ppp
Well-Known Member
I am sure that you think that is true.
I am sure that you think that asking questions represents a case.
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Can we change our mind about what we believe?
- Thread starter Trailblazer
- Start date
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
ppp
Well-Known Member
Why what, specifically?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
ppp
Well-Known Member
Explain how someone on this forum could come to the conclusion that you are not credible without access to your inner thoughts; despite your protestations to the contrary.
CG Didymus
Veteran Member
Here's a guy that did a thorough research about Jesus and Christianity...
Josh McDowell once thought God and Jesus were fake – and that Christianity was for ignorant people! So how did he end up becoming not just a Christian, but one of the world’s leading apologists? For 60+ years now, he’s been proving that it’s all true! Ironically, it was at college, when he was mocking a group of Christians and they challenged him to prove them wrong. “No problem!” he thought. “Piece of cake.” But months later, after he’d intensively researched a mountain of historical documents throughout Europe, he had to admit that the facts showed that Jesus really did live, die, and resurrect. And if that was true – God HAD to be real.
He wrote a book about it, "Evidence that Demands a Verdict". Baha'is I'm sure have their people that have done the same. But same problem... They both can't be right. And when it comes to the Baha'is and Christians, I don't have to do a detailed study to find things that don't add up. Christians help me find the problems with the beliefs of the Baha'i Faith. And Baha'is help me find the flaws with what the Christians believe. But does it matter to the believers in either one? Of course not, they each "know" what they believe is true. And that makes it hard for them to honestly look at views that challenge their beliefs. They already know the other view is wrong.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
ppp
Well-Known Member
Ah, 1983. It was a late July day in Umstead State Park when I read that book. I was sitting at a table in the mess hall at band camp waiting for my turn to play bridge. I still remember wave after wave of exasperation at the trite head banging banality of that book. I had been trying to hold on to the dried husks of my Christianity - and that book had come with so many glowing recommendations. It wasn't the genesis of my atheism or the exodus, but it certainly set fire to any remaining obstacles to my path out.
ppp
Well-Known Member
Oh? What would force them to stop? Do little pixies keep those neurons from firing?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
ppp
Well-Known Member
Oh? What would force them to stop from coming to the conclusion that you are not credible? Do little pixies keep those neurons from firing?
muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
Yes .. that is what I was referring to.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
ppp
Well-Known Member
Clearly you are having a hard time tracking. Please continue to prove your input for whatever.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
joelr
Well-Known Member
What are you talking about? You said - "If there were no evidence at all, then why would anybody be a Christian or Muslim?"
I said for the same reason as any other religion like Inanna, Mithras, and so on.
Your answer about literacy makes no sense?
First, Inanna has poems written about her by Edheduanna and Mithras was the deity of the Roman army, who had writing?
So they were literate. But the answer is the same, they were told a story and bought into it, emotionalized the belief and use confirmation bias to only accept information that confirms their belief. No difference.
Again, not really, evidence is evidence and is generally agreed upon by experts.
So you cannot present a historian with a different view because you don't know of one. BUT, you are now saying since history is subjective that is enough for you. (there is the confirmation bias on that topic).
NO, it's not subjective, there are facts, historians from the time writing history, other nations writing, there is archaeological evidence. We can draw a picture of what happened. In some cases better than others.
Israelite history is mostly agreed upon by historians. We are sure Genesis is carrying on a tradition of myths that originated earlier in Mesopotamia.
You are not being honest. You don't know this at all. You say you prefer to make you own conclusions OVER people who read all original documents, study archaeology of all the temple finds, read historians at the time, look at all the religious stories around that nation, and you are going to skip all that and "make your own conclusion".
Yeah, no, you do not care about what is actually true. I'm guessing you want to read the Quran, take whatever it says about OT times, and consider that facts. You truly don't care about what's actually true.
Don't need to be multilingual, the best works have been translated into English.Are you multilingual?
So that is how you employ confirmation bias to the fact that your evidence and weight of evidence is no different than Mormons or Scientology.
You pretend they are "divide and rule" tactics. When actually it's a fact, none of you have good evidence.
When you have a method it has to have a way of rising above other methods that are flawed. Your response is to ignore facts like that. Ok.
Right so Mormonism isn't right or wrong. The Quran isn't right or wrong.
Like I said, you don't care about what is actually true.
What's childish, is pretending like a book is the creator of the universe.
I am not comparing Big Foot and aliens to the creator of the universe. You haven't demonstrated any creators of any universe.
You demonstrated a belief in a creator, based on ancient folk tales. About the same as aliens or Big Foot.
No because it's basic logic and if you care about believing true things you don't believe something without sufficient evidence.Why?
Just because you say so?
You do not. You see the universe which you incorrectly label as a creation. You have no other universes to compare it to. The universe functions with natural forces just fine, which may be the case for all reality.
Then every group with a different God sees the universe as the creation of this God. Hmmm, serious flaw in that method it seems, you cannot even demonstrate a method that shows which God. YOu can't show God, you cannot show a God is needed for a universe, you cannot show your God is the creator.
Yes, I follow what the evidence shows and base beliefs on that. YOu seem to be starting with a story and trying to make it fit what you see.
Because in every other area of their life they know faith is stupid and they need evidence.Yes, it can .. but strangely enough, people who believe in the concept of G-d, do not just believe in "anything at all".
Using faith to justify any belief is flawed because faith is not reliable. You find a belief you want to be true and say "just have faith it's true".
That isn't how reality works. Even if you are correct, there are 2/3 of all other religious believers in the wrong belief system using faith.
So it's a terrible system, even with God. But there is no evidence you are correct.
Yes and in religion Christians, Mormons and Hindu all claim personal experience as the method they use to verify that their God is real and they are the only correct group of all of them. God tells them through personal experience.
Now that is even worse than faith.
I don't know what that has to do with demonstrating something is true. I listen to many deconverted Muslims who speak the original language.
They knew math. They would understand a description of atoms, light speed, relativity, expanding universe, big bag, age of universe, and many other things. Uh....germs. Fruit cures scurvy. Wash surgical tools first.....?Well, if they did, what sense would it have made to anybody?
Because you are not listening at all or having a conversation.
The Quran is not likely the original, a palimpsest has been found and shows there were likely earlier versions. It isn't about changed meanings, it shows it wasn't dictated from an angel but put together over time by humans.
The OT also was done this way but once they got a final copy they transmitted it orally and written consistently. But neither are dictations from a deity, they are created documents. The Dead Sea Scrolls show the OT is fairly accurate. Some parts are added centuries later and forgery. Both are made by men, give laws and wisdom that was available at the time.
Both were books written with many drafts.
Well Genesis is reworked mythology yes. But there is no "actual story" to be told, they made it up based on older stories.
I don't care how ignorant of historical evidence you want to be? we know for a fact that Genesis is using older myths to create a myth for the Israelites when they were a fairly new people. Exodus (all 5 versions) are a foundation myth and not actually how they came to be, but it gave them an identity.
We know a lot from archaeology as well and we can see there was no actual battle with Canaan and the kingdom of Solomon was small scale. The stories enlarged them. Then in the 2nd Temple Period ideas about souls returning to Heaven was 100% taken from Greek Platonic myth.
This is also the consensus in history.
James Tabor does a lot of work on this:
Death & Afterlife: Do Christians Follow Plato rather than Jesus or Paul?
Dr James Tabor
5:40 1st Hebrew view of cosmology and afterlife. The dead are sleeping in Sheol, earth is above, the firmament is above that and divides the upper ocean from falling to earth,
7:50 A linear version emerged with time and an end times and final Judgment.
Genesis says you will return to dust.
9:00 Translation of Genesis 2:6 God breathes the breath of life into Adam (giving him a soul). The actual Hebrew translation is “living-breathing”, meaning all life is this.
10:40 Hellenistic period - the Hebrew religion adopts the Greek ideas.
Sources the Britannica article and explains it’s an excellent resource from an excellent scholar.
13:35 In the Hellenistic period the common perception is not the Hebrew view, it’s the idea that the soul belongs in Heaven.
14:15 The basic Hellenistic idea is taken into the Hebrew tradition. Salvation in the Hellenistic world is how do you save your soul and get to Heaven. How to transcend the physical body.
Greek tomb “I am a child of earth and starry heaven but heaven alone is my home”
15:46 Does this sound familiar, Christian hymns - “this world is not my home, I’m a pilgrim passing through, Jesus will come and take you home”.
Common theme that comes from the Hellenistic religions. Immortal souls trapped in a human body etc…
47:15 Hellenistic Greek view of cosmology
Material world/body is a prison of the soul
Humans are immortal souls, fallen into the darkness of the lower world
Death sets the soul free
No human history, just a cycle of birth, death, rebirth
Immortality is inherent for all humans
Salvation is escape to Heaven, the true home of the immortal soul
Humans are fallen and misplaced
Death is a stripping of the body so the soul can be free
Death is a liberating friend to be welcomed
Asceticism is the moral idea for the soul
49:35 Genesis view
Creation/body very good, procreation good
Humans are “living breathers”, akin to animals, mortal, dust of the earth
Death is dark silent “sleeping in the dust”
Human history moves toward a perfected new age/creation
Salvation is eternal life in the perfected world of the new creation
Humans belong on earth
Resurrection brings a new transformed glorious spiritual body
Death is an enemy
Physical life and sensory pleasures are good
joelr
Well-Known Member
I haven't heard much logic, just faith and personal experiences. Or major historical fallacies.
I think they just liked his writings and then bought the apologetic that his "life", his "works" and "revelations" is actually evidence. Obviously it isn't and the terrible prophecies don't seem to matter. Once you have a belief unless you are ready to assess your beliefs and see if they are justified you will just ignore things that suggest it isn't true. Even facts won't help.
Some people read those books like Theif in the Night or other propaganda and just accept that his prophecies came true, they don't really dig and find out what the original prophecy was and why he made it happen (or did he?).
I don't really know? People join Scientology and come to believe the alien stories and everyone gets a planet and obviously the Heavens GAte people fell for a scam that ended their lives so their souls could enter a ufo. Unproveable beliefs and bad evidence isn't stopping a lot of people.
Trust, faith, it probably doesn't matter. You have to be willing to face facts or you will believe whatever looks fun to believe it seems.
A lot of people think the Conversations with God book guy is actually having a conversation with God.
muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
Don't be absurd..
It makes a huge difference to what we believe, if we can read and write.
Take you, for example..
which you are one, of course..
I've already agreed with that..
I haven't found a reason to doubt that it is true..
By other 'experts', I assume..
The word 'natural' in this context assumes no origin..
It simply 'is', for no reason.
There are no 'different gods'.. there is only One Creator, but people believe different things.
Why is that so hard to understand?
That's not the reason .. you imply that people are stupid to have faith in G-d.
That is because you prefer a materialist ideology.
No .. that is what you prefer to believe.
CG Didymus
Veteran Member
Yes, lots of us have made a decision to join a religious group by what we feel in our heart. But... after learning the beliefs and claims of that religious group, some of us leave that group. There are so many variations of the Christian message out there. Post, pre and a millennial, tongues or no tongues, Catholic, Orthodox, or some version of Protestant. JW, Mormon, Calvinist or whatever.
With this thread, started by a Baha'i, we add their interpretation of Christianity... That Jesus was just one of many manifestations of God and that Muhammad, the Bab and Baha'u'llah are also manifestations of God and equal to Jesus. And that their guy, Baha'u'llah, is the promised "end-time" return of the Christ.
Meet the right person at the right time, that presents the message in a convincing way, and a person might feel it in their heart. Whenever I've been with a new religious group, I'm amazed how much attention I'm given. It's like I'm the most important person in the room. And I felt the love, and I wanted to come back and be around them and learn more about what they believe. But when the honeymoon is over, things change.
It's sad, but it seems that is what happens with any religious group that seeks converts.
CG Didymus
Veteran Member
I listened and trusted personal experiences way too much. Lots of people had those life changing moments where God revealed himself to them.
One person said they had climbed up a large rock and got stuck there. They couldn't see the foothold. But, lucky for him, he felt the hand of God pushing on his back and keeping him from falling. He let go with his hands and, Hallelujah, his foot went to the right spot.
Another guy went forward during a faith-healing service. The preacher laid hands on him, and the guy said that it felt like warm honey was being poured over him.
But we expect those kinds of stories from Christians... here's some from Baha'is.
This lady was speaking at a Baha'i gathering about what they call "travel-teaching". This lady told her story about going to, I think it was the Navajo Reservation, to "teach" the people about the Baha'i Faith. Some guy was driving her. It was just a dirt road out in the high desert of Arizona, and they came to a place where the road was washed out. Of course, for such a good cause, God was going to help her, so she told the driver to back up and floor it. Amazingly, they made the jump.
The other, very common Baha'i story is that people claimed to have had visions of Adul Baha or to have him come to them in dreams. Who wouldn't want to believe? And maybe have those things happen to them too.
The writings... lots of Baha'is are so impressed with the poetic language and the volume of writings. How could a normal, ordinary man have written so much and have so much wisdom? Except, for some of us, we find things that don't sound very true about what he says. But that doesn't matter to the believer. There's always a reasonable explanation. Like when Baha'u'llah says that Noah preached for 950 years. The explanation? "The age of those ancient prophets as recorded in the Old Testament is symbolic."
Yes, people join and accept the basic beliefs, then learn more and more about the more subtle beliefs.
With prophecies it becomes such a joke. But it's not only Baha'is. I think Christians have one of the worst cases of taking a verse out of context and making it a prophecy. And that is Isaiah 7:14. The young maiden or the virgin will give birth to a son? Yeah, then what does that son do? Nothing in Isaiah has the son doing anything that identifies that kid as the coming Messiah.
But again, does it matter to believers? No. But why do Baha'is accept it? They reject the literal interpretation of the resurrection. Why don't they reject the virgin birth story? Or at least do as they do with so many Bible stories, and say it was "symbolic" not "literal"?
For a person that has given themselves over to believing the Baha'i Faith, there's just too many things to like about it for them to reject it. So, they accept it all. And then they are stuck trying to explain away those troubling and problematic beliefs and claims.