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I could just imagine talking about the Gods to some tribal people... "Of course the Gods are real. Last week we did a rain dance and look... today, it's raining. Besides who do you think our shaman priest is communicating to? It doesn't make any sense for him to be able to talk to the Gods, if there were no Gods. That would be illogical.?"
Logical reasoning is the ability to draw a reliable conclusion or make a correct inference based on the facts, assumptions, or arguments.
And there's lots of them.... But not all of them claim to be Christ or Buddha. Here's one that apparently does. At least one follower of his posts here on the forum. And I'm sure he has proof and evidence that supports his believe in his prophet, but I've never known him to push his evidence or his beliefs on the rest of us. So, why do Baha'is?
Push evidence for our beliefs? I am not pushing anything, people are pushing me for evidence... constantly. I barely get a break to live my life.
Oh dear..
Sathya Sai Baba was an Indian guru said to have over 100 million followers in 133 countries...Oh dear..
Jyoti Thottam wrote in Time, “Believing in the Baba was easy. Devotees were not required to adhere to any particular set of beliefs or renounce worldly pleasures; non-Hindus did not need to change their religion. "I am God," he would say. "You too are God. The only difference between you and me is that while I am aware of it, you are completely unaware
What nonsense! Anybody who believes that a person is God lacks accurate religious knowledge.
Only Christians would fall for that one.
That is your position, not mine. I do not need proof since I have evidence.
Who brought up my belief? If you look back in the thread you will see I was not the one who brought it up. People post to me and I just respond to posts. It is you and others keep bringing up my beliefs.
Then don't.
It is a lot more than His character.
This is not only about Baha'u'llah. God existed long before He sent Baha'u'llah. All the great Messengers and the religions that were established by them are evidence that God exists.
Did you see the title of my thread and what is in the OP? This thread is about Christianity, not about the Baha'i Faith.
This is in the debate thread but the debate was not intended to be about evidence for my beliefs, it was intended to be about Christianity.
I'm not asking for an infodump. If you cannot provide a specific argument, then I am not going to construct one for you with the resources you've given me.
Whether the Abrahamic God exists or not is very pertinent to a topic debating Christianity, and that's a claim you introduced to the discussion.
I have already presented all the evidence and arguments I have so there is no point going over it again.
I haven't and I don't expect I will. I have given you all I have. I cannot give you what I don't have.
Whether God exists or not was not the subject of this thread. This thread was supposed to be about the claims of Christianity to be exclusive.
You present yourself as too wise by half, but you offer nothing in support your words. You see yourself as a metric for others with too narrow views to strive to achieve, the only one who isn't a fool in a discussion with critical thinkers who reject your empty claims. It's you playing the fool doing so. Why are you arguing a position with insufficient ammunition? You're in the same unenviable position as the creationist arguing against science unarmed, or those arguing for messengers representing gods with only ordinary words.
Do you really want to buy into the Abrahamic trope that ego is necessarily an enemy? That's a self-serving doctrine not said in your interest. It's code for one killing freethinking, doubt, and cognitive dissonance, and conforming to somebody else's agenda for you.
Except that you are wrong. The evidence is staring you right in the face - happy "materialist" everywhere. I'm what you call a materialist, and I'm here to tell you that it has provided a solid foundation for what has been a happy life. On the other hand, not so much for my religious counterparts in the family, dutiful, church-going, tithing, Trump-supporting Americans with lots of kids, lots of debt, lots of grievances, and lots of bigotries. What were you saying about nonsensical and self-eviscerating? These people took the blue pill. I was saved from that by my "materialistic" (godless metaphysics, empiricism, and rational ethics) worldview.
Baha'u'llah lived in the nineteenth century. And there was insufficient reason to believe the message he presented came from a god by academic standards for evaluating evidence. No other method can generate sound conclusions, just unsupported beliefs (faith).
Of course it does. The number of people who will become Baha'i will be the fraction who see the message multiplied by the fraction believing it. Do you not understand how advertising and marketing work? It's the same. Sales will be the product of the fraction aware of your product or service times the fraction who want to buy it.
Nor need you. I can list the reasons myself, although my list doesn't look like yours. Few people have seen the message, and many or most who did weren't convinced or attracted to the religion. The same is true for all small religions. And all movements of any kind that don't gain traction.
In both cases, the task was to disseminate an important message to as many people as possible.
Irrelevant. Furthermore, you just compared them when you found the absence of the Covid message potentially lethal but not the other.
Which depend on the efficiency of delivery and the quality of the message.
Disagree. The message is not evidence that the message is from a deity because it is mundane. Evidence of a deity is something evident to the senses that makes the existence of the deity more likely, which does not include flowery, nonspecific exhortation to follow a god, which anybody can write.
And it includes the message, which you early said you don't consider evidence.
Yes, and I contend that the opposite is true - there are no Baha'i who are qualified to look at the evidence and see that it supports and sufficiently justifies the belief. Of course, your standards and theirs are not those of critical analysis, or they would have come to the same conclusions as the others who use them as their standard for belief.
I disagree that dialectic adds nothing, and I don't find this activity divisive, although I know many of the faithful take personal offense at being disagreed with. Compare at your posting demeanor and mine. You disagree with me, but I'm not complaining about it or having any kind of an emotional reaction, just correcting errors. I never post anything like what you just did. Regarding divisiveness (division) and "us versus them", that depends on one's reaction to disagreement. Yes, I see a distinction between us, but I don't consider you the enemy or attacking.
Only by your lax standards, which require belief by faith despite what you call sufficient evidence. Too bad you can't embrace that. Too bad that you can't say that you believe because you choose to. Nobody could argue with that. You can have that lane all to yourself. But you cross into the world of reason and claim its concepts for yourself. Critical thinkers then feel a need to correct the logical errors and insufficiently evidenced claims.
That is why your position doesn't use logic. And what you call evidence relies on assumptions, so not really evidence that can be used objectively. I have read the writings you consider evidence and they are no so impressive that a person who doesn't know the story and claims of Baha'u'llah would conclude they are from a divine source.
You do. Every post is about what you believe. It's all about what you want to believe regardless of the rules that critical thinkers rely on for corect conclusions. You have you own rules, and you come up with your own conclusions. They are not sound conclusions as numerous critical thinkers explain to you. You don;t care about sound conclusions, you care about justifying what you want to believe, as all other theists do.
You have a way of making these threads about you and your belief. Then it becomes a cycle of you becoming more defensive, saying more non-rational things, and you must be exhausted with how often you move the goalposts. Your use of the words "proof" and "evidence" are incomprehensible. Even when you try to define these words they are so laden with ambiguity they are meaningless.
You have your script and sometimes you break from it in subtle ways.
But they aren't. Baha'i are already believers, and as our forum Baha'i show us there is no objective and critical analysis done. Your link above shows many fantastic claims, but no logical foundation as to why a critical thinker could concude it is true or even likely true. These ideas are like other religious claims, they only convince those who have already made certain assumptions. The only people who would join Baha'i are already believers of some type, but are looking for new religious digs to reside. Just got to hope they don't see gays as equal, as thay might cause problems at the Baha'i picnic.
Atheists are THE target audience for theists in debate. If you can convince atheists that your claims are true then you HAVE truth. Only atheists are going to subject claims to the logical level of scrutiny that theists won't. You even admit that "God is off limits from logic", which is the bias theists have to justify for their belief. Theists will bring an assumption that a God exists, and it is "how" that God exists that they look for. Your testimony suggests you were already a believer and were looking for a candidate to fit what you like in a religion. Your evidence only had to satisfy your feelings, not evidence that a God exists, or evidence that people, or a person, can access a God. Atheists don't bring these assumptions, and our standards are very high. Atheists skilled at critical thought are THE qualified group you want to assess your claims and beliefs. Guess what, you have it. But you don't like our results.