??? -- I'm still waiting for the evidence.I applied logic and critical analysis to the evidence the supports the claims of Baha'u'llah, which led me to believe that Baha'u'llah was who He claimed to be and therefore God exists.
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
??? -- I'm still waiting for the evidence.I applied logic and critical analysis to the evidence the supports the claims of Baha'u'llah, which led me to believe that Baha'u'llah was who He claimed to be and therefore God exists.
Evolving spiritually, or physically?
If it cannot be demonstrated it cannot be a fact because facts are demonstrable.It may well be a fact, just not a demonstrable one.
The evidence is available for anyone who is interested in it.??? -- I'm still waiting for the evidence.
no. A fact is a fact regardless of whether it's demonstrated or whether we're even aware of it. The facts of physics, chemistry, &c. existed before the Earth even coalesced.If it cannot be demonstrated it cannot be a fact because facts are demonstrable.
OK, help me, then. Links?The evidence is available for anyone who is interested in it.
How about a God that created the universe, such that life would evolve naturally. ? Why would that indicate a deceptive God?The apparent truth of the theory does not indicate that there is a deceptive designer. It suggests that the theory is probably correct.
It's the evidence presently supporting the theory were it ever overturned by a falsifying find that points the finger to a deceptive designer. Picture that the theory were disproved today. What happened in the past if not evolution? There must have been an intelligent designer. away]
These were true before they had been proven true, but they were not considered facts until they were proven.no. A fact is a fact regardless of whether it's demonstrated or whether we're even aware of it. The facts of physics, chemistry, &c. existed before the Earth even coalesced.
The claims of Baha’u’llah and the evidence that supports the claims of Baha’u’llah are in this post:OK, help me, then. Links?
It's evidence that requires heavy doses of assumptions. So not objective evidence that is what critical thinkers need.OK, help me, then. Links?
Experience is empirical evidence."Feel:" emotionally comfortable with an idea.
Your mystical experience would be an observation, but a subjective one, without empirical evidence. I wouldn't expect a rational person to believe such a report without some tangible corroboration.
And what advantage do you have believing there is a divinity over those who don't?I am going to state something that should be obvious to most people by now.
Whether God exists or not is not as important as our strife for our own divinity.
What powers? Do you have these powers as an ordinary mortal? Explain.What matters to me, the atheist and the Baha'i is that we are all slowly developing God-like powers.
How do you benefit from this belief?I take it one step further, reject the atheism of a standard humanist, and the idea of the Manifestations of Baha'i prophecy, and declare that in fact everybody is becoming God, not just God-like, and each and every person is a Manifestation of God.
There is unity among tribes. Humans evolved this way. We did not evolve to be monks. Not everyone has the mental health to unify. Not everyone is intellectually capable of understaiding the benefits of unity. It's as if there was no God directing our evolution, but just the whims of nature. The global population is growing, and climate change is coming with a harsher environment, and that will likley mean fewer resources. So, at some point there will be a breaking point and it is going to be ugly.That to me is where I fall, there is no religion that not only practices clergy of their members, but also calls them prophets as well. So I am stuck, compromising my viewpoints towards the Baha'i Faith, because in my lifetime the biggest threat to human survival is our own species and the lack of unity we currently have in society. Unity is so important to me that without it we would be stuck in perpetual war against each other, and never become divine.
Why do you think you need to believe ina religion? Are you less without it?I wish this was easier. I wish there was just an exaltist religion that I could fully believe.
That would not indicate a deceptive God and is one version of God that I would consider. The problem is that almost all of our religions appear to be man made. Rational belief is not a choice. Without positive evidence of some sort I cannot have a rational belief in a God. The good news is that your version of God as you just proposed is not self refuting. Human invented Gods, such as the Abrahamic ones, do tend to be self refuting.How about a God that created the universe, such that life would evolve naturally. ? Why would that indicate a deceptive God?
To put some focus on this, you're going by a particular lens about what the Genesis story is about, being something that people should understand as a scientific account of creation. That is a very modern, and incorrect understanding of the texts to begin with.I'm going by the Genesis creation story and the biblical description of the Creator. We know that nothing like that happened unless we decide what is true by faith.
The error is to think it was about giving a scientific account of creation. That wasn't its purpose. And yes, you are right about it being 24 hour days. The day of rest was a societal mandate woven into the creation myth to justify why people should be given a day of rest, otherwise they were being worked every day. That was deemed unhealthy for society, and the priestly class used that story of the day of rest as a religious observation in order to enforce basically labor laws.I disagree. The Bible is clear that the six days of creation contained one sunrise and one sunset each, which fixes them as 245-hour time periods, and the seventh day is a day of rest as man is commanded to take by observing the sabbath, which is done once a literal week for an astronomical day. But that is just one error.
Can you elaborate more on this? You mention kick-starting life in the cosmos. Are you speaking of life everywhere in the universe? Curious to understand your thinking on this. I for one believe that we see here on this planet is but one example of this everywhere in this vast universe. I don't think we are a fluke at all. Rather that life is inevitable throughout the cosmos.The scientific idea is that biogenesis may have occurred to kick-start life in the cosmos. Unless one can show that that is false or impossible, the claim that it is possible necessarily true that it might be the answer. That might have happened.
Yes, it is essentially saying those other gods, such as the god of the sun, the god of the moon, the god of animals, all those gods, well God created all of them. That's really what it's about. It's really not about explaining to moderns who think in scientific terms, how planets and stars were actually formed!The god of the Christian Bible is said to have created the kinds ex nihilo.
I would agree with you that God would be deceptive to just make it look like evolution was true, if it wasn't. I heard someone once say about the existence of dinosaur bones that, "God put them their to test our faith". Wow. Really? What a trickster God is then, huh? Maybe his name is Loki?Did you want to try to rebut my argument, that is, explain why my conclusion that the biblical god is ruled out is incorrect? If evolution is falsified, will the new paradigm not need to be a deceptive intelligent designer? If not, what other possibility exists consistent with what would be the facts - somebody went to a lot of bother to fool man that evolution had occurred, including arranging fossils in strata from deepest being radiometrically the oldest and least resembling modern forms into an evolving geological column, not to mention all of those nested hierarchies in taxonomy, embryology, biochemistry, and genetics.
Or that the biblical deity described in scripture has nothing to do with explaining the science behind creation, and the story in Genesis should not be approached or read that way. That's the other and correct choice.The answers are self-evidently yes. Yes, the existing evidence for evolution established that either naturalistic evolution occurred, or a deceptive intelligent designer exists, and that that designer cannot be the biblical deity as described in scripture.
I would say everything you say is correct if the Bible was written to describe a scientific account of creation. But it's incorrect to assume it was.Remember, the claim stands unless it is successfully rebutted, and nothing that doesn't rule out the disputed claim can be called a rebuttal. I don't think it can be done, because I think the conclusion is correct, and by definition, correct claims cannot be successfully rebutted, that is, shown to be incorrect.
That's different definition of truth than the one I use. Faith is not a path to truth. You could just as easily choose the opposite and believe that that is the truth using faith.
I think they were, and there is no evidence that they weren't. Occam says the simplest explanation that unifies all relevant observations is the preferred working model until new evidence arises not accounted for necessitating a modification in the narrative to generate a new simplest narrative, now necessarily a little more complex.
Are you familiar with Sagan's dragon in his garage? There is no dragon, but he believes there is. When you ask why you can't see it, he explains that it is invisible. When you suggest putting flour on the floor to record its footprints, he explains that it floats. It you suggest using infrared to detect its heat, he explains that this dragon is the heatless variety. Do you believe him? If not, why not? Occam's razor. The simplest explanation that ties all of these findings together - invisible, doesn't touch the floor, generates no heat - is that it doesn't exist, and is the preferred conclusion pending new evidence suggesting otherwise.
Every time science adds new evidence, the creationist apologists add another layer of complexity to their explanation as to why the account might still be correct if one just assumes these dozen facts not in evidence. So you get this equivalent of the dragon apologetics: Creation didn't occur in six days. That's because a day wasn't a day. But these days had an evening and a morning. Those weren't actual evenings and mornings. But the day of rest is a literal day. That's because ... How about because the story is an error like every other non-scientific creation story?
"When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense・- Edward Abbey.
My claim that naturalistic abiogenesis may have occurred was not part of my argument that the god of the Christian Bible is ruled out by the evidence supporting evolution.
I'm going by what the words say, and my understanding of human nature. I see no reason to change the meanings of the words. I don't need them to comport with the latest science. Only the believer needs to do that.
Yes, I agree. The scientific explanations are the gold standard for belief. Do you understand that that is what your comment implies? Scripture has no fixed meaning unless one takes the words at face value. It says nothing at all if the meaning of those words can be changed ad hoc.