(July 19, 2022 at 8:11 pm)Klorophyll Wrote: Yes, of course there has to be independent reasons for believing God exists.I said that prophets are the only way to know God's intentions/true religion/message. No religious experience of any kind can by itself establish God's existence.
There's an exception that unmines the initial premise. What about the prophet/prophetess themselves? By your logic they could not consider the God's revelation to them (a religious experience) as verification of God's existence. Ergo, why shouldn't anyone believe his or or her own religious experiences as equally, if not more valid than, the special revelation claims of others. Independent reasons, no?
(July 19, 2022 at 8:11 pm)Klorophyll Wrote: One establishes God' existence first, then argues that He's benevolent, and finally shows that a particular religious experience of a prophet is most likely caused by God, as a result of his benevolence/his willingness to reveal his intentions. I don't know nor ever saw any other promising way to argue for theism from first principles.
And why do we need One True Prophet when we have been endowed by our Creator with the intelligence to recieve wisdom through a variety of theological speculations, mythology, and narratives, each according to the Light he or she is able to recieve and the latent wisdoms within each text?
<insert profound quote here>
