Can we change our mind about what we believe?

[CG Didymus]

I am sure that you think that is true.

Wow, I've never heard TB say "I know it's true". She usually says "I believe it is true".

But then, as usual, it's the so-called evidence. And, as usual, the evidence against Baha'u'llah being for real is being downplayed or ignored. But that's what needs to be answered adequately in order to get any of us to take the next step and give them a serious look. Right now, it's too easy for some of us to lump them in with the many cults and new religious movements that have nothing but claims with little or nothing to back up those claims.

And can the claims get any bigger? There is one God. Baha'u'llah is his new manifestation. He is the return of Christ, of Buddha, of Krishna etc. His teaching will unite and bring peace to the world. So, we say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah... prove it." They say, "Can't prove it. But it's true. We know it."

 

[ppp]

Wow, I've never heard TB say "I know it's true". She usually says "I believe it is true".

But then, as usual, it's the so-called evidence. And, as usual, the evidence against Baha'u'llah being for real is being downplayed or ignored. But that's what needs to be answered adequately in order to get any of us to take the next step and give them a serious look. Right now, it's too easy for some of us to lump them in with the many cults and new religious movements that have nothing but claims with little or nothing to back up those claims.

And can the claims get any bigger? There is one God. Baha'u'llah is his new manifestation. He is the return of Christ, of Buddha, of Krishna etc. His teaching will unite and bring peace to the world. So, we say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah... prove it." They say, "Can't prove it. But it's true. We know it."

There doesn't need to be any evidence against Baha'u'llah being for real. There is no substance there to debunk. At least the Christians (or at least many of them) study and try to actually applying thoughtful reasoning skills as a scaffold for their theologies. All that we get from the Baha'i are marketing, sound bites, performative reasoning, and a vigorous regimen of quote-mining.

 

[joelr]

Don't be absurd..
It makes a huge difference to what we believe, if we can read and write.
Take you, for example..

Yes, "told a story", that means they read it or heard it, either way. It happened in modern times as well with Mormonism and Bahai, Cargo Cults and Scientology to name a few.

which you are one, of course..

I don't know exactly what you are suggesting here, but books. Experts write books to pass on their knowledge. Some are monographs, very detailed with sources on every page and footnotes as well and some are more for the layman. You can learn from both. Then follow up on a more detailed study of specific topics. I read Carriers book OHJ and he mentioned Hellenism and Mystery Religions but I wanted to go deeper, he had Klause as one source so I read his work on Mystery Religions.

I've already agreed with that..

Yes. The NT looks to be using Hellenism.

I haven't found a reason to doubt that it is true..

What's more important is you don't have a reason to find it true.
But it's clearly a book that was not transmitted from God to man but rather was worked on over time, hence the early draft.
The "science" that proves it's divine turns out to be all science Greeks knew and Arab people were interested in Greek science and used books that the church kept in libraries.
No God has been demonstrated.
Revelations has not been demonstrated but every religion is based on someone claiming they had revelations.
The OT is a book of stories, often mythology, Moses is generally considered a legendary figure, Yahweh is a typical Near Eastern deity. Daniel is a forgery, Isaiah has a forged part, and so on.
If a book thinks the OT is true and the actual God is real that is a good reason to see that book is also not true.
Angels don't exist.
Gabrielle is a mythical character from the OT.
Miracles didn't happen, the moon didn't split.

Those are a few.

By other 'experts', I assume..

Of course, I assume you have an english translation of the Quran? You assume it's accurate? Do you think no other people can possibly make accurate translations?
These are weird points, I don't see where you are going? If you doubt scholarship, investigate it. Find things out. Or just sit around and say you have the truth and everyone else is wrong and incompetent and assume scholars are clueless. Except Islamic scholars, not them. Which would be Special pleading.
There are Islamic mystics, you are not familiar?

The word 'natural' in this context assumes no origin..
It simply 'is', for no reason.

No, it's here for Mormons. Or it's here for Jehovas Witness members and Satan. Or for scientologists who each get a planet at the end of their spiritual journey. Or whatever religion you are in says.
The point here is there doesn't have to be a reason, there may be but we don't know, that is another possibility.


Why would there need be a reason? 2 galaxies collided, billions of stars and planets all thrown off their orbits. Does there need be a reason?
That might be the case to infinity. Why are we special? Because we have consciousness? Sticks and rocks cannot have consciousness?
Metal and plastic cannot do math. OR write an essay on quantum mechanics. But my metal and plastic computer can. Does it have a soul now?

There are no 'different gods'.. there is only One Creator, but people believe different things.
Why is that so hard to understand?

There is not. Brahman has different properties than the Western/Platonic version of God which Islam uses.
But this is deism. I don't know if reality has a deity behind it (seems weird, the first, eternal thing is a being?????) but that is unknown. Theism, this god is here, speaking to people, giving rules, putting down other religions, that sounds made up.

That's not the reason .. you imply that people are stupid to have faith in G-d.

No I said faith is stupid. Faith without evidence is flawed. If I hold faith in white supremacy is my faith smart? IS there any position I cannot take on faith? Not wise. A bad excuse for a lack of evidence.

That is because you prefer a materialist ideology.

No, I prefer evidence. Materialism is false. That has nothing to do with a God, souls or a spiritual realm. Ir means the world we see is really a manifestation of the quantum world which is strange and follows probabilities. Where this stuff comes from is unknown but does not lend evidence to any spirit realm whatsoever.
We have been over this and you are just repeating your rhetoric. Does non-materialism prove Mormonism? Hiinduism? Or do you then have to special plead the next step so that your religion is true and the other 10,000 are not. Your accepted revelations are real and the other 1 billion are fake? That sounds like terrible logic and is unlikely to be correct.

But you should put an argument for idealism (the opposite of materialism, everything is a product of mind) and know that this type of idea had a high point with philosophers like George Berklee but now has good arguments against it.
You can see here:

Idealism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

plato.stanford.edu

under section 9

9. The Fate of Idealism in the Twentieth Century​

So again, I'm looking for evidence, at least a philosophical argument as to why you believe non-material philosophy is correct.

No .. that is what you prefer to believe.

OMG. I PREFER to believe what the EVIDENCE DEMONSTR?ATES?

How hard is this? The Quran seems like any other man made religion and an early copy was found. This is direct evidence people were working on this text and it took several drafts. That would make more sense and we did find it.

So what do you do? Just hide your head? Assume it cannot possibly be what it looks like? So you are not looking for what is true, you are only interested in things that demonstrate the beliefs you currently hold are true. And you have not gone on a search for truth you just came upon a religion.
So you don't care if your beliefs are true. If one cares about truth they look for every possible way to test their beliefs. IF an early copy of the Quran was found and I was a Muslim I would have to investigate what non-bias scholars are saying. Truth doesn't always make us happy or show us things that we want. But some people don;t care which is also fine.

Also, as you see from the Dr Tabor material, those beliefs about the afterlife are Greek. They were adapted for the NT and Islam used them as well. Most likely they are stories with no basis in reality. Plato didn't say a God came and told him, he said this is stuff he writes about and the ideas were adopted from his writings. No gods here. People made it all up.

 

[joelr]

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.

All religions have healing stories and these rituals cause adrenaline and such and it kills pain and gives all kinds of good feelings.
But JDC, Bible historian said it nicely:

"
I have visited Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal, healing shrines of the Christian Virgin Mary. I have also visited Epidaurus in Greece and Pergamum in Turkey, healing shrines of the pagan god Asklepios. The miraculous healings recorded in both places were remarkably the same. There are, for example, many crutches hanging in the grotto of Lourdes, mute witness to those who arrived lame and left whole. There are, however, no prosthetic limbs among them, no witnesses to paraplegics whose lost limbs were restored.

— John Dominic Crossan[99]"

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."

The poetic language I found really annoying. He never gets to the point and just keeps praising god over and over. I have yet to find any substance or anything I actually learned. Except that he doesn't know science and the prophecies are literally wrong.
In the late 1800s people were ready to hear about th euniverse. Expansion, billions of different galaxies (then we thought it was 1 galaxy I think ), black holes, gravity, spacetime, relativity, light speed, big bang, dark matter/energy and stuff we still don't know. There should be an entire chapter on explaining the universe and what lies beyond/before. There is no such thing, not one unknown cosmological object was given.

He did say a war was coming. And a leader would fail. And the missing link would never be discovered (wrong). Cancer is like a cold, you catch it. He said?

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.

They pick and choose Bible scripture, this is literal, this is metaphor. Whatever.

Isaiah mentions a messiah, there are many candidates according to James Tabor:

Messiahs in the Time of Jesus



Josephus mentions a dozen or more “messiah” figures beginning with Hezekiah/Ezekias c. 45 BCE whom the young Herod defeated whom he variously labels as “brigands” (ληστής) or “imposters” (γόης)—though he calls Judas the Galilean a “wise man” (σοφιστής) and credits him with the founding a the “fourth philosophy” (Jewish Antiquities18.23). Several of these figures are said to have worn the “diadem” (διάδημα)—which indicates royal or “messianic” claims and aspirations. Philo defines γόηςas one who cloaks himself as a prophet but is an imposter (Special Laws 1.315), compare 2 Timothy 3:13. The following list could be expanded but it includes those who are most obviously named and identified. This does not include, of course, the Teacher of Righteousness at Qumran, John the Baptizer, Jesus, or James his brother, who represented scions of the tribes of Levi and Judah or both. And then we could add Barabbas, mentioned in Mark 15:7, and the two crucified “brigands,” (ληστής), one on the right and the other on the left of Jesus (Mark 15:27).

• Hezekiah/Ezekias, defeated by Herod in 47 BCE (Jewish War 1.204-205)

• Judas (aka Theudas) son of Ezekias, 4 BCE/death of Herod (Jewish War 2.56; Acts 5:36)

• Simon of Perea, 4 BCE/death of Herod (Jewish War 2.57-59)

• Athronges the Shepherd, 4 BCE/death of Herod (Jewish War 2:60-65)

• Judas the Galilean, 6 CE/Archaelaus removed (Jewish War 2.118)

• Theudas, c. 44 CE (Jewish Antiquities 20.97; Acts 5:36?)

• James and Simon, c. 46 CE, sons of Judas the Galilean, crucified by Tiberius Alexander, nephew of Philo, who was Procurator 46-48 CE (Jewish Antiquities 20.102)

• “The Egyptian” c. 50s CE (Jewish Antiquities 20.169-171; Jewish War 2.261-263; Acts 21:38)

• Eleazar son of Dineus/Deinaeus, c. 52 CE under Felix (Jewish War 2.253; Jewish Antiquities 20:161)

• Menachem, son of Judas the Galilean, 66 CE (Jewish War 2:433-448)

• Eleazar son of Jairus (ben Yair), commander of Masada, was of the family (γένος) of Menachem (Jewish War 2.447)



James and Simon = brothers of Jesus

Athronges the Shepherd, - another Shepherd

Eleazar son of Dineus/Deinaeus - father/son

 

[joelr]

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.

This guy -Josh McDowell, " Anyone wishing to refute the case for Christianity must explain away the story of the resurrection. Therefore, according to the Bible, Jesus proves to be the Son of God by coming back "


Yes, a story. Taken from Hellenism and written in Mark and copied and revised in the other 3. He even says "according to my book, it's true".
well according to his logic the Quran, Mormon Bible and many other scriptures are also true.

That story he tells is probably B.S. usually apologists write a book and make up this type of story "I was a non-believer" and I did research.
No, he read apologetics which goes against all historical scholarship. Even real Christian scholarship admits most of the problems like Mark is the source, gospels are anonymous and not eyewitness and sometimes even admit the connection to Greek religion. They do it carefully.

 

[joelr]

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.

This guy -Josh McDowell, " Anyone wishing to refute the case for Christianity must explain away the story of the resurrection. Therefore, according to the Bible, Jesus proves to be the Son of God by coming back "


Yes, a story. Taken from Hellenism and written in Mark and copied and revised in the other 3. He even says "according to my book, it's true".
well according to his logic the Quran, Mormon Bible and many other scriptures are also true.

That story he tells is probably B.S. usually apologists write a book and make up this type of story "I was a non-believer" and I did research.
No, he read apologetics which goes against all historical scholarship. Even real Christian scholarship admits most of the problems like Mark is the source, gospels are anonymous and not eyewitness and sometimes even admit the connection to Greek religion. They do it carefully.

 

[joelr]

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.

This guy -Josh McDowell, " Anyone wishing to refute the case for Christianity must explain away the story of the resurrection. Therefore, according to the Bible, Jesus proves to be the Son of God by coming back "


Yes, a story. Taken from Hellenism and written in Mark and copied and revised in the other 3. He even says "according to my book, it's true".
well according to his logic the Quran, Mormon Bible and many other scriptures are also true.

That story he tells is probably B.S. usually apologists write a book and make up this type of story "I was a non-believer" and I did research.
No, he read apologetics which goes against all historical scholarship. Even real Christian scholarship admits most of the problems like Mark is the source, gospels are anonymous and not eyewitness and sometimes even admit the connection to Greek religion. They do it carefully.

 

[muhammad_isa]

The point here is there doesn't have to be a reason, there may be but we don't know..

..so everything is just one big coincidence?
I find that hard to believe .. just as you find miracles hard to believe.

I don't know if reality has a deity behind it (seems weird, the first, eternal thing is a being?????) but that is unknown..

The whole thing .. the universe, consciousness etc. seems weird..

No I said faith is stupid. Faith without evidence is flawed..

Well, we just put our faith in different things..
You put your faith in 'experts', while I put my faith in what I, myself, deem to be true..

..such as Divine law and justice .. the belief that G-d will eventually compensate those souls which
experience injustice and oppression in this life .. that tyrants will not prosper in the end.

Your accepted revelations are real and the other 1 billion are fake?

Are they?
We have to examine them, in order to understand where they all might have originated.
You conclude that Abrahamic religion is all a conspiracy, consisting of 'copy-cat' fraudsters.
What is it that you find hard to believe?
Do you find it hard to believe that there might be a reason beyond the flesh for our existence?

So again, I'm looking for evidence, at least a philosophical argument as to why you believe non-material philosophy is correct.

..because it provides a reason for all that we see .. materialism does not.
It just says 'who cares about a reason'?

If one cares about truth they look for every possible way to test their beliefs..

You mean, they would look for every possible reason NOT to believe..
Again, what is it about the guidance in Abrahamic scripture that you don't like / agree with?

Most likely they are stories with no basis in reality..

I do not find that the Qur'an is incoherent .. on the contrary.

 

[joelr]

..so everything is just one big coincidence?
I find that hard to believe .. just as you find miracles hard to believe.

I said we don't know. What do you mean "coincidence"? What coincidence? None of that line of thought proves any religion, these are deism questions.
Universe could be infinite, all probabilities play out within reason? Who knows? Things being uncomfortable with reality being random doesn't make gods real.

The whole thing .. the universe, consciousness etc. seems weird..

Yes, philosophy tries to deal with this. Putting it all on a creator avoids the hard questions. It might make people feel better but that doesn't make it true.

Well, we just put our faith in different things..
You put your faith in 'experts',

Because there is evidence experts can do what I need and be less wrong than if I did it. Or you doing armchair history.

I use evidence, they also demonstrate evidence and the chain of evidence that led to the position and why it looks credible. Better than "I read a story and that is the real truth".

while I put my faith in what I, myself, deem to be true..

..such as Divine law and justice .. the belief that G-d will eventually compensate those souls which
experience injustice and oppression in this life .. that tyrants will not prosper in the end.

Everyone will die, the universe doesn't guarantee justice? What about children killed in war?
People made up that belief to feel better about injustice. Doesn't make it true.

But people often bring their actions upon them, that is the only justice.

Are they?
We have to examine them, in order to understand where they all might have originated.
You conclude that Abrahamic religion is all a conspiracy, consisting of 'copy-cat' fraudsters.
What is it that you find hard to believe?

You just strawmanned my position. "We have to examine them", not honest at all. Scholars who are experts do, and give many lines of evidence, which you do not know, read or try to understand. So why are you saying now you are going to examine them? You are not.
You are going to believe what a book tells you.

Here are some reasons why we know Daniel is a fraud:

How We Know Daniel Is a Forgery • Richard Carrier Blogs

Even the historicity of Daniel the man is dubious. Unlike other prophets, he has no patronymic, profession, or place of origin, and he first appears in historical records when “Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians” lists him with the legendary...

www.richardcarrier.info

please explain why he's wrong.

Please watch the Tabor video on some evidence for Hellenism being imported into Christianity. What do you disagree with and why?

You seem yto be ignoring evidence but then saying you would examine them, and don't, and then strawmanning me and making it like I'm such a huge disbeliever? LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE? Don't just say it. This is really getting sketchy.

THE CHRISTIANS ALSO SAID IT?????????


Encyclopaedia Biblica : a critical dictionary of the literary, political, and religious history, the archaeology, geography, and natural history of the Bible


by Cheyne, T. K. (Thomas Kelly), 1841-1915; Black, J. Sutherland (John Sutherland), 1846-1923

We must conclude with the following guarded thesis. There is in the circle of ideas in the NT, in addition to what is new, and what is taken over from Judaism, much that is Greek ; but whether this is adopted directly from the Greek or borrowed from the Alexandrians, who indeed aimed at a complete fusion of Hellenism and Judaism, is, in the most important cases, not to be determined ; and primitive Christianity as a whole stands considerably nearer to the Hebrew world than to the Greek.

Do you find it hard to believe that there might be a reason beyond the flesh for our existence?

If there were evidence for it. Not just stories.

..because it provides a reason for all that we see .. materialism does not.
It just says 'who cares about a reason'?

So you don't know what materialism is? And you are back to this "reason"? The universe doesn't owe you a reason. You can make up stories about a reason and feel better. That is all you have done. Again, I care about what is true, not about a narrative that makes me feel special.

You mean, they would look for every possible reason NOT to believe..

No, I look at evidence. In this case the evidence points to the same as all religions, it's made up by people. You are asking why I won't just turn my head and forget truth and accept the current stories about Gods. No thanks.

Again, what is it about the guidance in Abrahamic scripture that you don't like / agree with?

We pick and choose and make excuses for the murder and violence.

Genesis is Mesopotamian.

Wisdom is the same as Egyptian and Mesopotamian wisdom traditions. Man made.

Archaeology shows most of the stories are enlarged or myth. Moses is considered a legendary figure.

Yahweh is a typical Near Eastern deity in words, actions, sayings, laws,

It's simply man made mythology. We already have modern morals and ethics, laws, endless hero fiction demonstrating how to be a god person? It's also not true, no God. It's worth a read like Greek wisdom. Take a few good points and move on, like any other ancient book.

That is just the OT.

I do not find that the Qur'an is incoherent .. on the contrary.

The wisdom is fine, I'm talking about angels and supernatural events, myths. Not real.
There are more modern interpretations about women's roles and so on but I don't care about that. It's worshipped as a God book and an afterlife is coming, where we really belong.

That is a Greek Hellenistic invention. There isn't any evidence for that and it's unlikely to be true, as much as stories about Zeus or Krishna.
There may be some good wisdom. Same with Hindu scripture, I don't believe Krishna is real. But there are some good writings and thoughts.
And you do not need a God to base morals on.
Christians say they are basing morals on Jesus, you don't believe in that Jesus, Hindu base law on Krishna, Brahman, depending, you don't believe in those deities. So they are people making up their moral system. And it works fine.
People pick and choose the OT anyways. No graven images is before do not kill. But graven images are not even considered immoral.
Every man, woman, child and animal was killed in Jerico, 6 other cities, Yahweh ordered the people in those to be killed, every living thing. 6 cities.
Permanent slaves, their children would also be permanent slaves for non-Hebrew. We changed al that. Why? Christians say "because Jesus" but they still follow the commandments and other parts of the OT.
The reason is because it's cultural. We no longer hold slaves and kill every living thing and don't care about graven images.
We make it up and enforce it.

If you want to say a God wrote a text, present evidence that is sufficient to support the claim. If you say "because an angel told Muhammad", well an angel told Joe Smith so the Mormon Bible is also true and unless you are a Mormon you don't buy that logic. Sufficient evidence.



Tell me what evidence that Daniel is a forgery you don't agree with? You said examine, so please, let's examine. This is compiled by Carrier but he is a NT historian so he's using OT scholarship.


Conclusion:
For the book of Daniel, the actual evidence points in only one direction: Daniel is a forgery, a treatise of cultural and war propaganda created and popularized by the Maccabees, which became so moving and influential, such an emotional touchstone in how it galvanized the Jews and contributed to their rare victory against an oppressor, and such a politically essential text for the Hasmonean regime to subsequently venerate, that it became enshrined as trusted scripture and, like Jeremiah before, reinterpreted as still yet foretelling the final victory of the Jews against all future oppressors. All evidence points to there never even having been such a Jewish prophet before the book of Daniel was fabricated in the 160s B.C. (or, for maybe some of its earlier chapters, in the 4th century B.C., although that remains less certain). Legends of such a prophet may have circulated in previous centuries, evolving from the legendary Ugaritic Danel, just as Noah and Job are myths evolving from the likes of Jobab and Utnapishtim. Many of the tales in Daniel may derive from such oral myths, setting them now in a specific historical era that its authors did not actually know all that well but wanted readers to believe was historically legitimate, resulting in embarrassing and otherwise-inexplicable errors by which we are able now to detect the con. Just think how many forgeries didn’t make this mistake and thus have successfully tricked us into believing them authentic—maybe not many, but that this is an ever-present danger is why we need reasons to trust any text; gullibility is no virtue. And there just are no reasons to trust Daniel, and ample reasons to distrust it. All apologists have are convenient assertions and speculations, declarations without any evidence; which are mere baseless rationalizations of their desperately-needed selective gullibility.

That’s not doing history. It’s pseudohistory. If you want to know what is history, then Daniel is a forgery. No valid method leads to any other conclusion. I'm going to listen to his podcast on the subject.

How We Know Daniel Is a Forgery • Richard Carrier Blogs

Even the historicity of Daniel the man is dubious. Unlike other prophets, he has no patronymic, profession, or place of origin, and he first appears in historical records when “Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians” lists him with the legendary...

www.richardcarrier.info

 

[muhammad_isa]

"We have to examine them", not honest at all. Scholars who are experts do, and give many lines of evidence, which you do not know, read or try to understand. So why are you saying now you are going to examine them? You are not.
You are going to believe what a book tells you..

There are many books .. and they are written by all sorts of people..
..some believe, and some don't.

You seem to like those authored by disbelievers, and claim they are 'experts'

Here are some reasons why we know Daniel is a fraud:

How We Know Daniel Is a Forgery • Richard Carrier Blogs

Even the historicity of Daniel the man is dubious. Unlike other prophets, he has no patronymic, profession, or place of origin, and he first appears in historical records when “Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians” lists him with the legendary...

www.richardcarrier.info

I have explained numerous times .. I do not believe in the accuracy of the OT.

Please watch the Tabor video on some evidence for Hellenism being imported into Christianity. What do you disagree with and why?

I am not interested in random videos..
If you want to quote something from wikipedia about a subject other than the accuracy of the OT,
please do.
Wikipedia is not 100% reliable, but it is neutral ground.
i.e. it is not a biased source, based on belief or lack of

by Cheyne, T. K. (Thomas Kelly), 1841-1915; Black, J. Sutherland (John Sutherland), 1846-1923

We must conclude with the following guarded thesis. There is in the circle of ideas in the NT, in addition to what is new, and what is taken over from Judaism, much that is Greek ; but whether this is adopted directly from the Greek or borrowed from the Alexandrians, who indeed aimed at a complete fusion of Hellenism and Judaism, is, in the most important cases, not to be determined ; and primitive Christianity as a whole stands considerably nearer to the Hebrew world than to the Greek.

This is merely conclusions of disbelievers, and not evidence.
You cannot prove that G-d does not exist .. one can only theorise that it's all made up.

So you don't know what materialism is? And you are back to this "reason"? The universe doesn't owe you a reason. You can make up stories about a reason and feel better. That is all you have done.

That's rubbish .. I have not made anything up.
My only "mistake" is to believe in G-d and the prophets.
i.e. believe that the Qur'an is true, and confirms the core truths in the Bible.

No, I look at evidence. In this case the evidence points to the same as all religions, it's made up by people.

It really doesn't. It's just that you enjoy reading books written by disbelievers, who happen
to be 'experts' on ancient history.
I don't believe in historians who claim to know whether G-d exists. They should
stick to their 'facts', and not write books making such unreliable conclusions.
It is impossible to make conclusions about G-d, by theorising and stating 'probably', or 'most likely'..

Genesis is Mesopotamian..

You have been brainwashed by all these academic books written by disbelievers.
..and I'm not interested in proving inaccuracies in the Bible.
It only proves it is inaccurate, and not that it is complete fabrication.

It's simply man made mythology..

Your main theory relies on academic books, that concludes the OT is inaccurate.
You then carry on to say that these 'untrue stories' must have been copied by others as time
goes by.

Your reasoning is flawed. You cannot say for sure what is true and what is not.
You believe what you believe .. no more than that.

Christians say they are basing morals on Jesus, you don't believe in that Jesus..

Yes I do .. there are many different creeds amongst communities who believe in the Bible.

If you want to say a God wrote a text, present evidence that is sufficient to support the claim..

It's not that simple..
Some people will never believe, whatever evidence is presented.
i.e. their hearts are tightly shut

If you want to know what is history, then Daniel is a forgery. No valid method leads to any other conclusion. I'm going to listen to his podcast on the subject.

How We Know Daniel Is a Forgery • Richard Carrier Blogs

Even the historicity of Daniel the man is dubious. Unlike other prophets, he has no patronymic, profession, or place of origin, and he first appears in historical records when “Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians” lists him with the legendary...

www.richardcarrier.info

..whereas I'm not interested in listening to such a podcast.
I do not know whether Daniel is a forgery ..
It makes no difference to me .. I have the Qur'an, and do not rely on the accuracy of
ancient scrolls.

If the Bible was 'the word of G-d' as some say, then why would G-d have revealed the Qur'an?
In the same way, why would G-d have revealed the NT, if the OT was completely accurate?

No .. your whole theory relies on inaccuracy, and not the basic truth of the One God of Abraham.

 

[joelr]

There are many books .. and they are written by all sorts of people..
..some believe, and some don't.

You seem to like those authored by disbelievers, and claim they are 'experts'

It "seems" that way right? Well, guess what, many were fundamentalists and after seeing and studying the evidence they realized it was a myth.

Most of the historical scholars have become atheist because the evidence points to it being made up by people.
Or, y'know, you could actually listen to one. Dr Miller talks about how hard it was for him to deconvert from a fundamentalist.

Bible Scholar Dr. Richard C. Miller Leaves Christianity​

Bart Ehrman talks about his journey from a theology NT student in college who stayed in and memorized verse and swore no historical institution would shake his faith. He went on to study with the best original Greek NT scholar, Bruce Metzger. He also is now atheist.

It isn't their beliefs it's the evidence. And that explains this question. Which I have already explained several times, yet, you continue to frame things as if it's MY BELIEF and I purposely only look at non-secular scholars.
I seek out the best scholars. I don't know their personal beliefs first? Why do you even need to continue to even try to paint these false narratives? Who are you fooling? Yourself?

I have explained numerous times .. I do not believe in the accuracy of the OT.

Ok then it's confirmed, you are super dishonest.
You said this recently
"
but I do not believe that Abrahamic religion overall, is a sophisticated plot by men
to mislead us, in order to gain power etc."

post #653

Saying I believe it's a big conspiracy theory, so I replied that there are reasons scholars know about forgeries, it's not a plot??????

So I give proof and suddenly "oh I know the OT isn't accurate". Cool, THEN DON'T CALL IT A "PLOT" IF YOU KNOW?

ALSO, why do people get so narrow minded with this question. "What, it's all a plot, a lie, a conspiracy.....???"

Uh, what do you think the 10,000 religions were? Greek gods, Roman gods, Mesopotamian gods, African gods?????? Where they all "plots" too?

NO???? It's mythology. In those times they didn't do critical thinking, logic, rational methods of thought. The early Christians distrusted that type of thinking (see Dr Carriers book on early science and the Roman Empire), they thought it was heretical.
Before the Greeks it didn't really exist.

so people sold ideas by saying they came from a God. That was normal in society. Of course it's another thing you don't know and think looking at the past with a modern lens gives you the correct perspective. It didn't.

I am not interested in random videos..
If you want to quote something from wikipedia about a subject other than the accuracy of the OT,
please do.
Wikipedia is not 100% reliable, but it is neutral ground.
i.e. it is not a biased source, based on belief or lack of

What are you talking about? Wiki? What? It's one of Dr Tabors videos from his youtube. He's the top NT scholar? One of them at least. Hugely respected.
Anyways, Jesus and the NT is an import from Greek Hellenism. A soul that originates in heaven and is temporarily on earth, fallen but must do good and return to heaven is a Hellenistic import. Many prior Greek religions began this. He demonstrates this.

So if any of that is part of your afterlife theology, it went from Greek religion, to all mystery religions, including Christianity and into Islam.
It's also completely made up.

This is merely conclusions of disbelievers, and not evidence.

Oh. My. God. Before we get into this, scholarly works that study historical evidence and are peer-reviewed, ARE EVIDENCE????

But did you say "disbelievers"???? Yes, I cannot believe it, but you did. I don't know what to say this is so ridiculous. You are just wrong at every turn.
Look it up,

Encyclopaedia Biblica : a critical dictionary of the literary, political, and religious history, the archaeology, geography, and natural history of the Bible

by Cheyne, T. K. (Thomas Kelly), 1841-1915; Black, J. Sutherland (John Sutherland), 1846-1923


This was written by ONLY BELIEVERS. Why do you think they say it like this - "

We must conclude with the following guarded thesis. "

It's the 1800s????? They were Christian scholars. Just real scholars, not apologists so they knew they had to be somewhat truthful.

It's now known 100% that the NT is a Hellenistic document. All historians agree, the evidence is vast and clear. I gave that evidence because they ARE CHRISTIANS.

Again, go back and watch the video because he talks about the evidence. So you don't want to watch videos which explain history, but instead you want to talk about history like you know what you are talking about. Poor.

You cannot prove that G-d does not exist .. one can only theorise that it's all made up.

Uh, no you can show evidence. The Israelite god is exactly like all the older Mesopotamian, Ugaric and other gods. They all fought a sea monster, did the same things, spoke the same, because it's borrowed myths. And you could only tell stories and give laws if you claimed it was from a god in the Iron Age.

And, another face palm, you cannot prove Zeus does not exist. SO what. Is Zeus real? You cannot prove Spider-Man does not exist, does that mean he is real too?

The evidence, in every way, shows it was made up. Including the terrible arguments apologists have to use, just like the terrible arguments you are making. This one here being the worst.

That's rubbish .. I have not made anything up.
My only "mistake" is to believe in G-d and the prophets.

You don't believe god, you believe a book and stories.

i.e. believe that the Qur'an is true, and confirms the core truths in the Bible.

So what, some people believe Lord Krishna is true, or Mormonism. Anyone can believe anything. If you want to believe in true things you need evidence to show something is true.

But religions are extremely likely to be folk tales made up by people.

The same thing that happened wth the Quran happened with the Bible. People started telling folk tales about a prophet, or whatever, and eventually some schooled writers take books of wisdom, science, religion and compose a new religion based around the folk beliefs.

A early version of the Quran was found which shows people were working on the text. The science is all Greek, it's in Greek science books from 300 BCE.
The Arabs were known to be interested in that and reading them. They incorporated biblical knowledge, the wisdom is basically the same and there is nothing new, no new science, new anything that people already didn't know. It's very clear what all these text are.

Personal belief doesn't say anything, you need evidence if you care about truth.

 

[joelr]

It really doesn't. It's just that you enjoy reading books written by disbelievers, who happen
to be 'experts' on ancient history.

Again, they were believers but saw the full extent of the evidence and saw it was made by people.
But the way you continue to disrespect scholars who are world renown for their excellent scholarship, hold positions at top universities and despite your zero knowledge of these studies still put their name in quotes as if they are frauds

That makes this very easy as to who the fraud is. You are not being honest at all and you are making up reality as you go in order to justify your beliefs.


What an honest person would say is "I haven't studied these scholars and I know much of this is consensus in historical scholarship, but I cannot comment. Since I am interested in what is true (if they were) I will study them and then see if I can debunk their claims."


You're not fooling me, guess who that leaves?

I don't believe in historians who claim to know whether G-d exists.

Wow this is bad. Yeah so no historian makes claims about God in their work, they do specific work on literary evidence and so on. Most of it is made up, which we have evidence for.

Maybe God does exist. Actual theism claims, no chance at all. Deism is what cannot be known.

They should
stick to their 'facts', and not write books making such unreliable conclusions.

This is the biggest fail I have seen in quite a while.






Calling this a strawman is a compliment. You don't know their claims, you won't read or watch a single video, yet you think you magically know their claims (you don't) and you are wrong again.






They don't talk about belief in God, it's historical studies. We see where the myths came from, that books were written by multiple authors in different time periods, drew from older stories, don't match the archaeology. All of their claims have evidence.






Here you are not even knowing what claims they make, calling their made-up claims unreliable and just being completely wrong.


This is a pointless discussion. You are in some fantasy world.

It is impossible to make conclusions about G-d, by theorising and stating 'probably', or 'most likely'..

A fantasy world. Not related to this reality.

You have been brainwashed by all these academic books written by disbelievers.

Please prove or provide peer-reviewed evidence that Genesis is not Mesopotamian. Prove all the universities that teach this through established evidence that they are wrong.


Go ahead.
Looking at evidence is not brainwashing, it's demonstrating something is likely true.
You buy into stories about angels giving revelations and you call me brainwashed? Your proof is people told you and a book says so? Brainwashed.

..and I'm not interested in proving inaccuracies in the Bible.
It only proves it is inaccurate, and not that it is complete fabrication.

It proves Genesis is entirely a re-working of older myths.

It shows Yahweh is just another mythic deity, acting like all the other fictional deities.

Your main theory relies on academic books, that concludes the OT is inaccurate.

That is the most uneducated thing ever said. You have lost all credibility.



But it's not even correct. It's wrongness is wrong. The books don't conclude the OT is inaccurate, the evidence concludes it.

But the arguments against any theism is also correct. Show me evidence for theism.

You then carry on to say that these 'untrue stories' must have been copied by others as time
goes by.

Your reasoning is flawed. You cannot say for sure what is true and what is not.
You believe what you believe .. no more than that.

Besides they are often verbatim, there are methods trained scholars use to identify dependence on multiple text. Intertextuality is one.


So they can say with high probability.


But I no longer care. You are determined to write your own version of reality to comport to your magic beliefs. Truth is meaningless to you. So cool, just be a fundamentalist and live in a world where what you imagine is real.

Yes I do .. there are many different creeds amongst communities who believe in the Bible.


It's not that simple..
Some people will never believe, whatever evidence is presented.
i.e. their hearts are tightly shut

Yes, you. I am the one presenting evidence and you are making up fantasy realities where you think scholars are saying things they are not and that they are somehow all wrong, and anything else you can say to dismiss evidence you cannot fight against.


When a fundamentalist is confronted by evidence like that they simply deny the source. You are shut down to truth.






Now notice, here you claim it's ME who won't believe if evidence is presented. DESPITE, all I have been doing is reacting to evidence. That's it. But because it's not the evidence you want, or the belief you hold, you have to still deny the fact that I only go by evidence. Your cognitive bias is so huge right here.


I have asked you for evidence, over and over, I have shown you small examples of evidence of religious borrowing and you go into excuse, denial and fantasy mode.


And now, it's you who is the one telling me I'm "shut"? Mind boggling.






I'm waiting, present your evidence. ANY evidence.

..whereas I'm not interested in listening to such a podcast.
I do not know whether Daniel is a forgery ..
It makes no difference to me .. I have the Qur'an, and do not rely on the accuracy of
ancient scrolls.

Yeah, forget that, you are not interested in evidence. You are shut. You started out withh the feel (it was fake I see) of honest debate but you dropped the ball. I don't care.

If the Bible was 'the word of G-d' as some say, then why would G-d have revealed the Qur'an?

If the Quran was the word of God why would God have released the Bahai scripture?



So, your question is ridiculous and asserts your book is true. A claim.


I cannot believe I have to walk you through this?


So the people who say the OT is true are Jewish. They don't believe the Quran is anything but a made up by people book.


Many people who study the evidence say the OT is like all other religions, a mythology. The Quran would also be a myth. Real wisdom and rules, no angels and revelations, no moon splitting, mythology.

Your question is one that only works for someone who assumes the Quran is the word of a god?


The Quran is not from any God. If it is show me some evidence please. Neither is the OT.

In the same way, why would G-d have revealed the NT, if the OT was completely accurate?

Christians say they work together as a whole and the NT is a new revelation.

Historians and secular people know they are the mythology of the Hebrew people. Just as every of the thousands of nations had the same. Most nations did not survive or their myths didn't stick. One did, a few did. Still myths.

Why would you ask me these questions?

No .. your whole theory relies on inaccuracy, and not the basic truth of the One God of Abraham.

No, it relies on massive archaeological evidence. Which you are afraid to look at.

It relies on massive literary analysis, which you won't look at.


It relies on looking at trends in religions in the nearby nations (actually the nations who invaded Israel, yes both nations are completely where all the theology comes from, except the Egyptian and Mesopotamian myths, and some things they made up) and seeing exactly where the ideas came from.


So you are completely wrong but not interested in evidence. So go away and enjoy your unsupported beliefs. You have made it clear if I present evidence you just conspiracy theory it, WITHOUT EVIDENCE OF YOUR OWN TO BACK IT UP. Which is dishonest and always a dead end no matter what.


So unless you have evidence I don't care about a dishonest discussion that is a waste of time.


Abraham means "father of a multitude" in Hebrew. In religious fiction the characters name is always what the character does as well.
Fiction.
Also it can be shown from older myths that Yahweh is a typical Near Eastern deity, not new or special at all. In the OT. Later he changed to a Platonic god when that became popular. So in a way you worship Greek gods also.




Sanaa manuscript

Sanaa manuscript - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Sanaa palimpsest (also Ṣanʽā’ 1 or DAM 01-27.1) or Sanaa Quran is one of the oldest Quranic manuscripts in existence.[1] Part of a sizable cache of Quranic and non-Quranic fragments discovered in Yemen during a 1972 restoration of the Great Mosque of Sanaa, the manuscript was identified as a palimpsest Quran in 1981 as it is written on parchment and comprises two layers of text. The upper text largely conforms to the standard 'Uthmanic' Quran in text and in the standard order of chapters (suwar, singular sūrah), whereas the lower text (the original text that was erased and written over by the upper text, but can still be read with the help of ultraviolet light and computer processing) contains many variations from the standard text, and the sequence of its chapters corresponds to no known Quranic order. A partial reconstruction of the lower text was published in 2012,[2] and a reconstruction of the legible portions of both lower and upper texts of the 38 folios in the Sana'a House of Manuscripts was published in 2017 utilising post-processed digital images of the lower text.[3] A radiocarbon analysis has dated the parchment of one of the detached leaves sold at auction, and hence its lower text, to between 578 CE (44 BH) and 669 CE (49 AH) with a 95% accuracy.[4]


Look at that, the Quran was not written down from revelations, it was worked on for centuries, as they gathered knowledge and composed it. Human writers. Evidence.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Please prove or provide peer-reviewed evidence that Genesis is not Mesopotamian..


It proves Genesis is entirely a re-working of older myths.

It makes no difference..

It shows Yahweh is just another mythic deity, acting like all the other fictional deities.

No it doesn't.
It just means that Genesis is based on 'ancient myth' .. it says nothing about
whether G-d exists or not..

..it relies on massive archaeological evidence. Which you are afraid to look at..

I'm not afraid to look at anything..
I just don't want to waste my time watching videos from disbelievers,
thinking they can prove that G-d does not exist .. because they can't.

..no more than I can prove that G-d does exist.

 

[joelr]

It makes no difference..

If you don't care about what is actually true.

No it doesn't.
It just means that Genesis is based on 'ancient myth' .. it says nothing about
whether G-d exists or not..

It's evidence. The OT claims, like all others, to be a revelation from God. Yet what he does, says, looks like, is all typical mythic deity from the Near Eastern gods. Later descriptions of God are all Platonic ideas. So gods in the OT, NT, angels are probably fiction, Noah is a copy of older flood myths and so on. It's just how people communicated ideas. You had to sell them as divine communication.
So Mormonism, Islam and anything else coming from this is just people adding on to the mythology. The wisdom and laws are real, just made by people. That is what is most probable.

Provide evidence any God exists.

I'm not afraid to look at anything..
I just don't want to waste my time watching videos from disbelievers,

First, so you admit your mind and heart are closed. A sign someone is almost always wrong and holding onto beliefs that cannot hold up to reality.
Second, archaeology has nothing to do with who believes what, it's about looking at the evidence from digs and seeing how it matches descriptions in scripture. We can see what beliefs people actually had, was there war, battle, where did people really come from, how big were the kingdoms, what did other people believe and so on.
But of course, you don't care, because you believe a story and don't care about anything else. So there you go.
Same as any fundamentalist in any religion who insists their beliefs are true and that it. Ok, why didn't you just say up front you don't care about anything in reality that contradicts your beliefs, you will just ignore it and make excuses. Why bother even engaging as if you are going to actually defend your position.
You don't have evidence and you won't accept evidence, so why waste time acting like you are discussing the topic?

thinking they can prove that G-d does not exist .. because they can't.

See, my point exactly. You are not having any type of discussion. Nothing. I have said over and over no one is proving anything about gods.
Why I'm even still saying it is now on me because I should know better, you are not even listening enough to have any possible discussion.
How many times have I explained it's not about proving gods, yet here we are, you think it's so clever you even put an emoji. I need a face palm emoji.

They also cannot prove Superman doesn't exist. But future archaeologists and historians can show that there was a popular media called comic books and Superman first appeared in public consciousness right when Amazing Comics with a character named Superman was in it. Which looks like his origin. No historian mentioned actually seeing Superman but many other fictive comics seemed to have similar characters, who also were not mentioned in any historical sense. So he was likely a character in fiction.
Future cults that worship and wait for the return of Superman may still block their ears and say "those scholars are unbelievers and I won't listen". Ok, great. He's still fiction and theism also looks to be fiction.

Do you think scholars who do ancient Greek literature are "trying to prove Zeus doesn't exist" also? OR are they just reporting on what they find?
Do you trust any scholar? Are physicists also wrong if they don't believe in your religion? Doctors? Is all information found by scholars wrong if they don't believe in your god?
None of the quantum mechanics line of creators were known to be Muslim or the orginators of computers, so does your computer work?

..no more than I can prove that G-d does exist.

Then why do you believe in something you have no evidence for? Because there are billions of others who do the same, like Christians, Hindu, Mormons, you think they are wrong. So it looks to be a bad line of reasoning. Your book has the same spin, an angel told me.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..archaeology has nothing to do with who believes what, it's about looking at the evidence from digs and seeing how it matches descriptions in scripture.

What you mean, is that some archeologists have decided to look for evidence of past events
mentioned in the OT, and haven't found any.

You don't have evidence and you won't accept evidence, so why waste time acting like you are discussing the topic?

If the Bible and Qur'an did not exist, I would have "no evidence", maybe..

Future cults that worship and wait for the return of Superman may still block their ears and say "those scholars are unbelievers and I won't listen". Ok, great. He's still fiction and theism also looks to be fiction.

Everyone knows Superman is fiction .. we even know the authors..

Then why do you believe in something you have no evidence for? Because there are billions of others who do the same, like Christians, Hindu, Mormons, you think they are wrong.

You keep saying that .. each religion must be examined separately, in order to determine its roots..

You cannot know whether G-d exists or not, by digging up pieces of land .. or by making
assumptions about people who lived 1000's of years ago.
I believe that Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace be with them, ALL believed in the Creator
of the universe.

..which means I believe that Jews, Christians and Muslims believe in the One G-d, but through different messengers.
The fact that they have different creeds is primarily due to mankind's tribal nature, and how we evolve.

 

[Trailblazer]

If the Bible and Qur'an did not exist, I would have "no evidence", maybe..

But they do exist. What more evidence would you need?

God cannot be found with a GPS tracker and verified to exist...
That is what these atheists want, but obviously God had other ideas on how to provide evidence.

 

[ppp]

God cannot be found with a GPS tracker and verified to exist...
That is what these atheists want,

You claim about what atheists want is either criminal ignorance or an intentional slur. Either way, shame on you.

 

[Trailblazer]

You claim about what atheists want is either criminal ignorance or an intentional slur. Either way, shame on you.

There is no slur, it is just a statement of fact.
That may not be what all atheists want, but it is what most atheists want, verifiable evidence of God's existence.
Without verifiable evidence they will not believe in God.
I did not make that up out of thin are, I read it on this forum.

 

[ppp]

There is no slur, it is just a statement of fact.

It is a slur. And it is a lie. At no time have I ever asked for the GPS location of your god. Or even accounting for your ridiculous exaggeration, I have never even asked for the location of your god in a general sense.

 

[Trailblazer]

It is a slur. And it is a lie. At no time have I ever asked for the GPS location of your god. Or even accounting for your ridiculous exaggeration, I have never even asked for the location of your god in a general sense.

I said: God cannot be found with a GPS tracker and verified to exist...
That is what these atheists want, but obviously God had other ideas on how to provide evidence.

I meant that atheists want verification that God exists.
That refers to verified to exist, not to wanting God to be found with a GPS tracker.
What I said about a GPS tracker was just me trying to make my point that God can never be found.

In order to be more clear I should have said:

God cannot be found with a GPS tracker and verified to exist...
Verification of God's existence is what most atheists want, but obviously God had other ideas on how to provide evidence.