Trailblazer
Veteran Member
NO. Skepticism does not keep one from being open-minded. It allows one to be curious and to question things. If one is curious without being skeptical, one can be led down many false paths.
That is true, but if one is too skeptical they will not be led down ANY paths.
One needs actual evidence to prove that their skepticism warrants rejection of the truth of a religion.
There is no such thing as rational because what is rational TO YOU is not necessarily rational to someone else. Unless you can prove that something is irrational you cannot SAY it is irrational.Again, NO. What I mean is, if questions do not have rational answers, then they should be rejected.
Case in point: I consider the Christian belief that bodies will rise from graves when Jesus returns to be an irrational belief because science has demonstrated that bodies die and decompose, so they cannot come back to life and rise from a grave. Yet millions of people believe this is going to happen.
I already explained that I never read all of God Passes By, and I did not read that chapter. That is not required reading for a Baha’i, although it is recommended.Case in point the writings of Shogi Effendi which we have been discussing.
The writings were important to you to show me evidence for the
validity of Bahai.
The writings that you choose, that you posted, that you linked to, detailed a conversation between Balula and a Grand Vizar.
The writings quoted extensively for the conversation between those two people.
I asked how, 80 years after the fact, Shogi Effendi could quote word for word from the conversation. Why is this important? If there is no logical way for him to have been able to do that, then a rational person must accept the fact that the writings are fabrications. If these writings are fabrications, then a skeptical, curious person would have to question other things about his religion. In all your years as a Bahai, your curiosity never came to the fore.
I did not blindly accept that answer. I was waiting for more answers to come in and they did. Moreover, if I post the question on the other Baha’i forum where there are more members from all over the world, I will probably get even more answers.Until our discussion you never questioned it. When you did stop to think about it, you admitted you didn't know. You asked Duane. Duan's reply was "people told him". Again, you weren't curious enough to ask, "what people", "how could they have known", etc. When I raised those questions, you said you would check with the Bahai forum. Their response, "his grandfather told him". Once again you raised no questions. You just blindly accepted their answer.
How many times do I have to repeat myself? That is not a basic question that indicates anything about the Baha’i Faith. It is just something you picked out from among all the evidence so you could nitpick."All the answers"? We aren't anywhere near asking a lot of questions. Just a couple of basic questions like - how could he have possibly known the exact words of the conversations.
Did you not notice that that response completely failed to address the basic question. How could he have quoted word for word a private conversation? They just sluffed over it and danced around it. And you accept it.
Did you ever go to college and do research? I did. I have two post graduate degrees so I did a lot of research and i wrote a lot of research papers. So I know what "primary resource material" is.I asked how, 80 years after the fact, Shogi Effendi could quote word for word from the conversation. Why is this important? If there is no logical way for him to have been able to do that, then a rational person must accept the fact that the writings are fabrications.
I got some more answers from Planet Baha'i today that explain a logical way that he could have known word for word what the Grand Vizir and Baha’u’llah said. Bold was added by me for emphasis.
The question is, "How could Shoghi Effendi have known these things?" One might as well ask how the authors of the documents that became the Gospels knew what happened in the secretive late-night examination of Jesus by the Sanhedrin, or how the Apostles, who were sleeping, knew what happened as Jesus prayed alone in Gethsemane.
Actually, in Shoghi Effendi's case, the answer is rather simple: like any other author seeking to chronicle historical events, he did his research and relied as much as possible on primary source material.
You've heard of The Dawnbreakers, also known as Nabil's Narrative. Nabil-i-A'zam, one of the nineteen apostles of Baha'u'llah, did extensive research and conducted interviews in the course of writing this history of the Babi and early Baha'i Faiths, a work which Shoghi Effendi himself translated into English and published in 1932. If I'm not mistaken, a lot of the material in God Passes By is based on The Dawnbreakers.
Moreover, those who knew Baha'u'llah would likely have heard from His own lips what happened during at least a few encounters with officials. Some of his followers may even have been present in some cases. These stories would likely have circulated among the Baha'i community, just as various stories of Jesus would have circulated among the early Christian community before being written down. One could always question the accuracy of these accounts, but one can't complain that Shoghi Effendi was making stuff up from whole cloth any more than one can complain the authors of the Gospels were doing so.
The basis of accounts of Baha'ullah's life and of Jesus' life are, in other words, exactly the same.
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Having read your posting and reviewed Dale's answer. I seem to understand what is being asked of you.
I think Dale's answer is pretty good. Nabil (of the Dawnbreaker's) provides a pretty precise account of how he went about writing his history. He interviewed people who witnessed events and corroborated that testimony with at least three other accounts. As for reports of conversations in God Passes By, those could have been from encounters that were recounted later on or reports from Messengers or envoys. There is no reason to suspect any kind of duplicity in these stories. The Authorities in Persia did harbor negative feelings and animus towards the Babi and Baha'i religions. There was no need to "make things up" to make them look bad.
That said, these works (Dawnbreakers and God Passes By) are history and not scripture. They aren't meant to be taken as the authoritative documentary evidence of what happened. They are accounts of what happened and are subject to limitations inherent in the field of history.
Funny story about Dawnbreakers... I bought an old copy from our community library. It has notes in the margin's from a long ago reader. At the beginning of the book, the notes were pretty harsh and skeptical. As one progresses in the book, the notes become progressively softer and show more "wonderment"... Methinks the reader slowly became more enamoured with Baha'u'llah as he read through the book and probably converted along the way.
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Actually, in Shoghi Effendi's case, the answer is rather simple: like any other author seeking to chronicle historical events, he did his research and relied as much as possible on primary source material.
You've heard of The Dawnbreakers, also known as Nabil's Narrative. Nabil-i-A'zam, one of the nineteen apostles of Baha'u'llah, did extensive research and conducted interviews in the course of writing this history of the Babi and early Baha'i Faiths, a work which Shoghi Effendi himself translated into English and published in 1932. If I'm not mistaken, a lot of the material in God Passes By is based on The Dawnbreakers.
Moreover, those who knew Baha'u'llah would likely have heard from His own lips what happened during at least a few encounters with officials. Some of his followers may even have been present in some cases. These stories would likely have circulated among the Baha'i community, just as various stories of Jesus would have circulated among the early Christian community before being written down. One could always question the accuracy of these accounts, but one can't complain that Shoghi Effendi was making stuff up from whole cloth any more than one can complain the authors of the Gospels were doing so.
The basis of accounts of Baha'ullah's life and of Jesus' life are, in other words, exactly the same.
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Having read your posting and reviewed Dale's answer. I seem to understand what is being asked of you.
I think Dale's answer is pretty good. Nabil (of the Dawnbreaker's) provides a pretty precise account of how he went about writing his history. He interviewed people who witnessed events and corroborated that testimony with at least three other accounts. As for reports of conversations in God Passes By, those could have been from encounters that were recounted later on or reports from Messengers or envoys. There is no reason to suspect any kind of duplicity in these stories. The Authorities in Persia did harbor negative feelings and animus towards the Babi and Baha'i religions. There was no need to "make things up" to make them look bad.
That said, these works (Dawnbreakers and God Passes By) are history and not scripture. They aren't meant to be taken as the authoritative documentary evidence of what happened. They are accounts of what happened and are subject to limitations inherent in the field of history.
Funny story about Dawnbreakers... I bought an old copy from our community library. It has notes in the margin's from a long ago reader. At the beginning of the book, the notes were pretty harsh and skeptical. As one progresses in the book, the notes become progressively softer and show more "wonderment"... Methinks the reader slowly became more enamoured with Baha'u'llah as he read through the book and probably converted along the way.
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