My quote: Life is about doing but depending upon what we believe we will do what we do. That is the importance of religious beliefs, their inherent value. What the Prophets of God reveal in their teachings help us discover and unleash our potential, what is latent within our inmost true self.
Your Answer: Believe we will do what we do????? Mighty confusing. Now, what one believes is often what one becomes, however that will not last for in time truth will lead one forward. There are no prophets of God. God uses students to teach other students through interaction, however God has no middlemen in the system. As far as latent inmost true self, the only people restricted are those who restrict themselves by not being true to themselves.
What I meant is that depending upon our religion or our philosophy of life, what we have learned and came to believe is true for us, we will act accordingly.
I believe that Prophets of God (what I normally refer to as Messengers) are sent by God to educate humanity. I believe they are mediators between man and God and they reveal the Will of God in every age of history. The scriptures of the Messengers guide individuals in their spiritual growth but they also include social teachings and laws that are necessary for humanity as a whole.
You are free to believe as you wish about Prophets because we all have free will. I do not want to argue.
God created humans so God knows the purpose of our existence (why we were created). Becoming our true self fulfills the purpose of our existence; or put another way, if we become our true self we fulfill the purpose of our existence.
We cannot know the purpose of our existence (what it means to become our true self) without communication from God through His Messengers. Being true to oneself if one does not know their true self (the purpose of their existence) could lead to any way of life one chooses. There has to be some kind of standard, guidelines to live by, and it makes sense that God sets the standard sinceGod created us. Within those guidelines, people have much freedom to choose how they will become their true self, and it will not be the same for everyone since we are all individuals.
My quote: I can certainly agree with that but I take it one step further to say that no ordinary man could understand God at all.
Your answer: This is an assumption which leaves you dependent on religion. In this time based- causal universe God's actions can be seen. One can understand God through God's choices and actions rather than through the words of mankind. This is a good start on the journey to Discovery.
How do you think you can know what God’s choices and actions are without any communication from God, which is the essence of true religion? One can look around in the world and attribute any number of things they see to God’s choices and actions.Assumptions about God’s choices actions are pure conjecture. Except for the creation that I attribute to God, I make no assumptions about God’s choices or actions because there is no way to know what God is doing at any time. I believe we can only know one thing that God does; He communicates through His Messengers, and whatever they communicated to us about God is the infallible Truth.
My quote: I do not believe anyone will ever “see God” but that we will experience God’s Presence. I believe that we will still have to go through the mediators because God is too great to be known directly.
Your answer: As I see it, Religion has corrupted your thinking. Further, you do not understand the Spiritual. You already know God. Further, it is important that you experience God's Unconditional Love first hand. There will be no middlemen. Relax, the only one who will judge you will be yourself.
True religion does not corrupt anyone’s thinking. Rather,true religion is the mantle of justice and wisdom vouchsafed by God through Revelation.
What I am able to know about God has been revealed through Baha’u’llah. Anything else I might
think I know would be pure conjecture. There is no way to know anything about God without an Intermediary between God and man because God is too great to be known directly. This is my belief. I share it because this is a religious forum. Nobody else is under any obligation to believe as I do. We all have free will.
People may be able to experience God’s Love, but that is a personal thing and I would never question anyone who has a personal experience.
Although God is fully aware of our doings, as well as what is in our heart and mind, I do not believe that anyone judges us except ourselves.I am not a Christian. At the end of this earthly journey, we will realize what our hands have wrought in our days and we will estimate the worth of our deeds. We will thus judge our own actions.
My quote: We will reap what we sowed. God’s Love must be tempered by God’s Justice. Anything else would be unjust.
Your answer: You have been taught to value petty things like Blaming, Judging, Condemning, Controlling, Ruling,Coercing and intimidating through fear or to attempt to alter another's actions through pain.
I have no idea where you got these ideas. I have been taught to value no such things but rather my religion teaches the exact opposite.
Blaming, Judging, Condemning, Controlling, Ruling, Coercing and intimidating through fear or to attempt to alter another's actions through pain are an anathema in my religion. The proof of that is all throughout the Baha’i Writings.
Your answer: Can you not widen your view beyond these things? Isn't there a better way than mankind's way? Deep down, you know there is. Unconditional Love always does what is Best for the other. God is Unconditional Love. It has never ever been about punishment. It's about Education.
My view does not include those things you noted:
Blaming, Judging, Condemning, Controlling, Ruling, Coercing and intimidating through fear or to attempt to alter another's actions through pain.
To reiterate what I said: We are here on earth to learn. The purpose of Prophets is to educate all men such that they can make good choices and thereby prepare themselves for life in the spiritual world.
“The Prophets and Messengers of God have been sent down for the sole purpose of guiding mankind to the straight Path of Truth. The purpose underlying Their revelation hath been to educate all men, that they may, at the hour of death, ascend, in the utmost purity and sanctity and with absolute detachment, to the throne of the Most High.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 156-157
We create our own destiny by the choices we make. God does not make those choices for us but God knows what those choices will be because God’s essential knowledge surrounds the reality of all things.
God sheds His Love on all alike but there is no reason to believe that people should not be held accountable for their misdeeds. Certainly, people are all held accountable for their actions and justice is administered in the courts. Why should God not hold people accountable for their actions? That would be unjust. Would it be justice for God to treat a mass murderer the same way as a person who lived a godly life? What then would be the incentive to live a godly life?
I cannot say if or how God punishes anyone directly in this life or the next, as that is not stated in the Writings of my religion.
Your answer: Finally, I find few people actually want a conversation with God. So many live in their created belief world for a variety of reasons. In short, they see only what they want to see instead of what actually is.
I do not think it is a matter of what we want but rather it is a matter of what is possible. Anyone can talk to God and God hears them but God does communicate to anyone except His Messengers.I think people can get
inspiration from God but that is different from actual
communication. One difference is that we cannot ever verify that inspiration is coming from God. People can “believe” that but it cannot be proven. It is only real to them.
I find it extremely ironic that believers who believe in God but not in religion say that religious believers
“live in their created belief world” and
“see only what they want to see.” That isexactly what believers who eschew religion are doing. They do not “like” what the Messengers of God have revealed because they might have to give up their own beliefs, succumb to a Higher Authority, so they retreat into their own little world of God beliefs and they see only what they want to see. They strike out at religious believers and the reason people strike out is because they feel threatened.
The difference between God believers and religious believers is that religious believers get their beliefs from a Higher Authority but the other believers just make up whatever suits them. Many people nowadays do not want to answer to a Higher Authority such as a Messenger of God, so they become their own authorities. This works for individuals but it cannot and will not work for society because there can never be unity and concord with everyone going their own way.
This dialogue and other I have had like it on this forum is proof of that. Those with their own personal belief systems always feel threatened by religious believers and that causes disharmony and disunity. I can only imagine if everyone went their own way and had their own God belief systems, the disharmony it would cause. I think it would be far better if people remained nonbelievers because they are neutral on the subject of god and they are generally not challenging religious believers, except when they request evidence that God exists. There is certainly nothing wrong with requesting that. God does not expect anyone to believe with no evidence. That would be unjust.
Your answer: As I see it, God hides nothing. One can choose to follow others, do nothing, or venture to discover for themselves. There is only one way to discover Truth and that is not through blindly believing. That is in every subject not just God.
As I see it, God is “the most manifest of the manifest and the most hidden of the hidden.” What is manifest are a God’s Attributes and His Will for any age in history, and the way to know those are through His Messengers. It is true that we can see the Beauty of God’s Attributes reflected in Creation as well;
in nature, in ourselves and in other people. God’s Essence is forever hidden. Every way is barred to the comprehension of God. Not even the Messengers of God know the Essence of God, they only hear His Voice through the Holy Spirit.
Some religious people believe blindly but all religious people do not believe blindly. Some of us believe based upon good evidence. That is not blind faith, it is reason-based faith.
