Okay, let me make this clear. The Bible, the Vedas, the Torah, etc cannot be used as neutral evidence of those specific religions. This is inherently circular.
Okay, let’s approach this from a different angle…. What would be the evidence for those religions if not their scriptures?
And Christianity is based upon Jesus, his character and his instructions, given they are followers of Christ. (The clue is in the title.)
I agree that Christians will use the Bible as evidence for their belief system. Much like you relied on your religious writings and the character of your prophet as your evidence. Hence I dismissed it as biased, by nature.
I explained why it is not biased. Biased means unfairly prejudiced for or against someone or something, but a religion is not biased against another religion just because it is different. People who believe in the religion might be biased towards or against another religion, but that is a different matter altogether.
So I ask you again, where would the evidence come from, if not from the religion itself? WHY would evidence for a given religion come from OUTSIDE that religion? That makes no logical sense at all. That would be like saying that evidence for a crime committed in the United States should come from Russia. That would be like saying that we should go to a car manufacturer to find out how to build airplanes. You have taken this thing about circular reasoning and applied it to something it does not apply to…
The best evidence for any religion comes from the religion itself. Any evidence you would you get from a Jew about Christianity would be necessarily biased by their non-belief in Christianity. The same would apply to any religion.
“But it is unfortunate that there really is no other better evidence than the Bible.”
Indeed.
Not to sound harsh or mean, but that's not my problem. Y'all have to figure out another way to demonstrate your claims.
I won’t find another way because there is no better way, just stupid ways, illogical ways, for the reasons I noted above.
You literally did not demonstrate anything different. The Historical figure of Jesus is disputed, to be sure.
Christians claim historical evidence by citing their specific Gospels and scripture. How does your claim differ? All I have seen you do is the exact same. Cite your specific scripture. So in order to demonstrate you are being different, you have to now cite contemporary neutral sources outside of your specific scripture that support your claims.
Take your time. I'll wait.
Gimmie a break? How does it differ? The person of Baha’u’llah is a historical figure that is unquestioned by any scholar so you will find Him in the Encyclopedia as a person who was born in 1817 and died in 1892. This is indisputable.
Bahá'u'lláh
Let me make this clear, I do not cite the scripture as proof. I cite it as a way to support something I am explaining.
There are plenty of contemporary sources outside of the specific scripture that address the Baha’i Faith and the writers are not all Baha’is. However, most scholars who researched the Baha’i Faith became convinced so they are Baha’is. There are many Baha’i scholars. There are others who oppose the Baha’i Faith so they write false papers and books about it. There are very few neutral sources because people either love it and become Baha’is or they hate it and write calumnies about it. In the future, there will be more neutral scholarly works, but it is too early. All new religions have been opposed by most people in the first few centuries. This is history.
Bit rich, considering all scriptures were written by man, anyway.
No, because a Messenger of God is not a man. He is more than a man. The Messengers (Manifestations of God) are another order of creation above an ordinary man. Their souls had pre-existence in the spiritual world before their bodies were born in this world, whereas the souls of all humans come into being at the moment of conception. The spiritual world is where they get their special powers from God. They possess a
universal divine mind that is different than ours and that is why God only speaks to them directly and through Them God communicates to humanity.
“So we have to ask: what is religion?”
In the interests of transparency. Here's the definition I use.
Religion is a
cultural system of designated
behaviors and practices,
morals,
worldviews,
texts,
sanctified places,
prophecies,
ethics, or
organizations, that relates humanity to
supernatural,
transcendental, or
spiritual elements. However, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.
[1][2]
Religion - Wikipedia
Okay, that is the general definition of religion, but it does not describe the NATURE of religion, where it comes from and what its purpose is.
Objective evidence can't be objective if it is subjectively interpreted. That's the literal antonym of objective. And back to speaking in circles. Show me the evidence.
You are arguing semantics. Objective evidence can be interpreted differently by different people because all people are different. So two people can read the same history of Baha’u’llah, which are objective facts, and interpret them differently.
Yes, I am aware of the definition. I said texts which are trying to prove their worth and gain followers all have an inherent bias towards their own team, so to speak. How does that challenge my previous statement, exactly?
A text does not have a bias because it is just words on a page. Texts do not try to prove anything, they just explain things. Only humans can have a bias towards or against that text and only humans try to prove things.
The Abrahamics always sound like a beaten down housewife/husband, justifying the abusive practices of their deity. To be fair, every religious person sounds like that to varying degrees. Probably because religion evolved out of a need to explain why the world was so callous and cruelty existed. (And humans have long had their own existential crisis).
Like I said, I do not buy that the deity did what the Bible claims. It is so easy to blame God for everything because God is not here to defend Himself… True religion does explain why the world is so callous and cruelty exists; it is because humans have free will and some choose to be cruel and callous.
Ahh thank you.
But I do recall the original question being, what credible scientist studies supernatural phenomenon. Not which ones believe in it.
Probably not many scientists study supernatural phenomena because there is no way to study that which is not measurable. There are some mysteries in the universe that some scientists are starting to study though, and maybe they will come up with some answers.
Brilliant Scientists Are Open-Minded about Paranormal Stuff, So Why Not You?
