What is Faith?

[osgart]

That is illogical.
i.e. one mistake on the writing of a human being = 'no god'

Falsehoods go beyond mistakes as well. I don't want to rationalize with falsehoods and mistakes.

 

[muhammad_isa]

No, it is a bit more difficult than that.

Not for me.

The Holy Book is from God.

Who says?
Does @osgart believe that?
I certainly don't.

The moment you admit that a Holy Book is actual written by humans and it means because of this it can have mistakes, you open up a can of worms of if that which is written is a mistake or not.

Exactly..
..and we know that is true.
Gospel "according to" etc.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Not for me.


Who says?
Does @osgart believe that?
I certainly don't.


Exactly..
..and we know that is true.
Gospel "according to" etc.

Good, then my human understanding of all the Holy Books are correct and yours is not. In effect I will go to Heaven and you will burn in Hell.

Do you understand the problem with that, as I do it? Do you then understand the problem, when you do it however you do it?

 

[muhammad_isa]

Good, then my human understanding of all the Holy Books are correct and yours is not..

If you look back at @osgart 's quote, you will see that he said "any Holy Book",
and not all.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If you look back at @osgart 's quote, you will see that he said "any Holy Book",
and not all.

Yeah, I am right as I understand everything correctly and you are...

As long as we are doing that as individuals how ever any given one does it, we will run into in effect special pleading and all sub-categories of humans can have some members, who do that.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Whether or not I have good evidence or not is only a personal opinion yet you assert it as if it was a fact.

It is a fact. Your evidence doesn't support your conclusions. That you are unaware of that it is a fact doesn't change that.

I doubt that you know what open-mindedness is.

I just defined it for you in the previous post. You ought to be able to say for certain whether my definition comports with yours or not, and if not, where they contradict and why you think my definition is wrong. But you can't, because you don't really know what my words mean, you have no clear concept of what open- and closed-mindedness are yourself, and so can't present a rebuttal, just bluster. Show me that I'm wrong if I am.

What I see is inflexibility or lack of fair-mindedness, and it has nothing to do with your pointing out my errors.

You're calling ME inflexible? I suppose that if you mean strictly adherent to the laws of critical thought, then yes, that's not negotiable, and nothing you say will ever be persuasive without a compelling, evidenced argument. Your claims of using reason, being a critical thinker, successfully identifying fallacies, and having sufficient evidence to justify belief are all according to your rogue version of thought. And every bit of it is your resentment at not having your version of reason subjected to academic standards.

What is Faith?

Last edited: Today at 11:24 AM

How do you explain that?

OK, I accept your explanation for the time zone differences and rescind my claim that you made the changes after reading my post. Apologies. I should have noticed that our time stamps were exactly two hours different, but I didn't.

Now THAT was good thinking on your part. You presented an evidenced, compelling argument, and it changed a mind.

I hope that that has significance to you beyond just this interaction. I hope you understand that the people who reject your arguments don't do so because it's a religious argument or they're picking on you. The reject those arguments because they are flawed. If they weren't, they would have changed minds then, too.

And hopefully this serves as an incentive to you to learn more about how to do that. What you've been doing hasn't worked. Maybe you're content with that. I wouldn't be.

I'm thinking back to my early days of bridge, when it was clear to me that experienced players were communicating the parameters of their hands to their partners and arriving at more optimal contracts more often for that expertise, and I wanted in. It looked like magic, and I wanted to know how to do it.

How about you?

 

[Trailblazer]

No, it is a bit more difficult than that.

The Holy Book is from God.
God makes no mistakes.
Therefore there are no mistakes in the Holy Book.

The moment you admit that a Holy Book is actual written by humans and it means because of this it can have mistakes, you open up a can of worms of if that which is written is a mistake or not.

*WINNER*

 

[Treasure Hunter]

Faith is believing what you cannot see and doing his will.

I would add: through the spirit of truth.

 

[Trailblazer]

Because we are not omniscient. We cannot know how what we do not know would change what we think we know, if we were to know it.

I do not think we need to be omniscient to not have doubts.

Doubt: a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction.

doubt means - Google Search

www.google.com

No, we cannot know how what we do not know would change what we think we know, if we were to know it, because we do not know what is going to happen in the future, but we cannot live in the future, we only have the present day. If I get new information then I might have doubts, but as it stands now I do not have doubts.

Let's say I was married and I had no doubt that my husband would never cheat on me, and then I caught him with another woman. After that I would have doubts given the new information I now had.

If I find out that Baha'u'llah was not who He claimed to be then I might have doubts that God exists, but there would still be Jesus and all the other Messengers of God. However, I am not sure that would be enough to sustain my belief in God, since all the scriptures associated with those Messengers were written by men.

We can ignore our doubt when it does not appear relevant in the moment. But we should always understand that we can always be wrong. Because we can always be wrong, no matter how fully we choose to ignore our doubt. It would be dishonest to think otherwise.

Yes, we can always be wrong, but I do not see that as a reason to doubt what we know at the present time. We only have the present, not the past or the future. I do not see this as a matter of dishonesty. We can only be honest about what we are aware of at the present time.

What you chose not to doubt is not relevant to the point I am making. We can all be wrong about anything at any time. That is the truth of the human condition (because we are not omniscient). That we are not always wrong does not mean that we could not be wrong this time and about this thing.

So, what if we are wrong? God can never be proven to exist or not exist, so either believers or atheists could be wrong, but I do not see that as a reason to doubt that God exists. I have reasons not to doubt that God exists, so I have no doubt.

Do you think that atheists should doubt their position that God does not exist? I don't think it is my place to tell atheists what they should doubt.
If they have no doubt that God does not exist, that is their honest position and they have a right to hold that position.

Faith is not a lack of doubt. Faith is action predicated on hope in the face of our uncertainty. Faith does not ignore or deny doubt. It accepts doubt and chooses a reasonable course of action to get through it.

That all depends upon how strong one's faith is. Some people might have faith and still have doubts. For example, in a GriefShare group I attend a Christian woman said that she sure hopes there is a heaven, as if she was uncertain. I do not 'hope' there is a heaven, I am certain of it, as I have no doubt. One still has to get through life, and if a loved one has dies they still have to grieve, whether they have doubts about heaven or not. Lack of doubt does not change my course of action. The reasonable course of action for me was to attend the GriefShare group.

The kind of faith that moves mountains is a lack of doubt.

Matthew 21:21
And Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen.

You should be skeptical of this, because you could be wrong. As a human being, you can always be wrong. Especially about things as nebulous as the idea of God. Skepticism is logical and appropriate. Doubt is acceptable. And faith is the way through it.

I do not think in terms of whether I could be wrong about God existing or not. What is going to happen if I am wrong? I think I lived a better life because I believed what is in the scriptures was the right way to live. What did I miss out on? I have no interest in an eat, drink, and be merry kind of life. Moreover, because I have no doubts, I can be more helpful to people who do have doubts.

Skepticism is logical and appropriate for some people, but it is not the only logical and appropriate position one can hold.
Doubt is acceptable for some people but it is not the only position one can hold. If one has no doubts, they have no doubts.
Why try to instill doubts into people who have no doubts?

Faith is the way through doubt if one has doubts, but faith is also a way to have no doubts. As the verse above says "if you have faith and do not doubt."

 

[Trailblazer]

If one falsehood can be found in any holy book then the whole thing is nothing beyond human invention.

I don't see it that way since that is the all or nothing fallacy. .

all or nothing fallacy. Definition: When an inference is made based on two options (many times extreme) are given as if they were the only ones when other options exist (which are many times more probable than the two presented), then the resulting error in reasoning is known as the all or nothing fallacy.
Accident, ad hominem, all or nothing, equivocation and ...

There are other possibilities as to why falsehoods might be found. One reason there might be errors is because men wrote all the holy books and men are fallible. As a Baha'i, I do not believe there are errors in the Writings of Baha'u'llah since I believe He was infallible, as are all the Messengers of God. However there could be errors in translation since falllible men translated the tablets that Baha'u'llah wrote.

I look at qualities such as virtues, and I can attribute moral perfection to be blameless and faultless as well as inerrant in the application of virtues. God is the definition of being that fits perfectly with those ideas. However that's not enough to reveal God as fact.

God is not a fact and God will never be a fact because facts can be proven and God can never to proven to exist.

fact
something that is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information:
fact

Fact: a thing that is known or proved to be true.
what is a fact - Google Search

I can also attribute intelligence to the creation of humanity and the other animals. Known by the abstract qualities that they possess. But that intelligence is limited, not without errors, and creates savage environments of hunter/prey. It's not worthy of a God with virtues.

I used to think that way but I have changed because I realized that I cannot judge God for His creation, and that is illogical, since I cannot know more than God about how to create a world since God is all-knowing. I just have to say that I do not know why God created such savage environments, and I turn off the TV when I see those nature programs!

So there's nothing out there that equates to an authoritatively moral being or entity. There's no source of inerrancy that I can look to to effect any change in my life other than the qualities of character called the virtues. No one is morally perfect, and each of us must use judgment the best we can when faced with ethical challenges where an absolutely right choice doesn't exist.

I think that is the most important thing, that you have the qualities of character called virtues. What you believe does not matter if you have no virtues as a result.

So I don't see anything that differentiates God from imagination. Unless of course God is not responsible for our existence, and has far more important things to do than govern lives on earth. That would make God far less powerful than omniscient.

I believe that God is responsible for our existence in the sense that God created us, but after that we were enjoined to govern our own lives on earth. It does not make God any less powerful just because God chooses to allow humans to manage their own affairs.

So I'm quite at peace being atheist about gods. Yet logically I expect an mind reality that is the eternal source to the creation of life. As that follows for me with what I can observe.

And I am fine with you being an atheist because I like you just as you are.

 

[osgart]

I don't see it that way since that is the all or nothing fallacy. .

all or nothing fallacy. Definition: When an inference is made based on two options (many times extreme) are given as if they were the only ones when other options exist (which are many times more probable than the two presented), then the resulting error in reasoning is known as the all or nothing fallacy.
Accident, ad hominem, all or nothing, equivocation and ...

There are other possibilities as to why falsehoods might be found. One reason there might be errors is because men wrote all the holy books and men are fallible. As a Baha'i, I do not believe there are errors in the Writings of Baha'u'llah since I believe He was infallible, as are all the Messengers of God. However there could be errors in translation since falllible men translated the tablets that Baha'u'llah wrote.

God is not a fact and God will never be a fact because facts can be proven and God can never to proven to exist.

fact
something that is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information:
fact

Fact: a thing that is known or proved to be true.
what is a fact - Google Search

I used to think that way but I have changed because I realized that I cannot judge God for His creation, and that is illogical, since I cannot know more than God about how to create a world since God is all-knowing. I just have to say that I do not know why God created such savage environments, and I turn off the TV when I see those nature programs!

I think that is the most important thing, that you have the qualities of character called virtues. What you believe does not matter if you have no virtues as a result.

I believe that God is responsible for our existence in the sense that God created us, but after that we were enjoined to govern our own lives on earth. It does not make God any less powerful just because God chooses to allow humans to manage their own affairs.

And I am fine with you being an atheist because I like you just as you are.

Thanks Trailblazer! I like you too.

I just add that the bar for there being a God I find to be extremely high because God is ideal, perfect, and omniscient. With God all things are possible, so, I expect God to do extraordinary things with his message.

But I'm not going to debate too much about it. Debate without prior discussion seems like a big waste of time to me

 

[Trailblazer]

It is a fact. Your evidence doesn't support your conclusions. That you are unaware of that it is a fact doesn't change that.

No, it is not a fact that my evidence does not 'support' my conclusions, it is only your personal opinion. Facts can be proven but you cannot prove that my evidence does not support my conclusions.

Fact
something that is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information:
fact

Fact: a thing that is known or proved to be true.
what is a fact - Google Search

Unless you can prove that my conclusions are not true it is not a fact that my evidence does not support my conclusions. Otherwise, you are committing the fallacy known as argument from ignorance.

Argument from ignorance asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there may have been an insufficient investigation, and therefore there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false.
Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia

It is only a fact that my evidence does not 'prove' my conclusions, but I never claimed it does. I have always said that my conclusion "God exists" can never be proven.

I just defined it for you in the previous post. You ought to be able to say for certain whether my definition comports with yours or not, and if not, where they contradict and why you think my definition is wrong. But you can't, because you don't really know what my words mean, you have no clear concept of what open- and closed-mindedness are yourself, and so can't present a rebuttal, just bluster. Show me that I'm wrong if I am.

You said: You play the part of Ham to my Nye. Ham is locked in. There is no way for him to discover where he is wrong. That's what I meant by boxed in - no way out of that box. Nye just needs to see the evidence.

This is a useless discussion and exercise in futility because you don't accept what I accept as evidence. I don't want to hear you say one more time "that's not evidence." It is not evidence to you, but it is not a fact that it is not evidence for God unless you can prove it is not evidence for God. Otherwise you are committing the argument from ignorance fallacy. Since nobody can prove that God exists it is unknown whether the evidence I have is evidence for God. Case closed.

You said: I doubt that you know what open-mindedness is (hint: look at the Nye and Ham stuff again). You equate rejection of your errors as inflexibility or lack of fair-mindedness, and when have you ever provided anything that warrants a change of opinion.

No, I do not equate rejection of 'what I have presented' (what you have not proven are errors) as inflexibility or lack of fair-mindedness.

open-minded: willing to consider new ideas; unprejudiced.

open-minded definition - Google Search

www.google.com

This is not about me and what I have presented. You reject all religious claims, because you are prejudiced against them before you even get out the door. Nothing I say is going to change your opinion because it is set in stone. That is not open-minded. You could say the same thing to me but what have you got to offer that could change my opinion? Since you cannot prove that God does not exist and I have evidence that God does exist, it would be foolish for me to relinquish my belief for atheism.

You're calling ME inflexible? I suppose that if you mean strictly adherent to the laws of critical thought, then yes, that's not negotiable, and nothing you say will ever be persuasive without a compelling, evidenced argument.

NO, that is NOT why I think you are inflexible. See above, since inflexibility is related to open-mindedness.

OK, I accept your explanation for the time zone differences and rescind my claim that you made the changes after reading my post. Apologies. I should have noticed that our time stamps were exactly two hours different, but I didn't.

Apology accepted. I initially made a mistake in my post because I acted too hastily, and maybe that is what you also did. I should have read past what I originally quoted you saying, but I admit I was too eager to catch you in a fallacy, and that is what was probably going on in my subconscious mind. Only later did I realize that when it was brought into consciousness, and only later did I realize I had made a mistake when I read what you wrote in its full context.

Now THAT was good thinking on your part. You presented an evidenced, compelling argument, and it changed a mind.

I hope that that has significance to you beyond just this interaction. I hope you understand that the people who reject your arguments don't do so because it's a religious argument or they're picking on you. The reject those arguments because they are flawed. If they weren't, they would have changed minds then, too.

As I have said umpteen million times, I have no arguments that I am presenting to try to prove the existence of God.
I cannot have a flawed argument if I have no argument, that is logically impossible.

Now, if you are talking about rejecting my evidence for God's existence that is what you should say. I already know that you reject my evidence but you cannot say it is flawed unless you can prove it is flawed. Otherwise all you have is a personal opinion, and if you could admit that we could stop going through all these gyrations, because it is serving no purpose to keep going back and forth.

You cannot assert that my evidence is flawed unless you can prove it is flawed without committing an argument form ignorance.
If you are asserting that my evidence is is flawed because it has not yet been proven true that God exists using my evidence, this represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, that there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false.

You cannot win this debate since your position is based upon fallacious reasoning. I am not committing the fallacy, because I am not asserting that "God exists" is true because it has not yet been proven false. I am asserting that that there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false.

I'm thinking back to my early days of bridge, when it was clear to me that experienced players were communicating the parameters of their hands to their partners and arriving at more optimal contracts more often for that expertise, and I wanted in. It looked like magic, and I wanted to know how to do it.

How about you?

I suggest you either change your assertion 'that my evidence is flawed' or get out of the game, because you cannot win a debate with a fallacious argument. I carefully explained why it is fallacious above.

On the other hand, if you want to change your position to 'your evidence is not convincing to me' that would not be illogical at all as there is no logical reason why my evidence would be convincing to you just because it is convincing to me.

 

[Trailblazer]

I just add that the bar for there being a God I find to be extremely high because God is ideal, perfect, and omniscient. With God all things are possible, so, I expect God to do extraordinary things with his message.

But I'm not going to debate too much about it. Debate without prior discussion seems like a big waste of time to me

As I just explained to @It Aint Necessarily So nobody can ever win a debate about whether God exists or not, since nobody can ever prove that God exists or that God does not exist. Likewise, as I told him, nobody can win a debate by calling the evidence I have presented for God flawed, since that is only a personal opinion, not a fact.

We could have a discussion about why he thinks it is flawed and why I do not think it is flawed, but it is logically impossible to prove it is flawed or unflawed, since it is logically impossible to prove that my evidence came from God, or that it did not come from God. Whether it came from God or did not come from God is only a personal opinion, a belief.

Whether or not God is ideal, perfect, and omniscient and with God all things are possible, is just a belief, and it cannot be proven or disproven.

God is not going to do any extraordinary things with his message. God expects humans to do extraordinary things with his message.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

it is not a fact that my evidence does not 'support' my conclusions, it is only your personal opinion.

It's both a fact and my opinion, but not just mine.

Facts can be proven but you cannot prove that my evidence does not support my conclusions.

Not to you, but I can make a compelling argument that would be acceptable to any critical thinker. Look at how many agree that your messengers and their messages don't support Baha'u'llah's claim of channeling a speaking for a god. I understand from previous posting that what you see there is an ad populum fallacy that wasn't committed, but none of that makes any of your objections valid. And yes, you are boxed in by closed-mindedness caused by a faith-based confirmation bias which shows you what you want to see and a lack of critical thinking skills. Sorry that you resent reading that, but your emotional reactions are your responsibility. You don't need to be any more emotional than the critical thinkers with whom you engage. None have your plaintive disposition. None are stressed.

This is a useless discussion and exercise in futility because you don't accept what I accept as evidence.

It's not useless to me. I'm learning from these discussions, which is why I keep coming back to them. Your reasons must be different, but you obviously like something about the activity.

I don't want to hear you say one more time "that's not evidence."

What I say is that what you offer as evidence doesn't justify your conclusions about it. You have your own standards for justification different from the academic, legal, and scientific communities. Naturally, critical thinkers reject those other standards. That's not going to be changing.

it is not a fact that it is not evidence for God unless you can prove it is not evidence for God.

Prove? I can and have successfully refuted your claim, but not to you. How many times have I posted that there is no burden of "proof" with people unwilling or unable to evaluate an argument for soundness or to be convinced by one.

Otherwise you are committing the argument from ignorance fallacy.

No. That would be me saying that it is a fact because you can't show that it isn't. That's something you might say, but not me.

You reject all religious claims, because you are prejudiced against them before you even get out the door.

I reject belief by faith, by which I mean unjustified belief by the academic standards for justification, not yours.

Nothing I say is going to change your opinion because it is set in stone.

I think that comment was just falsified when you changed my mind about the time stamps. My mind is open to your arguments, but that only gets them into the critical evaluation room. They have to pass muster there to be admitted into my belief set. That door is definitely closed to unsupported claims and unsound arguments, which is what you are calling closed-mindedness. Only the first door is open to any idea, and that alone defines open-mindedness - the willingness to consider evidence and argument dispassionately and objectively, and the willingness to be convinced by a sound argument.

what have you got to offer that could change my opinion?

Nothing. All I have to offer you is reasoned argument. You have you own system of reasoning, and I don't speak that language.

You cannot assert that my evidence is flawed unless you can prove it is flawed without committing an argument form ignorance.

OK. I never call evidence flawed, just arguments derived from it, I have no burden of "proof" with you because you can't evaluate an argument for soundness, and you don't appear to know what an argument from ignorance is. What's the burden of proof to a child who asks you to prove the Pythagorean theorem to him but can't follow the argument? None at all. Come back when you've learned some math and then we can talk.

I suggest you either change your assertion 'that my evidence is flawed' or get out of the game, because you cannot win a debate with a fallacious argument. I carefully explained why it is fallacious above.

I suggest you stop confusing me with somebody who would call evidence flawed, verifiable, private, or scientific. Evidence is merely what is evident, and your careful argument was rejected for lack of soundness. It's wrong.

On the other hand, if you want to change your position to 'your evidence is not convincing to me' that would not be illogical at all as there is no logical reason why my evidence would be convincing to you just because it is convincing to me.

If we used the same methodology for evaluating evidence and did so without introducing fallacy, our conclusions would be compatible. Do I need to bring out the arithmetic metaphor again? There is only one set of rules for addition that generate correct sums. Answers are never, "just your opinion." They are correct or not, and if not, one can be sure that the rules were violated somewhere. The same is true in this arena. Your inability to understand or even consider that possibility has you locked in to where you are now. Ask yourself this: If I were wrong, is it possible to show me that and change my mind? Not if you can't reason properly and have stubbornly .

 

[muhammad_isa]

There is only one set of rules for addition that generate correct sums.

When it comes to religion, they will not work.
Nothing strange about that .. religions are not entirerly based on evidence.
If one does not think it likely that G-d exists, no amount of evidence wil make any difference.
..on the other hand..

Your inability to understand or even consider that possibility has you locked in to where you are now..

Ridiculous .. that could be said about anybody, including you.

 

[Truthseeker]

That is illogical.
i.e. one mistake on the writing of a human being = 'no god'

Not sure what you mean by that in context with the discussion.

edit: Reading down further, you are referring to the Bible, which was not written by God.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Not sure what you mean by that in context with the discussion.

Like @Trailblazer said, it is an "all or nothing fallacy".
..just because a mistake might exist in a part of one Holy Book, then the whole lot are worth nothing.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

When it comes to religion, they will not work.

Any claim about reality can be subject to the rules of reason applied to evidence (critical analysis). Gods are not exempt simply because there is insufficient evidence to justify belief in them.

religions are not entirely based on evidence.

That doesn't give them a pass. Neither is most fiction. What happened to the claims of election fraud following search for physical evidence of election tampering, when that evidence failed to materialize? They were ignored. The were deemed fiction for lack of evidence. This is no different. And there were many who believed those claims absent sufficient evidence to justify belief, including one who was shot in the face and several others either in prison or headed there. I realize that belief in religious claims is usually not as damaging, but they can be, as they were in Jonestown, Waco, and Heaven's Gate.

If one does not think it likely that G-d exists, no amount of evidence wil make any difference.

You're describing the faith-based thinker. You may know that the moderator in the debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye on whether creationism is a viable scientific pursuit asked them, “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." You described Ham, not Nye. Make a compelling, evidenced argument for any god at all and you will have the critical thinker's attention. Of course, if no god exists, there is no way to convince an empiricist that one does or a faith-based thinker that the empiricist isn't just being stubborn and closed-minded. He assumes that his god exists, is obvious, and only people trying to fight belief will try to resist it.

that could be said about anybody, including you.

Except I made the case. She believes by faith, and how does one tunnel out of that? How can one possibly identify and correct errors if they are impervious to evidence and argument? They can't. I've described my own journey out of Christianity. Fortunately, thought I had suspended disbelief and chose to disregard evidence and reason for a time to try this worldview out, I hadn't forgotten how to do that, so when compelling evidence surfaced that the religion was false, I was NOT boxed in.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic? Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, "Well, that's not how I choose to think about water"? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn't share those values, the conversation is over." - Sam Harris

In this case, we have, "Well, that's just your opinion."

just because a mistake might exist in a part of one Holy Book, then the whole lot are worth nothing.

That's not the argument. It is that if any of it is of human origin, and there is no way to tell what else human beings wrote, the book is not a reliable source of information from that god.

 

[Truthseeker]

If I find out that Baha'u'llah was not who He claimed to be then I might have doubts that God exists, but there would still be Jesus and all the other Messengers of God. However, I am not sure that would be enough to suatain my belief in God, since all the scriptures associated with those Messengers were written by men.

The Qur'an was revealed by man who was guided by God, but I know that because the Baha'i Writings say that. I would be in the same boat with you.

 

[Trailblazer]

It's both a fact and my opinion, but not just mine.

It is not a fact, it is only an opinion. Facts can be proven, your opinion cannot be proven.

fact
something that is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information:
fact

Not to you, but I can make a compelling argument that would be acceptable to any critical thinker.

Why would that matter, especially since you have no argument that could ever prove that God exists or does not exist?

Look at how many agree that your messengers and their messages don't support Baha'u'llah's claim of channeling a speaking for a god. I understand from previous posting that what you see there is an ad populum fallacy that wasn't committed, but none of that makes any of your objections valid.

That is ad populum fallacy was committed every time you used the number of people who believe or disbelieve in something as evidence as to whether it is true or not. Do you have any arguments that are not fallacious?

In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so."
Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia

The converse of this is that if many or most people do not believe it, it cannot be so, and that is fallacious.

And yes, you are boxed in by closed-mindedness caused by a faith-based confirmation bias which shows you what you want to see and a lack of critical thinking skills. Sorry that you resent reading that, but your emotional reactions are your responsibility. You don't need to be any more emotional than the critical thinkers with whom you engage. None have your plaintive disposition. None are stressed.

Who said I was emotional? Now are you into mind-reading over the internet? The only emotion I am experiencing is constant laughter, as my cats have been witnessing me as I laugh uncontrollably every time I read your posts. One of my cats even got scared when I laughed so hard since she is not accustomed to seeing me laugh.

Who said I resent reading that? Now are you into mind-reading over the internet? Why would I resent all the entertainment you are providing?
God knows my life is pretty dull and there is nothing on TV that I am interested in.

Sorry if you resent reading that, but your emotional reactions are your responsibility.

It's not useless to me. I'm learning from these discussions, which is why I keep coming back to them. Your reasons must be different, but you obviously like something about the activity.

What are you learning? I am learning to laugh for the first time in 20 years. I am not laughing at you, I am laughing because this whole discussion is so ridiculous, yet you still don't understand why. I see that your friend @F1fan finally realized that so he got off the merry-go-round. Smart guy. He must be a critical thinker.

I keep coming back for the same reason I keep coming back to a dating site that has mostly con men on it. It is fun to watch them try to fool me and believe I am fooled into believing that they are real men who are interested in me. Their stories are endless! They might sound true to a woman who is not onto their game, but I was onto them a long time ago. In fact, I identify them as con men before the dating site manager identifies them, and then the following day I get an e-mail that the man has been identified as a scammer so he was removed from the dating site. That just happened again yesterday. As soon as they ask for my phone number I know for sure they are a con man but before that I just play along with them for the fun of it. He is working in Nova Scotia, sure. These men are always in a foreign country doing work and they are always widowers looking to start afresh.

This man must have really thought I was stupid because he said he is going to retire and buy a house for himself and his new soulmate and he wanted that to be me, after only a few messages posted back and forth. I was going to send him a message saying I don't need a house because I have three houses that are paid in full, but the dating site manager deleted his profile before I could do that... Gosh darn.

The stories are endless, and even the men who are not scammers only want one thing - sex! This exchange I had with a man who lives only about 40 miles east of here was so funny. He thought he could lure me into a sexual relationship because he is building a new house on 50 acres. Then I told him I have three houses so I don't need a house. Then we compared the net worth of our real estate and mine was double what his is.

I know we are far off topic but I wanted to talk about logic. However, I went over the character limit for a post so I had to delete that part of the post where I showed how illogical that man was since he made false assumptions.

What I say is that what you offer as evidence doesn't justify your conclusions about it. You have your own standards for justification different from the academic, legal, and scientific communities. Naturally, critical thinkers reject those other standards. That's not going to be changing.

My evidence justifies the conclusions that I came to. Do you understand that I am a different person from you so we don't see things the same way? It is like that man in the example above. He thought that marriage without sex is not justified and I think marriage without sex is justified, especially when the two people are 70 years old!

Yes, I certainly do have standards for justification different from the academic, legal, and scientific communities, but these are not my own standards, they are the same standards as for for religious believers. You don't have to change your standards but please be advised that if you don't change them you will remain an atheist forever. If that is what you want it is fine by me since it is not my life.

No. That would be me saying that it is a fact because you can't show that it isn't. That's something you might say, but not me.

When you say I do not have any evidence that proves that God exists, you are saying that my belief that God exists is false because it has not yet been proven true by my evidence. That is an argument from ignorance.
Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia

I reject belief by faith, by which I mean unjustified belief by the academic standards for justification, not yours.

You are free to have your academic standards but realize that you will never have any evidence for God that meets those standards.

I think that comment was just falsified when you changed my mind about the time stamps. My mind is open to your arguments, but that only gets them into the critical evaluation room. They have to pass muster there to be admitted into my belief set. That door is definitely closed to unsupported claims and unsound arguments, which is what you are calling closed-mindedness. Only the first door is open to any idea, and that alone defines open-mindedness - the willingness to consider evidence and argument dispassionately and objectively, and the willingness to be convinced by a sound argument.

No, that comment was not falsified when you changed my mind about the time stamps. Since there was verifiable evidence for the time stamps, of course you changed your mind. By contrast, there will never be verifiable evidence for God so you are not going to change your mind.
You said that you reject belief by faith and consider it unjustified belief, but since faith is the only way to believe in God what more is there to say? You are not open to any evidence that must be believed on faith.

Nothing. All I have to offer you is reasoned argument. You have you own system of reasoning, and I don't speak that language.

What is your reasoned argument?

OK. I never call evidence flawed, just arguments derived from it, I have no burden of "proof" with you because you can't evaluate an argument for soundness, and you don't appear to know what an argument from ignorance is. What's the burden of proof to a child who asks you to prove the Pythagorean theorem to him but can't follow the argument? None at all. Come back when you've learned some math and then we can talk.

It is not me who does not know what an argument from ignorance is. I have proven that you have committed the fallacy and you have been unable to show me I am wrong. You just keep deflecting. Your position is that my evidence for God is false because it has not yet been proven true.

I suggest you stop confusing me with somebody who would call evidence flawed, verifiable, private, or scientific. Evidence is merely what is evident, and your careful argument was rejected for lack of soundness. It's wrong.

That is correct. Evidence is what is evident, and my evidence is evident to me.
As I have said a million times, I have no argument so I cannot have a sound argument.

Answers are never, "just your opinion." They are correct or not, and if not, one can be sure that the rules were violated somewhere. The same is true in this arena.

Math is not religion so that is the fallacy of false equivalence. The same is not true in the arena of math as in the arena of religion, since math is not religion. Answers in religion are beliefs and opinions, since they can never be proven true or false. This is really not that difficult so I have to conclude that you have a mental block.

Your inability to understand or even consider that possibility has you locked in to where you are now. Ask yourself this: If I were wrong, is it possible to show me that and change my mind? Not if you can't reason properly and have stubbornly .

Your inability to understand or even consider that possibility I just explained above has you locked in to where you are now. Ask yourself this: If I was right, is it possible to show you that and change your mind? Not if you can't reason properly.