Will Mankind Survive?

[Nimos]

That is correct, neither one of us can prove these things, so what do you think the solution is?

The only reasonable solution is to look at what these things tells us in correlation to the understanding we have about a current subject.

For instance, if a person make a claim that God is all good? we can look at what the verses say and see if they contradict our understanding of what good is. If we start to exclude verses left right and center then there is no basis for discussion as it would be one solely based on faith in a God without any source material.

Nobody can prove anything about God. All we can do look at what was revealed in scriptures and decide if it rings true for us. It that point we decide to believe it is true or reject it.

Exactly, so it will at some point become a discussion about faith in relationship to the source material and not one about actual truth, the only truth we are talking about is in relation to the source material. Does the bible say this or does it say that.

I do not know what you mean, when one uses faith as a way to obtain truth. If what the Bible is saying does not help you determine the truth as to whether God exists or not, how do you think you can determine the truth?

You can't and it works both ways, religious people can't proof that God exists as well as atheists being unable to proof that he doesn't. The difference is that atheists do not make the claim, so we don't have to proof anything. Just as it would be unreasonable for me, to demand you to proof that big foot doesn't exist either, if you don't believe he does and therefore have never made such claim. So in the end its about faith when it comes to whether someone believe God exists or not. But what we can do is look at the bible and its stories, moral etc. and then have a discussion about what a potential God is and whether we think that the stories give us a basis of believing that one exists. But we will never come to a complete certainty regarding that.

Lets try to look at something else and compare it.

For instance the multiverse theory, we know that the Big bang happened, so our source material is all the scientific material we have which shows this to be the case, but we have no clue how it is even possible for something like a Universe to expand like that. So someone say that its definitely because of a multiverse... which obviously make everyone wonder how on Earth that person reached that conclusion when we have no data or source material to proof it. So the difference is that the multiverse is thrown out there as a theory and a potential explanation and that's it, its nothing more than an idea, just as the simulation theory or God is.

No, the Bible does not prove whether God exists or not, but the Bible is evidence that indicates whether God exists or not. Evidence is not the same as proof.

Its not evidence, when we have no way to verify it. So it doesn't tell us whether its true or not.

Evidence is if we imagine someone having been murdered in their house, and outside the house we find a person, which claim that they have never been in the house. We then go to the crime scene and find his fingerprints inside that house, this is evidence against his claim of never having been there and it proofs that he is telling a lie.

Its not the same as reading the bible and say that it is evidence for God, when we don't even know if he exists or not. Remember the bible is just a collection of books in the same way as someone might write a book about UFO encounters, its not evidence for UFOs, when we don't even know if they exists in the first place, and even the UFO book would have slightly more trustworthiness to it than the bible, as we might be able to interview people mentioned in the book. But even doing that, would just give us there testimony about what they saw, but no evidence for whether we ought to believe them or not.

So evidence is something you acquire to either support or don't support a given claim. And we have no way to gather evidence for or against the claim made in the bible.

Except we can look at what is physically possible and what we can dig out of the ground. For instance the Exodus story, which claim that a huge amount of soldiers were killed by the water, yet we would expect to find evidence of this somewhere. That such a huge amount of Jews wandered around in that area would also be likely to find evidence for, yet there are none. So these are evidence against those stories.

Continue...

 

[Nimos]

God is not subject to anything because God does not have to answer to humans for anything.

So we didn't get free will or the ability to know good from evil? These are concepts, its not something you can be excluded from, regardless of who you are. You are correct that God might not care one bit what we think. But it doesn't change the fact that we can judge his actions and decide for ourselves.

I do not know. I’d have to see the verses you are referring to.

Exodus 22:18
“You shall not permit a sorceress to live.

Revelation 22:15
Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

There are many more verses, so you will have to look them up if you want to know more. But the point is why would God mention witches/sorcerers if they didn't exist?

Lets be clear we are not talking about women flying around brooms etc. Most likely these are some sort of people that are believed to have some sort of evil power to curse others etc. Some sort of superstitious belief.

God did not say that in the Bible because God wanted the laws in the Bible to be followed until the next Manifestation of God appeared and abrogated the previous religious Dispensation and brought new laws.

Where in the bible does God say that there will be another manifestation of God?

I would have to have a good reason to question my starting point and beliefs I have held for over 48 years. I won’t just do that so I can say I am open-minded. It has to make sense.

That's perfectly fine, nothing wrong in having faith we all have that. Even if it might not be religious. And you have made that choice, its obviously not up to me to question that. But I just made it the other way around, that I don't want to hold on to faith in things that might be wrong and have no issue throwing beliefs away that I find out is wrong, It was a choice I made some time ago, that I wanted to follow the evidence as best as I can and then I simply have to adjust to where ever that leads me. Therefore my method of validating evidence and beliefs are crucial to me and I seek to be as good and objective as possible, because I want to be able to say to my self in the end, that I did the best I could, I worked hard at trying to be as objective as possible towards the evidence as I could.

Why would I want to search for stuff that refutes beliefs I have already confirmed? The odd thing is that there are many times when I wish my beliefs were not true but I cannot find evidence to the contrary, so I am stuck with them.

Because you could have been wrong not even knowing it. That is why as one improve their ability to critical think, how to validate evidence and even see the difference between those and claims, one can improve on their beliefs.

This is basically the approach I have made for my self, when it comes to seeking and validating truth. Call it my personal law

1. Never get attached to anything you believe as if they were absolute truth.
If you do that, its very difficult to be objective towards your belief in that.

2. Understand the value of being wrong
Its very common for people to not want to be wrong, which is sort of understanding as you might appear stupid. But when it come to being true to one self, its actually quiet important to know why being wrong is not a bad thing. I think the best way to explain it is through a question, which I think hold a lot of meaning and surprising truth to it.

"What does it feel like to be wrong?"

Most would as I mentioned above say, it makes you feel stupid etc. But in fact its feels like you are right. And I think once you understand that, you know why being wrong is not a bad thing.

3. Never have complete faith in anyone
Just because someone believe that something is the way it is, doesn't make it true. Be very careful when people explain things, whether they present them as facts or mere opinions. When you start paying attention to this, you will notice it everywhere, doesn't matter if its scientists or priest etc. The amount of guessing that is going on is insane.

4. Be true to the evidence
Be honest about the evidence, if truth is what you are after. You have to be able to throw your beliefs away, which is why point 1 is crucial. If the evidence doesn't match what you think they should, you have to accept it.

5. Always question the evidence
By that I mean, if evidence show one thing, try to find alternatives that say the opposite, so you know as much about each side, if there are such. Also because people might make mistakes, misunderstandings, intentionally try to force their belief on others etc.

6. Accept that you are not really looking for absolute truth, but merely what is most likely to be true
As mention in point 3, the amount of guessing and lack of knowledge once you start paying attention to it, is beyond believe. So being able to accept that you just want to get as close to the truth as possible to avoid fooling yourself is the goal.

7. Keep questioning what you believe is true
On a regular basis go through what you believe and see if new information or alternatives are available and then put them through the whole process again.

8. Know the difference between claim and evidence
Should probably have been the first one, because if you don't know this or understand what good evidence are, there is little chance of being able to be true to one self

Obviously this is no guarantee that you will end up with knowing everything, but at least to me you tried to be honest to yourself and that is what matter in the end I think

 

[Nimos]

Nevertheless, Baha’u’llah also wrote one should live their life not because they desire heaven or fear hell but because their action is the right thing to do.

I agree and also why we ought not to make wars because one believes God, we should love our neighbors or killing is wrong. We ought not to make wars, because it makes sense not to. If people try to behave correctly due to fear, what is the purpose of life then. Except an constant battle trying to convince one self, what God might think one ought to behave, rather than rational thinking what is actually the right way to live.

The concept of hell is nothing more than for those in power with wealth to give poor people an illusion of justice.

Insofar as the purpose of life for humans, however, it is according to Baha’u’llah to know and worship God.

That is one solution, for me its simply to thrive towards happiness.

So in the event sincere atheists survive their physical death I would expect, if justice is to be served, they would be given a huge break for not recognizing Baha’u’llah as God’s new Messenger.

I can tell you straight up, that if a God punish atheists for being true to themselves and to question things, even God existence and that the bible is in fact true and that we will be punished for eternity, that neither can do anything about it and that I definitely wouldn't see being God's slave as a less punishment, spending an eternity with such being is to me just as much hell as to be punished for eternity elsewhere.

By the way! What is meant by satan is not in the Christian sense as a personage which is spelled “Satan.” Satan in the Baha’i sense means the lower nature of humans in contrast to his noble nature.

I think this depends on what Christians you ask, I think its a minority that believe that Satan exist in some physical form, even though he should do so as much as all other angels. But that he is more something that influence the world and causes people to behave evil and immoral, at least that is the impression I get.

 

[Unity of Mankind]

I think its a minority that believe that Satan exist in some physical form, even though he should do so as much as all other angels. But that he is more something that influence the world and causes people to behave evil and immoral, at least that is the impression get.

I certainly do not believe there is a Satan from whom, or from which ...” causes people to behave evilly or immorally ...” or commit evil acts. Such a notion is pure fantasy! Also, such a notion totally obliterates any since of being responsible for our actions. Additionally, such a fantasy undermines the vital concept of justice. Courts of law operating under such a fantasy would be useless. It would render society completely lawless and create anarchy.

I can tell you straight up, that if a God punish atheists for being true to themselves and to question things,

Questioning is an essential characteristic of being human so why would an imaginary god, much less a real one punish man for that? Such a notion was probably a power play in medieval times for those in power to control people through the church.

Certainly that was the case in Byzantine Christianity from Constrainable since the emperor or king was head of the church! Thus the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was the Tsar. When the Tsar was overthrown by the Bolsheviks it was justified at least in part on the bases that religion was the opiate of the people.

 

[Trailblazer]

Im not talking about God going into deep details about atoms, big bang and quantum physics. Simply that the order of things are correct, people would have understood it just as well as we would today. Most people don't have a scientific background when they look at what science tells us, but can still understand, that the moon is not a light, that light comes from the sun, that plants need sunlight to grow, any farmer during that time would have understood that, and any normal person would have understood it as well. The reason they didn't was because they had no clue that Earth revolve around the Sun, that the earth was a sphere, that the sky is not a dome. God could have told them all that and it would have been understandable.

If it had been necessary for humans to know this back in those days, God would have told them. What difference would it have made if God told them something that science had not discovered yet?

Religious scriptures were never intended to be a treatise on scientific subjects.

Compare these two explanation:

1. God separated the water so some was below the dome and some above it.

2. From the clouds in the sky water will fall and will join and fill the waters below.

None of them are a scientific description, yet number 2 makes a whole lot more sense compared to number 1.

I like the way God said it better, as it is more poetic.

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

Besides that God might never have revealed how it actually happened and that this just made up by whoever wrote the bible. With does little to increase the credibility of the bible. Because the writers told the story as if God did it and yet, God throughout the bible while this was still not in written form, cared to correct the Jews in how it came into existences. One would have imagined that Moses, Abraham, Noa and whoever spoke with God, would at some point have wondered how God did it. Obviously this is speculations, but it does make you wonder I think.

I think that there Prophets had other more important things on their mind and itinerary besides how the Earth was created. They had messages from God to deliver and missions to accomplish.

So I don't think its a good excuse that these people back then wouldn't have accepted or even understood a story that reflected reality had it been revealed to them, but God.

Maybe they would have accepted an understood it if it had been more accurate, but how would that have helped them believe in God and be more spiritual, which is after all the purpose of scriptures?

That the Quran might have gotten it more correct, if that is in fact true, as I haven't look at it. Does nothing to support a progressive revelation, because its written much later than the bible is, where new knowledge about things would have been discovered and most likely people already at this time, understood that the creation story was probably not correct, so they chose to adapt new knowledge. So it doesn't support or proof that the Quran is more true than the bible.

That is what progressive revelation is, revealing more truth progressively over time, as mankind is able to understand more truth and as mankind needs more truth. So the fact that more truth was reveled when the Qur’an was written is because mankind was able to understand and needed more truth. Now we have even more truth that has been revealed in the Revelation of Baha’u’llah because we are living in the scientific age and religion has to be in step with science or else it is mere superstition.

Last this is God we are talking about, so he doesn't have to explain anything in terms of science, he could just have said this is how it works, end of story.

God could have, but He didn’t, and since He is God, He knew more about what to do than we could ever know.

Yes, I understand your explanation but I strongly disagree, because I think you make people appear dumber than they have to. Even if they didn't have all the required equipment, they would have understood and accepted a more accurate description.

The question is not whether they would have accepted it; the question is whether they needed it. Maybe you are projecting what you need onto those people.

Remember that people back then had no better option to validate that there is a dome or that there was water above it. They just accepted it, because it sounded as the most likely thing to them. So no matter which story were revealed to them they would have had no better reason for believing the current one over something else.

That is true, but why do you think you know how God should have revealed it, assuming the Bible writers were inspired by God?

Completely agree, but it does also mean that people can't just change the word of God. Because science have told us otherwise, which often seems to be the case. Religions make a claim and then science discovers something that contradict it, and then the religion goes back to the bible and say "ahhh, yes we got that wrong, because was is actually meant was.....so it fits perfectly, amazing how accurate the bible is".

No, the Bible cannot be changed because it is the Word of God. They cannot make the Bible fit perfectly with the new knowledge from science because they cannot change what was written. Rather, the Word of God has to be revealed again in this age in order to keep step with science.

So religion is completely passive about finding out the truth about anything, because there is nothing in the bible that can be used to figure out anything regarding reality. So the only thing it can do is wait for science to come up with something and then adapt. People have been doing this since the scientific method kicked off. So what is actually true today, were also true back then, they just didn't know. Because they had no method of validating truth or God didn't care to enlighten them about it.

Apparently what you do not understand is that the Bible was never intended to be about material reality, it is about spiritual reality. Science and religion are like two wings of a bird. Both are necessary to fly, but they are separate domains of knowledge. Science describes the material world reality and religion addresses the spiritual world reality.

Remember that those people throughout people that have made all these discoveries do not claim that the things they discovered were revealed to them by God through a progressive revelation, they were talented people that worked hard to figure these things out, through observations and experimentation.

I am not sure what people you are talking about? Are you referring to scientists?

 

[Trailblazer]

The only reasonable solution is to look at what these things tells us in correlation to the understanding we have about a current subject.

For instance, if a person make a claim that God is all good? we can look at what the verses say and see if they contradict our understanding of what good is. If we start to exclude verses left right and center then there is no basis for discussion as it would be one solely based on faith in a God without any source material.

Two thoughts:

1. If the only source material you are willing to look at is the Bible, and you look mostly at the Old Testament, you are looking through a glass darkly, and looking at a very narrow view of what Jews thought God was like.
2. Your understanding of good might not be correct.

Exactly, so it will at some point become a discussion about faith in relationship to the source material and not one about actual truth, the only truth we are talking about is in relation to the source material. Does the bible say this or does it say that.

Yes, you have to have faith that the source material is accurate, but the Bible is not the only source material that refers to God. There is also the Qur’an and the Writings of Baha’u’llah.

You can't and it works both ways, religious people can't proof that God exists as well as atheists being unable to proof that he doesn't. The difference is that atheists do not make the claim, so we don't have to proof anything. Just as it would be unreasonable for me, to demand you to proof that big foot doesn't exist either, if you don't believe he does and therefore have never made such claim. So in the end its about faith when it comes to whether someone believe God exists or not. But what we can do is look at the bible and its stories, moral etc. and then have a discussion about what a potential God is and whether we think that the stories give us a basis of believing that one exists. But we will never come to a complete certainty regarding that.

Okay, I understand what you are saying. Nobody can ever prove that God exists so the best we can do is look at what is written about God and determine if there is a basis for believing. An individual can come to complete certainty though, even if they cannot prove God exists. I am absolutely certain God exists.

Lets try to look at something else and compare it.

For instance the multiverse theory, we know that the Big bang happened, so our source material is all the scientific material we have which shows this to be the case, but we have no clue how it is even possible for something like a Universe to expand like that. So someone say that its definitely because of a multiverse... which obviously make everyone wonder how on Earth that person reached that conclusion when we have no data or source material to proof it. So the difference is that the multiverse is thrown out there as a theory and a potential explanation and that's it, its nothing more than an idea, just as the simulation theory or God is.

So, you are saying that God is simply an idea, a theory, because we have no data or source material to prove that God exists?

Its not evidence, when we have no way to verify it. So it doesn't tell us whether its true or not.

It is evidence; it is just not verifiable evidence:

Evidence: anything that helps to prove that something is or is not true: EVIDENCE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid: https://www.google.com/search

Proof: evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement: https://www.google.com/search

Something is scientifically verifiable if it can be tested and proven to be true. Verifiable comes from the verb verify, "authenticate" or "prove," from the Old French verifier, "find out the truth about." The Latin root is verus, or "true." Definitions of verifiable.
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/verifiable

Evidence is if we imagine someone having been murdered in their house, and outside the house we find a person, which claim that they have never been in the house. We then go to the crime scene and find his fingerprints inside that house, this is evidence against his claim of never having been there and it proofs that he is telling a lie.

Yes, that is verifiable evidence.

Its not the same as reading the bible and say that it is evidence for God, when we don't even know if he exists or not. Remember the bible is just a collection of books in the same way as someone might write a book about UFO encounters, its not evidence for UFOs, when we don't even know if they exists in the first place, and even the UFO book would have slightly more trustworthiness to it than the bible, as we might be able to interview people mentioned in the book. But even doing that, would just give us there testimony about what they saw, but no evidence for whether we ought to believe them or not.

No, the Bible is not verifiable evidence.

So evidence is something you acquire to either support or don't support a given claim. And we have no way to gather evidence for or against the claim made in the bible.

And that is why it is not verifiable evidence.

Except we can look at what is physically possible and what we can dig out of the ground. For instance the Exodus story, which claim that a huge amount of soldiers were killed by the water, yet we would expect to find evidence of this somewhere. That such a huge amount of Jews wandered around in that area would also be likely to find evidence for, yet there are none. So these are evidence against those stories.

And that tells us something else. If this story is not true, it is highly likely that other stories in the Bible are not true either. Then we have to ask, why did people write stories that were not true? The same could be asked about the story of the resurrection of Jesus.

The fact that these stories were not true does not necessarily mean that the Bible was not divinely inspired; it could mean that the stories were written for a reason and they were meant to convey truth from God.

 

[Trailblazer]

So we didn't get free will or the ability to know good from evil? These are concepts, its not something you can be excluded from, regardless of who you are. You are correct that God might not care one bit what we think. But it doesn't change the fact that we can judge his actions and decide for ourselves.

Humans cannot judge God anymore than a painting can judge the painter who painted it.

On a purely logical basis, we cannot judge God because God is All-Knowing, All-Wise, and Infallible and we are not any of those things. We would have to be equal or greater than God to judge God but we are not equal to or greater than God; God is greater than us, and that is why God can judge us.

Exodus 22:18
“You shall not permit a sorceress to live.

Revelation 22:15
Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

There are many more verses, so you will have to look them up if you want to know more. But the point is why would God mention witches/sorcerers if they didn't exist?

God did not mention them, the Bible writers mentioned them, and we do not know what they mean by sorcerers.

Lets be clear we are not talking about women flying around brooms etc. Most likely these are some sort of people that are believed to have some sort of evil power to curse others etc. Some sort of superstitious belief.

Baha’is do not believe in that superstitious stuff, that is all I can say.

Where in the bible does God say that there will be another manifestation of God?

The Messiah is predicted throughout the Old Testament; the Return of Christ is predicted in the New Testament. Muhammad, the Bab and Baha’u’llah are all referred to in the Bible.

That's perfectly fine, nothing wrong in having faith we all have that. Even if it might not be religious. And you have made that choice, its obviously not up to me to question that. But I just made it the other way around, that I don't want to hold on to faith in things that might be wrong and have no issue throwing beliefs away that I find out is wrong, It was a choice I made some time ago, that I wanted to follow the evidence as best as I can and then I simply have to adjust to where ever that leads me. Therefore my method of validating evidence and beliefs are crucial to me and I seek to be as good and objective as possible, because I want to be able to say to my self in the end, that I did the best I could, I worked hard at trying to be as objective as possible towards the evidence as I could.

That all sounds good to me. That is exactly what we have been enjoined to do before believing in Baha’u’llah as a Manifestation of God:

“The first principle Baha’u’llah urged was the independent investigation of truth. “Each individual,” He said, “is following the faith of his ancestors who themselves are lost in the maze of tradition. Reality is steeped in dogmas and doctrines. If each investigate for himself, he will find that Reality is one; does not admit of multiplicity; is not divisible. All will find the same foundation and all will be at peace.” – Abdu’l-Baha, Star of the West, Volume 3, p. 5.

“Bahá’u’lláh asked no one to accept His statements and His tokens blindly. On the contrary, He put in the very forefront of His teachings emphatic warnings against blind acceptance of authority, and urged all to open their eyes and ears, and use their own judgement, independently and fearlessly, in order to ascertain the truth. He enjoined the fullest investigation and never concealed Himself, offering, as the supreme proofs of His Prophethood, His words and works and their effects in transforming the lives and characters of men.” Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, p. 8

“What does it mean to investigate reality? It means that man must forget all hearsay and examine truth himself, for he does not know whether statements he hears are in accordance with reality or not. Wherever he finds truth or reality, he must hold to it, forsaking, discarding all else; for outside of reality there is naught but superstition and imagination.” – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 62

Because you could have been wrong not even knowing it. That is why as one improve their ability to critical think, how to validate evidence and even see the difference between those and claims, one can improve on their beliefs.

I could be wrong, anybody could be wrong, but all I can do is be open to new incoming information that could prove me wrong.

This is basically the approach I have made for my self, when it comes to seeking and validating truth. Call it my personal law.

1. Never get attached to anything you believe as if they were absolute truth.
If you do that, its very difficult to be objective towards your belief in that.

2. Understand the value of being wrong
Its very common for people to not want to be wrong, which is sort of understanding as you might appear stupid. But when it come to being true to one self, its actually quiet important to know why being wrong is not a bad thing. I think the best way to explain it is through a question, which I think hold a lot of meaning and surprising truth to it.

"What does it feel like to be wrong?"

Most would as I mentioned above say, it makes you feel stupid etc. But in fact its feels like you are right. And I think once you understand that, you know why being wrong is not a bad thing.

3. Never have complete faith in anyone
Just because someone believe that something is the way it is, doesn't make it true. Be very careful when people explain things, whether they present them as facts or mere opinions. When you start paying attention to this, you will notice it everywhere, doesn't matter if its scientists or priest etc. The amount of guessing that is going on is insane.

4. Be true to the evidence
Be honest about the evidence, if truth is what you are after. You have to be able to throw your beliefs away, which is why point 1 is crucial. If the evidence doesn't match what you think they should, you have to accept it.

5. Always question the evidence
By that I mean, if evidence show one thing, try to find alternatives that say the opposite, so you know as much about each side, if there are such. Also because people might make mistakes, misunderstandings, intentionally try to force their belief on others etc.

6. Accept that you are not really looking for absolute truth, but merely what is most likely to be true
As mention in point 3, the amount of guessing and lack of knowledge once you start paying attention to it, is beyond believe. So being able to accept that you just want to get as close to the truth as possible to avoid fooling yourself is the goal.

7. Keep questioning what you believe is true
On a regular basis go through what you believe and see if new information or alternatives are available and then put them through the whole process again.

8. Know the difference between claim and evidence
Should probably have been the first one, because if you don't know this or understand what good evidence are, there is little chance of being able to be true to one self

Obviously this is no guarantee that you will end up with knowing everything, but at least to me you tried to be honest to yourself and that is what matter in the end I think

That all sounds good to me.

One cannot be too careful when it comes to accepting beliefs, especially if it is a game changer such as belief in God would surely be. But we can never prove God exists, so at some point we have to come to a decision one way or another, or we can remain on the fence and be agnostic, which is a respectable position. However, if God does indeed exist, I think the best position is belief; but then we would have to decide what to believe, given how many religions are out there. There is a lot at stake, if God exists and there is one religion God wants us to adhere to in this age, which I believe is the case. Of course I am biased, but that does not mean my religion is not the one.

 

[Nimos]

If it had been necessary for humans to know this back in those days, God would have told them. What difference would it have made if God told them something that science had not discovered yet?

I think this come down to the progressive revelation that you believe in, so that you can accept or justify God relaying wrong or insufficient knowledge, which seems to me as if you have created the perfect escape from all things that are wrong.

Because what prevents you from simply assuming whenever something is wrong that its just because it haven't been revealed yet?

I get why you would see it like that, but from a rational and logic point of view you seem to be trapped in terms of figuring out what is true and what is not, and therefore you can hold on to your beliefs without ever having to question your starting point as I see it?

But it is just as relevante for those back in the days to know the truth as it is for us, I don't get why you think that is not the case. Wouldn't they back then have been better off knowing how to make medicin, what causes disease, how to effectively produce food, understanding how the ecosystem work etc.

Their brain capacity back then is pretty much like ours are today, so with more accurate descriptions they would have understood it.

I am not sure what people you are talking about? Are you referring to scientists?

Yes, those that decided to examine how things actually worked and who eventually led to most of these people reaching the conclusion that atheism is most likely true as God is not needed to explain anything. If it were God's intention to progressively reveal the truth, then he did a poor job as it seems to turn those that can explain things into atheists. So had God revealed the truth in the bible, these people would have had no reason to be become atheists rather than them constantly showing how God was correct.

So, you are saying that God is simply an idea, a theory, because we have no data or source material to prove that God exists?

Yes, God of the bible is just as much and idea as Odin and Zeus is. There is no way that you can proof that God is more real than any of those are. The difference between God and the multiverse is, that you have faith in a God, because you make the assumption that he exists, whereas the multiverse is just a potential explanation of how a fine tuned Universe could happen, but no one have faith in it because they think it true.

It is evidence; it is just not verifiable evidence:

Evidence: anything that helps to prove that something is or is not true: EVIDENCE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid:https://www.google.com/search

Proof: evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement: https://www.google.com/search

Something is scientifically verifiable if it can be tested and proven to be true. Verifiable comes from the verb verify, "authenticate" or "prove," from the Old French verifier, "find out the truth about." The Latin root is verus, or "true." Definitions of verifiable.

Yes but none verified evidence, doesn't helps to prove anything, neither is it a body of fact or information indicating anything and finally it doesn't help to establish an argument or facts. It is what you call a guess.

Then we have to ask, why did people write stories that were not true? The same could be asked about the story of the resurrection of Jesus.

The fact that these stories were not true does not necessarily mean that the Bible was not divinely inspired; it could mean that the stories were written for a reason and they were meant to convey truth from God.

That is correct it doesn't proof that the bible weren't divine inspired, but it definitely doesn't proof it is. So what we can do is look at the purpose of why they would write such stories, as you correctly say? And I think it could be interesting doing that, looking at a completely different God as comparison.

The Warrior God Par Excellence
Thor, the brawny thunder god, is the archetype of a loyal and honorable warrior, the ideal toward which the average human warrior aspired. He’s the indefatigable defender of the Aesir gods and their fortress, Asgard, from the encroachments of the giants, who are usually (although far from invariably) the enemies of the gods.

No one is better suited for this task than Thor. His courage and sense of duty are unshakeable, and his physical strength is virtually unmatched.

Now why was it important for the Norse that Thor appeared like this? We know they raided a lot and fights back then was often quite scary as you are right there standing swinging your sword or axe at your opponent. So believing and getting inspired by Thor and how brave and strong he is could give them courage and the promise of Valhalla etc. Obviously Thor had a lot more functions than this, but to keep it somewhat short.

So then we can asked the same question about God, why is it important for the Jew to establish him as perfect, good, powerful and all knowing and him wanting to save and protect the Jews? Why the need to tell the stories in the bible of how he helped them out of Egypt, how he was able to kill their enemy with ease and even when he tells the Jews to go kill someone that they will win, when God is on their side?

A huge difference is that in Norse mythology you have lots of Gods, so Odin is the all knowing one, Thor the strong one, Baldur the beautiful one and so on.

But in the bible there is only one God, so he need to have all the power and abilities.

So these are obviously different religions, but overall the purpose of God's are to encourage and guide a group of people and to help explain how and why things are as they are. So no matter which type of group we are talking about, they have God(s) that look after them. And depending on the theme of the religion, different things are important, so for the Jews it might have been about sin and faith, where as it could have been slightly different for the Norse people.

So when Jesus rise from the death, its clearly a miracle and helps to support what is important about the religion, to the people that believe it. But it doesn't tell us anything about whether it actually happened or not or that it it is even divine inspired.

But we can read the four gospels and see that each of them have different accounts of what happened. And that clearly some of what is written is most likely made up, as it simply doesn't make sense. Like when John knows exactly what Jesus and Pontius Pilatus talked about in private. So we know that these stories doesn't really match, even though we are talking about one hell of an amazing event. And to me, I don't think the differences in stories and the details are very important for those people that believe that its true. But for people that don't believe it, it makes us wonder how they were unable to get these things right.

Continue..

 

[Nimos]

On a purely logical basis, we cannot judge God because God is All-Knowing, All-Wise, and Infallible and we are not any of those things. We would have to be equal or greater than God to judge God but we are not equal to or greater than God; God is greater than us, and that is why God can judge us.

But if we can't judge anything especially not God, then why do we need free will and the ability to know the difference between good and evil?

If God said what is good and we can't judge God, then we can't judge his rules either. It makes little sense I think. Its like there is God's good and evil and then there are humans good and evil. Is that how you see it?

God did not mention them, the Bible writers mentioned them, and we do not know what they mean by sorcerers.

Well according to the bible, God did say it, it is part of his commands. And then we are back to whether we can trust the bible or not. And if we can't trust this law, why should we trust any of the others written there?

Baha’is do not believe in that superstitious stuff, that is all I can say.

Not saying you do, but that God does according to the bible. I mean demons, angels etc. Are superstitious stuff as well, God seem to have no issue with those as well.

The Messiah is predicted throughout the Old Testament; the Return of Christ is predicted in the New Testament. Muhammad, the Bab and Baha’u’llah are all referred to in the Bible.

Where in the bible are these referred to?

God would surely be. But we can never prove God exists, so at some point we have to come to a decision one way or another, or we can remain on the fence and be agnostic, which is a respectable position.

We don't have to come to a decision, simply that we don't know. And until we know for certain then we can figure out what to do. We don't have to come to a decision about whether we believe in mermaids or not, when we have no evidence for them existing. Also why you would never hear a scientist at a conference say to the other people there: "Guys we have to come to a decision regarding the multiverse, should we run with it or not?"

Saying that we have no clue is perfectly fine and we can't blame anyone other than God for not inspiring the bible so people could understand him. That one is on him

 

[Nimos]

I certainly do not believe there is a Satan from whom, or from which ...” causes people to behave evilly or immorally ...” or commit evil acts. Such a notion is pure fantasy! Also, such a notion totally obliterates any since of being responsible for our actions. Additionally, such a fantasy undermines the vital concept of justice. Courts of law operating under such a fantasy would be useless. It would render society completely lawless and create anarchy.

But do you believe Satan exists? and if so what is he doing?

Questioning is an essential characteristic of being human so why would an imaginary god, much less a real one punish man for that?

That is a good question, but that is what the bible say

 

[Trailblazer]

I think this come down to you progressive revelation that you believe in, so that you can accept or justify God relaying wrong or insufficient knowledge, which seems to me as if you have created the perfect escape from all things that are wrong.

Because what prevents you from simply assuming whenever something is wrong that its just because it haven't been revealed yet?

I get why you would see it like that, but from a rational and logic point of view you seem to be trapped in terms of figuring out what is true and what is not, and therefore you can hold on to your beliefs without ever having to question your starting point.

But it is just as relevante for those back in the days to know the truth as it is for us, I don't get why you think that is not the case. Wouldn't they back then have been better off knowing how to make medicin, what causes disease, how to effectively produce food, understanding how the ecosystem work etc.

There brain capacity back then is pretty much like ours are today, so with more accurate descriptions they would have understood it.

I do not know what you do not understand that humans evolve over time, spiritually and materially, and the world we live in changes in so many ways over time. As the world changes and people change they are capable of learning more and they need to know more. Humans back in the Bible days lived in a completely different world. Maybe their brains were the same but the technology and education was not available to them as it is in the modern world, medicine, technology, transportation and communication was not developed as it is today.

So why would God reveal what people could not understand or utilize?

The Bible is for revealing spiritual truth, not material truth. The creation story is there because people want to know the basics of how everything came to be, but it did not matter if it was scientifically accurate, because religion does not pretend to be science.

Yes, those that decided to examine how things actually worked and who eventually led to most of these people reaching the conclusion that atheism is most likely true as God is not needed to explain anything. If it were God's intention to progressively reveal the truth, then he did a poor job as it seems to turn those that can explain things into atheists. So had God revealed the truth in the bible, these people would have had no reason to be become atheists rather than them constantly showing how God was correct.

And if atheists would put away the Bible and realize that it is not the only scripture that was ever revealed by God then they would be able to look at what has been revealed in the Writings of Baha’u’llah. The main cause for lack of progress in the world is people adhering to these old scriptures that are no longer applicable to the modern day, and the reason there is still war and killing in the world is because all these religious people believe that their religion is the only one that is right, so that causes hate and prejudice and separation between people instead of unity.

Time has moved on and these religious people are caught in a time warp, clinging to things that God purportedly said and did thousands of years ago. Why does it matter?

This is so simple; I do not understand why intelligent people cannot understand it. A book written thousands of years ago is no longer pertinent to the modern day and that is why God reveals new scriptures in every age!

If all religious people had accepted the updates from God as they came through progressive revelation, none of these problems would have ever occurred, but instead people have clung to their religious traditions, what they were raised with, and they continue to do so. Most Christians are still waiting for the same Jesus to float down out of the sky, but it they understood what the Bible means they would know that Jesus never intended to return in the same body. The stories of the resurrection were just stories, and people believed they were true, and this has led to one false belief after another. So what we have is essentially millions of people living in the dark, waiting for something that is never going to happen. Meanwhile, life goes on and the world situation gets worse and worse because there is no unity of purpose or unity of vision, only division and strife.

Baha’u’llah was well aware of the problems in the world and this was about 150 years ago. None of the religious leaders or rulers heeded His call and now we are paying the price for that failure.

“Our hope is that the world’s religious leaders and the rulers thereof will unitedly arise for the reformation of this age and the rehabilitation of its fortunes. Let them, after meditating on its needs, take counsel together and, through anxious and full deliberation, administer to a diseased and sorely-afflicted world the remedy it requireth…. It is incumbent upon them who are in authority to exercise moderation in all things. Whatsoever passeth beyond the limits of moderation will cease to exert a beneficial influence. Consider for instance such things as liberty, civilization and the like. However much men of understanding may favorably regard them, they will, if carried to excess, exercise a pernicious influence upon men…. Please God, the peoples of the world may be led, as the result of the high endeavors exerted by their rulers and the wise and learned amongst men, to recognize their best interests. How long will humanity persist in its waywardness? How long will injustice continue? How long is chaos and confusion to reign amongst men? How long will discord agitate the face of society?… The winds of despair are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divideth and afflicteth the human race is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order appeareth to be lamentably defective. I beseech God, exalted be His glory, that He may graciously awaken the peoples of the earth, may grant that the end of their conduct may be profitable unto them, and aid them to accomplish that which beseemeth their station.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 215-217​

Yes, God of the bible is just as much and idea as Odin and Zeus is. There is no way that you can proof that God is more real than any of those are. The difference between God and the multiverse is, that you have faith in a God, because you make the assumption that he exists, whereas the multiverse is just a potential explanation of how a fine tuned Universe could happen, but no one have faith in it because they think it true.

That is true, you cannot prove that God is real, but if you look to the Bible to try to determine that you are only going to get confused. Faith is not what makes something true, but neither is evidence. God either exists or not. Evidence is just what people want in order to believe in God, and some people recognize the evidence whereas others do not see it as evidence.

Yes but none verified evidence, doesn't helps to prove anything, neither is it a body of fact or information indicating anything and finally it doesn't help to establish an argument or facts. It is what you call a guess.

God cannot be verified or established as a fact because God is not a material thing. It required some faith to believe in God, but faith should be based upon reason.

That is correct it doesn't proof that the bible weren't divine inspired, but it definitely doesn't proof it is. So what we can do is look at the purpose of why they would write such stories? And I think it could be interesting doing that, looking at a completely different God.

So then we can asked the same question about God, why is it important for the Jew to establish him as perfect, good, powerful and all knowing and him wanting to save and protect the Jews? Why the need to tell the stories in the bible of how he helped them out of Egypt, how he was able to kill their enemy with ease and even when he tells the Jews to go kill someone that they will win, when God is on their side?

A huge difference is that in Norse mythology you have lots of Gods, so Odin is the all knowing one, Thor the strong one, Baldur the beautiful one and so on.

But in the bible there is only one God, so he need to have all the power and abilities.

So these are obviously different religions, but overall the purpose of God's are to encourage and guide a group of people and to help explain how and why things are as they are. So no matter which type of group we are talking about, they have God(s) that look after them. And depending on the theme of the religion, different things are important, so for the Jews it might have been about sin and faith, where as it could have been slightly different for the Norse people.

Your assumption is that it was just humans who wrote stories about a God or Gods in order to fulfill a need they had but from my perspective at least the Bible was divinely inspired scriptures so it was God fulfilling the needs a particular people had at a particular time in history. So I look at the purpose for God to reveal such scriptures, what God wanted for man, not the purpose for man had for man.

So when Jesus rise from the death, its clearly a miracle and helps to support what is important about the religion, to the people that believe it. But it doesn't tell us anything about whether it actually happened or not or that it it is even divine inspired.

If these stories do not even match, then that calls into question how divinely inspired they actually are. No, the differences in stories and the details are not very important for those people that believe that they are true. They will find a way to say that they are not really different in order to maintain their faith.

Personally, I do not know why a story about a man rising from the dead is so fantastic. I think it is the idea that if Jesus could do it others could also do it, and that is what most Christians believe, that their bodies will rise from the grave and live forever. This is an untenable belief because bodies do not come back to life after they are dead. Moreover, the physical body is not even that important, because it is not what makes us a person. It is the soul that makes us who we are, and the soul is responsible for our consciousness, and the soul is all that continues to exist after we die. The body is just a vehicle to carry the soul around while we are alive on Earth, and a way for the soul to express itself.

But the whole idea that a man could come back to life after three days in a grave after decomposition had set in is obviously a story. What is amazing is how many people believe it really happened. Religious tradition is a powerful force.

 

[Trailblazer]

But if we can't judge anything especially not God, then why do we need free will and the ability to know the difference between good and evil?

We need free will so we can make choices between good and evil, and hopefully we will make the choice to do good things and thereby we become good people.

If God said what is good and we can't judge God, then we can't judge his rules either. It makes little sense I think. Its like there is God's good and evil and then there are humans good and evil. Is that how you see it?

How I see it is that we just accept that God knows what is All-Knowing and All-Wise so God knows what is best for us so we follow His rules and do not question them.

Well according to the bible, God did say it, it is part of his commands. And then we are back to whether we can trust the bible or not. And if we can't trust this law, why should we trust any of the others written there?

I do not trust anything that was written that long ago and written by men. Sure, there is a lot of spiritual truth in the Bible but there is also a lot that is no longer valid. We did not live back then so we really cannot understand how it was valid for the people living back then.

Not saying you do, but that God does according to the bible. I mean demons, angels etc. Are superstitious stuff as well, God seem to have no issue with those as well.

Again, I disregard those things that are written about in the Bible because Baha’u’llah explained what they really mean. The demons represent our lower selfish nature and the angels are people who are noble and lofty and care more about other people than themselves.

Where in the bible are these referred to?

They are all throughout the Bible. The prophecies for the Return of Christ, which is also the Messiah, are explained in the book Thief in the Night by William Sears

We don't have to come to a decision, simply that we don't know. And until we know for certain then we can figure out what to do. We don't have to come to a decision about whether we believe in mermaids or not, when we have no evidence for them existing. Also why you would never hear a scientist at a conference say to the other people there: "Guys we have to come to a decision regarding the multiverse, should we run with it or not?"

No, you do not have to decide, and it is better not to decide than to make the wrong decision, because once people decide on a belief it usually sticks. So it is better to wait and keep searching, and if you never find anything you can believe in you can withhold belief.

Saying that we have no clue is perfectly fine and we can't blame anyone other than God for not inspiring the bible so people could understand him. That one is on him.

But it seems to me that a lot of people did understand the Bible enough to believe in God, so for some reason some people cannot believe based upon the Bible. I probably could not believe in God based upon the Bible, but luckily I did not have to because I found the Baha’i Faith, and the scriptures are understandable and the theology makes sense to me.

The Bible was the only scripture that exists, and only about 33% of the human population are Jews and Christians and only about 7% of the world population and atheists so how do you think the other 60% of the world population are able to believe in God?

 

[Unity of Mankind]

But do you believe Satan exists? and if so what is he doing?

No! I believe Satan is a symbolic term referring to man’s ignoble nature and definitely not referring to a Personage who exercises influence over people to commit evil acts.

That is a good question, but that is what the bible say

I think you must take the Bible in context.

Just as there are stages in the development for humans from newborn, infancy, childhood, adolescence, and lastly adulthood I think the same principle applies to the human species as a whole in that it too must go through stages of development.

So as an analogy, if a mother takes her 2 year old to the store and her 2 year old reaches out to take a flashy looking object off the shelf for his amusement the mother lays down the law and says no! You will not take this flashy looking new object off the shelf and she doesn’t explain why because her 2 year old is incapable of understanding ownership, money, and the like.

In like manner, when Prophets laid down the law in the Bible which, by the way, involves incredible lengths of time, humans in the aggregate were in a too much of a primitive stage of development for the law to be explained in a manner which could be understandable at that time in history.

So I would say it is unfair to take the Bible out of context any more than you would take anything out of context.

 

[Nimos]

Maybe their brains were the same but the technology and education was not available to them as it is in the modern world, medicine, technology, transportation and communication was not developed as it is today.

So why would God reveal what people could not understand or utilize?

I really don't see this as an excuse for why God shouldn't reveal the truth rather than incorrect information, regardless of which stage of understanding we are at in regards to knowledge, the truth will always be preferred. Parents don't teach their kids incorrect stuff, because they think they are not intelligent enough to understand it, they may try to explain complicated things in an easy to understand manner.

But that is not what we are talking about here, we are talking about God giving people wrong information, which is not helpful. Imagine if some parents taught their kids that Earth was the center of the Universe, some that its was the center of our Solar system, some that the Sun revolve around Earth, some that Earth is flat, some that babies comes with storks and so on. Any parent with some sense of reasoning would be able to figure out, that planting wrong ideas and informations about important topics in their child's head is not a good idea.

And if atheists would put away the Bible and realize that it is not the only scripture that was ever revealed by God then they would be able to look at what has been revealed in the Writings of Baha’u’llah.

The reason atheists don't do it, is because I think you will find that only a very small minority agree that all the difference scriptures talk about the same God, I have actually never heard about that before, except in the Bahai religion. So mixing all of them together and taking a little from here and there, as we have already talked about, is not what I would call progressive revelation but rather selective revelation, and I could imagine that is why even other religions do not buy into it either.

Also how does Norse, ancient Greek, ancient Egyptian and ancient Roman religion fit into this progressive revelation, which part of these do you consider true?

This is so simple; I do not understand why intelligent people cannot understand it. A book written thousands of years ago is no longer pertinent to the modern day and that is why God reveals new scriptures in every age!

Im sorry, but this is neither simple or a logic assumption for people to make. Because what you do here is to just make a claim, which is not verified and that can't be proven to be true. And no one ought to simply believe a claim, especially if its involve something supernatural.

That is true, you cannot prove that God is real, but if you look to the Bible to try to determine that you are only going to get confused. Faith is not what makes something true, but neither is evidence. God either exists or not. Evidence is just what people want in order to believe in God, and some people recognize the evidence whereas others do not see it as evidence.

Nothing proofs anything with absolutely certainty, but that is not required either, the amount of certainty to establish something as being the most likely explanation is enough. Faith does nothing in that regard, whereas evidence does all, so I think you are wrong when you say that evidence doesn't either.

The issue is that people mix claims with evidence, remember that list of points that I said I followed for determining truth?

"8. Know the difference between claim and evidence
Should probably have been the first one, because if you don't know this or understand what good evidence are, there is little chance of being able to be true to one self "

Lets try a visual example:

So here we have a raccoon (i think) that have been killed and someone have painted over it. Now none of us were there when it happen, so we can't say for certain what did in fact take place here. But lets look at some possible explanations:

1. The raccoon crawled under the paint and got stuck and eventually died from hunger.
2. God lifted the paint and placed the dead raccoon there to send us a message to look out for the animals.
3. The raccoon was already dead and the person that painted the road, just painted over it.

So three different possibilities, if we don't care about evidence any of them are equally valid explanations. If we simply go by faith any of them are also equally valid as well, depending on which one we choose to have faith in. But if we go by evidence, option 3 seems to be the most rational explanation and even though we didn't witness the event ourselves, simply based on what evidence are available to us in the image, I think we can agree that option 3 is most likely what come closest to explaining the truth.

God cannot be verified or established as a fact because God is not a material thing. It required some faith to believe in God, but faith should be based upon reason.

Faith in the supernatural without any evidence is not based on reason, its like the example above with the raccoon. There is no reason for you to believe God is more true than Zeus, you simply have faith in the Bible, Quran and Baha'u'llah being more true than Zeus. Had the OT never been written, then the NT wouldn't either and neither would the Quran and Baha'u'llah would have no God to speak off or this could indeed have been some other God.

So I look at the purpose for God to reveal such scriptures, what God wanted for man, not the purpose for man had for man.

And again how do you know that the Norse weren't in fact correct? According to their religion, Gods do not as such interact and look out for people or reveal any knowledge about the world to us. It seems to fit rather well with how things are, as we have to figure out everything on our own, that prayers according to studies doesn't have any effect and also explain why we don't see them walk among us. How do you proof that it is not in fact true?

The reason that you can't is because there is no way to do it and therefore its not more reasonable to assume that its not true compared to any other God, but that its purely based on faith.

Personally, I do not know why a story about a man rising from the dead is so fantastic. I think it is the idea that if Jesus could do it others could also do it, and that is what most Christians believe, that their bodies will rise from the grave and live forever.

I don't think any Christians believe that, they believe that their soul will go on and live in heaven or a new paradise. But I also think that no one can really explain how this is going to work when you ask into it. Because it seems to make little sense in how they imagine it, when you ask them how they will look and how everyone else will look and whether or not all technology like the internet is there or not. I think most people imagine it being like it is at the current time that they are living, just without all the stuff that they think is bad and evil.

Continue...

 

[Nimos]

We need free will so we can make choices between good and evil, and hopefully we will make the choice to do good things and thereby we become good people.

We don't need free will, when you just said that we can't judge God and what he does as being good or evil. Therefore we have no clue what is good and evil using our free will. So the only logic way to decide what is good and evil is looking at what God say it is.

How I see it is that we just accept that God knows what is All-Knowing and All-Wise so God knows what is best for us so we follow His rules and do not question them.

Exactly as you write here: "...best for us so we follow His rules and do not question them." so there is no need for free will. And I simply don't agree with that, because God is immoral, so I don't think we should simply follow his rules without questioning them. Would you agree that what you wrote here contradict the need for free will that you wrote just before?

I do not trust anything that was written that long ago and written by men. Sure, there is a lot of spiritual truth in the Bible but there is also a lot that is no longer valid. We did not live back then so we really cannot understand how it was valid for the people living back then.

"I do not trust anything that was written that long ago and written by men." how is that not a contradiction to "Sure, there is a lot of spiritual truth in the Bible but there is also a lot that is no longer valid."

You just wrote that you don't trust what they wrote as it was written by men, and the very next sentence you say that there is a lot of spiritual truth in it. How do you know, what is true and what is not true, when you wrote that you don't trust what was written. And it was the very thing we just talked about, that you can not cherry pick from the bible in regards to what you think is true or not, as it makes no sense, because its impossible to figure out which of these stories about God's nature is then true or not.

No, you do not have to decide, and it is better not to decide than to make the wrong decision, because once people decide on a belief it usually sticks. So it is better to wait and keep searching, and if you never find anything you can believe in you can withhold belief.

You are contradicting yourself now, this you wrote in the former reply, which was why I answered you: "But we can never prove God exists, so at some point we have to come to a decision one way or another, or we can remain on the fence and be agnostic, which is a respectable position."

So we shouldn't come to a decision or is the most reasonable one that we don't know if we have no evidence?

The Bible was the only scripture that exists, and only about 33% of the human population are Jews and Christians and only about 7% of the world population and atheists so how do you think the other 60% of the world population are able to believe in God?

Because the other 60% doesn't believe in the same God, they might share "name" but that is it. If you asked them what their idea of God is, it would be rather different from what you believe, even among Christians this varies greatly, because as I said people cherry pick what they want, haven't read the bible, gotten their information from others preaching to them and last but not least they just make up things that seems to fit for them. And its the same for all religions.

 

[Nimos]

So as an analogy, if a mother takes her 2 year old to the store and her 2 year old reaches out to take a flashy looking object off the shelf for his amusement the mother lays down the law and says no! You will not take this flashy looking new object off the shelf and she doesn’t explain why because her 2 year old is incapable of understanding ownership, money, and the like.

Yes, but that is parenting, because the mother don't want the child to break the flashy thing. If what you mean is that the 2 year old is about to steal it, then the mother is follow the law of the society. If the child simply want the flashy item, it could be due to money, it could also be because the mother knows that the child just want it, because they think its interesting in the very moment and don't want to fill their house with all the stuff that kids in that age think is interesting.

But we are not talking about two year old people living in Israel at the time, remember the Romans were there, the largest Empire to have ever existed with laws and highly developed structures for how to run such empire. I don't get why you and Trailblazer seem to think of the Jews as they were almost caveman running around, still having problems understanding why they get burned when they put there hand in fire.

In like manner, when Prophets laid down the law in the Bible which, by the way, involves incredible lengths of time, humans in the aggregate were in a too much of a primitive stage of development for the law to be explained in a manner which could be understandable at that time in history.

If you read the law, its not purely rules like "You shall not kill" and stuff like that, you have laws for trading, agriculture, healthcare etc. I have no clue how you reach the conclusions you do, have you read the law in the bible or just some of them? The bible handles quite a few complex topics like good and evil, sin, faith etc. If these people were intellectual stupid, they couldn't even have written or talked about these topics in the first place.

I think your view on the ancient Jews are quite misunderstood and slightly unfair towards them. At least that is the impression I get.

 

[ecco]

Therefore we have no clue what is good and evil using our free will. So the only logic way to decide what is good and evil is looking at what God say it is.

What your God said is acceptable includes slavery, rape, and killing. What your God said is unacceptable includes eating bacon and lobster.

Your God forced Adam and Eve to disobey Him and then blamed Adam & Eve. He punished not only them but all their descendants.

My morals are much better than your God's.

 

[JJ50]

What your God said is acceptable includes slavery, rape, and killing. What your God said is unacceptable includes eating bacon and lobster.

Your God forced Adam and Eve to disobey Him and then blamed Adam & Eve. He punished not only them but all their descendants.

My morals are much better than your God's.

Good post.

 

[Nimos]

What your God said is acceptable includes slavery, rape, and killing. What your God said is unacceptable includes eating bacon and lobster.

Your God forced Adam and Eve to disobey Him and then blamed Adam & Eve. He punished not only them but all their descendants.

My morals are much better than your God's.

What do you mean my God?

 

[Trailblazer]

I really don't see this as an excuse for why God shouldn't reveal the truth rather than incorrect information, regardless of which stage of understanding we are at in regards to knowledge, the truth will always be preferred. Parents don't teach their kids incorrect stuff, because they think they are not intelligent enough to understand it, they may try to explain complicated things in an easy to understand manner.

Do you teach a two year old child calculus?

But that is not what we are talking about here, we are talking about God giving people wrong information, which is not helpful. Imagine if some parents taught their kids that Earth was the center of the Universe, some that its was the center of our Solar system, some that the Sun revolve around Earth, some that Earth is flat, some that babies comes with storks and so on.

The thing is that Genesis is not a science textbook and it was not intended to convey scientific information; it was intended to explain very simple concepts a child could understand, because that was the level of understanding of those people to whom it was written.

The reason atheists don't do it, is because I think you will find that only a very small minority agree that all the difference scriptures talk about the same God, I have actually never heard about that before, except in the Bahai religion. So mixing all of them together and taking a little from here and there, as we have already talked about, is not what I would call progressive revelation but rather selective revelation, and I could imagine that is why even other religions do not buy into it either.

I do not know what you mean by “mixing all of them together and taking a little from here and there.”
I do not think you understand what progressive revelation is, so here is a simple explanation:

Progressive revelation is a core teaching in the Bahá'í Faith that suggests that religious truth is revealed by God progressively and cyclically over time through a series of divine Messengers, and that the teachings are tailored to suit the needs of the time and place of their appearance.[1][2] Thus, the Bahá'í teachings recognize the divine origin of several world religions as different stages in the history of one religion, while believing that the revelation of Bahá'u'lláh is the most recent (though not the last—that there will never be a last), and therefore the most relevant to modern society.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_revelation_Baha'i​

Also how does Norse, ancient Greek, ancient Egyptian and ancient Roman religion fit into this progressive revelation, which part of these do you consider true?

Only Manifestations of God can establish new religions that are legitimate (revealed by God). Norse, ancient Greek, ancient Egyptian and ancient Roman religions were not revealed by Manifestations of God so they are not part of progressive revelation. The primary manifestations of god are as follows, but there were other lesser ones: Abraham, Krishna, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Christ, Muhammad, the Bab and Baha’u’llah.

Im sorry, but this is neither simple or a logic assumption for people to make. Because what you do here is to just make a claim, which is not verified and that can't be proven to be true. And no one ought to simply believe a claim, especially if its involve something supernatural.

I am not asking you to believe it, only to understand the concept. What is simple is that scriptures that were written thousands of years ago no longer relevant to the present age, and they have been superseded by newer scriptures. I do not know what that is so difficult to understand.

“And now concerning thy question regarding the nature of religion. Know thou that they who are truly wise have likened the world unto the human temple. As the body of man needeth a garment to clothe it, so the body of mankind must needs be adorned with the mantle of justice and wisdom. Its robe is the Revelation vouchsafed unto it by God. Whenever this robe hath fulfilled its purpose, the Almighty will assuredly renew it. For every age requireth a fresh measure of the light of God. Every Divine Revelation hath been sent down in a manner that befitted the circumstances of the age in which it hath appeared.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 81​

Nothing proofs anything with absolutely certainty, but that is not required either, the amount of certainty to establish something as being the most likely explanation is enough. Faith does nothing in that regard, whereas evidence does all, so I think you are wrong when you say that evidence doesn't either.

Evidence is important but evidence is not the same as proof. We need faith to supplement what cannot be proven. In other words, we need faith that the evidence proves what we are trying to prove to ourselves.

Lets try a visual example:
So here we have a raccoon (i think) that have been killed and someone have painted over it. Now none of us were there when it happen, so we can't say for certain what did in fact take place here. But lets look at some possible explanations:

1. The raccoon crawled under the paint and got stuck and eventually died from hunger.
2. God lifted the paint and placed the dead raccoon there to send us a message to look out for the animals.
3. The raccoon was already dead and the person that painted the road, just painted over it.

So three different possibilities, if we don't care about evidence any of them are equally valid explanations. If we simply go by faith any of them are also equally valid as well, depending on which one we choose to have faith in. But if we go by evidence, option 3 seems to be the most rational explanation.

I agree that option 3 is the most likely because it makes the most sense, as far as what is most likely. I cannot believe someone would paint over a dead raccoon, as if it does not even matter, but that is more likely than options 1 or 2.

Faith in the supernatural without any evidence is not based on reason, its like the example above with the raccoon. There is no reason for you to believe God is more true than Zeus, you simply have faith in the Bible, Quran and Baha'u'llah being more true than Zeus. Had the OT never been written, then the NT wouldn't either and neither would the Quran and Baha'u'llah would have no God to speak off or this could indeed have been some other God.

There is no way that we will ever have scientific proof that God exists; we have to rely on religious scriptures, or we have nothing. That is the way God set it up, and it works for the bulk of the world population as evidenced by the fact that 84 percent of the world population has a faith. Those faiths all have some kind of Founder, what I refer to as a Manifestation of God or a Messenger.

And again how do you know that the Norse weren't in fact correct? How do you proof that it is not in fact true?

I do not need to disprove all the other religions in order to know that my religion is the truth. The fact remains that the Baha’i Faith is the only religion that recognizes all the major religions that preceded it as legitimate, and that just makes sense to me, because I could never discount any of the major religions as being valid.

The reason that you can't is because there is no way to do it and therefore its not more reasonable to assume that its not true compared to any other God, but that its purely based on faith.

How does the Norse religion fit in with all the other religions? If it doesn’t, then you would have to say all the other religions are invalid; so for example you would have to say that 55% of the world population is worshiping a false God, since 33% of the world population is Christian and 22% are Muslims. How much sense would that make to say they are all wrong?

I don't think any Christians believe that, they believe that their soul will go on and live in heaven or a new paradise. But I also think that no one can really explain how this is going to work when you ask into it. Because it seems to make little sense in how they imagine it, when you ask them how they will look and how everyone else will look and whether or not all technology like the internet is there or not. I think most people imagine it being like it is at the current time that they are living, just without all the stuff that they think is bad and evil.

A core Christian belief is that when Jesus returns their bodies will rise from their graves and live forever. Christians vary in their beliefs as to whether that body will live forever on Earth or in heaven. The bodily resurrection of Jesus is so important to them because they believe it means they too can resurrect. This is based upon 1 Corinthians 15.

Most Christians do not believe that the soul is eternal; they believe that it is the breath of life and that when the body dies, the soul also goes out like a light. Baha’is are different because we believe that the soul is the essence of who we are and the body is just a vehicle that carries the soul around while we live on Earth. Baha’is believe that the soul will go on to the spiritual world and it will take on a new form that is not physical, but rather spiritual. Of course we cannot understand this from a material world vantage point, so we have to have faith, but since we believe in Baha’u’llah we believe what He wrote:

“The nature of the soul after death can never be described, nor is it meet and permissible to reveal its whole character to the eyes of men. The Prophets and Messengers of God have been sent down for the sole purpose of guiding mankind to the straight Path of Truth…… The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother. When the soul attaineth the Presence of God, it will assume the form that best befitteth its immortality and is worthy of its celestial habitation.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 156-157​