Trailblazer
Veteran Member
And as I said before, it is also no skin off my nose what you believe or disbelieve.
Do you have any idea how many times I have heard this from atheists? I will tell you what I have told them. You are wrong about God because you don't know one single thing about God and how God operates.
An omniscient god DOES know what it would take to convince you, an omniscient god COULD make that happen and an omnibenevolent god would want you to know that He exists. However, you cannot conclude that God does not have those three attributes simply because He does not do what you want Him to do and convince you that He exists.... In fact, any God that did what you wanted Him to do (instead of what He wants/chooses to do) would not be omnipotent because an omnipotent God ONLY does what He wants/chooses to do, period. This is logic 101 stuff. Baha'u'llah wrote:
“God witnesseth that there is no God but Him, the Gracious, the Best-Beloved. All grace and bounty are His. To whomsoever He will He giveth whatsoever is His wish. He, verily, is the All-Powerful, the Almighty, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.” Gleanings, p. 73
“Say: O people! Let not this life and its deceits deceive you, for the world and all that is therein is held firmly in the grasp of His Will. He bestoweth His favor on whom He willeth, and from whom He willeth He taketh it away. He doth whatsoever He chooseth.” Gleanings, p. 209
“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, p, 284
So what we can conclude is that God wants you to do your own homework in order to determine if He exists.
Who do atheists think they are that God owes it to them to convince them that He exists? That would totally violate free will and the right to choose.
I would not waste any more time on this but since I already have it written up in several Word documents I will just copy/paste the one I think is most suitable, and you can do with it what you will.
God does not want to MAKE people believe He exists. God wants us to determine He exists by using our own innate intelligence coupled with a sincere effort, which demonstrates our desire to know.
Baha’u’llah wrote that God could have made all men one people. In the context of the passage below, it means that God could have made all people believers. The passage goes on to say why God didn’t do that... In short, God wants us to do our own homework and come to our own conclusions
“He Who is the Day Spring of Truth is, no doubt, fully capable of rescuing from such remoteness wayward souls and of causing them to draw nigh unto His court and attain His Presence. “If God had pleased He had surely made all men one people.” His purpose, however, is to enable the pure in spirit and the detached in heart to ascend, by virtue of their own innate powers, unto the shores of the Most Great Ocean, that thereby they who seek the Beauty of the All-Glorious may be distinguished and separated from the wayward and perverse. Thus hath it been ordained by the all-glorious and resplendent Pen…”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 71
According to this passage, is that God wants everyone to search for Him and determine if He exists by using their own innate intelligence and applying their free will. God wants those who are sincere and truly search for Him to believe in Him. God wants to distinguish those people from the others who are not sincere, those who are unwilling to put forth any effort.
This is related to free will. Everyone has free will so it is a level playing field. Everyone can look at Baha’u’llah if they choose to do so... However, that requires willingness and effort, just like anything in life... God wants us to make a sincere effort, and thereby prove our sincerity to ourselves; not to Him, because God already knows who is sincere and not.
“The incomparable Creator hath created all men from one same substance, and hath exalted their reality above the rest of His creatures. Success or failure, gain or loss, must, therefore, depend upon man’s own exertions. The more he striveth, the greater will be his progress.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 81-82
This is related to free will. If God convinced everyone that He exists we would all just be automatons believing in God simply because God foisted Himself on us. God does not want it to be that easy, God wants us to make a sincere effort to determine if He exists, and thereby prove our desire to believe in Him and prove our sincerity...
This has nothing to do with God or His limitations, it is all related to human limitations, what humans can understand. God cannot makes us capable of what we are incapable of, we are as God created us. So the evidence that God exists has to be what we can comprehend as evidence. Not only that, but that but it is not just a simple matter of knowing God exists. What good is that if we know nothing about God or His Will for us?
Below is the Baha'i view of God:
The Bahá'í view of God is essentially monotheistic. God is the imperishable, uncreated being who is the source of all existence.[1] He is described as "a personal God, unknowable, inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and almighty".[2][3] Though transcendent and inaccessible directly, his image is reflected in his creation......
The Bahá'í teachings state that there is only one God and that his essence is absolutely inaccessible from the physical realm of existence and that, therefore, his reality is completely unknowable. Thus, all of humanity's conceptions of God which have been derived throughout history are mere manifestations of the human mind and not at all reflective of the nature of God's essence......
Although human cultures and religions differ on their conceptions of God and his nature, Bahá'ís believe they nevertheless refer to one and the same Being. The differences, instead of being regarded as irreconcilable constructs of mutually exclusive cultures, are seen as purposefully reflective of the varying needs of the societies in which the divine messages were revealed.[8]
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]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God in the Baha'i Faith
