Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Why would *you think* that *I think* you would be impressed?
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If it could be proved no god exists
- Thread starter JJ50
- Start date
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, I am impressed by the Writings of a Manifestation of God.
It might be meaningless *to you* but it is *meaningful* to me.
Sin is a religious concept, particularly to its individual religion and not necessarily universal (although some will overlap). Morality is not the same as "to sin" or "not to sin." People are less religious now.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
First, God did not write Genesis.
Second, it was just a story meant to convey spiritual truths....
Do you really believe the earth was created in six days?
God did not lie to Moses, but Moses did not write the OT in His Own Pen, the way Baha'u'llah wrote His scriptures; so all we really have is what men said that Moses said.... same with Jesus.
Besides that, the Bible is not all meant to be interpreted literally, but rather metaphorically.
From Letters Written on Behalf of the Guardian:
...The Bible is not wholly authentic, and in this respect is not to be compared with the Qur'an, and should be wholly subordinated to the authentic writings of Bahá'u'lláh.
(28 July 1936 to a National Spiritual Assembly)
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá states we believe what is in the Bible, He means in substance. Not that we believe every word of it to be taken literally or that every word is the authentic saying of the Prophet.
(11 February 1944 to an individual believer)
We cannot be sure of the authenticity of any of the phrases in the Old or the New Testament. What we can be sure of is when such references or words are cited or quoted in either the Quran or the Bahá'í writings.
(4 July 1947 to an individual believer)
Except for what has been explained by Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, we have no way of knowing what various symbolic allusions in the Bible mean.
(31 January 1955 to an individual believer)
From letters written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice:
In studying the Bible Bahá'ís must bear two principles in mind. The first is that many passages in Sacred Scriptures are intended to be taken metaphorically, not literally, and some of the paradoxes and apparent contradictions which appear are intended to indicate this. The second is the fact that the text of the early Scriptures, such as the Bible, is not wholly authentic.
(28 May 1984 to an individual believer)
...The Bahá'ís believe that God's Revelation is under His care and protection and that the essence, or essential elements, of what His Manifestations intended to convey has been recorded and preserved in Their Holy Books. However, as the sayings of the ancient Prophets were written down some time later, we cannot categorically state, as we do in the case of the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, that the words and phrases attributed to Them are Their exact words.
(9 August 1984 to an individual believer)
The Bible: Extracts on the Old and New Testaments
...The Bible is not wholly authentic, and in this respect is not to be compared with the Qur'an, and should be wholly subordinated to the authentic writings of Bahá'u'lláh.
(28 July 1936 to a National Spiritual Assembly)
When 'Abdu'l-Bahá states we believe what is in the Bible, He means in substance. Not that we believe every word of it to be taken literally or that every word is the authentic saying of the Prophet.
(11 February 1944 to an individual believer)
We cannot be sure of the authenticity of any of the phrases in the Old or the New Testament. What we can be sure of is when such references or words are cited or quoted in either the Quran or the Bahá'í writings.
(4 July 1947 to an individual believer)
Except for what has been explained by Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá, we have no way of knowing what various symbolic allusions in the Bible mean.
(31 January 1955 to an individual believer)
From letters written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice:
In studying the Bible Bahá'ís must bear two principles in mind. The first is that many passages in Sacred Scriptures are intended to be taken metaphorically, not literally, and some of the paradoxes and apparent contradictions which appear are intended to indicate this. The second is the fact that the text of the early Scriptures, such as the Bible, is not wholly authentic.
(28 May 1984 to an individual believer)
...The Bahá'ís believe that God's Revelation is under His care and protection and that the essence, or essential elements, of what His Manifestations intended to convey has been recorded and preserved in Their Holy Books. However, as the sayings of the ancient Prophets were written down some time later, we cannot categorically state, as we do in the case of the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, that the words and phrases attributed to Them are Their exact words.
(9 August 1984 to an individual believer)
The Bible: Extracts on the Old and New Testaments
For some, god and/or religion is the only thing that makes them to not act immoral. I've talked to people who say that if god doesn't exist then people are free to do what they want.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
You are right again. Christians do not become Christians based upon Genesis, but without Genesis and *The Fall* the Christian doctrines could not stand, because there would be no original sin thus no need for Jesus to die for our sin... The whole damn thing would fall down like a house of cards.
Then after that, Christians might be able to see what Jesus really taught.
First, Christianity is not *my religion, * the Baha'i Faith is my religion...
Second, I like it when atheists educate me about Christianity or the BIble, since most of them know more about Christianity and the Bible than I do. My parents were *fallen away Christians* so I was not raised Christian. I became a Baha'i during my first year of college and I had no interest in Christianity so I never read one page of the Bible till 2013, which is when I started posting on forums.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Why would numbers matter? Numbers do not have any bearing on what is true.
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."
This type of argument is known by several names,[1] including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to democracy, appeal to popularity, argument by consensus, consensus fallacy, authority of the many, bandwagon fallacy, voxpopuli,[2] and in Latin as argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), fickle crowd syndrome, and consensus gentium ("agreement of the clans"). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect. The Chinese proverb "three men make a tiger" concerns the same idea.
Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia
This type of argument is known by several names,[1] including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to democracy, appeal to popularity, argument by consensus, consensus fallacy, authority of the many, bandwagon fallacy, voxpopuli,[2] and in Latin as argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), fickle crowd syndrome, and consensus gentium ("agreement of the clans"). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect. The Chinese proverb "three men make a tiger" concerns the same idea.
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.
It works out great for me because I like the Narrow Way since I have never been one to follow the crowd or take the easy way.
The Narrow Way
13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because[a] narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I think that is rather sad reflection on human nature, but that is the way most people are and that is one reason religion is necessary. Most people need the fear of God to keep them in line because most people are materialistic and selfish, so *what they want* is not what God wants for them.
Studies show that the most moral people are atheists and the highly religious, but since most religious people are not highly religious, you can do the math.
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
Except that you more than likely assume that the Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith, which is not what believers in the Book of Mormon believe.
ecco
Veteran Member
This is a classic example of someone skimming parts of an article, believing that it supports their argument, copy and pasting an excerpt and implying: See, I told ya so!.
If you believe the article supports your argument, you obviously don't understand what the article is saying.
Maybe you should try again in your own words.
ecco
Veteran Member
ecco
Veteran Member
If you want, I welcome you to come to my forum and explain that to an atheist who thinks he knows what god would do if god existed, all based upon his puny human logic. This conversation has been going on now for over five years so I could use some help from a *rational atheist.*
If you know of someone, atheist or otherwise, "who thinks he knows what god would do if god existed", tell him/her I think he/she is full of excrement.
But, I have no interest in going into another forum.
QuestioningMind
Well-Known Member
Except that you more than likely assume that the Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith, which is not what believers in the Book of Mormon believe.
Actually, even Mormons believe that Joseph Smith was the first to write the words down.
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
Q - How did god get Mary pregnant without having sex with her?
How did God create something out of nothing? How did God
raise the dead? With the bible it's all or nothing regarding faith.
These days a lot of religious people pick and chose what they
believe - the bible speaks about that, too.
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
Re biochemistry.
The term "biochemistry" was ridiculed by many people. Bio meant life and chemistry
is, well, chemistry. Life is not chemistry, they stated, life has some magical property
breathed into it by God. "Life begets Life" was the mantra.
This POV was a Christian one, but it's not supported by the bible. The bible states
that life was created by the "land" and by the "seas." And life is of the clay and dust.
As for confused about "which came when"
1 - life is now thought to have formed on the land
2 - life did emerge from the seas too, including birds
3 - man is the last to form.
Do you have another order?
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
Quote - "Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly
above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.”
This is a common mis-translation. The real translation in the King James and the Hebrew is this:
"and God commanded the seas to bring forth life."
Not "let the seas abound in life."
That's terribly sloppy and designed to "help" the bible "make sense" of the original statement.
This is what confused generations of Jews and Christians - how could the seas create life?
The "heavens" in the Jewish tradition simply means COSMOLOGY.
ie everything out there.
The heavens created the world - the cosmos created the planet
the "earth" created life - dry land
the "seas" created life - oceans
But God himself created the cosmos.
And by cosmos we must assume means planets, stars, galaxies, dark matter,
quasars and the stuff which comprises this (atoms, fields, physical laws...)
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I have no argument. I was just responding to your question:
"Are you referring to the fact that, since gods cannot be proven, they are negatives?"
But what do you think that the article is saying that does not support the argument *you think I have?*
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, I am not confused anymore....
Why do you have to be that way when I admitted you were right and I was wrong?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I did not think you would want to come but I thought to ask anyway.
Unfortunately I cannot get him to come here either so I will just pass along what you said.
Since the world would look the same, I doubt there would be any reaction.