Meditation 496
Sometimes it's just a matter of personal credibility
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Suppose I was to tell you that I had been taken up on a spaceship by extragalactic aliens who claimed they had been responsible for creating life on earth, and now I was been tasked with telling the world of their message, and for preparing an embassy in Jerusalem to welcome them on their return. What would you ask of me to convince you that I was telling the truth, and neither lying nor deluded? Would you accept it as fact on my personal credibility?
Suppose as an established second-rate science fiction writer I claimed as fact that 75 million years ago, the ruler of a galactic federation blew up billions of people here on earth with hydrogen bombs, and their souls have remained here, sticking to the bodies of earth's current inhabitants and causing psychological problems. What would you ask of me to convince you that I was telling the truth, and neither lying nor deluded? Would you accept it as fact on my personal credibility?
Suppose I was to claim an angel was talking to me regularly, and that the angel eventually led me to some buried gold plates with hieroglyphics on them which I allowed no-one else to see, and then translated these plates into English with my face in a hat while not looking at the plates at all. Suppose I called the resulting book a second testament of Jesus Christ. What would you ask of me to convince you that I was telling the truth, and neither lying nor deluded? Would you accept it as fact on my personal credibility?
Suppose I was to tell you during an extended period of contemplation in a cave, I encountered an angel who told me I was a prophet, and who over a period of many years dictated various revelations to me, which I then dictated to others who could, unlike me, write them down. What would you ask of me to convince you that I was telling the truth, and neither lying nor deluded? Would you accept it as fact on my personal credibility?
We only have Rael's word for the spaceship. We only have L. Ron Hubbard's word for Xenu. We only have Joseph Smith's word for the angel Moroni. We only have Muhammad's word for the angel Gabriel. Why should we believe any of them?
There are any number of religions today which ultimately depend solely upon the credibility of the founder of the religion. We only have their word for it. No other evidence at all. If the back story is not believable, then why give any credence to the claims of the religion?