But if the Bible is not evidence of anything about reality to the critical thinker except that some people wrote these ideas down and maybe believed them when they did, why do you need to cite it?
The Bible is evidence of what was written down and what many use to make some decisions, not evidence that anything in it is accurate or divinely inspired. People make claims about what it says, and it is sometimes appropriate to rebut them. In this thread, it has been claimed that God is not the author of evil because it says so in the Bible: "And God saw every thing that He had made, and behold, it was very good." A proper response to that was to present the opposite sentiment in another scripture.
For the skeptic, the issue being discussed isn't whether a god spoke them, but what the scriptures claim whoever wrote them. In my case, it was to illustrate how scripture can be used however the believer likes. None seem to like the one from Isaiah 45 (below) that says God is the source of darkness and evil, so it generally takes somebody like me who doesn't consider any of it authoritative to point out the contradiction.
Anyway, do you have anything to say about, "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil"? The believers job it to concoct some answer that tries to make that say something else, because he has generally rejected the idea a priori as an act of faith, so of course it doesn't mean what it says. Since the skeptic has no such need, he doesn't work that semantic magic on such comments to make them say what they don't say.
the message of the Baha'i Faith is not to be pious. In fact, Baha'u'llah wrote that the fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men.
The text you provided was Baha'u'llah instructions on how to honor God. That's what all prophets, messengers and gurus claiming to speak for a god do, which is different from what Buddha or a contemporary atheistic humanist would teach because the latter isn't saying that a god told him to tell you how to be pious (scrupulously observant of a god's instructions).
God does not send messengers to weigh in on climate change.
Yes, I know. That was part of my argument about the lack of relevance of even updated messages. That's information man needed to know and take seriously. Imagine how helpful such a message would have been if people believed it came from a god and not just man and his science, which many don't trust.
That is within the purview of science, not religion.
Why not if that religion is getting messages from gods? You don't seem to realize that you're making the case that these messages are about religion, which offers no answers about climate change or anything else except how to please God as the world goes on cooking.
Telling us to love God and love and love one another was the message of Jesus. Baha'u'llah reiterated that message since many people have forgotten it, but that is certainly not he primary message of Baha'u'llah
I disagree. You provided excerpts. Yes, this is an updated message, but it's still instructions on loving God and one another, just not called that explicitly. Remove the third and fourth, and it's basically a humanist position derived from the humanist sensibilities of the Enlightenment that went into writing the American Constitution a century earlier and now called God's will:
1 The oneness of humanity.
2 The independent investigation of truth.
3 The common foundation of all religions.
4 The essential harmony of science and religion.
5 The equality of men and women.
6 The elimination of prejudice of all kinds.
7 Universal peace upheld by a world federation of nations.
Mankind have been given intelligence, and we can decide for ourselves what we believe to be closer to the truth...and I have decided that the Bible and Qur'an are inspired by Divine source. I don't have all the answers, but I have faith that G-d does.
I know. I have a different definition of truth and a different method for determining what ideas are correct than faith.
when it comes to scripture, we need to have an overall understanding of the whole.
The difference between the critical thinker and the faith-based believer is that the former comes to that overall understanding by reading scripture open-mindedly and dispassionately, which method (empiricism) generates different beliefs than if one decides what the Bible is and says before reading it (fideism).
The scriptures can't modify his beliefs. His beliefs modify scripture to make it mean what he has decided a priori it means. His "overall understanding of the whole" is that it is true and comes from a good god before he looks at it. That's called confirmation bias or motivated thinking.