know about the human mind in this day and age, it's infinitesimally improbable, or "impossible" to just shortcut that. Ok? I wouldn't resort to semantics to make a case against what I am arguing.

I mentioned that two contradictory claims to truth cannot both be true in the same way at the same time, and the above is what you respond with? Nothing you said was relevant to what I said.

I don't view one's religion as a "bet". God is a lot bigger than our mythologies about him. I view religion as a tool to help us. The truth of these are gauged not in logic arguments, such as you present, but in the functionality of them. Do they produce good fruit? If the answer is yes, then they serve us in knowing God. Jesus argues this himself. "By their fruit you shall know them," not by their arguments based on the law of noncontradiction.

... I finish my response later.....

God in theism is personal and both could and should reveal himself to us. Deism is irrelevant, pantheism is redundant, paganism is contingent, and atheism is incoherent. The only meaningful God would be a relational being.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

• The Divinity of Jesus

• The sinful nature of mankind and its origins with Adam's fall

• Physical resurrection

• The Triune nature of the Godhead

• The manner in which Christ's sacrifice on the cross saves

• The existence of a physical being called Satan

• The exclusivity of Jesus's claims

• The return of Jesus: when, its purpose and what it will accomplish

• The nature of the afterlife

Actually, reading I cant see how christianity has a common ground with bahai. On each of these, bahai sees differently.

Okay.

Carry on.

 

[1robin]

But the people who redacted the texts, and those who gathered them together in collections, and those who taught from them, all layered their own understandings of these into them. How the Bible came to be is a fascinating topic of study of modern scholarship. There are many texts that hit the cutting room floor because it didn't fit the theme these folks were trying to teach. And those people were not the apostle and the prophets, but members of much later church councils. What you read and understand as "God's word" is the product of humans trying to produce the message they though you should hear and believe.

I have only a finite amount of time and I seem to attract the most prolific posters so I must be brunt and brief by necessity.

Biblical criticism may be the most scrutinized subject in human history. Even the bible's critics like Bart Ehrman consider the modern bible (95%) and theologians (about 99.5%) accurate compared with the original documents. That is why every modern bible you open has every suspicious verse, translation, or word pointed out along with the history and nature of the uncertainty.

They all got fulfilled by someone reading meaning back into the texts to make them fit. Or, they were written after the facts themselves, such as Jesus "predicting" the temple would be torn down.

For Pity's sake, are you actually claiming that Nebuchadnezzar and then Alexander the Great wiped Tyre (an island super fortress) off the map to make Ezekiel look like a prophet? And that Britain wanted to make Daniel come true so bad they created the nation of Israel on the exact day necessary to do so? What about Satan, is he so obedient to God that he will volunteer to swan dive into the lake of fire and be consumed?

Your hemorrhaging credibility.

I don't need to believe in magic, to believe in Jesus. I don't need to "believe in the Bible", in order to believe in God. To make those a requirement, would destroy faith for a great many. Why do you suppose there is such a steep rise in atheism these days?

Magic doesn't exist but Jesus did claim to have supernatural power, thousands witnessed that power, and Christ quoted from those scriptures you dismiss. If you believe in a God which lacks the power to resurrect you of what relevance is he?

It is entirely supportable. I have been presenting the reasons why in all of these posts, and there is a lot more I haven't yet.

I do not know if it is supportable or not, but I do know you didn't support it.

Why? I believe God exists, and I believe God is personal. I don't believe that truth negates anything I am saying whatsoever. Why do you believe it would? How does it negate what I'm saying?

From the above you apparently believe in an inert God.

Are we talking about believing in the Bible, or believing in God? Those are two entirely different things. As for the scholarship about the Bible, I'd recommend exposing yourself to the works of modern scholars, and not rely on what some apoligist says about them trying to dismiss them. But aside from that, I can very comfortably hold that the Bible is not a work of perfect dictation from God, and still fully believe in God.

The bible, by far, is the most accepted guide concerning finding God. Heck, even other faith's try to gain credibility by proxy by association with it. The bible's sovereignty over any other claim to faith is total. Do you adhere to any text, or just make it up as you go?

Why do you make belief in the Bible the same as belief in God? Humans wrote their beliefs about God on the pages. I have beliefs about God too. Do you have to accept my beliefs as a requirement for your faith in God? To put it simply, God, literally, is a reality, beyond belief. If you tie your beliefs about God, to God himself, then at best you will only know your beliefs, not God. How can you possible hope to grow or learn when you insist you know already?

Those authors said they wrote as the Holy Spirit spoke. Now either they were liars or the bible is the word of God. It's been 2000 years, point out a single lie. God is not beyond belief, that does not even make sense, and your contradicting yourself. Your doing more damage to your position than I can.

I don't have a problem defining God that way, but here is the problem with how you are applying that to what I said. I was talking about the complexities of knowledge and knowing at the various levels of reality. Understanding where a moon of jupiter will be in the night sky a thousand years from now is easily predictable because orbits are relatively stable systems and follow predictable patterns. Now while someone at Nasa could accurately do that for you, that same person could not predict where he dog might go 10 seconds from now! Why? because of dog is considerably more complex that a rock in motion in space!

It is not because a dog is complex, it is because a dog's will has no known laws to predict it.

To understand more complex systems, such as the human mind and behavior, you cannot apply math principles to it! If you could, someone would use that to own all the money in the world, precisely predicting where stocks would make them money tomorrow.

They apply math to the mind all the time. However math alone does not explain the mind. Math is an explanation but not a sufficient explanation for the mind.

You sure do spend a lot of time spinning your wheels. I have to break this into two post. Continued below.

 

[1robin]

Now while God is "simplicity" itself, while God is the Ground of all Being, God is not system which is either simple or complex. God is both the Ground, and the Goal. God is the Alpha, and the Omega. God is the foundation, and the height of all being. God is the Source, and the Summit. God is both outside, and inside. You don't measure God using math or logic or beliefs, or any such thing. God is as simple as a flow, yet holds the entire universe in a single thought. That's God, not your formulas you think proves God.

A disembodied mind is literally the simplest thing imaginable. What it can do is complex.

So what you are stuck with then is exactly what I said that when it comes to things like morality, that is vastly more complex that citing math formulas to show how simple it really is. It isn't simple, and saying God "tells" you things like this in a book, is quite naive and inaccurate. These are social rules and norms put into the mouth of a tribe's deity to give them force and importance. Some are valid today, some are not. It's that simple, really. And knowing that, does not equate to not believing in God. Faith is far larger and not based on that sort of thing. It's based on what transcends it, and comes before it. The Ground, and the Goal. That's faith.

As I said a disembodied mind is the simplest concept possible, but it can do the most complex things imaginable.

Developmental theory from many different developmentalists. It also is looking at knowledge acquisition, some of which I was touching on relates back to: Jürgen Habermas - Wikipedia It also follows the great chain of being, from matter, to body, to mind, to soul, to spirit, and so forth. Each of these are different levels of complexity, from atoms to molecules, to cells, to bodies, to mind, etc. The more complex something is, the different modes of knowing, such as the complexity sciences, hermeneutics, and not to omit, mystical states of awareness. If you want to really crack the nut on some of this stuff I could recommend some books for you. But in the meantime, just understand that this is all very well researched by a great many researchers in a great many fields, such as Lawrence Kohlberg in this one area alone: Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development - Wikipedia

Sounds like a conversation held by a bunch of 15 year olds smoking pot. I have a degree in math which requires quite a bit of calculus based physics, however I can't use any of it on your claims because your not really saying anything. How on earth you got being, matter, body, mind, soul, spirit, atoms, molecules, cells, bodies, mind, hermeneutics, states of awareness into a single paragraph without actually making a point about a single one of them is quite appalling.

While I believe in God as the Source of all that is and ever will be, I have a real problem injecting human standards as "laws" that come from Him. I can dispute that on many levels, not the least of which is understanding God as an anthropomorphic projection of ourselves to that which wholly transcends our very finite and relative existence.

Your God is too impotent and negligent to even matter. If a God would create beings without explaining what was good or bad for them he would be more evil that parents who neglect their children. Morality is not our projecting anything on God. Most moral values and duties are inconvenient and go against what we actually want to do.

We've learned quite a lot more since that time. There are things that violate these "rational laws" we assumed were there, such as Quantum Theory. It's all very vastly more "fuzzy" that what we first presumed based on what we imagined about God.

That isn't what I said. No one ever wrote an equation because of what he thought about God. I said that modern science only appeared in Christian Europe because Christians assumed a rational God would create a rational universe. It turned out they were right. The universe is lawful. Their faith didn't create calculus, it made them look for it.

One quick example of that would be Copernicus. He had the orbit of mars doing a retrograde loop to explain why some times of the year it would be ahead of us, and other times behind us. Why was he doing that? Because he believe since God created the planets He would have placed them in perfect circles. God would not create imperfect orbits. But once he allowed himself to imagine God may be doing something different than following the perfect "laws" he projected on to Him, and he created imperfect, elliptical orbits, voila, the orbits made sense!

Of course scientists made mistakes, does not change the fact that modern science exploded only in Christian Europe. 78% of Nobel Laureates have been Christians and many of the rest are Jews.

So guess what? Science revealed something new about God to him! It's too bad Christians wish to bury their heads in the sand and deny science today, rather than learn about God. It all begins by setting aside what you think you know about God and being open to knowledge.

What the heck are you talking about? I work in a DOD avionics lab, with a PhD, a guy with two masters degrees, a guy with a masters and a bachelors, one cousin has a doctorate, another a masters, my sister has a masters, and my younger brother is a national merit scholarship winner. That is just my job and my family and they are 100% Christians. Look at any list of science's greatest scholars and it will be a who's who of Christians. I used to paste a list of them but it takes almost the whole post to do so.

You should study some of the complexity sciences. Sometimes an effect precedes causes.

First of all I have two degrees in math and am a senior in a third in engineering. Second no effect has ever been known to precede it's cause.

I believe God exists. My conclusion is not white noise. It's has substantial depth and support to it. That you can't hear it because it's too more detail for you to take in, might explain why what hear is just noise. I'd suggest maybe taking in smaller amounts of data, and give me the benefit of the doubt that I'm really informed about this stuff I'm presenting?

I know I am just too dumb to see how smart you are.

I think I am going to call a halt here. You are requiring more time than I can justify. BTW if you want to see someone who actually knows how to debate about science and is on your side of things read some of Polymath257's posts to me. I disagree with him/her but they are competent and rational. What your doing is metaphysical speculation, normally referred to as Gnosticism and IMO it is extremely unwise. No hard feelings but theological debates take place on derivation, revelation, or inferences to the best conclusions, not on mere speculation.

 

[paarsurrey]

1.4
As to thy question concerning the heavenly Scriptures: The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and centre your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.


Thanks for providing the reference.
I agree with the argument given in the passage given above.
But it is from a tabernacle not from a Kitab/book written by Baha'u'llah.
My question is/was about the "Manifestations of God" which is a term used by Bahais, often. Baha'u'llah has not reflected on this in the passage.
Please quote from a Kitab/book written by Baha'u'llah on this or where he has claimed of himself being a prophet/messenger of God, and not a god per se, in unequivocal terms.
Regards

To add further.
The argument has already been given in Quran:

[14:25] Dost thou not see how Allah sets forth the similitude of a good word? It is like a good tree, whose root is firm and whose branches reach into heaven.

[14:26] It brings forth its fruit at all times by the command of its Lord. And Allah sets forth similitudes for men that they may reflect.

[14:27] And the case of an evil word is like that of an evil tree, which is uprooted from above the earth and has no stability.

[14:28] Allah strengthens the believers with the word that is firmly established, both in the present life and in the Hereafter; and Allah lets the wrongdoers go astray. And Allah does what He wills.

The Holy Quran Arabic text with Translation in English text and Search Engine - Al Islam Online

So, as per these verses of Quran, Quran is for every age to come and there could no Revelation come to replace Quran. And if one claims to have Revelation that is to replace Quran, that would be only an evil tree, nothing to do with Quran. Please
Regards

 

[LuisDantas]

Why an evil tree, @paarsurrey ?

Is it so difficult to accept that people may advance on their knowledge - even their religious knowledge - after around 1400 years?

 

[InvestigateTruth]

To add further.
The argument has already been given in Quran:

[14:25] Dost thou not see how Allah sets forth the similitude of a good word? It is like a good tree, whose root is firm and whose branches reach into heaven.

[14:26] It brings forth its fruit at all times by the command of its Lord. And Allah sets forth similitudes for men that they may reflect.

[14:27] And the case of an evil word is like that of an evil tree, which is uprooted from above the earth and has no stability.

[14:28] Allah strengthens the believers with the word that is firmly established, both in the present life and in the Hereafter; and Allah lets the wrongdoers go astray. And Allah does what He wills.

The Holy Quran Arabic text with Translation in English text and Search Engine - Al Islam Online

So, as per these verses of Quran, Quran is for every age to come and there could no Revelation come to replace Quran. And if one claims to have Revelation that is to replace Quran, that would be only an evil tree, nothing to do with Quran. Please
Regards

Abdulbaha Answers:


"From the days of Adam until today, the religions of God have been made manifest, one following the other, and each one of them fulfilled its due function, revived mankind, and provided education and enlightenment. They freed the people from the darkness of the world of nature and ushered them into the brightness of the Kingdom. As each succeeding Faith and Law became revealed it remained for some centuries a richly fruitful tree and to it was committed the happiness of humankind. However, as the centuries rolled by, it aged, it flourished no more and put forth no fruit, wherefore was it then made young again.
The religion of God is one religion, but it must ever be renewed. Moses, for example, was sent forth to man and He established a Law, and the Children of Israel, through that Mosaic Law, were delivered out of their ignorance and came into the light; they were lifted up from their abjectness and attained to a glory that fadeth not. Still, as the long years wore on, that radiance passed by, that splendour set, that bright day turned to night; and once that night grew triply dark, the star of the Messiah dawned, so that again a glory lit the world.
Our meaning is this: the religion of God is one, and it is the educator of humankind, but still, it needs must be made new. When thou dost plant a tree, its height increaseth day by day. It putteth forth blossoms and leaves and luscious fruits. But after a long time, it doth grow old, yielding no fruitage any more. Then doth the Husbandman of Truth take up the seed from that same tree, and plant it in a pure soil; and lo, there standeth the first tree, even as it was before."

You can read farther:

Bahá'í Reference Library - Selections From the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Pages 51-53

 

[Windwalker]

Because that's exactly where you were heading. Any argument that mentions consciousness requires a definition of it.

I have to limit what I respond to simply for time constraints. This is BS. We talk about the various forms of life with one another all the time, yet are we feeling it necessary to tackle the "hard question" of "what is life" before we have any sort of intelligent discussion about the obvious? Why are you making this deliberately, and unnecessarily difficult, except to deflect?

That is absolutely not "exactly where" I was heading. It was exactly not there. Stick with the obvious, unless you're deliberately trying to be obtuse here.

So before you even attempt to describe consciousness its self you introduce the "states" of what you failed to describe.

I did explain states to you. "Waking, dreaming, deep sleep, altered states: subtle, causal nondual...". You need to apply yourself a little here. It was there.

No one knows much of anything about consciousness other than we apprehend it's existence.

No one really knows much of what "life" exactly means, yet we all have a common understanding of it. Work with that, for goodness sake. This is the deep "hard question" we're dealing with here. "Awareness", what we perceive, let's go with that for a working definition for you. Alright?

Mr. Tarts conclusion was that everyone's entire worldview is imposed on them by culture and is not actually true. If so then his theory was imposed on him by his culture and by his own criteria is therefore not true. It's a tautology.

Oh for god's sake. I'm not going to bother with this. You're just being deliberately obtuse. Developmental theory sounds like 15 years olds smoking pot? That comment sounds pretty silly from all I know about these topics; like something I'd hear from my son when he was 18.

You know, I'm happy you have these degrees. That doesn't translate into you understanding any of this material, and your out-of-hand dismissive responses , such as here and in all the other areas presented, betray something less than an educated mind I could respect. I could add that your responses laced with personal insults from the beginning also betrays something about the nature of your Christian faith as well, but I'll allow that we all have our things that trigger our shadow selves. God knows I do as well. It's obvious this is going to go nowhere so I won't waste either my or your time in trying to present the material others have researched extensively, or points of view which challenge your ideas you've locked into place.

 

[Windwalker]

First of all I have two degrees in math and am a senior in a third in engineering. Second no effect has ever been known to precede it's cause.

Backward Causation (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[1robin]

Here are some points of agreement between us:

We believe in an Omnipotent, All-Powerful God.
God has created the universe and all that exists
God has qualities of Love and Justice
God is concerned for His creation
Man is a special part of His creation and we have been created in His image
God out of concern for His creation and humanity has guided us through Great Teachers and/or prophets
One of those Great/Teachers or Prophets (Jesus) is exalted above all humans
God expects us to make a great effort to live in accordance with His teachings and to have Faith in Jesus
The OT prophets have provided God's guidance to the Jewish peoples
The Bible has a record of Jesus, the apostles, and the OT prophets
Jesus, the apostles, and the OT prophets we guided by God's unerring spirit
The Bible should be considered authentic and authoritative
We should love God with all our being and love our neighbours and enemies as Jesus taught
We should forgive others
We should be good as God is good
We believe that we have a soul and that there is an afterlife
We believe that evil is a real problem
We believe that Christ promised He would return and spoke of the signs that would accompany His Return.
The Returned Christ will bring in a new age or era in human history.
Jesus is the 'Son of God'
'Salvation' is intimately associated with Christ.
Jesus was crucified
His sacrifice enabled our salvation
The resurrection is a concept/reality of profound significance and importance

Yes we probably would agree on most of those things, but they compose maybe a hundred words out of the bible's 750,000. So my original claim:

but I find almost universal disagreement between Baha'ism and those same sources

Is still holding firm.

Not true. The bible concerns both things that change little over time and the exigencies of social/cultural circumstances.

I said that of it's primary doctrines. It's secondary details of course deal with things that change over time.

How many of the 613 Jewish laws or Mitzvah?

How many have changed? Well before I give my response those are Levitical laws and a huge percentage apply to things that either can't be done, or that no longer have any relevance. For example dozens of them have to do with the actual temple, but it was destroyed in 70AD. For the laws that remain relevant it is not that they no longer are true (murder is still wrong) they assume a new roll in the covenant of grace. Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law, so when I accept him through substitutionary atonement, his righteousness is credited to me wholly apart from work of the law.

New International Version
For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

English Standard Version
by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

In regards to the NT it is a male dominated world, slavery is the norm, and the world is run by empires. There is no global perspective.

1. God made the world to be male dominated. He set the husband over the wife.
2. The entire covenant of marriage between one man and one woman was to reflect the covenant between Christ (the bridegroom) and the church (the bride). It is obvious to see from that who is submissive to who. But this in no way is meant a man should abuse that sovereignty.
3. Slavery was far more the norm in OT Judaism than NT Christianity. When Christ lived Rome dominated Israel, the Hebrews were more likely to be slaves than to have them.
4. The past 5000 years have been ruled by empires.
5. There is more global perspective today than at any time in the past but I have no idea what your talking about.

How about this gem from the apostle Paul?

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.
And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
1 Corinthians 14:34-35

Ok, how about it?

Eternal law of transient?

Did you mean to say "or" instead of "of".

I recall we previously agreed the numbers arguments was problematic? Playing the devils advocate, the 67% of the worlds population that are not Christian's must mean that Christianity is not true. Right!?

Popularity is persuasive based on probability, but it does not guarantee truth.

I do not know what part of the world you live in, but in my country (New Zealand) numbers of Christians are falling rapidly. It is anticipated that the number of those with no religion are set to overtake the numbers of Christians. Should we assume that having no religion is the best position?

I told you that the global number of Christians increases by the equivalent of the population of Nevada every year, despite its not counting a new born as a Christian and making leaving the faith a capitol crime as Islam does. I though New Zealand was a Muslim nation, but maybe I al thinking of Indonesia. Regardless on the whole Christianity is thriving.

According to Pew research the world wide numbers of Muslims will overtake Christians by the end of the century. Does that mean Islam is right?

No, for 2 reasons.

1. As stated Islam grows by compulsion. A baby is considered a Muslim at birth if it has Muslim parent, and leaving the faith is punishable by death in many nations.
2. Popularity never makes anything true. It is just a factor that makes some things more probable.

I did not say that Christianity's popularity makes it true, I said it shouldn't be so popular if your claim were true.

That's reasonable.

It is reasonable, but it is also inconvenient.

Allah is of course another word for God, and there is just one. The attributes of God in Islam seem remarkably similar to Christianity.

If you want to discuss Islam lets start at the beginning.

1. It is the supposed revelation of one man.
2. A man who had no supernatural miracles or prophecies to back up his claims.
3. Who plagiarized heretical texts, who had fits which detail for detail match the bible's description of Demonic possession, who led a blood soaked tyranny.
4. The Quran contains medical errors, mathematical errors, historical errors, and it's violent verse abrogate it's peaceful verses.
5. Muhammad's first description of an angel was exactly contradictory to every biblical description of an angel, which terrified and confused him to the point he considered suicide.

Heard of selective abstraction?

Did you mean heard, if so no, probably because it sounds logically incoherent.

I've addressed the problem with this type of argument above.

No, you make arguments which if true would result in a massive decline in Christianity's numbers. I respond that your argument must be wrong because no such decline exists. You try to misdirect the discussion from the failure of your argument by pointing out that popularity doesn't make something true. Which I never claimed in the first place.

It could be a closer contest between Christianity and Islam than you think.

I wasn't referring to either. Compared to Baha'ism, Islam is a featherweight when it comes to distorting the scriptures of others.

So that makes genesis literally true?

No it makes you argument that science and the bible are in conflict utterly wrong.

As such, young Earth creationism is dismissed by the academic and the scientific communities. One 1987 estimate found that "700 scientists ... (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) ... give credence to creation-science".

Young Earth creationism - Wikipedia

So who has the numbers now?

I am not a young Earth creationist. Your just misdirecting the discussion away from your failed argument again.

95% of Germany considered themselves Christian when Hitler was elected.

Heard of anti- Semitism?

Antisemitism - Wikipedia

How about the Hippocratic Oath:

Hippocratic Oath - Wikipedia

Why are you spitting out random concepts?

1. It is very easy to see how Hitler got elected. In fact it would be hard to show that he shouldn't have been elected. But 95% of the people who elected him (and by the way much of his rise was not due to elections) knew nothing about who he really was.
2. Yes, but irrelevant.
3. Yes, but irrelevant.

 

[paarsurrey]

Abdulbaha Answers:


"From the days of Adam until today, the religions of God have been made manifest, one following the other, and each one of them fulfilled its due function, revived mankind, and provided education and enlightenment. They freed the people from the darkness of the world of nature and ushered them into the brightness of the Kingdom. As each succeeding Faith and Law became revealed it remained for some centuries a richly fruitful tree and to it was committed the happiness of humankind. However, as the centuries rolled by, it aged, it flourished no more and put forth no fruit, wherefore was it then made young again.
The religion of God is one religion, but it must ever be renewed. Moses, for example, was sent forth to man and He established a Law, and the Children of Israel, through that Mosaic Law, were delivered out of their ignorance and came into the light; they were lifted up from their abjectness and attained to a glory that fadeth not. Still, as the long years wore on, that radiance passed by, that splendour set, that bright day turned to night; and once that night grew triply dark, the star of the Messiah dawned, so that again a glory lit the world.
Our meaning is this: the religion of God is one, and it is the educator of humankind, but still, it needs must be made new. When thou dost plant a tree, its height increaseth day by day. It putteth forth blossoms and leaves and luscious fruits. But after a long time, it doth grow old, yielding no fruitage any more. Then doth the Husbandman of Truth take up the seed from that same tree, and plant it in a pure soil; and lo, there standeth the first tree, even as it was before."

You can read farther:

Bahá'í Reference Library - Selections From the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Pages 51-53

Please quote from Bahaullah in this connection.
Regards

 

[InvestigateTruth]

Please quote from Bahaullah in this connection.
Regards

"O dwellers of the earth! Would ye contend that if We raise up a soul unto the Sadratu’l Muntahá, 8 it shall then cease to be subject to the power of Our sovereignty and dominion? Nay, by Mine own Self! Should it be Our wish, We would return it to the dust in less than the twinkling of an eye. Consider a tree: Behold how We plant it in a garden, and nourish it with the waters of Our loving care; and how, when it hath grown tall and mature, and brought forth verdant leaves and goodly fruits, We send forth the tempestuous gales of Our decree, tear it up by its roots, and lay it prostrate upon the face of the earth. So hath it been Our way with all things, and so shall it be in this day. Such, in truth, are the matchless wonders of Our immutable method—a method which hath ever governed, and shall continue to govern, all things, if ye be of them that perceive. None, however, knoweth the wisdom thereof save God, the All-Powerful, the Almighty, the All-Wise."

Bahá'í Reference Library - The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, Pages 3-54


"O servant of God! The Tree which We had planted with the Hand of Providence hath borne its destined fruit, and the glad-tidings We had imparted in the Book have appeared in full effect."

Bahá'í Reference Library - The Tabernacle of Unity, Pages 71-77

 

[1robin]

Backward Causation (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

WW I am just reminding you that I previously called a halt to our discussion, so you do not waste more of your time.

 

[Windwalker]

WW I am just reminding you that I previously called a halt to our discussion, so you do not waste more of your time.

Yet you respond. Disappointment, on multiple levels.

 

[Dawnofhope]

Yes we probably would agree on most of those things, but they compose maybe a hundred words out of the bible's 750,000. So my original claim:

We have agreement about twenty four principles Christianity and the Baha'i Faith have in common. These principles cover much of what the bible teaches.

Did you mean 100 words or 100%? If 100 words, substantiate the claim.

Is still holding firm.

How about defining Christianity? The problem you have is selective bias. You refer to the conservative Christians when is suits you and to all those who would consider themselves Christian in the same post. Christians are a theologically diverse group, with a long history of schism and division. Many Christian groups want to consider themselves as being the true Christians and seem ready to criticise other Christians. You are no different.

I said that of it's primary doctrines. It's secondary details of course deal with things that change over time.

There is no universal agreement amongst all Christians about primary doctrines. Perhaps you could spell out the primary doctrines you believe in, rather than purporting to speak for all Christians.

How many have changed? Well before I give my response those are Levitical laws and a huge percentage apply to things that either can't be done, or that no longer have any relevance. For example dozens of them have to do with the actual temple, but it was destroyed in 70AD. For the laws that remain relevant it is not that they no longer are true (murder is still wrong) they assume a new roll in the covenant of grace. Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law, so when I accept him through substitutionary atonement, his righteousness is credited to me wholly apart from work of the law.

New International Version
For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

English Standard Version
by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

You have just provided an example of how Christians have distorted their own religion. The justification of Grace by Faith alone is theologically problematic and has resulted in moral laxity and bigotry amongst Christians. Baha'is believe that it is both faith and deeds that are required for salvation, not faith alone.

1. God made the world to be male dominated. He set the husband over the wife.

I'm certain you believe that, but it exemplifies the problem with a religion whose sacred writings are nearly two thousand years old.

2. The entire covenant of marriage between one man and one woman was to reflect the covenant between Christ (the bridegroom) and the church (the bride). It is obvious to see from that who is submissive to who. But this in no way is meant a man should abuse that sovereignty.

Of course that sovereignty has been abused. The Christian view of men dominating women is an example of Christianity's struggle to adapt to the modern world.

3. Slavery was far more the norm in OT Judaism than NT Christianity. When Christ lived Rome dominated Israel, the Hebrews were more likely to be slaves than to have them.

Yet there are no laws in the bible abolishing slavery. This contributed to Christian countries and empires promoting slavery for centuries and their reluctance to abolish such practices.

4. The past 5000 years have been ruled by empires.

That is true and now democracy is becoming the established means for governing human affairs. The Bible has close to nothing to say about it.

5. There is more global perspective today than at any time in the past but I have no idea what your talking about.

I'm highlighting some of the problems that have accounted for Christianity's crisis and decline in the West.

As people living the modern age we do not merely occupy a private sphere, but are active participants in a social order. Although many of the revealed truths of Christianity remain valid, the daily experience of an individual in the twenty first century is unimaginably removed from the two thousand years ago when Christ came. Democratic decision making has fundamentally altered the relationship of the individual to authority. With growing confidence and growing success, women justly insist on their right to full equality with men. Revolutions in science and technology change not only the functioning but the conception of society and existence itself. Universal education and an explosion of new fields of knowledge open the way to insights that stimulate social mobility and integration, and create new opportunities. Nuclear energy, sexual identity, ecological stress and the use of wealth raise, at the very least, social questions that have no precedent. These, and the countless other changes affecting every aspect of human life, have brought into being a new world of daily choices for both society and its members. What has not changed is the inescapable requirement of making such choices, whether for better or worse. It is here that the spiritual nature of the contemporary crisis comes into focus because most of the decisions are not merely practical but moral. In large part, therefore, loss of faith in traditional religion has been an inevitable consequence of failure to discover in it the guidance required to live with modernity, successfully and with assurance.

Throughout the world, people raised in a Christian frame of reference find themselves abruptly thrown into close association with others whose beliefs and practices appear at first glance irreconcilably different from their own. The differences can and often do give rise to defensiveness and conflict. In many cases, however, the effect is to prompt a reconsideration of doctrine and to encourage efforts at discovering values held in common. The support enjoyed by various interfaith activities doubtless owes a great deal to response of this kind among the general public. Inevitably, with such approaches comes a questioning of religious doctrines that inhibit association and understanding. If people whose beliefs appear to be fundamentally different from one’s own nevertheless live moral lives that deserve admiration, what is it that makes one’s own faith superior to theirs? Alternatively, if all of the great religions share certain basic values in common, do not conservative Christian's attachments run the risk of merely reinforcing unwanted barriers between an individual and his neighbours?

Each one of the world's independent religions is set in the mould created by its authoritative scripture and its history. As it cannot refashion its system of belief in a manner to derive legitimacy from the authoritative words of its Founder, it likewise cannot adequately answer the multitude of questions posed by social and intellectual evolution.

Popularity is persuasive based on probability, but it does not guarantee truth.

Jesus had next to no followers at the time of His crucifixion (even Peter had denied Him thrice), yet it has become the religion with the most adherents today. Most Jews rejected Jesus. We need to understand the meaning behind the numbers and the trends.

I told you that the global number of Christians increases by the equivalent of the population of Nevada every year, despite its not counting a new born as a Christian and making leaving the faith a capitol crime as Islam does. I though New Zealand was a Muslim nation, but maybe I al thinking of Indonesia. Regardless on the whole Christianity is thriving.

Not in West. Do you really want to look at the break down in numbers. One hundred years ago most (90+ %) of New Zealanders would have considered them selves Christian. The numbers are now less than 50% and falling rapidly. This is a trend in many Western countries.

No, for 2 reasons.

1. As stated Islam grows by compulsion. A baby is considered a Muslim at birth if it has Muslim parent, and leaving the faith is punishable by death in many nations.
2. Popularity never makes anything true. It is just a factor that makes some things more probable.

I did not say that Christianity's popularity makes it true, I said it shouldn't be so popular if your claim were true.

Christianity has never compelled anyone to become Christians!?

If you want to discuss Islam lets start at the beginning.

1. It is the supposed revelation of one man.
2. A man who had no supernatural miracles or prophecies to back up his claims.
3. Who plagiarized heretical texts, who had fits which detail for detail match the bible's description of Demonic possession, who led a blood soaked tyranny.
4. The Quran contains medical errors, mathematical errors, historical errors, and it's violent verse abrogate it's peaceful verses.
5. Muhammad's first description of an angel was exactly contradictory to every biblical description of an angel, which terrified and confused him to the point he considered suicide.

You were the one who brought up Islam by highlighting the sura in regards to Christ. Neither of us are Muslims. Let's stick to considering the Baha'i Faith and Christianity.

No, you make arguments which if true would result in a massive decline in Christianity's numbers. I respond that your argument must be wrong because no such decline exists. You try to misdirect the discussion from the failure of your argument by pointing out that popularity doesn't make something true. Which I never claimed in the first place.

I wasn't referring to either. Compared to Baha'ism, Islam is a featherweight when it comes to distorting the scriptures of others.

Not true. Many Muslims regard the gospels as corrupted whereas Baha'is considered them to be relatively authentic and authoritative.

No it makes you argument that science and the bible are in conflict utterly wrong.

I'm pleased you are not a YEC but you have to admit Christians and Scientists have a long history of conflict.

I am not a young Earth creationist. Your just misdirecting the discussion away from your failed argument again.

Why are you spitting out random concepts?

1. It is very easy to see how Hitler got elected. In fact it would be hard to show that he shouldn't have been elected. But 95% of the people who elected him (and by the way much of his rise was not due to elections) knew nothing about who he really was.
2. Yes, but irrelevant.
3. Yes, but irrelevant.

I'm highlighting Christianity's extensive history of bigotry, violence, and harm to others. It may be irrelevant to you but its part of why masses are leaving Christianity in the West.

 

[paarsurrey]

"O servant of God! The Tree which We had planted with the Hand of Providence hath borne its destined fruit, and the glad-tidings We had imparted in the Book have appeared in full effect."

Bahá'í Reference Library - The Tabernacle of Unity, Pages 71-77

Which book Bahaullah means here? Kindly give name of the book and the verse with the context verses. Please
Regards