Why Baha’i? It Comes Down to Five Questions

[Trailblazer]

Yes, I agree with this procedure.

I have investigated them all. None of them are the one.

You have investigated all of them who claimed to be Messengers of God?
Have you investigated Baha'u'llah?

Even if there is one True Messenger, not everyone is going to know who He is.
That is virtually impossible given the differences in humans and how they think.
But that does not mean that there isn't one True Messenger.

 

[tayla]

You have valid points about philosophy, but why is that better than religion? It can no more be proven than religion can, because it is based upon human ideas.

My complaint with revealed religions is that they create institutions that claim to have truth. Inevitably, these collide with governments and other social institutions, and creates insiders and outsiders excluding many. And by packaging all the claims into one package, the errors get respected as true. There is usually no way to strip errors out of religions, rather, future teachings must build on past false teachings. A good example is the Catholic Church.

Yes, your point about philosophy is correct. You can't prove philosophy as true. But it is superior to religion because religions claim their (philosophical) teachings are true. But since religious truth claims are merely philosophical in nature, they can't be proven and should not be claimed to be true.

 

[tayla]

Maybe that is true, but how does being mindful and enjoying consciousness help anyone but that individual?

You can help others and be mindful of doing so.

I'm not saying you can't help people. Who doesn't help people? We have governments with leaders which help people. Also charity organizations. Also individual actions that help people. You don't need religions to help people. That kind of help comes with a lot of unnecessary baggage.

 

[tayla]

If everyone is mindful of something different how does that bring people together, or does that matter?

Spoken like a religious fundamentalist, that everyone should be united under such and such a creed. Families require unity. Nations require unity. Does the whole world need a one true religion in order to create the unity you propose?

 

[tayla]

If the religion is the truth from God, it does not matter how many people believe it.

Yes, if it is. But none are.

 

[tayla]

It doesn't help anyone if the teachings are provably false, but it does help humanity of they are provably true.

Yes. But religions package truth with error, claiming it all as a package deal to be truth. And they claim God revealed the whole package, errors and all. That is my objection. I have no objection to people proposing truth claims for everyone to assess. It's in insisting they are from God that bothers me.

 

[tayla]

But what if the Messenger actually got messages from God?

That would be great. Then there would be no errors. The presence of errors indicates the messenger did not get messages from God.

 

[Trailblazer]

This is a good message. It's a bit wordy which will alienate some.

It assumes some concepts which I would question such as:

1. Great Being -- I don't think of myself this way in relation to my children or dogs. I doubt God thinks of himself/herself this way towards us. I certainly don't want my children to think of me like this.
   
2. A Faith of God -- I prefer to think of the purpose in living. No need to postulate a Faith in God; this sounds so religious.
   
3. A Religion of God -- implies a body of additional information which may not be true. It's not good to clump all the teachings together because in doing so, the bad teachings corrupt the good teachings.
4. It implies there is to be a universal one institutional religion that governs the whole world to guarantee the human interests it mentions. It leaves out consideration of animals.
5. It implies we are to be guided by a rule, a path, that forms a model for our thinking of how we are to live. Usually rules have unintended side effects.
6. It assumes the need for an organized religion in the first place. Presumably there are leaders. Who guarantees these are teaching and guiding correctly? Sounds like a set up for totalitarianism when the leaders proclaim themselves rulers over the government as well.
7. It assumes a utopian ideal society. Usually these don't work out so well.

It is 2 am here so I will answer this and everything else on this thread tomorrow...
I mean later today, after I eat dinner and get some sleep...

 

[tayla]

I am not saying that everyone can believe in a Messenger of God, but everyone cannot believe in the hypothetical messenger who met your criteria 1-4 either.

Yes, I agree. There are no messengers or saviors of mankind, religious or otherwise. Only truth claims, some more trustworthy than others, some provably false. That's as good as it gets.

 

[tayla]

“O KING! I was but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when lo, the breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me the knowledge of all that hath been. This thing is not from Me, but from One Who is Almighty and All-Knowing. And He bade Me lift up My voice between earth and heaven, and for this there befell Me what hath caused the tears of every man of understanding to flow. The learning current amongst men I studied not; their schools I entered not. Ask of the city wherein I dwelt, that thou mayest be well assured that I am not of them who speak falsely. This is but a leaf which the winds of the will of thy Lord, the Almighty, the All-Praised, have stirred.” Proclamation of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 57

I hope this messenger has no errors in his claims. His claim to divine authority is remarkable. Even one error would not look so good.

I prefer more humble philosophical analysis to these extraordinary claims of hearing from God.

 

[tayla]

No human can have all knowledge unless He gets it from God, because God is All-Knowing.

Yes, no human has all knowledge. The closest you can get is science. God is all-knowing but humans are not.

Insights via inspiration or dreams or visions or hallucinations or philosophical reflections are useful data to use in subsequent philosophical analysis. Without the philosophical analysis, proposed knowledge is useless (because it might be provably false).

 

[tayla]

Why would validation by many prove their correctness?

You don't prove they are true, you try to validate they are false so you can reject them. The more minds that consider a topic, the more information available to use in assessing the truth claims.

I'm not claiming something is true if many people claim it is true. This is false, as you note.

 

[tayla]

The converse of this is that if many or most people do not believe it, it cannot be so, and that is fallacious. For example, there was a time in history when most people did not believe man could fly in the air, but most people were wrong, as we found out later after airplanes were invented.

Yes, I agree. For example, I am the only person having my views, and they are the correct views. But not because I'm a messenger of God, but because I'm considering the topic differently than others. Having accepted science but rejected atheism, and having been deeply involved in various religions (eastern and Christian), I have noticed the contradictions of these viewpoints.

All I'm doing is:

1. pointing out the errors in the various truth claims
2. agreeing that science generates truth regarding the physical
3. noticing aspects of reality that slip through the cracks of scientific consideration (consciousness and its contents, teleonomy and teleology in biology), and I propose expanations for these

 

[tayla]

I still do not know why they are not trustworthy, simply because they cannot be proven to be from God?

Revealed religions and revealed spiritual paths are not trustworthy sources of truth and knowledge for the reason that they contain teachings that are provably false.

 

[tayla]

I do not see how these are comparable to Messengers of God who bear good fruits.

Over time, the teachings of these messengers you mention can be used by leaders to control the followers and subvert the teachings. We should be wary when someone claims to teach true knowledge revealed by God, especially when that knowledge is passed on from generation to generation in a religious institution having leaders who claim to be authoritative representatives of God on behalf of the founder.

 

[tayla]

Can you give me some examples?

Christianity, eastern religions (all of them), new age movement, other religions I prefer to not mention.

 

[tayla]

How do you know that God has not done so unless you have looked at the message?

I agree. If the message which is proclaimed as being revealed from God has errors, it should be rejected. This is not to say that every statement is false. There may be a lot true, but these can be derived from philosophy without the divine revelation.

 

[tayla]

How do you know that God has not done so unless you have looked at the message?

I suppose it's possible there will be a future messenger who does have revelation from God. But why did God wait so long to finally send him/her?

 

[tayla]

Why is philosophy the standard setter?

There is no other option than revealed religion or revealed spiritual paths. But we must of necessity assess the claims of the founders of those using, you guessed it, philosophy. We must use our minds to assess truth claims, and that is, you guessed it again, philosophy.

 

[tayla]

How do we know that philosophy is truth?

Philosophical epistemology addresses the topics of truth and knowledge, as well as using reason and logic to construct good arguments. In considering truth, humans are by their very nature, philosophical.

Philosophy is necessary to think about truth; philosophy is not itself the truth. Jesus supposedly claimed to be the truth. Philosophy makes no such claim. Philosophy is a methodology, a tool.