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Who was Baha'u'llah?
- Thread starter InvestigateTruth
- Start date
You souldn't worry about it. That is the God of the Hebrews, not your God. The Hebrew God talks to Jewish people, your God doesn't talk to anyone but messengers, remember?
Are you questioning that theists take texts literally, like you do?
And notice how many different theists claim to hear controdictory gods with different messages. So "listening" doesn't seem to be the problem, it is the "one true God" that must be suffering from multiple personality disorder since it tells different religious groups different things.
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Look at the disparaing remark. Does it make you feel better? Is this how a divine-led person behaves?
This is what gives me doubts that believers are what they want others to think they are.
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RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I get it. You think you can come on here sneering with impunity, belittling and denigrating anyone who doesn’t share your prejudice, and expect both compassion and forgiveness in return.
Well today, I’m not in the mood, I’m not remotely interested in what you think of me, and I have nothing to prove to you or anyone else. Today I chose to respond to your tiresome nonsense with the same lack of grace you routinely show every time you interact with a person of faith.
Theists can be quite sensitive to criticism. It turns out believers are ordinary people, and belief in a God offers no guarantee to the emotional landscape that can affect anyone of us. You are accountable to yourself, no gods hep the believer from themselves.
A few things on this. The link you provided to Baha'i material says the "God is infallible in authority". Again this is a problem I have with this idea of "authority", and "infallibility", because it is tied into concepts and ideas about God through language in the writings and teachings of human beings talking about God.
While I agree in principle that you cannot go against the way or the nature of God and not suffer consequences, that is more in the sense of the Absoluteness of the nature and being of God itself, or himself if you prefer a gender attribute to the Divine. To me this is more akin to you can't stop of river from being a river. Even if you dam it up and block its flow, eventually it will have its way and wash that dam away. In that sense it is "infallible", meaning you can't win going against it. Eventually you lose.
Now regarding all Christians believing in the doctrine of infallibilty, or far worse the notion of Biblical inerrancy, these are in fact not found in the Bible as you say, though some infer this from their particular readings of the texts. In reality however, these are doctrinal stances latter formulated by clergy to support their ways of looking at the Bible. In fact, the doctrine of inerrancy, is very modern. It was only believed officially by Evangelicals and fundamentalists in response to the rise of modernity in Christianity in America in the last 100 years or so:
The idea of biblical infallibility gained ground in Protestant churches as a fundamentalist reaction against a general movement towards modernism within mainstream Christian denominations in the 19th and early 20th centuries
I think reading this short Wiki article will give you a better understanding of its history and meaning and evolution in recent times: Biblical infallibility - WikipediaWas their human nature infallible? When they wrote their words and formulated their thoughts to speak to others, did that bypass their fallible human natures and they spoke more as a channeling oracle who falls into a trance and lets the spirit speak directly through them, while they simply sat there as a passive vessel who was taken over by the spirit, eyes glazed over and their pen taken to automatic writing?
I don't believe that for a minute, nor is there any reason to. If you do believe that, then you have the whole problem of the house of cards. One single technical error about, let's say talking about the theory of evolution being incorrect, then the entire cathedral comes crashing down upon the believer who had this errant idea that there can be no errors whatsoever. Down goes their faith, and they join the ranks of atheists who see the whole thing as smoke and mirrors.
The alternative to that is to realize that there can in fact be errors in it, because it's not about science and history and ideas, but about the nature of spirituality. But I realize some need something more concrete with handles to hold on to. But doing that does put them at risk, especially in a modern age where we have so much more reliable information available at our fingertips.
So then, I do ask the question, even if we are to imagine every single word they wrote was without any type of error whatsoever, what good does that do you if you can 100% trust your own interpretation? What's the point then?
When they are so lopsidedly in favor of unbelief, it indicates that the message is unconvincing. You still don't understand the implications of that to your argument that it is evidence for a god.
It is incomprehensible to me that you would ask me that question. How can you still not know my position on that?
[1] "The message is not evidence that the message is from a deity because it is mundane. Evidence of a deity is something evident to the senses that makes the existence of the deity more likely, which does not include flowery, nonspecific exhortation to follow a god, which anybody can write."
[2] "But it's you making the excuses - excuses for why this god can't do better than mundane messengers with mundane messages. "
[3] "What you call evidence of a god is the ministry of an ordinary man with an ordinary religious message claiming to speak for an unseen god."
Prove again? Really? Can't you assimilate that that word is irrelevant in these discussions? Proof is neither your standard for belief, nor mine, yet you keep using the word in bad faith anyway despite this having been explained to you repeatedly. Your criterion for belief is that something feels right to you, and mine is sufficient evidence to rationally justify belief.
The assertion is correct. If it weren't, you could rebut it, but you'd need to produce a superhuman passage to falsify the claim that that kind of prose can't be written by human beings. I've done it for you in the past - written a bunch of phrases like "o ye unfaithful" and "the bounty of infinite joy." AI can generate such prose.
Let me guess. You will name some random fallacy, copy-and-paste it as your entire argument without connecting it to the present matter, and think that you have negated what you read.
Prove, prove, prove. You're stuck in a loop. My personal opinion is a sound conclusion.
Prove, prove, prove. What else do you have beside this meaningless trope?
Nor did I claim it was. You commonly corrupt a thought between reading and paraphrasing it. What you write is not what you read. As an exercise, see if you can correct that comment and turn it into something that a critical thinker might actually have said. I don't think you can, because I don't think you can tell the difference between sound conclusion and fallacy. Yeah, I know, just my opinion and it proves nothing. Try a different answer this time. Try to falsify the claim. Do you know what that means? Do you know specifically what is being asked of you?
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PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
He was sincere but He was delusional.
IMO he (as all messiah claimants) didn't fulfill the requirements.
IMO he (as all messiah claimants) didn't fulfill the requirements.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
It is the same God since there is only one God. The Hebrews don't have their own God and the Baha'is do not have another God.
The one God of the Hebrews talked to Moses, He was their messenger.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
That sounds like a claim. Do you have any evidence to back up that claim?
Otherwise it is only a personal opinion, although the evidence does not support it.
I already explained why He was not delusional early in this thread.
IMO, Baha'u'llah is the only messiah claimants who met the requirements.
The evidence is the fulfilled prophecies.
Jews disagree with Christians and Muslims, and all three disagree with your idea of the same God. Their view of this God is that it communicates with them, but your version needs messengers. Thats a huge discrepancy.
Yeah, everyone likes the Hebrew God. That’s why they copy it. Jews should have set up a copyright payment system.
Of course the Hebrews got their ideas for their gods from other cultures.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I guess you are referring to this passage:
"Tear asunder, in My Name, the veils that have grievously blinded your vision, and, through the power born of your belief in the unity of God, scatter the idols of vain imitation. Enter, then, the holy paradise of the good-pleasure of the All-Merciful. Sanctify your souls from whatsoever is not of God, and taste ye the sweetness of rest within the pale of His vast and mighty Revelation, and beneath the shadow of His supreme and infallible authority."
I understand the point you are making, but the fact that humans cannot infallibly understand the concepts and ideas about God through language in the writings and teachings does not make God any less infallible. The belief is that God is infallible, not that humans can infallibly understand what God has revealed through Baha'u'llah or any of the other messengers of God.
The messengers of God did not speak or write from their human nature, they spoke and wrote from their divine nature, since they had a divine mind.
When Baha'u'llah spoke from His divine nature He claimed to be the Voice of God.
“Attract the hearts of men, through the call of Him, the one alone Beloved. Say: This is the Voice of God, if ye do but hearken. This is the Day Spring of the Revelation of God, did ye but know it. This is the Dawning-Place of the Cause of God, were ye to recognize it. This is the Source of the commandment of God, did ye but judge it fairly.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 33
“…… Thus in moments in which these Essences of Being were deep immersed beneath the oceans of ancient and everlasting holiness, or when they soared to the loftiest summits of Divine mysteries, they claimed their utterances to be the Voice of Divinity, the Call of God Himself.” Gleanings, p. 55
My answer to that is that all we can do is the best we can to interpret what we read. We are humans thus fallible. Baha'is don't always agree on the exact meanings of what Baha'u'llah wrote, and the Writings can have more than one meaning, all correct, and maybe some of our interpretations are incorrect.
I have my own interpretations since I think from my own mind, but I like to hear how others interpret what Baha'u'llah wrote since I learn from other people and that broadens my perspective. For example, I was discussing the following sentence with my friend @Truthseeker and he gave me a different interpretation of this sentence:
“They that have tarnished the fair name of the Cause of God, by following the things of the flesh—these are in palpable error!”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 101
I asked him: But what do you think that sentence above means? I think it is referring to sex.
He said: It means sex to me, and more than sex, to me it refers to following things pertaining to this material world. It can mean taking drugs, drinking alcohol, perhaps not more than that, I can't say.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By discussing what Baha'u'llah wrote with other people I can better understand why they think what they think about Him, e.g. why His claims sounds grandiose. They do sound that way even to me, but I don't go by how they sound, I go by everything I know about the Revelation of Baha'u'llah. If I formed a judgment about Him based only upon how a few of His claims sound, without knowing why He made those claims, I would be committing the fallacy of jumping to conclusions.
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Trailblazer
Veteran Member
It does not matter what people believe about God since beliefs do not make anything true. Humans are fallible thus they are prone to err.
As a matter of logic, if there is only one God there is only one God. That means it has to be the same God even though believers have different beliefs about that God.
All the versions of God need messengers. Even though all the religions don't call them messengers, they are men who acted as intermediaries between God and man.
No, the Jewish version is that Moses received the communication for them.
Known also as the Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, the Torah is one of the three main divisions of the Hebrew Bible and also the most sacred, for according to tradition it was written down by Moses at divine dictation.
The Pentateuch with the Five Scrolls, Psalms, Job and the ...
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
The fact that the message is unconvincing has nothing to do with whether it is actually true or not.
That is no argument that it is not evidence for God.
How many people believe something is not what makes it true. That is ad populum.
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.
Matthew 7:13-14 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
There are reasons why few people find it, but I am not going to list those again.
I already know your position on the Writings of Baha'u'llah, but your personal opinion that the Writings are mundane does not amount to a hill of beans, not anymore than does my personal opinion that they are the Word of God.
How many times do I have to repeat myself. Personal opinions count for nothing.
The reason I asked: "Are you claiming that an ordinary human could have written the message?" is because if you are making such a claim you need to back it up with proof. Your personal opinion is not proof of anything, except that you can have a personal opinion.
Maybe an ordinary person could have written that message, or maybe an ordinary person could not have written that message.
Absent proof, it is all a matter of personal opinion. I have one opinion, you have a different opinion.
Your assertion is not correct unless you can prove it is correct. You can't.
I can only rebut a personal opinion with my personal opinion, that it is divine scripture, but what good would that do?
It is just your opinion vs. my opinion and it proves absolutely nothing. This is what you still fail to understand.
No, it is not a sound conclusion since you have no proof to back it up.
All you have is a personal opinion.
You call yourself a critical thinker and you don't even understand the difference between a fact and a personal opinion.
Opinion: a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. opinion meaning - Google Search
Fact: something that is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information:
fact
I asked: "What do you think that 81% vote proves? It certainly does not prove that the claims of Baha'u'llah are not true."
Any logical person would know that an opinion poll on a forum does not prove anything
True to form when you cannot provide an answer, you deflect.
Yes, you have claimed that His claim was false when you said:
"The message is not evidence that the message is from a deity because it is mundane. Evidence of a deity is something evident to the senses that makes the existence of the deity more likely, which does not include flowery, nonspecific exhortation to follow a god, which anybody can write."
It matters to you. Look how often you post about what you believe.
Critical thinkers keep reminding you.
Yet there is no evidence to resolve this, so there’s many, many different beliefs about gods. Atheists know it is folly to attempt justisfying any such belief.
No they don’t
And Moses is considered fictional. Might as well have Mickey Mouse as your messenger.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, I know.
You could have fooled me: "Are you claiming that an ordinary human could have written the message?"
Proof? Why can't you learn? Why do you perseverate? But the question is decidable, and has been decided.
Proof again? Yawn.
I guess it doesn't bother you to play this role.
Nor this role.
Somehow you think my words are the equivalent of yours. They are not. You still don't understand the difference between the absence of belief and belief in the contrary. But you're in good company. I can't remember a theist who had trouble with that that ever learned the difference. And you could have stopped after, "The message is not evidence that the message is from a deity." My reasons for unbelief, by which I mean a absence of belief, are irrelevant. It's still not disbelief, by which I mean a statement that the idea is considered untrue. Did you understand that? Please show that you do by paraphrasing it without altering its meaning.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
It is the fallacy of jumping to conclusions to say that I post often about what I believe about God because it matters to me what other people believe about God, since there could be other reasons why I post often. Actually, it does not matter to me what other people believe about God.
Humans are fallible thus they are prone to err.
Critical thinkers are human beings.
Therefore critical thinkers are prone to err.
Then why is it that critical thinkers cannot understand such simple logic, but rather insist they are never wrong?
No, there is no way to resolve what believers believe about God. All you can do is think for yourself and stop concerning yourself with what believers believe.
If atheists were logical they would be able to understand that if there is only one God there is only one God, even though believers have different beliefs about that God. Then they might try to understand why believers have different beliefs about that God, even though there is only one God.
Maybe not, but so what? Why would that matter?
Moses is considered fictional by you, but that does not mean that Moses was fictional unless you can prove that Moses did not exist.
Even if the stories about Moses are not all true, that does not mean that Moses did not exist.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, I am not claiming that. I do not believe that an ordinary human could have written that.
Why is it decidable without proof? Decided by whom?
No I don't think your words are equivalent to my words.
An absence of belief, but still not disbelief. If the idea is not considered untrue, then it could be true, you just don't know if it is true or false.
What that amounts to is that you are not an atheist, you are an agnostic.