What is God responsible for?

[Saint Frankenstein]

Again, I tend to agree with you. Whatever God there is is unknowable, so I am sick to death of the Abrahamic relogious believers slapping attributes onto God as if God was a person. Imo, the reason those believers do that is because they want to believe that God has those attributes and of course their scriptures support their belief.

Very true. It reminds me of the concept of Ishta Deva in Hinduism, where the devotee worships the image of Divinity that they please. So that has lead to a member of Hindu cults (in the original sense of the term) or "denominations" where each sect sees its deity or image of God as the Supreme Being. To Vaishnavas, it's Vishnu. To Saivites, it's Shiva. To Shaktas, it's Shakti or the Divine Mother. (There are and were other major sects, like the Sauras, who worship the Sun as the Supreme Being, who are very ancient and were one of the main religious forces of society, but they're a small minority now). (They each have their own understandings, scriptures and practices so it's foolish to treat Hinduism as some organized religion. It's a bunch of different religions under an umbrella term like "Neopaganism". )

Everyone worships their own ideals, in a sense. That doesn't mean that deities are a human construction. If all reality is sacred, so are each of its facets. Nature can be cruel to us as we experience it, but that cruelty is just one aspect of it. You need to consider the whole in order to have a more accurate perspective.

Some people aren't prepared to do so. For example, a common explanation for why some people are drawn towards the worship of Kali as the Supreme Being and others are repulsed by Her, it's said that we all respond to Her imagery based on the level of spiritual maturity and wisdom we have. If we can see past the grusome exterior of Her iconography and see the beauty beyond it, we're appropriate devotees for Her. If not, and it digusts or frightens us, we're better off pursuing a more calm or peaceful image of deity.

Basically, it comes down to what matches your experience and understanding of the Divine, not what someone else has told you to believe about it.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Although it is very difficult for me to accept reality as it is, I fully agree with you. Suffering, and particularly death from loss, is just part of life, and it is just a natural byproduct of the functioning of the universe and biological life.

I do not know much about the other Abrahamic or the Dharmic explanations for suffering, but I find some of the Baha'i explanations that delineate the reason for suffering to be quite lacking, as well as judgmental, insensitive and cruel, so I decided to just trust in my own experiences and logic rather than following what someone else says about it. Some individuals who speak for the Baha'i Faith as to why we suffer and how it is so good for us can take their platitudes and put them where the sun no longer shines. I am sick of listening to people who do not even know what suffering is talk about it.

Yes, many people pontificate as if they know anything more about reality than anyone else. Even worse, when they're just repeating something they heard or read, which itself is based on hearsay. I think they're well-meaning, for the most part, but just incorrect. Sometimes ego gets in the way, too.

When I mentioned the Dharmic religions and their wrong teachings about suffering, I was thinking of karma and how it's often interpreted in a very cruel and illogical way. For example, I've seen posters on here blame rape victims for their own rape because they obviously did something bad in a past life. The horrific extremes of the caste system in India are also justified by this twisted understanding of karma. Well, the poor and untochables are poor and untochables because they did something nasty in a life past (and we can't remember our past lives, mind you) and so they deserve it as cosmic retribution.

Now, I do believe in a concept that is very similar to karma, called orlog or wyrd, which is a foundation of the Germanic worldview (many indigenous cultures around the world have a similar concept; to the ancient Egyptians, it was called Ma'at and it originally had to do with the order of the universe). But it's not tied to moralism at all. It's more a way of understanding how things are all interconnected and how actions can ripple and effect things, even long down the line. I would never say that a child being molested brought it upon themselves, though.

 

[Trailblazer]

Everyone worships their own ideals, in a sense. That doesn't mean that deities are a human construction.

What I observe religious people doing is making God in their own image and then using their scriptures to support that image. As a Baha'i, I am sometimes told that if I do not believe what Baha'u'llah wrote about God then I am not really a Baha'i. One problem with that is that what He wrote about God can be interpreted in various ways depending upon who is reading it. For example, Baha'u'llah says that God is the help in peril, but what does that actually mean? How does God help and what qualifies as peril? Also, there is often there is a flip side to what He wrote. God might be loving but God also has wrath, but people often overlook what they do not want to see.

 

[nPeace]

nPeace said: God? Who or what is God?

The Essence of God is unknowable. The Wikipedia website describes what Baha'is believe about God.

God in the Bahá'í Faith

nPeace said: Why does one even believe there is something called God? Why God?

The reason I believe in God is because of the evidence. For me, the evidence that God exists is the Messengers of God such as Jesus and Baha'u'llah.

You believe Jesus and Bahaullah are evidence of a God? Yet you have said we don't know if anything said about Jesus is true? How is it you consider ancient writings in a book to be evidence for God, when humans are the ones who wrote these - the same humans that create (make up) what God is, and we can't trust them because we don't know that any of these anonymous writers even knew a character called Jesus?
I don't understand. This is making no sense. Can you explain please?

 

[Trailblazer]

Yes, many people pontificate as if they know anything more about reality than anyone else. Even worse, when they're just repeating something they heard or read, which itself is based on hearsay. I think they're well-meaning, for the most part, but just incorrect. Sometimes ego gets in the way, too.

You just hit the nail right on the head, only what religious people pontificate is based upon scripture. But when they insist upon their interpretation of it that is their ego getting in the way. Imo, it is better to have no scripture than to hit people over the head with it, even if they are right about what they believe.

When I mentioned the Dharmic religions and their wrong teachings about suffering, I was thinking of karma and how it's often interpreted in a very cruel and illogical way. For example, I've seen posters on here blame rape victims for their own rape because they obviously did something bad in a past life.

That is cruel and insensitive, yet another example of beating people over the head with egregious beliefs. I do not believe in reincarnation because it is not a Baha'i belief but also because it makes no sense that we would have to come back to this world over and over again in order to progress spiritually. There is no reason why one life should not be enough, and if our life is cut short, or even of it isn't, we can continue to progress in the spiritual world throughout eternity. I have no idea how that plays out, but that is what I believe will happen.

 

[Trailblazer]

You believe Jesus and Bahaullah are evidence of a God? Yet you have said we don't know if anything said about Jesus is true? How is it you consider ancient writings in a book to be evidence for God, when humans are the ones who wrote these - the same humans that create (make up) what God is, and we can't trust them because we don't know that any of these anonymous writers even knew a character called Jesus?
I don't understand. This is making no sense. Can you explain please?

I know that Jesus was a Manifestation of God because of what Baha'u'llah wrote about Jesus:

Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 85-86

I know that the Bible is God's greatest testimony to His creatures because of what Baha'u'llah wrote about the Bible:

“We have also heard a number of the foolish of the earth assert that the genuine text of the heavenly Gospel doth not exist amongst the Christians, that it hath ascended unto heaven. How grievously they have erred! How oblivious of the fact that such a statement imputeth the gravest injustice and tyranny to a gracious and loving Providence! “How could God, when once the Day-star of the beauty of Jesus had disappeared from the sight of His people, and ascended unto the fourth heaven, cause His holy Book, His most great testimony amongst His creatures, to disappear also?” The Kitáb-i-Íqán, p. 89

An official Baha'i view of the Bible is as follows:

The Bahá'ís believe what is in the Bible to be true in substance. This does not mean that every word recorded in that Book is to be taken literally and treated as the authentic saying of a Prophet....

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
(From letters written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice)

 

[1213]

And where did the person come from?

Depends on who are we talking about. You came from your mother.

 

[halbhh]

I agree that death is only an illusion, as only the physical body dies, as I just explained in the post above this one....

However, and this is a big huge however, there is no actual proof of any afterlife (spiritual world) and we know nothing about the nature of the spiritual world. Additionally, even though I and other believers believe that there is an afterlife, that does not assuage the pain of loss when we lose a loved one, be it a human or an animal.

I believe death was a lousy and cruel setup, but who am I to question an all-knowing God?

The parable commonly called the 'Garden of Eden' is deeper than people often expect or remember, with several deep themes, even ones about the birth of consciousness and about the nature of love. But one of the deeper things in it, when we listen well, is we can get/realize that the real wrong Eve and Adam did wasn't to be independent (they already were to a significant degree), nor to think for themselves (they already did in various ways), nor to 'disobey' in some simplistic sense as people appear to mean when they use that word, but instead something that matters and is truly serious, truly deadly.

They distrusted God, their parent, and even were believing attributing wrong to him. (that suddenly God was not God, but less even than themselves, as if a petty small being) They 'broke trust' (stopped trusting) or 'broke faith' (stopped believing in Him as a good or loving person).

It was a real break in the relationship that had been perfect.

Now, a good parent doesn't force children to learn all lessons, but instead facilitates their learning, so that they can really learn.

He/she helps them learn.

A good parent uses when possible natural consequences (suffering the natural logical outcomes of one's own actions, so that one can learn from them).

God was always ever and only going to give eternal life, but they needed to learn to trust and love, and not to just believe they were superior or good and he was wrong, and such ways of breaking faith, breaking trust (i.e., the beginning of conflict and war).

So, they had to learn, from experience.

That's what mortal life seems to be.

A way to learn, from the reality of suffering, being mortal, being a body that will die, to trust God, the One Who makes Life for us, in the Life to come.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Depends on who are we talking about. You came from your mother.

And going back along that chain, does it ultimately end with God or not?

 

[Trailblazer]

They distrusted God, their parent, and even were believing attributing wrong to him. (that suddenly God was not God, but less even than themselves, as if a petty small being) They 'broke trust' (stopped trusting) or 'broke faith' (stopped believing in Him as a good or loving person).

Can you give me one good reason why we should believe God is good and loving, aside from what is written in scriptures?
I am really struggling to believe that.

A way to learn, from the reality of suffering, being mortal, being a body that will die, to trust God, the One Who makes Life for us, in the Life to come.

Can you give me one good reason why we should trust God, aside from what is written in scriptures?
I am really struggling to do that but I see no reason to.

 

[Truthseeker]

Thanks Duane. Tell God about that, obviously He does not give a rip how much I suffer, or how much the cats suffer, so why should I care about God? I do not care, but I care about Baha'u'llah, and I will work for Him.

I have seen too much suffering this year to still believe God is Loving.

I have never understood how you separate Baha'u'llah from God. To me, Baha'u'llah reflects who God is.

 

[Trailblazer]

I have never understood how you separate Baha'u'llah from God. To me, Baha'u'llah reflects who God is.

But Baha'u'llah is not God, so Baha'u'llah did not create a world that is a storehouse of suffering, and it is not Baha'u'llah who subjects us to tests.....
That is how I separate the two.

As for the attributes of God that are purportedly reflected by Baha'u'llah, what are those, and how do we know that Baha'u'llah had them? I am not trying to be a smart aleck, this is a sincere question, given you know the Writings and you know a lot more about the history of the Faith than I do.

 

[halbhh]

Can you give me one good reason why we should believe God is good and loving, aside from what is written in scriptures?
I am really struggling to believe that.

Can you give me one good reason why we should trust God, aside from what is written in scriptures?
I am really struggling to do that but I see no reason to.

When I first really tried doing one (and then eventually later another) of the instructions Jesus gave, I was not believing. I just wanted to try out and find good ways to live life better, for my benefit, here and now.

The first instruction I tried doing in a really full intentional way (I'd done a few of course just along the way in life sporadically, like forgiving people) -- the first all-out effort was to do what He said was the '2nd greatest commandment' : "Love your neighbor as yourself".

Where I took it to be anyone you encounter extensively, but for good measure as the experiment I picked the 'neighbor'(s) as the literal next door neighbors living on either side of me.

Complete strangers.

The results were astoundingly good, to me. I was already someone that had had close friends in earlier times in my life, though not yet at this new place/new city. I knew what friendship was, and had enjoyed before. This was better in surprising ways. It was very much like buying a $1 lottery ticket and winning a significant sum, like $50,000. That's how remarkable it was. But "love" is more profound than only friendliness. Really opening my heart and really trying to love them, which was risky. It's also a one-way ticket: real love doesn't really end. You can't really go back. So, while I had an escape plan just in case it didn't work out, I've found that if you are really loving them, they will love you back. Like you can be the only non-family member invited to birthday parties, for one illustrative example that happened early on.

This is a kind of proof of one important thing: that Jesus said true things ("true" = the best of all competing ways/solutions). For me what happened after I finally was satisfied after many varied test of that first idea, was to try another one, and after that one, then another. That progression eventually ended up in the things He said to do that require faith. I prayed to God like this: "God...bring me to you. Make a way from me to you." And He did, and it was rather dramatic actually. To pray that way...was a leap of faith. I had faith for a few seconds, doing that prayer. Perhaps it helped that I'd been listening to Christ, the one who knows God better than anyone else.

 

[Truthseeker]

No one avoids suffering in this life – but, in the following words of Abdu’l-Baha, without suffering, we cannot progress:

Men who suffer not, attain no perfection. The plant most pruned by the gardeners is that one which, when the summer comes, will have the most beautiful blossoms and the most abundant fruit. The labourer cuts up the earth with his plough, and from that earth comes the rich and plentiful harvest. The more a man is chastened, the greater is the harvest of spiritual virtues shown forth by him.
I am sorry Duane but that does not comport with reality. I know many Baha’is who have suffered hardly at all, as everything in their lives went their way – career, marriage, children, friends, etc. -- so does that mean they will not attain any perfection? If what Abdu’l-Baha said is true, I should have been perfect a long time ago

I addressed this before, it all depends on how the sufferer responds to the suffering, and I would add, also to the comfort and ease. This does not mean to me that the person who suffers more will be more advanced spiritually than the one who suffers less. To me, it means, and this is just my opinion, that the more the suffering of a person the more opportunity they have to advance spiritually.

O sincere servant of the True One! I hear thou art grieved and distressed at the happenings of the world and the vicissitudes of fortune. Wherefore this fear and sorrow? The true lovers of [Baha’u’llah], and they that have quaffed the Cup of the Covenant fear no calamity, nor feel depressed in the hour of trial. They regard the fire of adversity as their garden of delight, and the depth of the sea the expanse of heaven. – Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha
So now I do not love Baha’u’llah in spite of the fact that I have dedicated almost my whole life teaching the Faith? What Abdu’l-Baha says is almost enough to make be drop out of the Faith, ot is so judgmental, but I don’t drop out because I do not blame Baha’u’llah for what Abdu’l-Baha says or writes, since that is unjust. Perhaps Abdul-baha is going in his pwn experiuecenand expecting everyone to be like him, and it never even occurred to him how these passages might make people feel.

Thank you very much, I will try to live up to what Baha’u’llah has enjoined me to do, and I will take what Abdu’l-Baha said with a grain of salt.

Is anyone the true lover of Baha'u'llah, for Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha this is a very high plane of existence.

O Son of Man!

The true lover yearneth for tribulation even as doth the rebel for forgiveness and the sinful for mercy.

Bahá’u’lláh, "The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh", a49

There seems to be some agreement there between Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha. Here's another relevant Hidden Word:

O Son of Justice!

Whither can a lover go but to the land of his beloved? and what seeker findeth rest away from his heart’s desire? To the true lover reunion is life, and separation is death. His breast is void of patience and his heart hath no peace. A myriad lives he would forsake to hasten to the abode of his beloved.

Bahá’u’lláh, "The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh", p4

See what a high level a "true lover" is? Hardly anybody can be a "true lover". I know no Baha'i who's a "true lover".

 

[Treasure Hunter]

Can you give me one good reason why we should believe God is good and loving, aside from what is written in scriptures?
I am really struggling to believe that.

Can you give me one good reason why we should trust God, aside from what is written in scriptures?
I am really struggling to do that but I see no reason to.

You are at the place of transition from superficial, surface level truth to deeper truth. As long as you can stand your ground. Put God on trial, but give him a fair trial by accepting the responsibility and sacrifice required to follow wherever that thread of deep truth guides you.

The experience is like a wrestling match with God. You will judge him negatively for the pain and suffering of his creation, and he will judge you negatively for playing small and not actualizing your full potential. Don’t let him have the moral high ground on you. Stretch yourself to your limits and then stretch yourself even more.

Keep going until there are no longer any moral shortcomings that he can hold over you. Don’t give him any credible reason to dispute that you haven’t given him or his creation a fair trial.

 

[nPeace]

I know that Jesus was a Manifestation of God because of what Baha'u'llah wrote about Jesus:

Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 85-86

I know that the Bible is God's greatest testimony to His creatures because of what Baha'u'llah wrote about the Bible:

“We have also heard a number of the foolish of the earth assert that the genuine text of the heavenly Gospel doth not exist amongst the Christians, that it hath ascended unto heaven. How grievously they have erred! How oblivious of the fact that such a statement imputeth the gravest injustice and tyranny to a gracious and loving Providence! “How could God, when once the Day-star of the beauty of Jesus had disappeared from the sight of His people, and ascended unto the fourth heaven, cause His holy Book, His most great testimony amongst His creatures, to disappear also?” The Kitáb-i-Íqán, p. 89

An official Baha'i view of the Bible is as follows:

The Bahá'ís believe what is in the Bible to be true in substance. This does not mean that every word recorded in that Book is to be taken literally and treated as the authentic saying of a Prophet....

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
(From letters written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice)

So, basically, if you did not view Bahaullah as an infallible man, God would not exist...?
Are you skeptical about any writings of Bahaullah - if he actually wrote them, or someone else, in the same way you dismiss the disciples of Christ, as impostors whose writings we cannot trust to be authentic?

 

[Trailblazer]

So, basically, if you did not view Bahaullah as an infallible man, God would not exist...?

I did not say that, but would probably not believe God exists if it was not for Baha'u'llah.

Are you skeptical about any writings of Bahaullah - if he actually wrote them, or someone else, in the same way you dismiss the disciples of Christ, as impostors whose writings we cannot trust to be authentic?

I know that Baha'u'llah write His writings because He stamped them with His Seal and the original writings are in a vault at the Baha'i World Centre.

I do not dismiss the disciples of Christ as impostors because they never claimed to write the gospels. Bible scholars concur that the disciples did not write the gospels.

Did Matthew Mark Luke and John actually write the Gospels?

Like the rest of the New Testament, the four gospels were written in Greek. The Gospel of Mark probably dates from c. AD 66–70, Matthew and Luke around AD 85–90, and John AD 90–110. Despite the traditional ascriptions, all four are anonymous and most scholars agree that none were written by eyewitnesses.

Gospel - Wikipedia

 

[nPeace]

I did not say that, but would probably not believe God exists if it was not for Baha'u'llah.

Okay, so your only evidence for God is one man's words. Is that correct?

I know that Baha'u'llah write His writings because He stamped them with His Seal and the original writings are in a vault at the Baha'i World Centre.

I do not dismiss the disciples of Christ as impostors because they never claimed to write the gospels. Bible scholars concur that the disciples did not write the gospels.

Did Matthew Mark Luke and John actually write the Gospels?

Like the rest of the New Testament, the four gospels were written in Greek. The Gospel of Mark probably dates from c. AD 66–70, Matthew and Luke around AD 85–90, and John AD 90–110. Despite the traditional ascriptions, all four are anonymous and most scholars agree that none were written by eyewitnesses.

Gospel - Wikipedia

Some Bible scholars.
Some concur that the disciples did write the Gospels.

Wouldn't the writers be impostors and frauds, if they did not write the truth though, and made up stuff they claimed?
So however it is stated, makes no real difference.

So you believe every word of Bahaullah. Is that correct @Trailblazer?

 

[URAVIP2ME]

But the question would be "why"... since they had been forgiven.

Huh, where is it written that those who commit the unforgivable sin are forgiven - Matthew 12:32 - Jesus did Not lie.
So, the question is: who says they had been forgiven, surely it was Not Jesus.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

I agree that death is only an illusion, as only the physical body dies, as I just explained in the post above this one....
However, and this is a big huge however, there is no actual proof of any afterlife (spiritual world) and we know nothing about the nature of the spiritual world. Additionally, even though I and other believers believe that there is an afterlife, that does not assuage the pain of loss when we lose a loved one, be it a human or an animal.
I believe death was a lousy and cruel setup, but who am I to question an all-knowing God?

I find death was Not an illusion for sinner Adam.
Adam was Not set up because Genesis 2:17 was explained to Adam.
Sinner Adam simply returned to where he started according to Genesis 3:19
A person can Not ' return ' to a place he never was before. Adam started from dust and Adam returned back to dust.
Nothing about afterlife in Scripture because afterlife is Not biblical but resurrection is biblical.- Acts of the Apostles 24:15
ALL the resurrections Jesus performed were bringing back people to happy-and-healthy physical life on Earth.
Jesus was giving us a small preview, a coming attraction as to what will happen during his thousand-year reign over all the Earth.
A cemetery sign should read: " Come Lord Jesus, and get me out of here! "
Not a literal coming out of the graves but one's person being brought back to healthy physical life on Earth.
'Enemy death' will be No more on Earth - 1 Corinthians 15:26; Isaiah 25:8