Questions for Atheists and Agnostics

[Willamena]

But how do you know the cookbook is true when you don't know what an apple is to begin with?

It's truthfulness is not what would discredit it, but its usefulness. A cookbook about a fictional fruit wouldn't be useful (though there may be other reasons for creating such a book, such as humour). But that's easy when the item is fact-checkable.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

They might do “some of the same things” on a superficial level, but if we dig deeper we will see that the fake messenger would not be persecuted, exiled, banished, imprisoned, and suffer and sacrifice for God or write any useful scriptures. He also would not have a world religion that is flourishing all around the world.

Thinking to the example you brought up of Jim Jones, he was exiled and banished, and he claimed to have been persecuted and to have suffered and sacrificed for God. It also looked like he might very well be imprisoned right up to the time he killed himself. Yes, he didn’t write any scriptures himself, but when talking about Jesus, you argued that it counts if the messengers just write down what you preached after you die, so that wouldn’t have been a strike against him while he was alive.

A similar argument could be made for David Koresh.

And Joseph Smith ticks all of your boxes. He even wrote scriptures himself during his lifetime.

You don’t accept any of these people as Messengers of God, do you?

Everyone is free to read the history and make their own evaluation.

And I’m saying that by my reading of history, history doesn’t support the conclusion you’re suggesting.

Granted, I think that atheists tend to be more educated than believers on the whole and above average in intelligence, but sometime I think they wear blinders. All of Western society has been affected by the New Testament teachings of Jesus, e.g., do onto others, love thy neighbor, etc. They are affected whether they believe in Jesus or not. The same can be said for Moses and the Ten Commandments. All morality originates in religion.

If you think that Jesus invented the idea that we should be nice to each other, then I’d say it’s you who’s wearing the blinders.

The Ten Commandments are pretty immoral, actually. “Don’t kill” and “don’t steal” are fine most of the time, but definitely not all of the time, so setting up the rule as an inflexible edict creates more harm and injustice than would happen in a sensible moral system. Same thing for honouring your father and mother: making it a blanket statement adds the implication that we should do it no matter what, even if they don’t deserve it. The commandments about how to worship God aren’t about morality at all. The ones about coveting are about classifying certain thoughts as thoughtcrime, which is immoral on its face. The Ten Commandments look even worse if we consider what was left out; if these are supposed to be the highest moral precepts there can be, then the implication is that “worship God on the Sabbath” is more important than “don’t rape” or “don’t enslave people.”

And no morality originated in religion, actually. I can get deeper into that if you want, but I don’t want to pull the conversation off into the weeds unnecessarily.

Jesus does qualify because the New Testament scriptures were attributed to Jesus, even though He did not write them Himself, as Baha’u’llah wrote His.

None of the Gospels are actually attributed to Jesus. Some are attributed to specific apostles and some are anonymous. Do you mean that people wrote down some of his preaching and deeds?

Simply put, because (1) Paul never claimed to get a message from God but rather deferred to Jesus, and (2) Baha’u’llah did not name Paul as a Messenger of God (Prophet).

Have you actually read the New Testament? There are plenty of times in the Epistles where Paul describes things that he says God has told him.

You are oversimplifying this. I never said that just because someone has a “good character” they are a Messenger if God. There are many “other requirements.”

I'm not oversimplifying anything; you're misreading me. If one of the qualities - among others - of a "Messenger of God" is good character, then we can say that someone who doesn't have good character must not be a Messenger of God.

Gandhi and Martin Luther King had a good character but they were just men. I do not know what Moses or Muhammad did, and I do not believe all the stories, but I believe that they were Messengers of God because Baha’u’llah said so.

Which of the stories about Moses do you believe? Do you think they all reflect good character?

No, absolutely not, because the Kingdom of God on earth is a “work in progress” and it is only in the beginning stages of being built. It took thousands of years for humanity to make a big mess in the kitchen; that cannot be cleaned up overnight.

Then that criteria for a "Messenger" is kinda useless in trying to figure out whether one is genuine, isn't it?

I am staring to understand your point, and the points others here are making. How do you differentiate such that you can know for certain who is a fake messenger and who is a real one? There has to be some kind of starting point, some reason to be looking in one place rather than another.To me it is logical that the starting point would be the major religions that are established and have a track record.

Why?

Why would anyone look at some “new religion” unless they had a good reason to do so, unless they were looking for something new, or unless they did not see anything they want in the older religions and they still wanted to believe in God?

You mean like the Baha'i faith?

Maybe I was just fortunate to discover the Baha’i Faith before I was jaded by everything else out there and also; because I was never of any religion before that, I did not have any confirmation bias towards religion or Messengers. I just accepted the Baha’i Faith at face value based upon its teachings. But since that time I have done due diligence, and in fact that is practically ALL I have done for the past five years, so if there was something hiding in the closet that would refute my beliefs I most likely would have found it by now.

I don't get the impression that you're looking to challenge your beliefs.

As I said, I just accepted the Baha’i Faith at face value, and I saw no need to compare it with the other world religions. Since then I have done so and now it makes sense to me how they are all tied together, all revealed by the same God. There is no other religion I would be able to believe in because they all have one problem in common, they have all been changed by man so they no longer represent the original revelation from God.

And you know this how?

You can if you want to. To me the evidence that God exists is staring me in the face, it is so obvious.

If it's obvious, why have you been unable so far to share any of it?

He can be if you believe that He was sent by God.

But you can't believe that he was sent by God until you believe in God. What you're doing is called begging the question: assuming the truth of your conclusion in your argument for your conclusion. It's a logical fallacy... i.e. it's a failure of reason.

You raise some good points. I always appreciate looking at things through atheist glasses. Given human nature and the sheep mentality, that could explain how Christianity grew; at least that is part of the reason. Also, being “saved and forgiven” by the blood of Jesus and getting to heaven without having to “do anything” is a pretty attractive package, even today. Also, being loved by Jesus and God is very attractive, as most people want to be loved. What I just said probably explains the reason Christianity is still popular, even though it is not growing very fast and many Christians are dropping out.

So you do agree that we can see plenty of reasons for Christianity's growth and persistence that don't imply that Jesus was necessarily a Messenger of God?

History has not yet unfolded so the jury is still out. That does not disqualify them, for obvious reasons.

Fair enough... as long as you also take this attitude toward other figures from modern history.

Indeed, Christianity never would have spread without Paul... I know that much history.

And we've established that you don't consider Paul to be a Messenger of God.

I absolutely believe it, but don’t take my word for it, you should never do that. By reading history you can at least verify what rulers fell from power, why and when and where, even if you do not believe it was because they rejected the message of Baha’u’llah.

When did he make this prediction? He was active for a very long time.

Assuming it was sometime between when Baha'u'llah became a follower of the Bab and when he died, one ruler immediately comes to mind: Queen Victoria. Her reign covered that whole period (and then some), so she would presumably be covered in your "all" from before. She reigned for 63 years, longer than any of her predecessors and setting a record that stood for nearly a century until Elizabeth broke it recently. So this is one of the world leaders who "fell from power" because she rejected Baha'u'llah?

The caveat is that Baha’u’llah predicted they would fall, who and when and where; some were those who rejected His Tablets, some were those who banished Him from place to place.

Wait - so by "all world rulers," you didn't mean "all world rulers?"

As I said, I am not that proficient in history, not even Baha’i history, but I have taken it upon myself to try to learn some history. I was reading about the above in the book entitled The Promised Day Is Come. It is utterly amazing.

As an example, in “The Promised Day Is Come” there is one little excerpt which describes what happened to Napoleon III after he received the Tablet of Baha’u’llah written for him:

“It is reported that upon receipt of this first Message that superficial, tricky, and pride-intoxicated monarch flung down the Tablet saying: “If this man is God, I am two gods!” The transmitter of the second Tablet had, it is reliably stated, in order to evade the strict surveillance of the guards, concealed it in his hat, and was able to deliver it to the French agent, who resided in ‘Akká, and who, as attested by Nabíl in his Narrative, translated it into French and sent it to the Emperor, he himself becoming a believer when he had later witnessed the fulfillment of so remarkable a prophecy.” The Promised Day Is Come, p. 51

The whole depiction of what happened with Baha’u’llah and Napoleon III is in this chapter, Humiliation Immediate and Complete.

Baha’u’llah wrote Tablets addressed specifically to certain kings and rulers and religious leaders of all faiths. Some of those Tablets are in the book entitled Proclamation of Bahá’u’lláh.

Yeah... not particularly impressive or compelling to me. Sorry.

 

[Sir Doom]

No, we are not back to the sheep because followers of a religion are not necessarily like sheep. Maybe some religious people are, but Baha’is are enjoined to independently investigate the religion and decide for themselves if it is true or not. We are warned never to follow what others do. We are even told that if we follow what others do and disbelieve in Baha’u’llah just because others disbelievewe will be held accountable by God for our disbelief,since we are all responsible for our own beliefs.

You literally used public consensus as your evidence of God using messengers. "Lots of people think so, so why not?"

It does not work for you as a means of communication but that does not mean it is ineffective – it is just ineffective for you. God is never going to communicate directly with you or anyone else, except His Chosen Messengers. That is how God operates. No ordinary human being has the capacity to understand communication from God directly and that is one reason God uses a Messenger who is a Mediator – He has a universal divine mind, so He can understand God and convey God’s message.

I'm quite certain almighty God is capable of communicating with anyone it likes directly or indirectly. In other words, if God has something to tell me I expect I will get the message despite my skepticism. This should serve to demonstrate the importance of my perspective in this regard.

 

[Koldo]

No, you do not have to share God’s values just because God is God, but if God exists and if God is All-Knowing and All-Wise, that would mean God knows more and is wiser than you are. As such, you might want to value what God values. Within wide parameters, you could stilldo what you value and what you feel like doing. I mean if you have good moral values then your values would probably be in conflict with what God values.

Do you mean that being wiser entails possessing better values ?
If so, how did you reach this conclusion ?

That is certainly true. I am not sure how valuable it is just to believe in God and not worship God, although believing at least leaves that possibility open. But as I said, God does not need your belief or your worship because God is fully self-sufficient. It is only for your benefit that you believe in and worship God.

I said it was a big subject, but in brief, the primary reason you would want to love God is so you would serve God by serving other people,instead of being selfish. If you love people for the sake of God that is unconditional love instead of the selfish love many people have, when they are hoping to get something in return. If you love God you see God reflected in all of creation and you love God’s creation and want to take care of it; not only other people, but animals and all of nature, the environment.

I don't quite get what you meant here.
Do you mean that serving others is a benefit to me ? How so ?
I also don't see why loving God would entail loving all of his creation.

Words can have more than one meaning and one needs to understand what they mean in context. I was not talking about nature as I plants and animals, I was talking about the nature of man, his characteristics. The material nature of man is the opposite of the spiritual nature. If we live according to our material nature we will be selfish and can thus be dishonest, cruel and unjust. By contrast, if we live according to our spiritual nature, we show forth love, mercy, kindness, truth and justice towards others.

But why call certain things such as 'untruth' the "material nature of man" if you don't see it in the material natural world... at all?

 

[Shad]

Evidence does not always lead to proof. You can have evidence that “indicates” something is true but be unable to prove it as a fact. For example, a broken window is evidence that a burglary was committed but there is not proof of that unless we can find the burglar and prove he was guilty of the crime.

Nope. We can look at the patterns of glass shard. Are those inside or outside? We can look to see if items are missing. We can look for finger prints which are not those of the family. We do not need to find the burglar to figure out if there was a burglary. Your comparison is flawed. I know next to nothing about forensics but even with my limited knowledge your argument collapses.

So, evidence might lead to proof later, or it might not. There will never be proof of God’s existence, so we have to accept the best evidence that indicates God exists, if we want to believe in God.

You have no standard to determine if the evidence is for God or not.

We will judge ourselves by estimating the worth of our deeds, but I think God will also judge us. So it is both. I meant that I am not sure how God will judge nonbelievers, what His judgment will be. I do not even know how God will judge believers. We just do the best we can to live according to our faith but we cannot know exactly how God will view that.

This undermines your religion.

Fair enough, no religion is a fact since it cannot be proven to be true. It is a fact that the religion exists but it is not a fact that the Messenger who established the religion was from God.

Again no criteria being used.

But what I said about the reason why people reject the new religion is a fact, because it can be proven by talking to people who have rejected it. The primary reason people reject a new religion is because they believe their older religion is the truth, and that means the new religion must be false. The reason nonbelievers reject the new religion is that they do not believe that God uses Messengers.

You are using it as an excuse in order to rescue your religion from criticism.

I have no idea how we will do things without free will, but I believe we will continue to progress throughout all of eternity because that is what Baha’u’llah wrote. We will progress by the prayers of others and the bounty of God but there might be more to it than that. The afterlife is a mystery we cannot comprehend while still in this life.

Bring up a topic while admitting you have no idea how it plays out hurts your case.

It is true that in this mortal life we have free will to make choices and we develop as a person according to the choices we make which help us grow and develop and become who we are. However, we will not be able to make those choices after we die and that is why it is so important to make them here. The primary purpose of this mortal life is to, so we can grow and develop spiritually so we will be ready to enter the spiritual world when we die.

This is nothing more than saying we are robot in the afterlife.

The growth rates of the Abrahamic religions from 1910-2010 were as follows: Judaism .11%, Christianity 1.32%, Islam 1.97%, and Baha’i Faith 3.54%.

From 2000-2010 Islam became the fastest growing religion (1.86 %) and the Baha’i Faith was the second fastest growing religion (1.72%).
Statistics from: Growth of religion - Wikipedia

The growth rates of the Baha’i Faith were higher than Islam from 1910 to 2010 because it includes the “formative age” of the Baha’i Faith (1921-1944) FOURTH PERIOD: THE INCEPTION OF THE FORMATIVE AGE OF THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH 1921–1944

I already established you either lied or had no idea what you were talking about. This just furthers my point you are backtracking after being exposed. I already quoted your mistake. Take your L and move on.

Growth has slowed down since 2000 because the new goal of the Baha’i Faith is consolidation and community building so the emphasis is not expansion of the Faith.

How convenient.... Sorry I do not buy this.

You are attributing a motive to me I do not have. I just explained what I believe about the future. I did not do it to deflect your criticism.

Nope. You have injected your dogma constantly as per even the simplest of a focus on monotheism of one brand. Injecting your dogma was a deflection.

And you do you know that I have never looked at any other religions?

Given your narrow focus on only religions which happen to your brand and your brand only.

Again, you are attributing a motive to me I do not have. I was not treating Jesus' claims as true then attempting to use Jesus as a form of credibility for Baha’u’llah. I was just explaining how history repeats itself. All new Messengers are rejected by the religious clerics of the older religions they appear to.

Yes you were as you are treating a text not written by Jesus as Jesus' word. That is a religious based view hence dogma. More so "All new Messengers are rejected by the religious clerics of the older religions they appear to." The very idea of new Messengers is dogma as you have already determined there are messengers and who two of them were.

I think we have come to an impasse. You can not separate your dogma from your responses so there is little point in continuing. I will point out dogma. You will deny it while citing dogma in the next sentence as support. More so we are in a thread not about your religion but views like mine. If you are unable to separate yourself from dogma in this thred there is no point in continuing.

If you have any questions feel free to ask questions of me if you would like.

 

[Trailblazer]

I was raised Christian, but I was always skeptical. Even as a very young child, when no response happened from prayer, I saw that as evidence the adults might be mistaken. I saw the stories in Bible school as closer to Aesop's fables than history, even when I was less than 10 years old.

So, while I was raised Christian, I can't say I ever really believed it.

Thanks... I knew you were above average in intelligence. I am pretty good at scoping people out since psychology is my other hat and a hat I wore a lot longer than my religion hat.

 

[Trailblazer]

It goes a bit deeper than even that. Why think that even the major religions got any part of it right? Isn't it far more likely that, in regards to deities, they all get it wrong?

How likely is it that all the religions got it wrong? It is far more likely that they are all right but that the older religions have exceeded their shelf life so they are no longer useful for today’s modern world. Also, the older religions got tampered with while they were sitting on the shelf so that are not want was originally “packaged” by God.

How likely is it that 93% of people in the world who believe in God are all wrong and that the 7% of people in the world who are atheists are the only ones who are right? How well could the world function if that many people were all deluded?

I mean, sure, they all have similar morality, but that is something even atheists can agree on for the most part.

That is very telling and there is a logical explanation for it. All the religions were right about the morality because human nature and thus morality does not change over time. Atheists get that morality by osmosis through living in a world with mostly believers because it is embedded in culture.

The existence of a supernatural is the primary point at issue. And, given the disagreements, I find it far more likely that all major religions get it wrong than that any get it right.

That is the difficult part of religion for nonbelievers. They cannot accept the unseen reality, God and the spiritual world aka afterlife. For the most part, God and the afterlife are mysteries even to believers, but at least the Baha’i depiction has some definition and makes sense.

Why would someone want to believe in God if there isn't one?

That is a good question. I sure would not want to believe in a God that does not exist.

But by the same token, why wouldn’t somebody want to believe in a God if there is one?

 

[Trailblazer]

I remember you mentioned bahaullah had some sort of divine property. The trinity is the same. The prophet have a divine property that makes them (not you and not me) able to speak as evidence of god. In that way, it sounds like the trinity. Using duality for English purpose since there is no third person in Baha'i.

That is true. Baha’u’llah had a universal divine mind, just like all the other Manifestations of God.

I wouldnt trust the evidence of someone with whom does not know the nature of what he speaks of. If you don't know gods nature. He doesn't know. What exactly does he say (in your words) that would be evidence for a god he is doesn't know?

Nobody knows the intrinsic nature (Essence) of God. Baha’u’llah does not speak of it. Baha’u’llah wrote that God can never reveal His Essence to man.

“Know thou of a certainty that the Unseen can in no wise incarnate His Essence and reveal it unto men. He is, and hath ever been, immensely exalted beyond all that can either be recounted or perceived. From His retreat of glory His voice is ever proclaiming: “Verily, I am God; there is none other God besides Me, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. I have manifested Myself unto men, and have sent down Him Who is the Day Spring of the signs of My Revelation. Through Him I have caused all creation to testify that there is none other God except Him, the Incomparable, the All-Informed, the All-Wise.” He Who is everlastingly hidden from the eyes of men can never be known except through His Manifestation, and His Manifestation can adduce no greater proof of the truth of His Mission than the proof of His own Person.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 49

But without know gods nature, you can do this to know yourself but to know god, what exactly are you learning that you have yet to know of god from the evidence you say you receive?

In other words, why trust bahaullah as evidence to support god when the evidence he uses does not explain the nature of god just how you two try to define his dictations; which is not the same as his nature.

I wouldn't trust someone who speaks for someone else of that person doesn't know the person (or company) with which that person speaks for.

We cannot know the intrinsic nature (Essence) of God and we do not need to know it. What Baha’u’llah wrote about God, what He describes, are the Attributes (qualities) of God and the Will of God (what God wants for mankind in this age of history). The Essence of God can never be known by anyone, not even to Baha’u’llah... Every way is barred to the comprehension of God’s Essence, like a barn door that is barred so nobody can ever get in:

“Nay, forbid it, O my God, that I should have uttered such words as must of necessity imply the existence of any direct relationship between the Pen of Thy Revelation and the essence of all created things. Far, far are They Who are related to Thee above the conception of such relationship! All comparisons and likenesses fail to do justice to the Tree of Thy Revelation, and every way is barred to the comprehension of the Manifestation of Thy Self and the Day Spring of Thy Beauty.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 4

Hence why bahaullah evidence doesn't make sense. What have you learned about god when you don't even know who god is?

We can know the Attributes of God that Baha’u’llah describes in His Writings and reflects in His Person.

Here are “some” of God’s Attributes that Baha’u’llah describes: Eternal, Holy, Unchanging, Impassable, Infinite, All-powerful, Everywhere-present, All-Wise, All-Knowing, Self-Existent, Self-Sufficient, Sovereign, Immaterial.

Here are “some” of God’s Attributes that Baha’u’llah describes and reflects: Good, Loving, Gracious, Merciful, Just, Forgiving, Patient.

If bahaullah knew the nature of god like jesus then I can see it. He does not. So that puts a hole in what you say. Source first then evidence.
Aka nature of god first before quoting bahaullah as evidence you trust to support it true (to you).

Jesus did not know the nature of God. Nobody knows the nature of God except God.

Sounds like the trinity: through him one has eternal life; mediator between god and man

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus
Timothy 1:25

That's what the trinity means. Jesus is not inseparable from god. You can't speak for god you don't even know.

Jesus and Baha’u’llah were both Mediators. A Mediator is between God and man, but He is not God and He is more than a man... A Mediator is separate from God. He can mediate between God and man because He has characteristics of both.

Don't see a difference between bahaullah relation-ship with god and Christ to his god.

There was no difference between Christ’s relationship with God and Baha’u’llah’s relationship with God.

The problem, though, is trying to speak for a god you both can't describe. Which makes it hard to trust bahaullah evidence (as you mentioned)

Baha’u’llah did describe the Attributes of God (as noted above).

Who would trust what I said about John is true without even meeting or hearing for herself John before trusting anything I said about him is true.

Nobody can meet God. Jesus even said that no man has ever seen God, but that He (Jesus) had declared God. What Jesus meant is that He (Jesus) spoke of God and verified that God exists.

John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

1 John 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

 

[Trailblazer]

Trinity means relationship between three people. Jesus had a relationship with his father (duality) so he can speak for him as evidence of his existence and dictations. Bahaullah can so the same. Hence why both are inseparable from god.

That, by definition, is the trinity.

Jesus and Baha’u’llah were not God thus they were separate from God. They Mediated between God and mankind and they declared God and described God’s Attributes.

The quotes you post mean nothing. I can't judge if they are true because I don't know the nature of the person to which those quotes say they are evidence of.

Explain the nature of god
Then give quotes
Then I can judge what the quotes say is true based on what I already know of the source.

The intrinsic nature of God (God’s Essence) is unknowable. Some of the Attributes of God (God’s qualities) are knowable. The quotes describe the qualities of God.

 

[Trailblazer]

Keep thinking of new examples

That's like if I never heard not ate an apple, I ask you what it is, then you say

It's a fruit. It's red or green. I trust it's a fruit because that's what it says in this cookbook

Have you ate this apple?

No.

Have you used it in cooking?

No.

What exactly is an apple?

I don't know. I just know what the book says about it.

But how do you know the cookbook is true when you don't know what an apple is to begin with?

Don't use Baha'i terms this as an analogy. Answer or comment on the analogy terms and context itself.

You can either choose to believe that the cookbook is right about the apple or not know anything about the apple.

This analogy won’t work for God because you can get an apple and see it for yourself, but you cannot get God and see God for yourself.

 

[Trailblazer]

Thinking to the example you brought up of Jim Jones, he was exiled and banished, and he claimed to have been persecuted and to have suffered and sacrificed for God. A similar argument could be made for David Koresh. And Joseph Smith ticks all of your boxes. He even wrote scriptures himself during his lifetime.

You don’t accept any of these people as Messengers of God, do you?

No, I don’t accept Jones or Koresh because they did not bring forth good fruit (Matthew 7:15-20).
Fruits: the pleasant or successful result of work or actions: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fruit.

Smith may have had good fruits but I do not believe He got messages from God since it is stated in the Baha’i Writings that He was a seer, not a Prophet.

And I’m saying that by my reading of history, history doesn’t support the conclusion you’re suggesting.

Have you read Baha’i history?

If you think that Jesus invented the idea that we should be nice to each other, then I’d say it’s you who’s wearing the blinders.

The Ten Commandments are pretty immoral, actually. “Don’t kill” and “don’t steal” are fine most of the time, but definitely not all of the time, so setting up the rule as an inflexible edict creates more harm and injustice than would happen in a sensible moral system. Same thing for honouring your father and mother: making it a blanket statement adds the implication that we should do it no matter what, even if they don’t deserve it. The commandments about how to worship God aren’t about morality at all. The ones about coveting are about classifying certain thoughts as thoughtcrime, which is immoral on its face. The Ten Commandments look even worse if we consider what was left out; if these are supposed to be the highest moral precepts there can be, then the implication is that “worship God on the Sabbath” is more important than “don’t rape” or “don’t enslave people.”

I did not say that Jesus invented it, but I will say that it did come through God via religion.

The Ten Commandments are now outdated. Some of those commandments carried over, but we now have updated teachings and laws in the Baha’i Faith which are appropriate for modern society.

None of the Gospels are actually attributed to Jesus. Some are attributed to specific apostles and some are anonymous. Do you mean that people wrote down some of his preaching and deeds?

Yes, that is what I meant.

Have you actually read the New Testament? There are plenty of times in the Epistles where Paul describes things that he says God has told him.

Then he was wrong. Of course I have no reason to believe that everything in the New Testament is true. Below are a few quotes that explain the “authoritative Baha’i position” on the Bible. May more can be read on the link below:

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)

The Bible: Extracts on the Old and New Testaments

I'm not oversimplifying anything; you're misreading me. If one of the qualities - among others - of a "Messenger of God" is good character, then we can say that someone who doesn't have good character must not be a Messenger of God.

That is absolutely true. A bad character would be a disqualifier.

Which of the stories about Moses do you believe? Do you think they all reflect good character?

I do not necessarily believe in the “bible stories” but some stories you might think reflect bad character is a subjective call on your part.

Then that criteria for a "Messenger" is kinda useless in trying to figure out whether one is genuine, isn't it?

Yes, that is true. There is a lot more to it than the criteria I gave you. Determining who is a fake messenger and who is a true Messenger is anything but “cut and dry.”

To me it is logical that the starting point would be the major religions that are established and have a track record.
Why?

One big reason is that all the major religions are tied together, so if one is true they are all true. They are all part of “one” continually unfolding religion from God to man, which progresses throughout history:

Progressive revelation is a core teaching in the Bahá'í Faith that suggests that religious truth is revealed by God progressively and cyclically over time through a series of divine Messengers, and that the teachings are tailored to suit the needs of the time and place of their appearance.[1][2] Thus, the Bahá'í teachings recognize the divine origin of several world religions as different stages in the history of one religion, while believing that the revelation of Bahá'u'lláh is the most recent (though not the last—that there will never be a last), and therefore the most relevant to modern society.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_revelation_Baha'i

Why would anyone look at some “new religion” unless they had a good reason to do so.

You mean like the Baha'i faith?

Yes.

I don't get the impression that you're looking to challenge your beliefs.

I am willing to look at any “new” information anyone has.

There is no other religion I would be able to believe in because they all have one problem in common, they have all been changed by man so they no

And you know this how?

I know because Baha’u’llah wrote that they have been corrupted by men.
I also know because it is obvious that the Christian doctrines for example are man-made doctrines of the Church, as Jesus (what we know of Him in the NT) never taught those doctrines.

You can if you want to. To me the evidence that God exists is staring me in the face, it is so obvious.

If it's obvious, why have you been unable so far to share any of it?

I have been sharing it, but that does not mean that others will SEE what I SEE in that evidence. We are all individuals so we interpret evidence differently.

He can be if you believe that He was sent by God.

But you can't believe that he was sent by God until you believe in God. What you're doing is called begging the question: assuming the truth of your conclusion in your argument for your conclusion. It's a logical fallacy... i.e. it's a failure of reason.

That is not true. As I think I said elsewhere, you cannot believe in God first unless you want to believe in God without evidence. You have to believe in Baha’u’llah first because He was the evidence that God exists. I did not “assume” the truth of my conclusion that God exists without investigating Baha’u’llah to determine if He was telling the truth. I cannot check God out because God is unknowable.

So you do agree that we can see plenty of reasons for Christianity's growth and persistence that don't imply that Jesus was necessarily a Messenger of God?

Yes.

When did he make this prediction? He was active for a very long time.

Most of those Tablets were written in 1869 or 1870 so I assume they were delivered shortly after that.He made the prediction about Napoleon III in 1869, a year before he fell in battle in 1870.

Assuming it was sometime between when Baha'u'llah became a follower of the Bab and when he died, one ruler immediately comes to mind: Queen Victoria. Her reign covered that whole period (and then some), so she would presumably be covered in your "all" from before. She reigned for 63 years, longer than any of her predecessors and setting a record that stood for nearly a century until Elizabeth broke it recently. So this is one of the world leaders who "fell from power" because she rejected Baha'u'llah?

I am glad you mentioned her. She is the only ruler who did not reject Baha’u’llah and that is why she did not fall from power. God brought down all the others who rejected Baha’u’llah, one by one, like a house of cards.

It is said that Queen Victoria, upon reading the Tablet revealed for her by Baha'u'llah, remarked: "If this is of God, it will endure; if not, it can do no harm." (pdc 65) (18:49)
From: 2nd Coming of Christ by David Yamartino

Wait - so by "all world rulers," you didn't mean "all world rulers?"

No, not all of them, just the ones who rejected Bahaullah, but many more fell from power later as a result of the first ones falling. Shoghi Effendi explains that in the book The Promised Day Is Come.

Yeah... not particularly impressive or compelling to me. Sorry.

Maybe it wouldn’t be, but you cannot really know that unless you read it.

 

[Trailblazer]

You literally used public consensus as your evidence of God using messengers. "Lots of people think so, so why not?"

No, that is the opposite of what I said... I said Baha’is are enjoined to independently investigate the religion and decide for themselves if it is true or not. Lots of people do not believe in Baha’u’llah.

I'm quite certain almighty God is capable of communicating with anyone it likes directly or indirectly. In other words, if God has something to tell me I expect I will get the message despite my skepticism. This should serve to demonstrate the importance of my perspective in this regard.

An omnipotent God is capable of doing anything, but it is not going to communicate to you directly because that is not how God wants to communicate.

An omnipotent God only does what it wants to do, not what it can do and not what humans want it to do. All rational people know that because it is logical that an All-Powerful God would not have to do anything it does not want to do.

If God communicates with Messengers, it is unreasonable to “expect” God to suddenly start communicating differently than God has communicated since the dawn of human history. One reason it is unreasonable is because there is no reason why God would have to do this, since 93% of people believe in God. Thus there is no good reason for God to change the method of communication that has been successful to date. The fact that 7% of people in the world are atheists, all of which are not even searching for God, is not a reason for God to communicate differently.

 

[Trailblazer]

Do you mean that being wiser entails possessing better values ?
If so, how did you reach this conclusion ?

No, being wiser helps you apply the values you have to your life. Being wiser does not necessarily entail having better values, not if one is a human, but an All-Knowing and All-Wise God knows what is most important to value.

I don't quite get what you meant here.
Do you mean that serving others is a benefit to me ? How so ?
I also don't see why loving God would entail loving all of his creation.

Serving others is a benefit to you because it makes you less selfish, which is good for you.
God is reflected in all of His Creation. If you love God you will want to love what God created.

But why call certain things such as 'untruth' the "material nature of man" if you don't see it in the material natural world... at all?

The word “material” in this context does not refer to the material natural world. It refers to the physical nature of man associated with his physical body as opposed to the spiritual nature of man associated with his soul.

The body is just a vehicle that carries the soul around while we are alive on earth, a place to house the soul. The soul is our self, our true reality; the body is just our outer shell. That is why the physical nature of man is subordinate to the spiritual nature of man.

The soul is the sum total of the personality so it is the person himself; the physical body is pure matter with no real identity. We need a body because our spirit (soul) needs a way to express itself while we are alive on earth.

There is a lot more to this but I do not want to overwhelm you with too much information, although I probably already did.

 

[Trailblazer]

Nope. We can look at the patterns of glass shard. Are those inside or outside? We can look to see if items are missing. We can look for finger prints which are not those of the family. We do not need to find the burglar to figure out if there was a burglary. Your comparison is flawed. I know next to nothing about forensics but even with my limited knowledge your argument collapses.

That was just an illustrative example, not meant to be comprehensive, but since you elaborated I will now elaborate. If we “look” at all those forensic details you mentioned we can figure out if a Messenger was from God.

However, you do not actually “know” that a burglary has taken place from all that you mentioned above. There might be another explanation; for example, someone could have been playing a prank. Likewise, we cannot be sure that the Messenger was from God no matter how much evidence we have.

In the case of the burglary we would have to find the burglar and get a confession in order to be sure; in order to be sure the Messenger was from God we’d have to find God and ask Him. One is possible, the other is not.

You have no standard to determine if the evidence is for God or not.

I do, but it is not an objective standard, it is highly subjective.

We will judge ourselves by estimating the worth of our deeds, but I think God will also judge us. So it is both. I meant that I am not sure how God will judge nonbelievers, what His judgment will be. I do not even know how God will judge believers. We just do the best we can to live according to our faith but we cannot know exactly how God will view that.

This undermines your religion.

How so?

Fair enough, no religion is a fact since it cannot be proven to be true. It is a fact that the religion exists but it is not a fact that the Messenger who established the religion was from God.

Again no criteria being used.

There are criteria but they are not absolute.

You are using it as an excuse in order to rescue your religion from criticism.

I already told you I am not trying to rescue my religion from criticism. The reasons people reject a new religion are not excuses. They are reasons and they are demonstrable.

1. People that do know about the Baha’i Faith do not really understand its theology and teachings. Most people are not going to take the time to examine it closely unless they are a true seeker. There are not many of those. Also, there is much confirmation bias about religion in general so most people make hasty generalizations about the Baha’i Faith.

2. The Baha’i Faith is very new and different from the older religions. It is not what people are accustomed to seeing in a religion, and having a new world order puts many people off because they do not understand it or think there is a need for one.

3. The biggest obstacle to the growth of the Baha’i Faith is the fact that about 84% of people in the world already have a religion and they are happy with their religion. So there you have 84% of the world’s population, the vast majority of which are not even willing to consider the Baha’i Faith in order to determine if it is true or not. Then we have the rest of the world’s population who are agnostics or atheists or people who believe in God but dislike any religion.

I have no idea how we will do things without free will, but I believe we will continue to progress throughout all of eternity because that is what Baha’u’llah wrote. We will progress by the prayers of others and the bounty of God but there might be more to it than that. The afterlife is a mystery we cannot comprehend while still in this life.

Bring up a topic while admitting you have no idea how it plays out hurts your case.

I have no case because I am not trying to prove anything or win an argument.

This is nothing more than saying we are robot in the afterlife.

It sure feels that way but I think that is because I do not understand it fully.We only have a few bits and pieces, not enough to solve the puzzle.

I already established you either lied or had no idea what you were talking about. This just furthers my point you are backtracking after being exposed. I already quoted your mistake. Take your L and move on.

I guess you really don’t know much about statistics. Look at this carefully.

1910-2010: One time period.
2000-2010: Another time period.

The second time period overlaps the first one but it is has different percentages because it represents only 10 years.

Growth has slowed down since 2000 because the new goal of the Baha’i Faith is consolidation and community building so the emphasis is not expansion of the Faith.

How convenient.... Sorry I do not buy this.

You don’t have to... I am not selling anything. I know what the “goals” of the Baha’i Faith are, I have been a Baha’i over 47 years.

Given your narrow focus on only religions which happen to your brand and your brand only.

My narrow focus is because all the other religions are “old” and they have far exceeded their shelf life, and they have also been corrupted by man. Simply put, they do not hold a candle to the Baha’i Faith, which is the “Cause of God” for this age.

Yes you were as you are treating a text not written by Jesus as Jesus' word. That is a religious based view hence dogma. More so "All new Messengers are rejected by the religious clerics of the older religions they appear to." The very idea of new Messengers is dogma as you have already determined there are messengers and who two of them were.

I think we have come to an impasse. You can not separate your dogma from your responses so there is little point in continuing. I will point out dogma. You will deny it while citing dogma in the next sentence as support. More so we are in a thread not about your religion but views like mine. If you are unable to separate yourself from dogma in this thred there is no point in continuing.

If you have any questions feel free to ask questions of me if you would like.

What do you mean by dogma? You use that word a lot.

Do you have a religion? Do you believe God exists?

 

[oldbadger]

.................................Baha’is are enjoined to independently investigate the religion and decide for themselves if it is true or not. We are warned never to follow what others do. ..........................

When Bahais have independently investigated Bahai they have often got chucked out of the Faith. If you need a few names than I can produce them.

And it's Bahai Double-Think to warn folks never to follow others.......... Bahais that don't follow Bahai can have a difficult time.

 

[Shad]

What do you mean by dogma? You use that word a lot.

Using your religion to answer questions not about your religion. Using your religion as an authority when you are clearly talking to someone which does not accept said authority.

Do you have a religion?

No

Do you believe God exists?

No.

 

[oldbadger]

In the case of the burglary we would have to find the burglar and get a confession in order to be sure; in order to be sure the Messenger was from God we’d have to find God and ask Him. One is possible, the other is not.

Rubbish. Our prisons are full of burglars who were convicted by scientific evidence .......... no confessions needed. And a careful review of Bahai History as claimed by Bahai topples it ........ no need to ask any od.

People that do know about the Baha’i Faith do not really understand its theology and teachings.

Wrong.......... there are many, mostly excommunicated folks.

The Baha’i Faith is very new and different from the older religions. It is not what people are accustomed to seeing in a religion, and having a new world order puts many people off because they do not understand it or think there is a need for one.

And when people like me talk about what a Bahai World would probably be like Bahai denies it........ and then boasts about a 'New World Order'.

You don’t have to... I am not selling anything. I know what the “goals” of the Baha’i Faith are, I have been a Baha’i over 47 years.

How can Bahai become a 'New World Order' without selling itself?


I support many religions on RF which I do not belong to. Other members are witness to this. But in Bahai I have found a religion which in my opinion cannot write a paragraph about itself which is not a distortion of fact in some way.
Not one paragraph.

 

[Trailblazer]

Using your religion to answer questions not about your religion. Using your religion as an authority when you are clearly talking to someone which does not accept said authority.

If we are talking about God, religion is the only authority there is, be it my religion or some other religion.
There is no other way to know about God, except religion, since God does not communicate any other way, IMO.

 

[Shad]

If we are talking about God, religion is the only authority there is, be it my religion or some other religion.

I disagree. We can easily use philosophy as a base without the need for claims of revelation.

There is no other way to know about God, except religion, since God does not communicate any other way, IMO.

This is dogma.

 

[Altfish]

How likely is it that 93% of people in the world who believe in God are all wrong and that the 7% of people in the world who are atheists are the only ones who are right? How well could the world function if that many people were all deluded?

Since about 95% of the people of the world are taught that a god exists from the day they are born is it any surprise that 93% of the world believe in a god?
The existence on god is not proven by a poll though. The majority of people in the world will not know what the square root of minus one is - that doesn't make them correct.

The world functions well because most god believers are fairly benign and just get on with life but spending some time worshipping their god.
The most irreligious countries tend to be the most prosperous, even in the likes of the US, the most prosperous people live in the least religious states.