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God’s Method of delivering messages, is it flawed?

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
There you go again asserting things with no evidence to back it up. Don't the personal experiences of other believers who claim to have had direct contact with God at least plant a little doubt in your mind about assuming that God isn't personal? Also God would have to be a person in order to communicate with the messengers... how can a non personal being communicate anything?
I do not believe the personal experiences of other believers who claim to have had direct contact with God because I do not believe that God ever has any direct contact with anyone, not even His Messengers.

How God communicates to His Messengers cannot be understood by anyone except the Messengers.

I believe that God is a personal God but God does not communicate to ordinary humans.

Personal God

While the Bahá'í writings teach of a personal god who is a being with a personality (including the capacity to reason and to feel love), they clearly state that this does not imply a human or physical form.[2]Shoghi Effendi writes:

What is meant by personal God is a God Who is conscious of His creation, Who has a Mind, a Will, a Purpose, and not, as many scientists and materialists believe, an unconscious and determined force operating in the universe. Such conception of the Divine Being, as the Supreme and ever present Reality in the world, is not anthropomorphic, for it transcends all human limitations and forms, and does by no means attempt to define the essence of Divinity which is obviously beyond any human comprehension. To say that God is a personal Reality does not mean that He has a physical form, or does in any way resemble a human being. To entertain such belief would be sheer blasphemy.[17][18]

God in the Bahá'í Faith
 

Jos

Well-Known Member
I do not believe the personal experiences of other believers who claim to have had direct contact with God because I do not believe that God ever has any direct contact with anyone, not even His Messengers.
Then how can you trust that He communicated with them at all? It's unbelievable and irrational to me that you would accept what the Messengers are saying as true if you don't believe that they had direct contact with God. Like seriously, why believe anything they say? How can you trust them? How did they learn anything about God, if they didn't have direct contact with Him?
 
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CG Didymus

Veteran Member
You seem to think God and Baha'u'llah have a need for us.
So that's what Baha'is believe? That Baha'u'llah and God don't need us? And they wonder why some people feel the same way about them? And about Shoghi Effendi...

Or the type that 100% commits their life to helping others and does not need approval or support in choosing that path
Was he perfect? Was he infallible? Then probably don't make him out to be perfect.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
I do not think you understand what progressive revelation means. Until you do you will remain hung up on this issue.
Without the mysterious "original" message, the Baha'i can't show how there was a progression from the one and only true God.

No, we are not trying to do that, you are. We cannot reconcile religions that are different from each other.
Wow, I'm trying to reconcile the different religions? No, I think they were very much made up by the people and culture from where they came. I thought it was Baha'is who said all religions are one and from the same source. And some Baha'is try to "reconcile" the different religions by saying dumb things like reincarnation and incarnations in Hinduism are misinterpretations. That the Buddha "original" taught about the one true God.

But, as you usually do, I'm sure you'll deny this, along with giving me a definition of what it means to "reconcile". Please don't bother. Just tell me what Baha'i really mean when they say "all religions are one"... even though, like you said, they are all different. And please don't use that dumb excuse of saying God gave the same "spiritual" laws to everybody, only the "social" laws changed. I don't believe it. I don't see it, and that's why I don't agree with the Baha'i concept of progressive revelation.

In fact, I think there might be a little regressive revelation... like God can't make up how many wives a guy can have. Like having some religions treat animals with kindness and respect and to be vegetarians. And later, have people cut the throats of some animals and have them burnt up in his honor.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
People have been predicting the End of the World for at least 2,000 years. Even people who said it would happen on such and such a day. To date, it hasn't happened. Are you really that blind?
And how many Christians tell you the same thing... "Our you blind? All the prophecies are happening before us. Jesus is definitely come soon. And, this time I'm sure." Baha'is... "The return of Christ happened in the 1800's and all the things he said would happen are happening right now."

This is one of the many problems that Jews have with all these people claiming to be their Messiah.
"Jews have followed hundreds of leaders they believed to have been the messiah -- both before and after Jesus. However, when the leader dies without having brought peace on earth, they understand that he could not possibly have been the messiah, no matter how many "prophesies" he fulfilled!"
 
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CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Matthew 7:13-14 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Who is this Matthew that you are quoting? Was he someone special?
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
That's one of the biggest problems with religions, everyone picks and chooses what they like and interpret things however they want to, to suit their own agendas.
Obviously a big problem with Baha'is is they "know" they are right, so everybody else has to be wrong.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
No, I think that when for instance Jesus says "you shall know them by their fruits" He is not talking about the followers at a later time but about the effect a Messenger has on those around them. I would recommend getting The Revelation of Baha'u'llah by Adib Taherzadeh. Here is a link to all four volumes:

https://www.bahaibookstore.com/Search.aspx?k=The+Revelation+of+Baha'u'llah

It describes the tablets by Baha'u'llah, some not translated into English yet, but for me it is the contextualized history that is so impressive. There were spiritual giants that were around Baha'u'llah. Baha'u'llah said this:

There can be no doubt whatever that, in consequence of the efforts which every man may consciously exert and as a result of the exertion of his own spiritual faculties, this mirror can be so cleansed from the dross of earthly defilements and purged from satanic fancies as to be able to draw nigh unto the meads of eternal holiness and attain the courts of everlasting fellowship. In pursuance, however, of the principle that for every thing a time hath been fixed, and for every fruit a season hath been ordained, the latent energies of such a bounty can best be released, and the vernal glory of such a gift can only be manifested, in the Days of God. Invested though each day may be with its preordained share of God’s wondrous grace, the Days immediately associated with the Manifestation of God possess a unique distinction and occupy a station which no mind can ever comprehend. Such is the virtue infused into them that if the hearts of all that dwell in the heavens and the earth were, in those days of everlasting delight, to be brought face to face with that Daystar of unfading glory and attuned to His Will, each would find itself exalted above all earthly things, radiant with His light, and sanctified through His grace.

Bahá’u’lláh, "Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh", 124.3
Thanks, good to hear from a different Baha'i.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
You are darn right that God cannot be bothered with the likes of humans who complain about Him and order Him around incessantly, as if He was their short order cook.

And it is hilarious how atheists who say they are logical cannot even figure out why they cannot tell an omnipotent God what to do and why they think they know more than an omniscient God regarding how He should communicate to humans.

Regarding logic, God cannot put in a personal appearance because God is not a person.
So Hindus, Christians and even Baha'is pray to their Gods. But God does not answer back?
Prarthana : The Hindu way of communicating with GOD

A prayer is one of the methods of being in communication with God. It, more often than not, takes the shape of addressing the God with the purpose of petitioning, praising, worshipping, confessing or even verbally abusing the chosen deity while in the process being in communication with the God.​

And in this sect of Hinduism, God does make "personal" appearances.
In the basic Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the Hindu god Vishnu is the preserver and protector of creation. Vishnu is the embodiment of mercy
and goodness, the self-existent, all-pervading power that preserves the universe and maintains the cosmic order Dharma.
Most of the time, good and evil forces are evenly matched in the world. But at times, the balance is destroyed and evil demons get the upper hand. Often in response to a request by the other gods, Vishnu then incarnates in a human form to set the balance right again.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
You do not KNOW that,

It's a very reasonable expectation.
We humans are anything but all-knowing and yet we already know and realize that relying on human story telling to convey an accurate message through the ages (or even just within a single generation), is about the best way to fail at that.

If we, with our limited knowledge, know that, it's safe to assume an all-knowing entity would know that too.

Do you think the Bible is that only scripture that ever existed?

It's all the same. It relies on human communication, re-telling, interpretation, translation,...

No, it is not reasonable to assume that God would not use Messengers to communicate just because some things went wrong after that, since what went wrong can be attributed to humans, owing to their free will choices and actions.

It has nothing to do with free will and choices. It has everything to do with how human brains work.
People can be of the best will possible and still messages would get warped.

The people who play the telephone game do their outmost best to recall every single detail of the story they are to convey. And yet, the story gets warped. Every single time.

An all knowing entity would know for a fact that that would be the inevitable outcome.
Just like we not-all-knowing humans know for a fact as well.

Also, you are missing parts if the picture. God knew that would happen, because God is all knowing, but God had a PLAN to clear up all the misunderstandings in the Bible in the future, and God did clear it up. But even before God cleared it up, the message that is in the Bible got through to people, as can be seen by all the Jews and Christians in the world.

So god planned for sectarianism, religious wars, misleading entire cultures, etc?
Sounds like an evil *******.

God did know because God is all knowing, and God allowed the conflict and suffering to take place because God had a purpose for it, as it was leading up to something much bigger.


“God’s purpose is none other than to usher in, in ways He alone can bring about, and the full significance of which He alone can fathom, the Great, the Golden Age of a long-divided, a long-afflicted humanity. Its present state, indeed even its immediate future, is dark, distressingly dark. Its distant future, however, is radiant, gloriously radiant—so radiant that no eye can visualize it......”
The Promised Day is Come, p. 116


This is just trying to rationalize the obvious.
Whenever cornered, count on the theists to come up with the apologetic of "but god has a plan" and "god is mysterious".

Uhu.
The rest of your post is no different. Just pure attempts at rationalizations. No matter how little sense it makes.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
What is pretty flawed are the adherents of the revealed religions who are all over the place in their beliefs and can't understand why they are all over the place.

I understand why they are all over the place.
And my explanation doesn't require any extra-ordinary and senseless assumptions like "god has a plan" and "god is mysterious".

My explanation fits the evidence and the facts perfectly. And that explanation is that humans invented their religions out of thin air.

In such world, I would expect every single distinct sub-culture to have its own religion. Or a variation of another religion with which it had contact. It predicts that you will NOT find the same religion (or variations of the same religion) in distinct cultures that never had any contact with each other.

And that's exactly what we see in the world.

If a single distinct culture would have the same religion or variation thereof as another distinct culture, which it never had any contact with, then my explanation would be in trouble.

But you can't point me to a single such culture, can you?
 

PAUL MARKHAM

Well-Known Member
People will not be trying to exploit the weak in the future. There will be a new race of men different from what we see now.
Good luck with that happening. It will require a completely new species to fulfil this. It's in man's nature to want more than others.
 

PAUL MARKHAM

Well-Known Member
They do not communicate with God, God communicates to them, through the Holy Spirit. How that happens is not something we ordinary humans can understand because it is beyond our ability to understand.
So the method of delivering messages is flawed.

Because god intentionally sends messages we can't understand.

Once again you tie yourself in knots.
 

PAUL MARKHAM

Well-Known Member
Baha'u'llah did not predict the end of America. He predicted that America would go through a crisis.

AMERICA PASSING THROUGH CRISIS

Moreover, the country of which it forms a part is passing through a crisis which, in its spiritual, moral, social and political aspects, is of extreme seriousness—a seriousness which to a superficial observer is liable to be dangerously underestimated.

The steady and alarming deterioration in the standard of morality as exemplified by the appalling increase of crime, by political corruption in ever widening and ever higher circles, by the loosening of the sacred ties of marriage, by the inordinate craving for pleasure and diversion, and by the marked and progressive slackening of parental control, is no doubt the most arresting and distressing aspect of the decline that has set in, and can be clearly perceived, in the fortunes of the entire nation.

Parallel with this, and pervading all departments of life—an evil which the nation, and indeed all those within the capitalist system, though to a lesser degree, share with that state and its satellites regarded as the sworn enemies of that system—is the crass materialism, which lays excessive and ever-increasing emphasis on material well-being, forgetful of those things of the spirit on which alone a sure and stable foundation can be laid for human society. It is this same cancerous materialism, born originally in Europe, carried to excess in the North American continent, contaminating the Asiatic peoples and nations, spreading its ominous tentacles to the borders of Africa, and now invading its very heart, which Bahá’u’lláh in unequivocal and emphatic language denounced in His Writings, comparing it to a devouring flame and regarding it as the chief factor in precipitating the dire ordeals and world-shaking crises that must necessarily involve the burning of cities and the spread of terror and consternation in the hearts of men. Indeed a foretaste of the devastation which this consuming fire will wreak upon the world, and with which it will lay waste the cities of the nations participating in this tragic world-engulfing contest, has been afforded by the last World War, marking the second stage in the global havoc which humanity, forgetful of its God and heedless of the clear warnings uttered by His appointed Messenger for this day, must, alas, inevitably experience. It is this same all-pervasive, pernicious materialism against which the voice of the Center of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant was raised, with pathetic persistence, from platform and pulpit, in His addresses to the heedless multitudes, which, on the morrow of His fateful visit to both Europe and America, found themselves suddenly swept into the vortex of a tempest which in its range and severity was unsurpassed in the world’s history.

Collateral with this ominous laxity in morals, and this progressive stress laid on man’s material pursuits and well-being, is the darkening of the political horizon, as witnessed by the widening of the gulf separating the protagonists of two antagonistic schools of thought which, however divergent in their ideologies, are to be commonly condemned by the upholders of the standard of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh for their materialistic philosophies and their neglect of those spiritual values and eternal verities on which alone a stable and flourishing civilization can be ultimately established. The multiplication, the diversity and the increasing destructive power of armaments to which both sides, in this world contest, caught in a whirlpool of fear, suspicion and hatred, are rapidly contributing; the outbreak of two successive bloody conflicts, entangling still further the American nation in the affairs of a distracted world, entailing a considerable loss in blood and treasure, swelling the national budget and progressively depreciating the currency of the state; the confusion, the vacillation, the suspicions besetting the European and Asiatic nations in their attitude to the American nation; the overwhelming accretion of strength to the arch enemy of the system championed by the American Union in consequence of the re-alignment of the powers in the Asiatic continent and particularly in the Far East—these have, moreover, contributed their share, in recent years, to the deterioration of a situation which, if not remedied, is bound to involve the American nation in a catastrophe of undreamed-of dimensions and of untold consequences to the social structure, the standard and conception of the American people and government.

No less serious is the stress and strain imposed on the fabric of American society through the fundamental and persistent neglect, by the governed and governors alike, of the supreme, the inescapable and urgent duty—so repeatedly and graphically represented and stressed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His arraignment of the basic weaknesses in the social fabric of the nation—of remedying, while there is yet time, through a revolutionary change in the concept and attitude of the average white American toward his Negro fellow citizen, a situation which, if allowed to drift, will, in the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, cause the streets of American cities to run with blood, aggravating thereby the havoc which the fearful weapons of destruction, raining from the air, and amassed by a ruthless, a vigilant, a powerful and inveterate enemy, will wreak upon those same cities.

The American nation, of which the community of the Most Great Name forms as yet a negligible and infinitesimal part, stands, indeed, from whichever angle one observes its immediate fortunes, in grave peril. The woes and tribulations which threaten it are partly avoidable, but mostly inevitable and God-sent, for by reason of them a government and people clinging tenaciously to the obsolescent doctrine of absolute sovereignty and upholding a political system, manifestly at variance with the needs of a world already contracted into a neighborhood and crying out for unity, will find itself purged of its anachronistic conceptions, and prepared to play a preponderating role, as foretold by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in the hoisting of the standard of the Lesser Peace, in the unification of mankind, and in the establishment of a world federal government on this planet. These same fiery tribulations will not only firmly weld the American nation to its sister nations in both hemispheres, but will through their cleansing effect, purge it thoroughly of the accumulated dross which ingrained racial prejudice, rampant materialism, widespread ungodliness and moral laxity have combined, in the course of successive generations, to produce, and which have prevented her thus far from assuming the role of world spiritual leadership forecast by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s unerring pen—a role which she is bound to fulfill through travail and sorrow.

Citadel of Faith, pp. 124-127
The Citadel of Faith, was written by Shoghi Effendi between 1947 and 1957 and does no more indicate a messenger from god or some Muslim who hates America.
 

PAUL MARKHAM

Well-Known Member
That is true if you are referring to Genesis.

The Bible writers had no message from God because they were not Messengers of God.
So the start of the bible is made up, we are getting somewhere. Now give us facts that we can prove or disprove with history and archaeology.

The bible says
The Battle of Jericho is an incident from the Book of Joshua, being the first battle fought by the Israelites in the course of the conquest of Canaan.

Truth.
Early Jericho

So it's up to religious people to prove the bible is from god or a manmade invention.
 

PAUL MARKHAM

Well-Known Member
He could if He wanted to, but obviously He does not want to.
Whatcha gonna do about it? YOU have no power over an omnipotent God. :D

“Say: He ordaineth as He pleaseth, by virtue of His sovereignty, and doeth whatsoever He willeth at His own behest. He shall not be asked of the things it pleaseth Him to ordain. He, in truth, is the Unrestrained, the All-Powerful, the All-Wise.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p, 284

P.S. Everyone does not deserve to hear from God, and that is one reason God does not communicate to everyone, but not the only reason.
So a god that loves us, wants us to follow him and do as he tells us to, can't be bothered to talk to us.

The reasons I believe he's manmade is religious people tell me what you just tried to tell me.

If he communicated directly with us and people still denied him, then they wouldn't deserve him.
 

PAUL MARKHAM

Well-Known Member
You are darn right that God cannot be bothered with the likes of humans who complain about Him and order Him around incessantly, as if He was their short order cook. :rolleyes:

And it is hilarious how atheists who say they are logical cannot even figure out why they cannot tell an omnipotent God what to do and why they think they know more than an omniscient God regarding how He should communicate to humans. :rolleyes:

Regarding logic, God cannot put in a personal appearance because God is not a person.
So he can't be bothered with us and we can't be bothered with him.

How do you know god isn't a person have you seen it? Or do you make that claim based on what others tell you? Others that also have no clue of what this god is or isn't.
 

PAUL MARKHAM

Well-Known Member
I do not believe the personal experiences of other believers who claim to have had direct contact with God because I do not believe that God ever has any direct contact with anyone, not even His Messengers.

How God communicates to His Messengers cannot be understood by anyone except the Messengers.

I believe that God is a personal God but God does not communicate to ordinary humans.
So the method of delivering messages is flawed. Because we mere mortals don't understand it.

Have you heard the fable about The Emporor's new clothes? The Emperor's New Clothes - Wikipedia

Two swindlers arrive at the capital city of an emperor who spends lavishly on clothing at the expense of state matters. Posing as weavers, they offer to supply him with magnificent clothes that are invisible to those who are stupid or incompetent.

  1. The emperor hires them, and they set up looms and go to work. A succession of officials, and then the emperor himself, visit them to check their progress. Each sees that the looms are empty but pretends otherwise to avoid being thought a fool. Finally, the weavers report that the emperor's suit is finished. They mime dressing him and he sets off in a procession before the whole city. The townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear inept or stupid, until a child blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. The people then realize that everyone has been fooled. Although startled, the emperor continues the procession, walking more proudly than ever.
 
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