Will Mankind Survive?

[Trailblazer]

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.

That is correct, the way we know what is good and evil is by what God says it is, but we then need free will to choose between good and evil.

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.

Once we accept that a religion is the truth from God then we do not question the teachings and laws, because that would be akin to saying we know more than God, which is impossible, since God is All-Knowing. However, we need free will in order to choose to follow the teachings and laws of the religion.

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 believe God is immoral based upon the stories written about God in the OT, which is just a human representation and anthropomorphizing of God.

I guess you need to understand what I mean by free will:

Question.—Is man a free agent in all his actions, or is he compelled and constrained?
Answer.—This question is one of the most important and abstruse of divine problems. If God wills, another day, at the beginning of dinner, we will undertake the explanation of this subject in detail; now we will explain it briefly, in a few words, as follows. Some things are subject to the free will of man, such as justice, equity, tyranny and injustice, in other words, good and evil actions; it is evident and clear that these actions are, for the most part, left to the will of man. But there are certain things to which man is forced and compelled, such as sleep, death, sickness, decline of power, injuries and misfortunes; these are not subject to the will of man, and he is not responsible for them, for he is compelled to endure them. But in the choice of good and bad actions he is free, and he commits them according to his own will.

For example, if he wishes, he can pass his time in praising God, or he can be occupied with other thoughts. He can be an enkindled light through the fire of the love of God, and a philanthropist loving the world, or he can be a hater of mankind, and engrossed with material things. He can be just or cruel. These actions and these deeds are subject to the control of the will of man himself; consequently, he is responsible for them. Some Answered Questions, p. 248

From: 70: FREE WILL​

"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."

The spiritual truth (the essence, or essential elements, of what His Manifestations intended to convey) will always be valid, because spiritual truth never changes over time, but all the details in the Bible and the stories are not literally true.

From letters written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice:

In studying the Bible Bahá'ís must bear two principles in mind. The first is that many passages in Sacred Scriptures are intended to be taken metaphorically, not literally, and some of the paradoxes and apparent contradictions which appear are intended to indicate this. The second is the fact that the text of the early Scriptures, such as the Bible, is not wholly authentic.
(28 May 1984 to an individual believer)

...The Bahá'ís believe that God's Revelation is under His care and protection and that the essence, or essential elements, of what His Manifestations intended to convey has been recorded and preserved in Their Holy Books. However, as the sayings of the ancient Prophets were written down some time later, we cannot categorically state, as we do in the case of the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, that the words and phrases attributed to Them are Their exact words.
(9 August 1984 to an individual believer)
The Bible: Extracts on the Old and New Testaments​

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.

Do you know what I mean by the spiritual truths, the essential elements that God’s Manifestations intended to convey? It is impossible to figure out which of these stories about God's nature is then true or not so I just discount the stories because I cannot trust them. I do not need the Bible to understand God’s nature because I have the Writings of Baha’u’llah that are authentic.

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?

Everyone has to decide that for themselves. If you think you have evidence that is sufficient then you can make a decision but if you don’t you should withhold belief until you feel confident with your evidence.

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.

That does not matter because there is only one God. At some point, if one wants to believe in God, they have to pick the religion and the conception of God that makes the most sense to them, and that will be the religion that has the evidence that convinces them.

 

[ecco]

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?

The god you were referring to when you wrote:

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.

That god.

 

[Trailblazer]

The god you were referring to when you wrote: 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.

That god.

FYI, Nimos is an atheist.
He was talking hypothetically, that the only logical way to decide what is good and evil would be look at what God says it is.

 

[ecco]

I'll await Nimos' comment.

 

[Bird123]

I decided to share a paragraph from a book written by a German Baha’i entitled “the light shineth in darkness”. The paragraph is located in a section of his book entitled “Belief and Unbelief Today”, after which I made some comments.

“Baha’u’llah’s call to the leaders of his time remained unheeded. None of the rulers addressed by Baha’u’llah was mindful of his warning and counsels. Today we are experiencing the significance of those monitory words. It becomes more and more obvious that we are living in a period of crisis, the most critical phase in the history of mankind and that the future of mankind is threatened as never before by its own destructive forces, that man is on the way to a catastrophe, to self-annihilation. Since the report of the Club of Rome about the situation of mankind has been published and become a bestseller, wider circles of the population are now aware of what eminent scientists and philosophers have been observing for a long time: mankind is on the way to destruction, if it does not come to a fundamental change in consciousness.” (Udo Schaefer, the light shineth in darkness, pp. 12-13)​

The reference to the report of the “Club of Rome” is dated in 1972. The question is has the crisis lessened or has it even deepened? As a Baha’i I have faith that God has provided for a peaceful way to disarm the “destructive forces” of mankind. Nevertheless, I expect even greater destruction to ensue before that occurs as a result of what is being reported in the mainstream news of the world. I believe an Old World Order is dying and a New World Order is struggling to be born. In general, on a lesser scale, I think many transitions from old to new have occurred in the world. However, I think if safe to say that today the scale of destruction versus the potential for peace and prosperity is unprecedented.

Lastly, there is a great deal in the aforementioned book I did not comment on. One lingering principle I seem to recall is the fact that it will take more than intellectual endeavors for humankind to work his way out of darkness and into the light! Also, that Baha’u’llah stated that if His Revelation from God was withdrawn humankind would perish.

People have been preaching doom and gloom from the beginning of time. Further, religions in their attempt to control or gain followers use fear and intimidation. The world is always coming to an end if you don't follow them. If that doesn't work, there is always Hell to get those followers showing up.

We all have the Power to Choose what we deem important. We can choose to value doom, gloom, and what we see as bad, Or we can choose to value the goodness,the kindness of even strangers and the advancement of true intelligence. Funny how so many value that doom and gloom. Far more of that is talked about over the goodness out there.

Global communication is advancing in leaps and bounds. Through the internet and phone systems interaction between countries and cultures is at an all time high. Diversity and Understanding will bring a Greater force than all the armies of the world and we are walking toward that.

Yes, pollution is everywhere. Mankind has the technology to get rid of fossil fuels. Why don't they? Many strive for easier rather than better. Don't worry. At some point the kiddies will just have to clean their room. Advancements in science and knowledge will lead us out when everyone has had enough.

There are a infinite number of lessons being learn through what is going on in the world today. Everyone wants the drama to go away and yet that is where the learning takes place

Mankind will not destroy themselves. Sometimes people must make some very bad choices in order to Discover which choices are the very best. Point them in the right direction. Nurture the goodness and lead them to a Higher Level. How much more goodness is done when everyone is looking up as apposed to looking down? We all have that choice.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

People have been preaching doom and gloom from the beginning of time. Further, religions in their attempt to control or gain followers use fear and intimidation. The world is always coming to an end if you don't follow them. If that doesn't work, there is always Hell to get those followers showing up.

The prophecy is for the end of an age, or end of an era, not end of the world. The great change that results, is what is warned against.

Thus consider where are all the great material empires of the past and what remains from those times? Faith remains, faith in a Message given at that time, that fortold the demise of those empires and ones to come, if we reject God in our spiritual selves.

We now live at the beginning of a time when the old world order is falling, as we have not heeded the warnings given, empires did fall and the material civilization that continues to be built will likewise fall. Life will change and in a big way.

It is not doom and gloom, it is a process to find out who we really are.

Regards Tony

 

[Nimos]

I'll await Nimos' comment.

Trailblazer is correct, Im an atheist

 

[ecco]

Trailblazer is correct, Im an atheist

I'll try to keep that in mind. But, I'll probably forget.

 

[Nimos]

I'll try to keep that in mind. But, I'll probably forget.

No worries, I think its because you read it out of context of Trailblazer and my talk

 

[Nimos]

Do you teach a two year old child calculus?

No, but again we are not talking about two year old kids And also you definitely don't teach them them how to calculate wrong.

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.

Giving a correct description is not science. If the bible were filled with mathematical formulars that were wrong then I would agree. Im not a scientist, yet I enjoy listening to stuff about science that is explained in a way that I understand it, there is no difference. Imagine watching a video about science and all the information were wrong, what would be the point then? When I was born and as I grew up, I was no better suited for understanding these topics that a ancient Jew were. The reason they didn't was because 90% of the stuff they believed about the natural world was wrong. However that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have understood it. I don't get why you assume that is the case. Also God did not reveal those things we know today, science did, so God is not really a factor anyway.

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

That is how I understand it as well. And to me that seems wrong and follows the same pattern as early Christianity and Islam, Jesus revealed a bit more, Muhammed as well and now Baha'u'llah. But nothing of it have been verified as being true, so you just build on top of the others and claim that your belief are more true because its the lastest one. To me that is basically selective revelations rather than progressive revelation. And again to me, it seems to be the perfect excuse for whenever something doesn't fit, that its because it haven't been revealed yet.I would see that as trapping my self with no reasonable way out.

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.

That is only because you are convince that the God of the Bible is correct. But what if he is not? And the Norse or ancient Greek God are the true ones. Also how do you test or figure out if someone is the next manifestation of God, How could you proof that its not me?

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.

Don't get me wrong I fully understand the concept. What I don't understand is why anyone would believe it, when there is no way to verify it and to me that is where faith come in.

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.

Im not really sure I follow that logic. If we want to prove something then we gather evidence, if there is enough evidence then we consider something a fact. When we can explain how something is the way it is, then we make a scientific theory. Faith is only needed when we try to convince ourselves of something for which we either can't gather evidence for, don't care to gather them or simply want to believe something is true due to whatever reason. We don't need faith for anything when it comes to truth.

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.

There are lots of images on the internet like that, so it seem to happen quite a lot. But do you see why all the two other options are equally valid if we disregards evidence?

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.

God is faith we agree on that. That so many people believe in the supernatural is not surprising, considering that atheism is the new kid on the block. And also as lots of people are raised in religious families. But the 84% only shows how many are religious, it doesn't tell for how many it actually works for, and tells nothing about whether a God exists or not. Also you have to remember that all 84% doesn't believe in the same God.

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.

I think that is good, definitely better than the other religions. But again that doesn't tell us anything about whether its correct or not. Simply that the Bahai accept more than the others.

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?

It makes sense because its not about majority rules, but whether we can proof one over the other and since we can't do that. It will remain an open question. And simply tell us that the majority have faith in the biblical God rather than Odin.

Continue...

 

[Nimos]

That is correct, the way we know what is good and evil is by what God says it is, but we then need free will to choose between good and evil.

Ok, so what you are saying is, that what is good and what is evil have already been decided and some people simply choose to do evil rather than good? So good and evil is objective?

Once we accept that a religion is the truth from God then we do not question the teachings and laws, because that would be akin to saying we know more than God, which is impossible, since God is All-Knowing. However, we need free will in order to choose to follow the teachings and laws of the religion.

So we should allow slavery? and if two men are together as man and women they should be killed? and we shouldn't question that? So who gets to decide what is right or wrong according to the scriptures? I guess that falls to the 9 people of the Universal house of Justice? By the way why are women not allowed to hold any seats, just wondering?

I do not believe God is immoral based upon the stories written about God in the OT, which is just a human representation and anthropomorphizing of God.

I guess you need to understand what I mean by free will:

Question.—Is man a free agent in all his actions, or is he compelled and constrained?
Answer.—This question is one of the most important and abstruse of divine problems. If God wills, another day, at the beginning of dinner, we will undertake the explanation of this subject in detail; now we will explain it briefly, in a few words, as follows. Some things are subject to the free will of man, such as justice, equity, tyranny and injustice, in other words, good and evil actions; it is evident and clear that these actions are, for the most part, left to the will of man. But there are certain things to which man is forced and compelled, such as sleep, death, sickness, decline of power, injuries and misfortunes; these are not subject to the will of man, and he is not responsible for them, for he is compelled to endure them. But in the choice of good and bad actions he is free, and he commits them according to his own will.

For example, if he wishes, he can pass his time in praising God, or he can be occupied with other thoughts. He can be an enkindled light through the fire of the love of God, and a philanthropist loving the world, or he can be a hater of mankind, and engrossed with material things. He can be just or cruel. These actions and these deeds are subject to the control of the will of man himself; consequently, he is responsible for them. Some Answered Questions, p. 248

That description is really not very helpful or explanatory when it comes to free will. I would probably go as far as to say that its wrong when it comes to understanding free will.

I do not need the Bible to understand God’s nature because I have the Writings of Baha’u’llah that are authentic.

So which God did Baha'u'llah believe in? Where did he get his infomation from and how did he knew the nature of God?

 

[Wandering Monk]

I decided to share a paragraph from a book written by a German Baha’i entitled “the light shineth in darkness”. The paragraph is located in a section of his book entitled “Belief and Unbelief Today”, after which I made some comments.

“Baha’u’llah’s call to the leaders of his time remained unheeded. None of the rulers addressed by Baha’u’llah was mindful of his warning and counsels. Today we are experiencing the significance of those monitory words. It becomes more and more obvious that we are living in a period of crisis, the most critical phase in the history of mankind and that the future of mankind is threatened as never before by its own destructive forces, that man is on the way to a catastrophe, to self-annihilation. Since the report of the Club of Rome about the situation of mankind has been published and become a bestseller, wider circles of the population are now aware of what eminent scientists and philosophers have been observing for a long time: mankind is on the way to destruction, if it does not come to a fundamental change in consciousness.” (Udo Schaefer, the light shineth in darkness, pp. 12-13)​

The reference to the report of the “Club of Rome” is dated in 1972. The question is has the crisis lessened or has it even deepened? As a Baha’i I have faith that God has provided for a peaceful way to disarm the “destructive forces” of mankind. Nevertheless, I expect even greater destruction to ensue before that occurs as a result of what is being reported in the mainstream news of the world. I believe an Old World Order is dying and a New World Order is struggling to be born. In general, on a lesser scale, I think many transitions from old to new have occurred in the world. However, I think if safe to say that today the scale of destruction versus the potential for peace and prosperity is unprecedented.

Lastly, there is a great deal in the aforementioned book I did not comment on. One lingering principle I seem to recall is the fact that it will take more than intellectual endeavors for humankind to work his way out of darkness and into the light! Also, that Baha’u’llah stated that if His Revelation from God was withdrawn humankind would perish.

 

[Bird123]

The prophecy is for the end of an age, or end of an era, not end of the world. The great change that results, is what is warned against.

Thus consider where are all the great material empires of the past and what remains from those times? Faith remains, faith in a Message given at that time, that fortold the demise of those empires and ones to come, if we reject God in our spiritual selves.

We now live at the beginning of a time when the old world order is falling, as we have not heeded the warnings given, empires did fall and the material civilization that continues to be built will likewise fall. Life will change and in a big way.

It is not doom and gloom, it is a process to find out who we really are.

Regards Tony

Empires may fall but the advancement of mankind will continue. Faith is not needed for that.

It has never ever been about Believing, Rejecting, nor Accepting God. These have nothing to do with our education. God is not what so many religions are describing.

Life is going to change in a big way. Just look at the progress of the last 100 years. Does it seem like things are changing quicker than the past? As knowledge grows, the rate of advancement will increase.

Look up! So many problems will simply disappear as we grow. We can't be cavemen forever. Things will continue to get Better, just as they have been from the beginning.

Discard the doom and gloom of those prophets. God isn't the wrathful, vengeful, angry,hateful, and intimidating God people describe. God is at a much Higher Level.

Seems, so very many people hate Change. Why do they not realize Change can be a Good Thing?

Finally, it is so easy to find out who one is. One can simply close their eyes and look. One does not need doom and gloom to do that. The Truth and the Answers have always been around us all.

Prophets do not come from God. They are mankind's doing. Believers can always find a way to make what prophets say fit. Horoscopes work the same way.

 

[Unity of Mankind]

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.

My analogy is that it is precisely about parenting from birth through different stages of development; first newborn, then infancy, childhood, and adolescence from which preparation is made toward adulthood. In a religious context instead of a mother doing the parenting God is doing it as humans in the aggregate go through several stages of its development in a similar manner.

I think it is generally understood adolescence is the most volatile stage of development which can be dangerous both for the teen and society which coincides with all the volatility we see going on presently worldwide. The outcome is potentially both disastrous and promising. Without parenting by a God-sent Messenger disaster is, in my opinion, guaranteed.

 

[Trailblazer]

No, but again we are not talking about two year old kids And also you definitely don't teach them them how to calculate wrong.

We are talking about people who were not capable of understanding what we can understand in the present scientific age, people who did not have science to verify what was in scriptures.

Giving a correct description is not science. If the bible were filled with mathematical formulars that were wrong then I would agree. Im not a scientist, yet I enjoy listening to stuff about science that is explained in a way that I understand it, there is no difference. Imagine watching a video about science and all the information were wrong, what would be the point then? When I was born and as I grew up, I was no better suited for understanding these topics that a ancient Jew were. The reason they didn't was because 90% of the stuff they believed about the natural world was wrong. However that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have understood it. I don't get why you assume that is the case. Also God did not reveal those things we know today, science did, so God is not really a factor anyway.

I do not think Genesis was all wrong. It conveyed certain basic concepts about the world. Nobody knows what ancient Jews could have understood; all we know is that it was written that way. We do not know the reasons and we do not even know who wrote it do we? Certainly it was not God. Maybe that was written from the perceptions of the authors, why they understood from what they could see in their very limited world.

That is how I understand it as well. And to me that seems wrong and follows the same pattern as early Christianity and Islam, Jesus revealed a bit more, Muhammed as well and now Baha'u'llah. But nothing of it have been verified as being true, so you just build on top of the others and claim that your belief are more true because its the lastest one. To me that is basically selective revelations rather than progressive revelation. And again to me, it seems to be the perfect excuse for whenever something doesn't fit, that its because it haven't been revealed yet.I would see that as trapping my self with no reasonable way out.

Baha’is do not claim that what we believe is truer than the other religions, only that is more current and relevant to the age we live in. That just makes sense to me because it was revealed more recently. There is always more truth to be revealed; religion evolves over time just as science evolves over time. In the future, people might look back and wonder why we did not know more in the past, but if they understand the principle of progressive revelation they will know why. God reveals what we need and what we are able to comprehend in any given age.

That is only because you are convince that the God of the Bible is correct. But what if he is not? And the Norse or ancient Greek God are the true ones. Also how do you test or figure out if someone is the next manifestation of God, How could you proof that its not me?

No, it is not because of the Bible, everything does not depend upon the Bible. There were Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism that were also true. But if religions do not all fit together and teach the same spiritual truths then it is suspicious that they are not from the one true God. Why would the Norse or ancient Greek God be true and all the other religions false. That would mean most everyone in the world is worshiping false Gods. Why would a real God allow that?

We have been told that Baha’u’llah that another Manifestation of God cannot come until the full expiration of 1000 years of Baha’u’llah’s coming, so not until 2852 AD or later. After that, the people of those days will have to subject any possible prophets to the same tests that all of them have to pass. By their fruits you shall know them, as Jesus said. But next time will be different because Baha’u’llah did not write any prophecies that could be used to identify the next Prophet as we have to identify Baha’u’llah. Of course, nobody knows what will happen that far into the future, anything is possible. It might just be obvious who that Prophet is.

Don't get me wrong I fully understand the concept. What I don't understand is why anyone would believe it, when there is no way to verify it and to me that is where faith come in.

No, there is no way to verify it, so you have to use your rational mind to decide if it makes sense or not, knowing there can never be any way to verify that a Messenger is from God thus if the religion is the truth. Faith is always necessary to believe in anything supernatural, but it be a reason-based faith.

Im not really sure I follow that logic. If we want to prove something then we gather evidence, if there is enough evidence then we consider something a fact. When we can explain how something is the way it is, then we make a scientific theory. Faith is only needed when we try to convince ourselves of something for which we either can't gather evidence for, don't care to gather them or simply want to believe something is true due to whatever reason. We don't need faith for anything when it comes to truth.

We can never have the same kind of evidence for religion as you can have for science because religion involves the spiritual realm and that cannot be proven as material things can be proven. That is why religion can never be considered a fact but rather only a belief. It can still be true, but it cannot be proven. We can only know it is true when we have proven it to ourselves but that is not meaningful to other people because they too have to prove it to themselves. Faith is always necessary when something cannot be proven as a fact, but it can be true even if it is not factual. Factual truth only applies to science and what is material and provable. Spiritual truth cannot be proven that way.

There are lots of images on the internet like that, so it seem to happen quite a lot. But do you see why all the two other options are equally valid if we disregards evidence?

Yes, I understand about the evidence, but I do not like that it happens a lot. I won’t go looking for those images because I love raccoons and all animals. Right now, there are several raccoons sleeping and eating on my deck.

God is faith we agree on that. That so many people believe in the supernatural is not surprising, considering that atheism is the new kid on the block. And also as lots of people are raised in religious families. But the 84% only shows how many are religious, it doesn't tell for how many it actually works for, and tells nothing about whether a God exists or not. Also you have to remember that all 84% doesn't believe in the same God.

I agree that the 84% does not tell us if they are really living according to their religion, how much faith they really have in God, and of course that does not prove that God exists. To say that would be the fallacy of ad populum; if many believe it, it must be true. All 84% do not believe that the God they believe in is the same God as the other religions believe in, but that is illogical because there cannot be many different Gods competing with each other, one for every religion. If God is All-Powerful and All-Knowing there would be no need for more than one God with those attributes. The Baha’i Faith teaching that there is only one God who revealed all the different religions is the only religion that makes any sense, let’s face it. Muslims also believe this. The difference is that Muslims believe that they are the very last religion and that no more Prophets can come after Muhammad, so they cannot believe in the Bab and Baha’u’llah.

I think that is good, definitely better than the other religions. But again that doesn't tell us anything about whether its correct or not. Simply that the Bahai accept more than the others.

If we want to determine if it is true, we have to do our own independent investigation. Some people research and study it a long time before they become Baha’is and other like me knew right away. It is really different for everyone.

It makes sense because its not about majority rules, but whether we can proof one over the other and since we can't do that. It will remain an open question. And simply tell us that the majority have faith in the biblical God rather than Odin.

Don’t you think that it is significant that the majority have faith in the biblical God over Odin? I am not saying that proves the Bible is true, but it seems that there must be some truth in it or else not that many people would believe it. The same applies to the Qur’an. And why is it that there are only 14 million Jews in the world and 2.2 billion Christians? Don’t you ever wonder about that? It seems to me that Jesus must have been a Manifestation of God to garner that kind of a following, one that has endured for over 2000 years.

That reminded me of a quote about Prophets I want to share, food for thought.

“What then is the mission of the divine prophets? Their mission is the education and advancement of the world of humanity. They are the real teachers and educators, the universal instructors of mankind. If we wish to discover whether any one of these great souls or messengers was in reality a prophet of God we must investigate the facts surrounding His life and history; and the first point of our investigation will be the education He bestowed upon mankind. If He has been an educator, if He has really trained a nation or people, causing it to rise from the lowest depths of ignorance to the highest station of knowledge, then we are sure that He was a prophet. This is a plain and clear method of procedure, proof that is irrefutable. We do not need to seek after other proofs.” Bahá’í World Faith, p. 273

You can read the entire chapter here: RELIGION AND CIVILIZATION

 

[Trailblazer]

Ok, so what you are saying is, that what is good and what is evil have already been decided and some people simply choose to do evil rather than good? So good and evil is objective?

Yes, that is what I am saying, basically. Since about 84% of people have a religion and the rest of the people in the world, be they atheists or believers who have no religion, are influenced by the religions, so people know what morality is unless they are savages living in the jungles of Africa. Some people simply choose to do evil because they do not care about being good and the main reason is selfishness. There is of course nature and nurture to consider. Some people were raised in a home where morals were not instilled or they might have a hereditary predisposition to be depressed, anxious, or angry, causing them to do bad things. But much of this can be overcome if people want to change and get the right help.

So we should allow slavery? and if two men are together as man and women they should be killed? and we shouldn't question that? So who gets to decide what is right or wrong according to the scriptures? I guess that falls to the 9 people of the Universal house of Justice? By the way why are women not allowed to hold any seats, just wondering?

There you go, back to the Bible again, which has laws that are no longer pertinent to this age in history. The UHJ did not write the Book of Laws, Baha’u’llah wrote it. All the UHJ can do is legislate and decide how and when laws are applied, if there was latitude in how they will be applied. Baha’u’llah wrote that only men would serve on the UHJ and Abdu’l-Baha explained that the reason will be revealed to us later.

That description is really not very helpful or explanatory when it comes to free will. I would probably go as far as to say that its wrong when it comes to understanding free will.

Why isn’t it helpful? What is it that you think is wrong? Of course it is a lot more involved than this simple explanation. Abdul-Baha even said “This question is one of the most important and abstruse of divine problems. If God wills, another day, at the beginning of dinner, we will undertake the explanation of this subject in detail; now we will explain it briefly, in a few words, as follows.”

So which God did Baha'u'llah believe in? Where did he get his infomation from and how did he knew the nature of God?

There is only one God, the God who revealed all the religions. Nobody can ever know the intrinsic nature of God, not even Manifestations of God. All they can know are God’s Attributes and God’s Will for any given age in history.

Baha’u’llah got His information about God from God, when He received His Revelation. How that happened is not something we ordinary humans can understand; only a Manifestation of God can understand it because only He is ideally suited thus chosen by God to hear God speak through the Holy Spirit. Baha’u’llah explained what befell Him when the Holy Spirit roused Him. There was no actual couch, couch is just a metaphor for Him being caught off guard and roused from His slumber:

“God is My witness, O people! I was asleep on My couch, when lo, the Breeze of God wafting over Me roused Me from My slumber. His quickening Spirit revived Me, and My tongue was unloosed to voice His Call.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 90

“And whenever I chose to hold my peace and be still, lo, the voice of the Holy Ghost, standing on my right hand, aroused me, and the Supreme Spirit appeared before my face, and Gabriel overshadowed me, and the Spirit of Glory stirred within my bosom, bidding me arise and break my silence. If your hearing be purged and your ears be attentive, ye will assuredly perceive that every limb of my body, nay all the atoms of my being, proclaim and bear witness to this call: “God, besides Whom is none other God, and He, Whose beauty is now manifest, is the reflection of His glory unto all that are in heaven and on earth.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 103-104

“O KING! I was but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when lo, the breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me the knowledge of all that hath been. This thing is not from Me, but from One Who is Almighty and All-Knowing. And He bade Me lift up My voice between earth and heaven, and for this there befell Me what hath caused the tears of every man of understanding to flow.The learning current amongst men I studied not; their schools I entered not. Ask of the city wherein I dwelt, that thou mayest be well assured that I am not of them who speak falsely. This is but a leaf which the winds of the will of thy Lord, the Almighty, the All-Praised, have stirred.”” Proclamation of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 57​

 

[Nimos]

My analogy is that it is precisely about parenting from birth through different stages of development; first newborn, then infancy, childhood, and adolescence from which preparation is made toward adulthood. In a religious context instead of a mother doing the parenting God is doing it as humans in the aggregate go through several stages of its development in a similar manner.

I think it is generally understood adolescence is the most volatile stage of development which can be dangerous both for the teen and society which coincides with all the volatility we see going on presently worldwide. The outcome is potentially both disastrous and promising. Without parenting by a God-sent Messenger disaster is, in my opinion, guaranteed.

I get what you are saying, but I don't think its correct to compare God with such analogy. Because the reason a child and parent have to go through those stages have to do with growing up as a biological being, which is something we share with a huge amount of other animals here on the planet, and is not really a lot different than the lions teaching their cubs to hunt etc. So we are talking about an individuals ability to survive during its life time. But God, according to you have done this over a period of approximately 300000 years, well he ignored the first 294000 years, So what was the purpose of those?

Therefore the analogy makes little sense, I think. Also it makes you wonder how many millions of years God need to reveal everything to us, if he is going at that speed.

 

[Nimos]

We are talking about people who were not capable of understanding what we can understand in the present scientific age, people who did not have science to verify what was in scriptures.

Yes exactly, but God could have given them that, had he wanted to, but instead chose not to or to fill them with wrong ideas, in very difficult to understand scriptures and revelations that still after 6000 years, people can't agree on what means. That doesn't sound like a good plan.

I do not think Genesis was all wrong. It conveyed certain basic concepts about the world.

Obviously it tries to reflect the world we live in, as all these things existed at the time and people were curious, just as we are today about why or how things works. But looking past that, Genesis is dead wrong on every account.

Nobody knows what ancient Jews could have understood; all we know is that it was written that way. We do not know the reasons and we do not even know who wrote it do we? Certainly it was not God. Maybe that was written from the perceptions of the authors, why they understood from what they could see in their very limited world.

We don't know who wrote it, I think most people believe that Moses wrote some of it, again not knowing if he even existed. But what we can do is sort of the same as we did with the raccoon example and look at what is most likely.

Given that its only 6000 years ago, it would be practical impossible to see any difference between a person from back then and now. Their brain is also practical identical in capacity to ours. Comparing the Jews with the Romans living at the time, which is in the process of creating the largest empire on Earth ever, inventing and building complex structures, war tactics and organisation for running such a huge empire for the amount of time they did. Also the ancient Egyptians were highly developed and capable in construction and able to move huge boulders around and raise them into sphinxes and pyramides, which we are still today not a 100% sure how they did. But all these things requires people that are capable of rational and logic thinking to come up with methods and ways to do all these things. Therefore its not reasonable to assume that they can do all these things, while the Jews are so far behind, that they basically don't understand anything had they been told the correct things by God.

To me this point towards and explains it very well. The ancient humans were just as developed as we were, when it came to understanding complex structures in the world in which we live. But that these are in the natural process of development that have nothing to do with God, but everything to do with how we constantly expand our knowledge and continues to build on it and slowly gets better and better, gets more advance equipment for measuring, better educations and ways of sharing knowledge between us.

So with all that in mind I think the most rational explanation is that the Jews would have been fully capable of understanding how things worked had they been told so and the reason they got it wrong as everyone else as well, was because they were guessing as they didn't have the means (knowledge and equipment) to figure it out.

Baha’is do not claim that what we believe is truer than the other religions, only that is more current and relevant to the age we live in.

How is that not the same? If you believe something that is a contradiction to something written in the bible, then the bible is wrong or they misunderstood it, or it weren't revealed to them yet, correct?

Why would the Norse or ancient Greek God be true and all the other religions false. That would mean most everyone in the world is worshiping false Gods. Why would a real God allow that?

Im saying that there is no way to proof that the Norse or ancient Greek Gods are not true, but that it is just an assumption people make, because they believe in something else.

So I could rephrase the question slightly. Why would God allow there to be any confusion about which is the one true religion and view? Why would God allow ateists? If Jesus were in fact the Messiah, why would God allow the Jews to not believe that he were? Why would God allow the bible to not reveal only the truth, but that it would have to be revealed later instead?

To me It seems most likely to be, because God is a man made concept and that is why we have all the confusion and why he seems to allow all these things, because humans have invented all the Gods, and at some point these different views are going to collide.

We have been told that Baha’u’llah that another Manifestation of God cannot come until the full expiration of 1000 years of Baha’u’llah’s coming, so not until 2852 AD or later.

This seems to be a lot like JWs guessing the end of the world and getting it wrong and then moving the date forward (Think they stopped doing that now, as it kept backfiring). Except what the Bahai have done is slightly more clever as it could take everywhere from a 1000 to infinite years before a new manifestation of God is due. And this is just based on Baha'u'llahs word? And have to ask, you just believe this to be true, no questions asked and nothing about it seems slightly weird?

No, there is no way to verify it, so you have to use your rational mind to decide if it makes sense or not, knowing there can never be any way to verify that a Messenger is from God thus if the religion is the truth. Faith is always necessary to believe in anything supernatural, but it be a reason-based faith.

But we know that our mind is one huge mess of errors and is easily tricked into believing things that are not true. If you have ever looked at visual illusions like these:

This is basically our brain failing. So using our rational mind at deciding whether or not someone is a messenger of God or not, is not a rational approach, except if this can be backed up, by substantial evidence, purely because we know how easy it is to cause our brains to fail.

That is why religion can never be considered a fact but rather only a belief. It can still be true, but it cannot be proven.

So we do agree, that religion is purely faith and have nothing to do with seeking truth? One might be lucky that it turns out to be true, I agree with you on that.

I won’t go looking for those images because I love raccoons and all animals.

My point was not to encouraging you to go look at these images. More that they do seem to happen a lot as we know animals gets hit on a regular basis when they try to cross the road.

If God is All-Powerful and All-Knowing there would be no need for more than one God with those attributes.

Yes and that assume that a monotheistic God is true, but remember before that people believed in many Gods. But agree, if one believe in one true God, then all the others have to be wrong.

Don’t you think that it is significant that the majority have faith in the biblical God over Odin? I am not saying that proves the Bible is true, but it seems that there must be some truth in it or else not that many people would believe it.

No, I think the Christians were lucky that Constantine of the Roman empire bought into it and started to help spread it and I think people liked the idea of a God and Jesus looking out for them, a personal God and obviously as Christianity were introduced by force as well. But tells us nothing about its validity, simply that they were better at spreading it around. Then you had the early printing presses that also allowed for the bible to be easily distributed to people. So to me, its just a matter of being at the right place at the right time more or less.

And why is it that there are only 14 million Jews in the world and 2.2 billion Christians? Don’t you ever wonder about that? It seems to me that Jesus must have been a Manifestation of God to garner that kind of a following, one that has endured for over 2000 years.

I think the reason for that is also quite logic. As Christianity sees the light of the day, Paulus is very good at changing the words with allows none Jews to buy into the religion as well. Those Jews that didn't agree with what he were saying, were not able to attract heathens as he could. Because why would none Jews follow God of the OT? But if Paulus teachings are correct, then Jesus and God is for them as well and most of the OT can be ignored or read out of context, to fill their needs, which seems to be what happens a lot even to day.

 

[Nimos]

Since about 84% of people have a religion and the rest of the people in the world, be they atheists or believers who have no religion, are influenced by the religions, so people know what morality is unless they are savages living in the jungles of Africa.

So the only reason atheists don't go on killing sprees are because of religions?

Also do you truly believe that savages around the world have no morals?

The Sentinelese, also known as the Sentineli and the North Sentinel Islanders, are an indigenous people who inhabit North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal in India. They are considered one of the world's last uncontacted peoples. Designated a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group and a Scheduled Tribe, they belong to the broader class of Andamanese people.

Along with the Great Andamanese, the Jarawas, the Onge, the Shompen, and the Nicobarese, the Sentinelese are one of the six native and often reclusive peoples of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Unlike the others, the Sentinelese appear to have consistently refused any interaction with the outside world. They are hostile to outsiders and have killed people who approached or landed on the island.

In 1956, the Government of India declared North Sentinel Island a tribal reserve and prohibited travel within 3 miles (4.8 km) of it. It further maintains a constant armed patrol to prevent intrusions by outsiders. Photography is prohibited.

There is significant uncertainty as to the group's size, with estimates ranging between 15 and 500 individuals, but mostly between 50 and 200.

This is a story from last year:
Indian authorities say they have no plans to recover the body of John Allen Chau, an American missionary who was killed by members of an isolated tribe on a remote island.
Chau, 26, is believed to have been killed sometime between the afternoon of 16 November and the following morning, when fishermen who he had paid to smuggle him to the island say they saw his body being dragged across the sand and buried.

The Sentinelese, whose tribe is thought to be at least 30,000 years old, have aggressively resisted contact with outsiders for generations.

According to Chau’s diaries, which he gave to the fishermen before departing for the island a final time, the American wanted to “declare Jesus” to the Sentinelese, whose home forms part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an Indian territory scattered across the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea.

India has no plans to recover body of US missionary killed by tribe

Its obviously sad to see a person getting killed, because he believes its so important to spread the word of Jesus. But how do you think that these people have survived on that Island for 30000 years, if they have no morals? That they stick together and attack any outside threats shows that they have morals and unity within the tribe.

Why isn’t it helpful? What is it that you think is wrong? Of course it is a lot more involved than this simple explanation. Abdul-Baha even said “This question is one of the most important and abstruse of divine problems. If God wills, another day, at the beginning of dinner, we will undertake the explanation of this subject in detail; now we will explain it briefly, in a few words, as follows.”

Because assuming that a person is capable of choosing between good and evil purely based on free will is wrong. This is just one of many stories.

---------------------------------
The evening before, Whitman had sat at his typewriter and composed a suicide note:

I don’t really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I can’t recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts.

By the time the police shot him dead, Whitman had killed 13 people and wounded 32 more. The story of his rampage dominated national headlines the next day. And when police went to investigate his home for clues, the story became even stranger: in the early hours of the morning on the day of the shooting, he had murdered his mother and stabbed his wife to death in her sleep.

It was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife, Kathy, tonight … I love her dearly, and she has been as fine a wife to me as any man could ever hope to have. I cannot rationally pinpoint any specific reason for doing this …

For that matter, so did Whitman. He requested in his suicide note that an autopsy be performed to determine if something had changed in his brain—because he suspected it had.

I talked with a Doctor once for about two hours and tried to convey to him my fears that I felt [overcome by] overwhelming violent impulses. After one session I never saw the Doctor again, and since then I have been fighting my mental turmoil alone, and seemingly to no avail.

Whitman’s body was taken to the morgue, his skull was put under the bone saw, and the medical examiner lifted the brain from its vault. He discovered that Whitman’s brain harbored a tumor the diameter of a nickel. This tumor, called a glioblastoma, had blossomed from beneath a structure called the thalamus, impinged on the hypothalamus, and compressed a third region called the amygdala. The amygdala is involved in emotional regulation, especially of fear and aggression.
---------------------------------
The Brain on Trial

This is just a story about how tumors can affect our behavior and therefore its difficult to assume that Whitman was in fact deciding through free will to do evil. Also you do not choose which flavor of ice cream you like. Also people do not wake up one day and decide that they want to be a pedophile etc. So saying that we have free will to choose between good and evil is not as simple as just deciding one over the other, as it makes it sound in the writing that you quoted and why I say that they are on the brink of being wrong, but that they seem to be based on what most of us think, when we talk free will, that we are in complete control, but we ain't.

Baha’u’llah got His information about God from God, when He received His Revelation.

But if we can't trust the bible as you have said several times, which is the foundation for God that you seem to believe in. Then how does Baha'u'llah know that its that God we are talking about and not some other God?

I can understand that me referring to the bible constantly, can seem annoying. But Im trying to figure out where the basis of God, that you believe in even comes from, as I really don't think its obvious based on your explanations. It seems to be, like you are solely basing everything on Baha'u'llah telling the truth and that it is not up for questioning, is that correct?

 

[Trailblazer]

Yes exactly, but God could have given them that, had he wanted to, but instead chose not to or to fill them with wrong ideas, in very difficult to understand scriptures and revelations that still after 6000 years, people can't agree on what means. That doesn't sound like a good plan.

It doesn’t but we do not know that God did not have a reason for doing all of this, that it was not part of God’s Plan. I think it was God’s Plan to allow the Bible to be written that way and allow people to try to sort it out for themselves, and since God is All-Knowing, God knew that in the future Baha’u’llah would come and straighten it out. This is the way of God, to test His servants.

Obviously it tries to reflect the world we live in, as all these things existed at the time and people were curious, just as we are today about why or how things works. But looking past that, Genesis is dead wrong on every account.

Well, to be honest, I never looked at it very closely, but I will take your word for it since obviously you have. Were I to consider Christianity or Judaism as a religion to adhere to I would investigate it for myself, but since I am not looking for an older religion, I won’t spend my time that way.

So with all that in mind I think the most rational explanation is that the Jews would have been fully capable of understanding how things worked had they been told so and the reason they got it wrong as everyone else as well, was because they were guessing as they didn't have the means (knowledge and equipment) to figure it out.

It sounds like you have really though this through. That sounds very plausible to me.

How is that not the same? If you believe something that is a contradiction to something written in the bible, then the bible is wrong or they misunderstood it, or it weren't revealed to them yet, correct?

What Baha’is believe is not contradictory to what is in the Bible, but some of it is new and had never been revealed before. The Bible is not wrong, even if there might have been some transcription errors or errors in translation, such that we cannot know the exact meaning of what was originally revealed. But as I said before Bahá'ís believe that the Bible is under God’s care and protection and that the essence, or essential elements, of what His Manifestations intended to convey have been recorded and preserved.

So I could rephrase the question slightly. Why would God allow there to be any confusion about which is the one true religion and view? Why would God allow atheists? If Jesus were in fact the Messiah, why would God allow the Jews to not believe that he were? Why would God allow the bible to not reveal only the truth, but that it would have to be revealed later instead?

To me It seems most likely to be, because God is a man made concept and that is why we have all the confusion and why he seems to allow all these things, because humans have invented all the Gods, and at some point these different views are going to collide.

I can answer why God allowed that in two words: free will. The entire edifice upon which human behavior is built is free will, it is that important. And it is a hell of a thing to have because it means that we are responsible for the choices that we make.

Free will is sacrosanct in God’s Eyes, so God allows people to be confused about what is the one true religion, God allows people to disagree about the meaning of scriptures, God allowed the Jews to reject Jesus, even though Jesus was the Messiah, God allows atheists to choose not to believe in Him, and God is now allowing most people to reject Baha’u’llah, even though He was the return of Christ and the Messiah.

This seems to be a lot like JWs guessing the end of the world and getting it wrong and then moving the date forward (Think they stopped doing that now, as it kept backfiring). Except what the Bahai have done is slightly more clever as it could take everywhere from a 1000 to infinite years before a new manifestation of God is due. And this is just based on Baha'u'llahs word? And have to ask, you just believe this to be true, no questions asked and nothing about it seems slightly weird?

There is nothing weird about it at all. Once Baha’is come to believe that Baha’u’llah was a Manifestation of God, we believe that everything He wrote was true. Baha’u’llah wrote the following:

“Whoso layeth claim to a Revelation direct from God, ere the expiration of a full thousand years, such a man is assuredly a lying impostor. We pray God that He may graciously assist him to retract and repudiate such claim. Should he repent, God will, no doubt, forgive him. If, however, he persisteth in his error, God will, assuredly, send down one who will deal mercilessly with him. Terrible, indeed, is God in punishing! Whosoever interpreteth this verse otherwise than its obvious meaning is deprived of the Spirit of God and of His mercy which encompasseth all created things. Fear God, and follow not your idle fancies. Nay, rather follow the bidding of your Lord, the Almighty, the All-Wise.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 346​

What Baha’u’llah wrote serves an important purpose. It is a protection for people so they will not believe in any false prophets who might make claims during the next 1000 years. Had Jesus written something like that then no Christians would have been looking for the return of Christ until after a specified date, as Baha’is now have.

You see, it would be extremely serious if anyone tried to usurp the Revelation of Baha’u’llah and replace it with some other religion. I can also give you an example of how this is a protection for the Baha’i Faith. Not long ago, a Hindu I was posting to on a Baha’i forum insisted that there have been other manifestation of God since Baha’u’llah and they are equal to Baha’u’llah, so he is considered just another avatar, as he refers to a Manifestation of God. He was just so wrong. Universal Manifestations of God come only every 500-1000 years and they have certain qualities that his avatars (who are really just gurus) do not have. Moreover, none of his avatars even claimed to have received a revelation form God, but this Hindu just could not accept that they were not equivalent to Baha’u’llah in stature. Eventually he and I parted ways, after very many exchanges on that forum. If he wants to be a Hindu that is his choice but he cannot be both a Hindu and a Baha’i, as the religions teach different things.

But we know that our mind is one huge mess of errors and is easily tricked into believing things that are not true. If you have ever looked at visual illusions like these:

This is basically our brain failing. So using our rational mind at deciding whether or not someone is a messenger of God or not, is not a rational approach, except if this can be backed up, by substantial evidence, purely because we know how easy it is to cause our brains to fail.

You just said it. People can believe any number of things and consider them rational. One atheist poster I am posting to said: “And there is no legitimate reason why an omnipotent and omniscient god couldn't eliminate evil in a single second.” This poster bases everything he believes about what a hypothetical god could do upon the fact that god is omnipotent, so god can do anything; so when God does not do what he thinks God should do (eliminate all suffering), he says god must be evil. How rational is this?

I have been posting to this man for about five years and he has not budged in all these years, on this point or on anything else he is so certain about. People ask me why I still post to him, obviously not because I think I will ever convince him of anything. I just have certain people that I like posting to, so you might be stuck with me.

So you are right that people can believe anything, and they can be very rational about some things they think but very irrational about other things they think. That is why a belief in a Messenger of God needs to be backed up by substantial evidence. But no matter how much evidence I present to some people, they are so closed-minded they refuse to look at it without bias.

So we do agree, that religion is purely faith and have nothing to do with seeking truth? One might be lucky that it turns out to be true, I agree with you on that.

I would not exactly say it is purely faith, because if there is substantial evidence it is faith based upon evidence. And how could one know for certain if it is true or not? Well, that is the subject for another day, if you want to discuss that.

No, I think the Christians were lucky that Constantine of the Roman empire bought into it and started to help spread it and I think people liked the idea of a God and Jesus looking out for them, a personal God and obviously as Christianity were introduced by force as well. But tells us nothing about its validity, simply that they were better at spreading it around. Then you had the early printing presses that also allowed for the bible to be easily distributed to people. So to me, its just a matter of being at the right place at the right time more or less.

Wow, you are as smart as whip… Nothing gets past you. You have to be the most informed and logical atheist I have ever encountered. I will have to keep you in my corner.

Of course, the way you put it, it makes sense why Christianity has grown and flourished, but because these are no longer in place, Christianity is not going to continue to flourish.

Statistics show that from 1910-2010, the Baha’i Faith grew at a rate of 3.54%, whereas during that time Islam grew at a rate of 1.97% and Christianity grew at a rate of 1.32%. Growth of religion - Wikipedia

Other statistics show that by the year 2060, Islam will overtake Christianity.

I think the reason for that is also quite logic. As Christianity sees the light of the day, Paulus is very good at changing the words with allows none Jews to buy into the religion as well. Those Jews that didn't agree with what he were saying, were not able to attract heathens as he could. Because why would none Jews follow God of the OT? But if Paulus teachings are correct, then Jesus and God is for them as well and most of the OT can be ignored or read out of context, to fill their needs, which seems to be what happens a lot even to day.

Again, your powers of observation and analysis never cease to amaze me. Yes, this explains why there are so many Christians and so few Jews. Not everyone bought into the attractive package Christianity was selling, but because of human nature, most did. Most people really want to be loved by Jesus and saved and forgiven without having to do anything but believe that Jesus died for their sins. That sure says something about human nature, doesn’t it?

But as a Baha’i, I also look at it from another perspective since I believe that Jesus was a manifestation of God, and that means the Jews all erred by not recognizing Him as such, even though there might have been some legitimate reasons for them rejecting Jesus. Another reason Jews rejected Jesus is because He did not fulfill all the OT prophecies, but that is because Jesus was not the Messiah that the Jews awaited, Baha’u’llah was.