God gave us each a mind to think for himself not through others, eyes to see for himself and ears to understand with but instead history has shown we tend to blindly follow popular and charismatic leaders instead of seeking out truth for ourselves.
I agree completely (except for the God part), and have even said as much twice recently on RF. I posted this this morning to another Baha'i on another thread:
"
And as I told another poster on another thread, I'm not looking to follow anybody, including these messengers. Autonomous means self-ruling. I follow my conscience. If you'd like to argue that that is a god communicating to me directly, I won't argue. But then what do I need with written messages, and why do I need to know these come from a god that can't or won't present itself?"
So it piqued my interest to see your words coming from another Baha'i.
I know for example, Jewish Christian converts who speak and read Hebrew and were raised in the culture, yet they confirm the accuracy of Christian understanding.
But why would their opinions be meaningful to anybody else? All one need do is compare the Old Testament messianic prophecies with the Gospels oneself to see if they match or not.
A Christian will always tell you that they match, because he believes they have to, and so that's what he sees. The Jew has no need to do that. Neither does the secular humanist. And most secular humanists are going to agree with the Jews not because the Jews understand scripture better - the words aren't difficult to understand - but because they have no need to try to make the two match, and like the secular humanist, are free to report what they see without sanitizing it to conform with Christian dogma.
People who think like that will agree, just as the people that believe by faith that Jesus was messiah will all agree with one another in the opposite direction. The difference is accounted for by a Christian faith-based confirmation bias that Jesus must match the Old Testament prophecies, and that if it seems he doesn't, you must be misunderstanding the words. We see that kind of thinking often:
- [1] "... if I were to pursue this with due diligence and with time, I would discover that the evidence, if in fact I could get the correct picture, would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells me. So I think that's very important to get the relationship between faith and reason right..." - William Lane Craig
- [2] The moderator in the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham on whether creationism is a viable scientific field of study asked, "What would change your minds?" Scientist Bill Nye answered, "Evidence." Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham answered, "Nothing. I'm a Christian." Elsewhere, Ham stated, “By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record."
- [3] “If somewhere in the Bible I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I am reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and do my best to work it out and understand it."- Pastor Peter laRuffa
Sorry, but I can't use the opinions of people who process information this way. Why would we be interested in their apologetcs trying to knit OT and NT messianic prophecy. We already know that they must say that what all believers say.
Sometimes the New Testament does agree with the Old, especially when Jesus or the apostles are quoting the Old Testament. None of us has any difficulty saying that there is a match when we see one, and wouldn't in this instance either if we saw one.
- Romans 4:7-8 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
- Psalms 32:1-2 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
These match. Messianic scripture not so much.
I don't believe that you know "what Christians are taught", I think you think you know.
We see what Christians are taught right here on RF. They aren't all saying the same thing, but we can tell what they are hearing in church and to what degree the message affects the adherents - what fraction accept fundamentalism and creationism, what fraction become homophobic and/or atheophobic bigots, what fraction oppose same sex marriage and abortion rights, what fraction can't make a coherent argument, etc.. We see the spectrum of what it means to be a Christian to a wide variety of people and types. More interestingly to me, is how they process information and how faith affects clear thought and critical thinking.
This is all Christian apologetics. As I explained, I already know that these sources will contain faith-based beliefs dishonestly presented as conclusions to a sound argument - pseudo-conclusions if you will, since they were the starting point, and are thus premises.
And I also know that most of these people will write anything to support their faith-based beliefs, and more importantly, omit whatever contradicts it, which is the bigger problem. You might say to evaluate the apologist's argument on its merits rather than its source, but how can one tell what's been left out? One can fact-check the claims made, but it's going to be difficult to determine what has been deliberately omitted if you are not very familiar with the field being discussed.
We went over this when you were promoting Habermas' book.
Here's a great example of that from
DNA tests prove Darwin Was Wrong - Ape DNA very different from human DNA - Laws of Genetics Contradicts Ape to Human Evolution , with a Christian creationist arguing that "Man cannot have descended from a common ancestral great ape because all of the other apes have 24 pairs of chromosomes, and man but 23, implying the loss of a whole chromosome, which would be fatal.”
Go ahead and evaluate that argument on its merits. If you don't know about human chromosome 2, the argument seems compelling. If you do, it seems dishonest.
Other areas I might be less knowledgeable about. Recently some creationist made what seems like a compelling argument against radiocarbon dating, saying it was unreliable, since by a million years, the amount of carbon 14 in any object that hasn't had a fresh infusion of environmental C14 ought to be undetectable, but it's not.
How long would it have taken me on my own to find the omission there, one I was unaware of until another poster explained to the thread, "
As for the diamond and coal, they have simply failed, probably deliberately, to take into account that U and Th have decay processes that lead to C14, as I mentioned in my previous post. I note they make no reference to uranium or thorium in the write up. Too inconvenient to mention, I expect."
Once again, how can you evaluate an argument like that with a serious omission on its merit? Nobody can except somebody who knows the science that well.
So why go to such people with such ethics for anything? You also shouldn't be going to those sites, but I don't think you care if the arguments are honest - just if they can be used to promote your religious beliefs. One needs to trust the source to be honest and arguing in good faith. I don't when its AiG, CARM, ICR, Discovery Institute, etc..
