Do We Need Faith?

[Dao Hao Now]

I recall, the Baha’i Faith was the last religion he investigated after he had thoroughly researched all the other religions.

When you say “all the other religions”, does that include the religions in the list I provided or any of the subsequent religions started by real people who walked the earth claiming to be messengers of God?
Or was it only “the major religions” and what made him look into Baha’i in particular?
It certainly doesn’t qualify as a “major religion” from a layman’s point of view.

I did not become a Baha’i because my brother convinced me it was true. He had all the books that had been published at that time (1970) and I read all those books and made my own decision.

I did not mean to imply you simply took your brother’s word for it.
I commend you for doing your own investigation.
However, you did say:

I never even thought about God before I became a Baha’i.

I became a Baha'i during my first year of college, having heard about the Faith from my older brother, who had been investigating all the religions and had become a Baha'i two years earlier.

This led me to understand that it was your brother that started you “thinking about God” and gave you the books for you to study, is that correct?

What I did ask was:
“If your brother had settled on any of these other faiths, and introduced you to that faith instead;
is it possible you would be advocating for that faith instead of Baha’i?

In other words you apparently trusted your brother’s wisdom in not becoming an adherent to any of “the major religions” your brother had investigated and studied the writings of the Baha’i Faith.
You made no mention of yourself studying the “major religions”, just the religion your brother had settled on 2 years earlier, and supplied you with Baha’i materials to study.

If he had looked into and accepted say the Ahmadiyya religion instead of Baha’i, and when he started you “thinking about God”, gave you the writings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and subsequent others within THAT faith that you then studied;…
If you were using the criteria you enumerated which I’ve shown fits Mizra Ghulam Ahmad would it be likely that you would have accepted HIM as the “messenger of God” and today been advocating for Ahmadiyya instead?

Anyone can claim to be a Messenger of God. Providing evidence to prove it is another matter.

That is my point exactly!
And we agree that this claim would be an extraordinary one, and should require extraordinary evidence, yes?

If you satisfied your threshold for determining the veracity of Baháʼu'lláh‘s claim by reading his writings and the writings of adherents to his faith (which have an obvious bias);….
If your being honest to yourself, do you think it not possible that by reading the writings of
Mizra Ghulam Amahd and the writings of adherents to HIS faith that they would be grounds for determining the veracity of HIS claim?

 

[Dao Hao Now]

The Holy Spirit is the catalyst because of the profound effect it has upon humans, which stimulates the progress (see quote above).

Sorry, still sounds like a contradiction to:

No, I am not suggesting that at all. Science is a separate domain of knowledge from religion and science expands its knowledge by different means, by the scientific method.

QUOTE]

 

[Dao Hao Now]

That's not a split within a religion. The Baha'i Faith was a new religion, just like Islam ws a new religion, or Christianity was separate religion from Judaism. A split within religion is when for instance the Orthodox sect split off from the Catholic sect, and in the early 16th century numerous "protestant" sects split from the Catholic Church. There was no new revelation as with Baha'u'llah, just different interpretations of the religion created by Jesus. Baha'u'llah had a revelation from God, we believe, He was not interpreting the Babi religion only. The Babis were left behind, failed to recognize the new revelation, just like before then the Christians failed to recognize the revelation that came to Muhammad or the Muslims failed to recognize the Bab. It is unusual, granted, that Baha'u'llah revelation came so soon afterr the Bab, but then the Bab predicted the revelation would come soon as @Trailblazer quoted to you.

Perhaps I worded it sloppily.

Does that not qualify as a schism?
(A formal division within, or separation from, a church or religious body over some doctrinal difference.)
So, the Baha’i Faith was born of a schism within the Bábis.

My meaning was that Baha’i was born of “a separation from a church or religious body over some doctrinal difference”….namely the acceptance of Baháʼu'lláh‘s claim to be “the Messenger of God”.
Perhaps you could suggest a more agreeable terminology to suit your taste?

My bringing it up was to illustrate what I had said before,…and you appear to concede by saying:

The Babis were left behind, failed to recognize the new revelation, just like before then the Christians failed to recognize the revelation that came to Muhammad or the Muslims failed to recognize the Bab. It is unusual, granted, that Baha'u'llah revelation came so soon afterr the Bab

Where I originally said:

Granted there has been evolution within each of these religions through the years, but non which served to coalesce towards a better understanding, but rather schisms and splintering into differing sects and denominations thus seemingly diluting understanding to more and more selective individual understandings many of which are ardently opposed to the understandings in other sects which have on several occasions resulted in bloodshed as a means of “reconciliation”.

Would you not agree that religions (or religious groups) tend to splinter/split (pick whichever word)
into more and more religious groups because of parts of the group “failing to acknowledge” “new revelations”, or not agreeing on doctrine, or not agreeing on interpretations of teachings, or generally not accepting the “evidence” of another group, thus resulting in more and more diversified subjective opinions on which might be THE “true” religion, or the “correct” religion, or the more plausible religion, or weather the others qualify as a religion at all?
In other words….subjectivity increases and objectivity decreases.

And, also as I originally contrasted:

In science the exact opposite has occurred.
Once opposing points of view tend to coalesce into more unified understandings that become even more universally accepted.

In other words…objectivity increases and subjectivity decreases.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

Baha'u'llah and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad can't both be Messengers of God, because Baha'u'llah explicitly stipulated that for at least one thousand years there would not be any one with a direct revelation from God, and Ghulam Ahmad first made a claim after Baha'u'llah made a claim to be a Messenger of God.

I am not convinced either one is a messenger of a god, without first determining
A.) There is a god at all?
B.) That God needs a messenger?
C.) That any particular person claiming to be
“the messenger of God”
IS in FACT the messenger of that God?
D.) How was it determined that what they thought was a “message from God” was not in fact a construct of their mind?

Your reasoning appears to be “the guy I believe in says he’s a messenger of God and I believe him..
and since he said there won’t be another for a long time and the other guy made his claim after my guy that means the other guy can’t be right because my guy said so, and I believed him first.”

Baha'u'llah and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad can't both be Messengers of God

Since I couldn’t determine items A.-D. above and therefore can’t accept Baha’u’llah’s claim of being a messenger of God, that would nullify the hypothesis that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is disqualified from being a genuine messenger of God based on Baha’u’llah’s say so.
Would it not?

 

[gnostic]

There is no "proof" in science. F = m x A is an observation set in mathematical terms

Proof have more to do with logical model, that are often expressed in mathematical forms like equations and formulas.

The equations in Maxwell's equations and in Ohm's Law are mathematical proofs, not physical evidence.

You really don't know what the hell you are talking about.

 

[cladking]

Lol.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

I wouldn't draw any conclusions that he has a better claim from the apparent fact that he has more followers than Baha'u'llah. The better claim is not decided by how many followers you have alone.

I completely agree.
The truth of any claim isn’t strengthened or weakened by how many followers one has….
How many people have been convinced has no direct bearing on the validity of a claim.

I brought it up to illustrate the flaw in the criteria that @Trailblazer was using …
(This list of criteria was in another thread that was linked to in post #368)
Atheist looking for religious debate. Any religion. Let's see if I can be convinced.

Which included:
“4. He had many followers while he was alive, and there are still millions who follow his teachings and gather in groups based on the religion he founded.”

And…
“5. Indeed, his followers have grown more numerous in recent times.”

According to @Trailblazer these were deemed necessary criteria to determine if a “messenger” was to be believed as legitimate.

So I pointed out:

4. He had many followers in his life and millions
of followers still follow his religion….,

By the time of his death, he had gathered an estimated 400,000 followers, especially within the United Provinces, the Punjab and Sindh[24][25] and had built a dynamic religious organisation with an executive body and its own printing press.
By 2017 it had spread to 210 countries and territories of the world.
The Ahmadis have a strong missionary tradition, having formed the first Muslim missionary organization to arrive in Britain and other Western countries.
So #4

5. His followers have grown more numerous….

Currently, the community is led by its caliph, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, and is estimated to number between 10 and 20 million worldwide.
(This appears to be over twice the number of Baha’i.)
So, #5

To illustrate that the logic being applied (that numbers of followers) didn’t work to the advantage in the way @Trailblazer believed.
That’s all.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

I've given this more thought and I have a different slant on Ghulam Ahmad now. Both he and the Bab claimed to be the same Mahdi, and the Bab sacrificed Himself completely by proclaiming who He was. Ghulam Ahamd does not have as strong of a case in one sense because he did not have to sacrifice like the Bab had to sacrifice Himself. The 1000 year limit I think is meant to be directed to people among the Baha'i community, which Ghulam Ahmad was not, so he is not to be characterized as strongly as lying imposter, I don't think. He was probably just mistaken, though my knowledge of him and his character is limited. At any rate, what he taught didn't bring about holy war as another person who claimed to be the Mahdi in the Sudan did. Instead, he taught a peaceful religion. That this religion attracted as many people as it did means it has something going for it. I wouldn't draw any conclusions that he has a better claim from the apparent fact that he has more followers than Baha'u'llah. The better claim is not decided by how many followers you have alone.

The Ahmadiyyas generally consider themselves to still be Muslims, and that Muhammad is the last Prophet acccording to most of them. It is more of a reform movement within Islam than a new religion like the Babi Faith or the Baha'i Faith. It seems that they believe that Ghalum Ahmad to be inspired by God, but not a new Prophet. The concept of the Mahdi is thought of by most Muslims in the first place as thought of being something short of a Prophet. They believe the term in the Qur'an "Seal of the Prophets" settles that question.

I assure you I have no dog in this fight, I don’t believe either of them.
I’m not sure how much of the conversation between @Trailblazer and myself you have read…
Perhaps review of the postings between the two of us will help clarify.

 

[Trailblazer]

I completely agree.
The truth of any claim isn’t strengthened or weakened by how many followers one has….
How many people have been convinced has no direct bearing on the validity of a claim.

That is absolutely correct. How many people believe a religion is true has absolutely no bearing upon whether it is actually true or not. For example, the fact that Christianity and Islam have the most followers of all the religions does not mean they any more true than the Baha'i Faith, which has the fewest followers of ant of the major religions.

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." 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.

Matthew 7:13-14 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

“The Book of God is wide open, and His Word is summoning mankind unto Him. No more than a mere handful, however, hath been found willing to cleave to His Cause, or to become the instruments for its promotion. These few have been endued with the Divine Elixir that can, alone, transmute into purest gold the dross of the world, and have been empowered to administer the infallible remedy for all the ills that afflict the children of men. No man can obtain everlasting life, unless he embraceth the truth of this inestimable, this wondrous, and sublime Revelation.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 183

I brought it up to illustrate the flaw in the criteria that @Trailblazer was using …
(This list of criteria was in another thread that was linked to in post #368)
Atheist looking for religious debate. Any religion. Let's see if I can be convinced.

Which included:
“4. He had many followers while he was alive, and there are still millions who follow his teachings and gather in groups based on the religion he founded.”

And…
“5. Indeed, his followers have grown more numerous in recent times.”

According to @Trailblazer these were deemed necessary criteria to determine if a “messenger” was to be believed as legitimate.

Apparently you did not understand what I meant by many; I meant he had a lot of followers, not only a mere handful. I did not mean he had many as many followers as the older well-established religions while he was alive, that never happens.

Also, when I said that millions of people follow his teachings of the true Messengers of God and gather in groups based on the religion he founded please note that I was working backwards. On other words, the list of criteria are based upon who' I believe' were true Messengers of God. Sorry, that was in my original write-up but I now see it was not in #751.

 

[Trailblazer]

So, the Baha’i Faith was born of a schism within the Bábis.
This, as I said previously, tends to be the M.O.
of religions, with the opposite being true of science.

There was a schism because most Bábís accepted Baháʼu'lláh as the promised one of the Báb's writings, leading them to become Baháʼís, and leaving a remnant of Bábís who became known as Azalis. However, once that happened there were no more schisms within the Baha’i Faith (the Baha’is under the Covenant). There were Covenant-breakers who broke away and tried to stare their own religion but that is a different matter.

I agree….no ordinary human has that capacity;
due to the fact there’s been no demonstration that God or the Holy Spirit exists or that a messenger would have a divine nature.
So, again; how does one determine if the claimed “messenger’s” message was not merely a construct of their mind?
Especially considering the presumption of an undemonstrated “devine nature” would tend to bias one towards that assumption.

It cannot be ‘proven’ that God or the Holy Spirit exists or that a Messenger had a divine nature. That has to be believed on faith coupled with the evidence that indicates that he was a Messenger of God. The claims of Baha’u’llah and the evidence that supports the claims of Baha’u’llah are in this post:

Questions for knowledgeable Bahai / followers of Baha'u'llah

So if there is no objective way to determine the veracity of the “messenger” or his message, without presuming that he has a devine nature…which depends on the existence of a god that that same “messenger’s” message is the proof that the god exists,….(do you not recognize that as circular reasoning?) how does one rule out the more reasonable conclusion that it was a construct of their mind?

Even if it is circular reasoning, the belief is not automatically false simply because it is based upon circular reasoning.

Circular reasoning is a logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with. The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. Wikipedia

So if the premise Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God is true, then the conclusion God exists must be true.

That everything Baha’u’llah wrote was a construct of His own mind is not a reasonable conclusion, not to me. The Writings alone are proof to me that there is a God and Baha’u’llah was His Messenger, but as noted in that post I linked to above, there is a lot more evidence than just the Writings of Baha’u’llah.

In other words rather than come up with criteria that one must meet to be considered a “Messenger of God”, you came to a belief of who was an “actual Messenger” and then set criteria that matched them?
Have you ever heard of the “Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy”?

Yes, as I said in the previous post, I was working backwards when I set the criteria and that is not illogical. How could I set criteria if I had nothing to base the criteria upon?

Now then, it appears that Mizra Ghulam Ahmad meets your criteria…..
he claims to be a messenger of God who received devine revelation from God which proves there is a god which would then give him the revelation.
Why is he not legit according to you,
while Baháʼu'lláh is?

In my original write-up, after I listed the criteria, I said “This is a starting point but there are other questions we would want to ask ourselves before we would be able to believe that a man was a true Messenger of God because that is a bold claim so there should be a lot of evidence to support such a claim.”

I think that @Truthseeker already explained why Bahais don’t believe that Mizra Ghulam Ahmad could be a true Messenger of God. Below is the passage we refer to. Baha’u’llah wrote:

“Whoso layeth claim to a Revelation direct from God, ere the expiration of a full thousand years, such a man is assuredly a lying impostor. We pray God that He may graciously assist him to retract and repudiate such claim. Should he repent, God will, no doubt, forgive him. If, however, he persisteth in his error, God will, assuredly, send down one who will deal mercilessly with him. Terrible, indeed, is God in punishing! Whosoever interpreteth this verse otherwise than its obvious meaning is deprived of the Spirit of God and of His mercy which encompasseth all created things. Fear God, and follow not your idle fancies. Nay, rather, follow the bidding of your Lord, the Almighty, the All-Wise. Erelong shall clamorous voices be raised in most lands. Shun them, O My people, and follow not the iniquitous and evil-hearted. This is that of which We gave you forewarning when We were dwelling in ‘Iráq, then later while in the Land of Mystery, and now from this Resplendent Spot.”
The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 32

So, if one believes that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God, that automatically eliminates Mizra Ghulam Ahmad.

How might a reasonable person determine how one claim is true while the other is false (or that either one is valid) assuming they weren’t looking at it with a bias of belonging to either religion or a presupposition that a god exists?

They would look at ALL the evidence that supports the claims. For example, Mizra Ghulam Ahmad did not fulfill the Bible prophecies whereas Baha’u’llah did fulfill them. That means that Ahmad cannot be the return of Christ, as Baha’u’llah claimed to be. The Bible supports Baha’u’llah, not Mizra Ghulam Ahmad, and if Baha’u’llah was who He claimed to be that means Ahmad is a lying imposter (according to the passage above). Just look at a few of the prophecies in this short 10-minute video.

 

[Trailblazer]

When you say “all the other religions”, does that include the religions in the list I provided or any of the subsequent religions started by real people who walked the earth claiming to be messengers of God?
Or was it only “the major religions” and what made him look into Baha’i in particular?
It certainly doesn’t qualify as a “major religion” from a layman’s point of view.

As I recall, he only researched the major religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam..

This led me to understand that it was your brother that started you “thinking about God” and gave you the books for you to study, is that correct?

Yes, that was a long time ago but that is how I remember it. However, I cannot remember everything I was thinking about God back at that time. In fact, I don’t even remember thinking about God, I think I joined the Baha’i Faith because I liked the spiritual and social teachings and the message of peace and world unity, etc. God was kind of an afterthought and I did not get serious about God until about 10 years ago.

What I did ask was:
“If your brother had settled on any of these other faiths, and introduced you to that faith instead;
is it possible you would be advocating for that faith instead of Baha’i?

In other words you apparently trusted your brother’s wisdom in not becoming an adherent to any of “the major religions” your brother had investigated and studied the writings of the Baha’i Faith.
You made no mention of yourself studying the “major religions”, just the religion your brother had settled on 2 years earlier, and supplied you with Baha’i materials to study.

No, I did not study all the other religions the way my brother did because I had no interest in religion at that time. I did not even view the Baha’i Faith as a religion (of God) but rather as an idealistic movement to change the world.

Bahá'í teachings - Wikipedia

If he had looked into and accepted say the Ahmadiyya religion instead of Baha’i, and when he started you “thinking about God”, gave you the writings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and subsequent others within THAT faith that you then studied;…
If you were using the criteria you enumerated which I’ve shown fits Mizra Ghulam Ahmad would it be likely that you would have accepted HIM as the “messenger of God” and today been advocating for Ahmadiyya instead?

I doubt it because he did not bring the Baha’i teachings as noted on the link above. That is what attracted me to the Baha’i Faith.

That is my point exactly!
And we agree that this claim would be an extraordinary one, and should require extraordinary evidence, yes?

I fully agree that the evidence should be extraordinary and I believe it is.

If you satisfied your threshold for determining the veracity of Baháʼu'lláh‘s claim by reading his writings and the writings of adherents to his faith (which have an obvious bias);….
If your being honest to yourself, do you think it not possible that by reading the writings of
Mizra Ghulam Amahd and the writings of adherents to HIS faith that they would be grounds for determining the veracity of HIS claim?

Writings are not enough to meet a threshold for evidence as I said in another post, but besides that, I do not like the Writings of Mizra Ghulam Amahd or see them as from God.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

That is absolutely correct. How many people believe a religion is true has absolutely no bearing upon whether it is actually true or not. For example, the fact that Christianity and Islam have the most followers of all the religions does not mean they any more true than the Baha'i Faith, which has the fewest followers of ant of the major religions.

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." 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.

Precisely, popularity does not equal truth.
I’m glad we agree on this point.

Apparently you did not understand what I meant by many; I meant he had a lot of followers, not only a mere handful. I did not mean he had many as many followers as the older well-established religions while he was alive, not never happens.

I fully understood what you meant by many, and I did not compare the number of his followers to older more established religions.
I compared the number of followers of Ahmadiyya to Baha’i in order to point out that your criteria including….
“He had many followers while he was alive, and there are still millions who follow his teachings and gather in groups based on the religion he founded. Indeed, his followers have grown more numerous in recent times.”
As evidence that Baháʼu'lláh could be a
“true messenger”, when the flawed logic that you were employing fit Mirza Ghulam Ahmad even more so, yet you were asserting that he was not
a “true messenger”.
That flawed logic, of course being, that having many, millions, a few, one, none, or only a mere handful, has any bearing on the truth of his claim of being a messenger of God.
Nor would it matter if he had followers while he was alive, after he was gone, yesterday, today, before he was born, or sometime in the future.
Nor if the number of followers grew, shrunk, disappeared, or multiplied exponentially…
None of these thing have any bearing on whether his claim was true, nor favor his claim over anyone else.
That was the point.
Your criteria was fatally flawed as a method of determining his legitimacy.

On other words, the list of criteria are based upon who' I believe' were true Messengers of God. Sorry, that was in my original write-up but I now see it was not in #751.

Yeah, I know;
You pointed it out in post #368 of this thread.
That’s why I asked in post #371, if you had ever heard of “The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy”

How could I set criteria if I had nothing to base the criteria upon?

It’s simple really. You determine what information is necessary to determine if a claim is true ….
(In this case what information would be needed to determine in somebody is a messenger of a god.)
Then you would devise an objective method of concluding what that information is.
THEN you would search out a candidate that fits that information.

I’ve pointed out what information would be necessary in order to make a determination several times in this thread.
Once again….
A.) Is there a god at all?
B.) Does that God needs a messenger?
C.) Can any particular person claiming to be
“the messenger of God” provide objective
evidence that they in fact are the messenger
of that God?
D.).Can it be determined that what they
thought was a “message from God” was
not in fact a construct of their mind?
Unfortunately, none of these have ever been shown to be true.
Thus, one can’t objectively determine if a candidate is a “true messenger”

 

[Dao Hao Now]

There was a schism because most Bábís accepted Baháʼu'lláh as the promised one of the Báb's writings, leading them to become Baháʼís, and leaving a remnant of Bábís who became known as Azalis. However, once that happened there were no more schisms within the Baha’i Faith (the Baha’is under the Covenant). There were Covenant-breakers who broke away and tried to stare their own religion but that is a different matter.

The reasons for the split don’t matter.
Nor whether “Covenant-breakers” are cast out or broke away of their own accord or not; the fact remains…..
That religions (or religious groups) tend to splinter/split (pick whichever word)
into more and more religious groups because of parts of the group “failing to acknowledge” “new revelations”, or not agreeing on doctrine, or not agreeing on interpretations of teachings, or generally not accepting the “evidence” of another group, thus resulting in more and more diversified subjective opinions on which might be THE “true” religion, or the “correct” religion, or the more plausible religion, or weather the others qualify as a religion at all.
In other words….subjectivity increases and objectivity decreases.

It cannot be ‘proven’ that God or the Holy Spirit exists or that a Messenger had a divine nature. That has to be believed on faith coupled with the evidence that indicates

The problem here is that “faith” is necessary in order to accept the “evidence”.
With the “faith” being the basis of the “evidence”,
the “evidence” fails when not coupled with the faith.
So in reality, all you actually have is “faith”.

Which is why I (without the “faith”), can’t accept the “evidence”, objectively.

It’s why the followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who have “faith”…. but in him rather than Baha’u’llah, don’t accept your “evidence”.
They do however accept their “evidence” that
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a “true messenger of God” because their “evidence” is coupled (therefore dependent on) their “faith”, and is subjective.

Which is why other people in other religions don’t accept your subjective “evidence” based on your “faith” and you don’t accept their subjective “evidence” based on their “faith”.

It’s because subjective “evidence” based on “faith” can’t be “good evidence”, since all it actually boils down to is faith.

This is why if one actually has real objective evidence, one doesn’t need faith.

Even if it is circular reasoning, the belief is not automatically false simply because it is based upon circular reasoning.

I didn’t say it was automatically false.
I said it needed to be demonstrated to be true.
However, it can’t be used as EVIDENCE that it’s true.

Circular reasoning is a logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with. The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. Wikipedia

Apparently you failed to continue reading the paragraph……
“Circular reasoning is not a formal logical fallacy but a pragmatic defect in an argument whereby the premises are just as much in need of proof or evidence as the conclusion, and as a consequence the argument fails to persuade. Other ways to express this are that there is no reason to accept the premises unless one already believes the conclusion, or that the premises provide no independent ground or evidence for the conclusion.” ”Circular reasoning - Wikipedia

So if the premise Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God is true, then the conclusion God exists must be true.

Yet it still missing the critical information; it must be shown IF IT WERE TRUE…..
Because if it WERE NOT TRUE, then the conclusion fails…..thus begging the question….
IS IT TRUE?
“Begging the question is closely related to circular reasoning, and in modern usage the two generally refer to the same thing.
In classical rhetoric and logic, begging the question or assuming the conclusion (Latin: petitio principii) is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it.”Begging the question - Wikipedia
Again; if you’d finished reading the paragraph, you would have seen this.
“Begging the question is closely related to circular reasoning, and in modern usage the two generally refer to the same thing.”Circular reasoning - Wikipedia

That everything Baha’u’llah wrote was a construct of His own mind is not a reasonable conclusion, not to me. The Writings alone are proof to me that there is a God and Baha’u’llah was His Messenger, but as noted in that post I linked to above, there is a lot more evidence than just the Writings of Baha’u’llah.

Unfortunately all of it is based on the original unverified presupposition that he WAS a messenger of God.
This exemplifies my statement back in post #289;

My suspicion is that where we may disagree,
is what evidence is sufficient.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

I think I joined the Baha’i Faith because I liked the spiritual and social teachings and the message of peace and world unity, etc. God was kind of an afterthought and I did not get serious about God until about 10 years ago.

I notice you didn’t include that you determined it was true, as a reason to join the faith.
Instead you seemed to have sympathized with the message of peace and unity, etc. and thus liked the teachings.
At what point in your journey with the Baha’i Faith did you begin to believe the existence of God and the status of Baháʼu'lláh as being a true messenger of God were factual and true?

Writings are not enough to meet a threshold for evidence as I said in another post, but besides that, I do not like the Writings of Mizra Ghulam Amahd or see them as from God.

Would you admit it’s possible that your devotion to
Baháʼu'lláh and the Baha’i Faith may constitute a bias which could in anyway skew your judgements towards Mizra Ghulam Amahd and his writings?

I do not like the Writings of Mizra Ghulam Amahd or see them as from God.

Do you think it necessary to “like” something in order for it to be true?

 

[Trailblazer]

It’s simple really. You determine what information is necessary to determine if a claim is true ….
(In this case what information would be needed to determine in somebody is a messenger of a god.)

I have determined what information is necessary ‘for me’ to determine’ if the claim of a Messenger is true, so I knew what information ‘I needed’ to determine if Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God. I had all the information I needed to make that determination.

Then you would devise an objective method of concluding what that information is.
THEN you would search out a candidate that fits that information.

I’ve pointed out what information would be necessary in order to make a determination several times in this thread.
Once again….
A.) Is there a god at all?
B.) Does that God needs a messenger?
C.) Can any particular person claiming to be
“the messenger of God” provide objective
evidence that they in fact are the messenger
of that God?
D.).Can it be determined that what they
thought was a “message from God” was
not in fact a construct of their mind?
Unfortunately, none of these have ever been shown to be true.
Thus, one can’t objectively determine if a candidate is a “true messenger”

A-D is ‘what us necessary ‘for you’ to determine if a candidate is a Messenger of God or not. but since A-D can never be determined that means that nobody can ever objectively determine if a candidate is a “true messenger.” Whether a candidate is a true Messenger or not is an objective determination, it is a subjective determination based upon the evidence that the Messenger provides.

It can never be proven that God exists so obviously it can never be proven that God needs Messengers or sends Messengers.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

I have determined what information is necessary ‘for me’ to determine’ if the claim of a Messenger is true, so I knew what information ‘I needed’ to determine if Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God. I had all the information I needed to make that determination.

A-D is ‘what us necessary ‘for you’ to determine if a candidate is a Messenger of God or not. but since A-D can never be determined that means that nobody can ever objectively determine if a candidate is a “true messenger.” Whether a candidate is a true Messenger or not is an objective determination, it is a subjective determination based upon the evidence that the Messenger provides.

It can never be proven that God exists so obviously it can never be proven that God needs Messengers or sends Messengers.

Thus bringing us back to:
My suspicion is that where we may disagree,
is what evidence is sufficient.

A-D is ‘what us necessary ‘for you’ to determine if a candidate is a Messenger of God or not.

Yes.
Me and any rational person seeking to objectively determine whether a candidate is a messenger of God.

but since A-D can never be determined that means that nobody can ever objectively determine if a candidate is a “true messenger.”

I don’t know that to be true.
However, I’ve never seen it demonstrated thus far…

Whether a candidate is a true Messenger or not is an objective determination, it is a subjective determination based upon the evidence that the Messenger provides.

This is false.
While you have made a subjective determination on the matter, does not preclude the possibility that an objective determination can be made.
Granted, A, B, and D have not yet been demonstrated, either for or against, to be possible.

C.) Can any particular person claiming to be
“the messenger of God” provide objective
evidence that they in fact are the messenger
of that God?……

While C has not yet been demonstrated for it to be possible (due to A,B and D)……
It may well be falsifiable, and if so could lead one to an objective determination against the claim.

Since I care about what is true, and a false subjective determination about the truth of something often assuages one from examining and unbiasedly judging further information and/or evidence, I avoid subjective evidence which has been demonstrated to be flawed in favor of objective evidence.

Thus, my suspicion of not agreeing with you on what evidence is sufficient appears to ring true…
in that you find subjective evidence as sufficient to verify extraordinary claims.
I on the other hand require objective evidence, particularly where extraordinary claims are involved.

Subjective evidence for claims concerning divinity and gods fuel the beliefs of all the disparate views in all the different religions, all different denominations, all the different sects, etc, etc.
Since many disagree and/or are contradictory to the others, I fail to see subjective evidence as a reliable means of determining truth.

 

[Truthseeker]

I assure you I have no dog in this fight, I don’t believe either of them.
I’m not sure how much of the conversation between @Trailblazer and myself you have read…
Perhaps review of the postings between the two of us will help clarify.

The reason for posting to you was not to convince you of the validity of the Baha'i Faith, or to prove to you that God existed. It was to justify why I believe, and in the case of the Azali stuff to defend my faith, not from you, but from what the Azalis said. I'm done. I'll let my good friend @Trailblazer speak for herself from now on.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

The reason for posting to you was not to convince you of the validity of the Baha'i Faith, or to prove to you that God existed. It was to justify why I believe, and in the case of the Azali stuff to defend my faith, not from you, but from what the Azalis said. I'm done. I'll let my good friend @Trailblazer speak for herself from now on.

Not a problem.

 

[Trailblazer]

The problem here is that “faith” is necessary in order to accept the “evidence”.
With the “faith” being the basis of the “evidence”,
the “evidence” fails when not coupled with the faith.
So in reality, all you actually have is “faith”.

Which is why I (without the “faith”), can’t accept the “evidence”, objectively.

I do not agree with that. Evidence is my basis for believing that a person is a Messenger, but faith is needed to believe what cannot ever be proven, that God exists and a Messenger received communication from God.

It’s why the followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who have “faith”…. but in him rather than Baha’u’llah, don’t accept your “evidence”.
They do however accept their “evidence” that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a “true messenger of God” because their “evidence” is coupled (therefore dependent on) their “faith”, and is subjective.

Their acceptance of Ahmad as a Messenger is a subjective determination, just as my acceptance of Baha’u’llah is subjective. However, there is objective evidence that indicates to me that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God.

Subjective evidence is evidence that we cannot evaluate. In fact, we have two choices; to accept what somebody says or reject it. ... Objective evidence is evidence that we can examine and evaluate for ourselves.
Objective evidence - definition and meaning - Market ...

We can examine and evaluate the evidence for Baha'u'llah for ourselves since there are actual facts surrounding the Person, the Life, and the Mission of Baha'u'llah (the history of the Baha’i Faith). That is objective evidence that we can evaluate for ourselves. How we interpret tat evidence is subjective.

Which is why other people in other religions don’t accept your subjective “evidence” based on your “faith” and you don’t accept their subjective “evidence” based on their “faith”.

It’s because subjective “evidence” based on “faith” can’t be “good evidence”, since all it actually boils down to is faith.

This is why if one actually has real objective evidence, one doesn’t need faith.

Other people in other religions don’t accept my objective “evidence” for Baha’u’llah because they have a different subjective opinion of my objective evidence.

Apparently you failed to continue reading the paragraph……
“Circular reasoning is not a formal logical fallacy but a pragmatic defect in an argument whereby the premises are just as much in need of proof or evidence as the conclusion, and as a consequence the argument fails to persuade. Other ways to express this are that there is no reason to accept the premises unless one already believes the conclusion, or that the premises provide no independent ground or evidence for the conclusion.” ”Circular reasoning - Wikipedia

Yes, I have read all that a zillion times and I fully understand what it means because I have been accused of circular reasoning so many times. As such, the responses I have given in the past are committed to memory.

I was only stating a fact: IF the premises are true THEN the conclusion must be true. I never claimed that I could PROVE the premise is true, and I have stated over and over again I cannot prove the premise is true, and that is why I am not claiming that God exists.

No, there is no reason to accept the premise, since that cannot be proven. I cannot prove that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God so we cannot base the conclusion “God exists” upon the premise that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God. It is the same with the Bible. Christians cannot claim that God exists because the Bible is true since they cannot ever prove that the Bible is true.

I explained this to my good friend @Nimos last October at the end of post #1222

If the premise the Bible is true is true, then the conclusion God exists must be true.

Similarly, if the premise Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God is true, then the conclusion God exists must be true.

Of course, since I can never prove that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God is true, then I can never assert the conclusion that God exists. The same applies to the Bible, it can never be proven to be true, so it cannot be used to assert that God exists.

And that is why logical arguments cannot be used to try to prove that God exists.

Yet it still missing the critical information; it must be shown IF IT WERE TRUE…..
Because if it WERE NOT TRUE, then the conclusion fails…..thus begging the question….
IS IT TRUE?

“Begging the question is closely related to circular reasoning, and in modern usage the two generally refer to the same thing.
In classical rhetoric and logic, begging the question or assuming the conclusion (Latin: petitio principii) is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it.”Begging the question - Wikipedia
Again; if you’d finished reading the paragraph, you would have seen this.
“Begging the question is closely related to circular reasoning, and in modern usage the two generally refer to the same thing.”Circular reasoning - Wikipedia

Of course, if the premise Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God is not true there is no reason to accept the conclusion God exists based upon THAT premise. However, “God exists” could still be true even if Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God is false.

Unfortunately all of it is based on the original unverified presupposition that he WAS a messenger of God.
This exemplifies my statement back in post #289;
Dao Hao Now said: ↑

My suspicion is that where we may disagree,
is what evidence is sufficient.

Yes, it is the same with all the atheists I have posted to for 10 years. It is all about evidence and they do not think that the evidence is sufficient whereas the evidence is sufficient for me.

I feel as if we are going in circles. There was never any ‘presupposition’ on my part that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God. As I said before, there is no verifiable evidence that proves He was a Messenger of God, since such a claim can never be proven, but there is evidence. I base my belief upon the evidence that is available, the evidence that indicates to me that He was a Messenger of God.

 

[Trailblazer]

I notice you didn’t include that you determined it was true, as a reason to join the faith.
Instead you seemed to have sympathized with the message of peace and unity, etc. and thus liked the teachings.

It is a given that I believed it was true, otherwise I would not have joined the Baha’i Faith. The question is why I believed it was true. I believed it was a true religion because of what I read, not just what Baha’u’llah wrote but also what was written by Abdu’l-Baha and Shoghi Efendi, as well as what other people wrote about the Baha’i Faith. One of my first books was Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era.

At what point in your journey with the Baha’i Faith did you begin to believe the existence of God and the status of Baháʼu'lláh as being a true messenger of God were factual and true?

I accepted that God existed ever since I became a Baha’i in 1970 but I did not really believe that God existed until I fully understood the status of Baháʼu'lláh as being a true Messenger of God. The realization of came in June 2014 when I read Gleanings with serious intent for the first time and really understood what it meant. After that I read it cover to cover about five times and I not only believed that God existed, I knew that God existed.

Would you admit it’s possible that your devotion to
Baháʼu'lláh and the Baha’i Faith may constitute a bias which could in anyway skew your judgements towards Mizra Ghulam Amahd and his writings?

Of course it constitutes a bias. We all have biases towards what we have accepted as true. Ahmadis would have a bias against Baha’u’llah because what He revealed runs contrary to their beliefs. Likewise, the Christian understanding of the Bible is what biases Christians against Baha’u’llah.

Do you think it necessary to “like” something in order for it to be true?

Of course not. What I like or dislike has no bearing upon what is actually true.