A God Problem

[sooda]

Fair enough. If you've actually read the book, then I'm fine with your opinion of it.

Here's the thing.. I have known a handful of Mormons fairly well. They are altogether decent people IMO.

 

[Samantha Rinne]

The New York Times doesn't usually run pieces of interest on the topic of religion, but there was an opinion piece in there today that I felt was worth sharing. It discusses the problems inherent to classical monotheism but also couches it in the philosophical history of the idea by a few well-known thinkers. It provides some interesting and valuable context for those of you who might be perplexed by the logically contradictory one-god as often characterized by followers of various Abrahamic traditions. I'd suggest reading the article in its entirety, but to highlight a paragraph or two:

"Does the idea of a morally perfect, all-powerful, all-knowing God make sense? Does it hold together when we examine it logically?​

Thoughts? What are your favorite logical inconsistencies from classical monotheism? Are there oddities from other types of theism that have also caught your attention?

Also the New York Times.

An Imperfect God


God isn't perfect. And atheists miss the mark when they expect this of themselves and of Christians. Same with Christians, perfect is the enemy of the good.

 

[Trailblazer]

I have long considered the matter. The only way that god-beliefs can have any form of valid claim of rational standing is by acknowledging that they are inherently very personal and forms of expression of perception of the Sacred.

Extrapolate them anywhere outside of that narrow scope, and they have given up any intent being acknowledged with reason.

I do not understand why God beliefs have to be personal in order to be acknowledged with reason.

Certitude is certitude. It has no need to be absolute, and it is entirely outside of human scope to provide brands of absoluteness of arbitrary abstract concepts.

Any claims of absolute certitude of such beliefs are null and void, even on their own terms.

I understand why absolute certitude is kind of an oxymoron, but that is just a way of saying I am absolutely certain of my beliefs, I have no doubts.

TB: Messengers of God are a good reason not to be an Abrahamist?

Luis: Dependency on their existence is. They are in fact a fascinating subject matter for study on the pitfalls that may plague religious claims for there is a myriad of problems inherent to the role.

However, if we depend upon their existence we depend upon their existence. I do not see any problems inherent in the use of Messengers.

Atheists often know for a fact that there are no such Messengers, because we are unsaddled with the need to warp our rational analysis to allow for social expectations.

You do not know that for a fact unless you can prove it.

For one thing, the idea of very few, very specific people being Messengers of God is self-limiting and self-contradictory. Why would a God even need an intermediary? Even if he did, why would there be such hardships at identifying them or reconciling their messages?

I see no reason why there would be a need for more than one Messenger of God in every age, because the information revealed by that Messenger can be communicated to everyone in the world.

God needs an intermediary because God cannot speak to humans directly, since God is not a material being. Humans need an intermediary because they could never understand communication from an ineffable God.

The difficulties people have in recognizing the Messenger is one way God tests His servants so they can prove their sincerity and willingness to put for effort in order to know God’s will... Some pass the test and some fail. It was never intended that everyone would recognize the Messenger or believe in God, at let not thus far in the history of religion. However, that will change in the future. Eventually everyone will recognize Baha’u’llah and everyone will believe in God.

The messages that the Messengers reveal are reconcilable since they are not contradictory, they are successive, each message building upon the previous message. It is like building a house from the ground up.

Yes, I know full well that the Baha’i Faith claims that the messages are ultimately compatible when the social and historical circumstances are taken into account. It is a commendable attempt, but it will eventually have to deal with the realization that good will is not enough to bridge the differences.

We’ll see. The future is not here yet.

Interesting questions, but I find their natural complements more interesting still, and far easier to answer. Why would human or human-like messengers be necessary if such a conscious God existed?

They are necessary because there can be no direct communication between God and man. The Messengers are human-like but they are also Godlike so they can bridge the gap between an ineffable God and humans. Messengers have a divine mind so they can understand, receive and communicate messages from God to humans in a way that humans can understand them.

How is it possible for actual people with very real limitations to inspire and express themselves in subtle ways if somehow even an presumably transcendent and all-powerful God somehow can't? Is the idea even compatible with itself?

Messengers of God do not have the same limitations that humans have because they are a higher order of creation above an ordinary human.

TB: How else could we have any knowledge of God?
Luis: We probably can't, if it is the Abrahamic model that is being discussed. That is one of the main logical weaknesses of that proposal of god-concept.

Quite the contrary, only if the Abrahamic model is used can we know anything about God, through God’s Messengers.

 

[Trailblazer]

This is a stance/belief that I simply can't understand. "Everyone" had it right? That can only be pure delusion. Religion is an unarguably fractured and messy thing. Differing beliefs abound, and it is nowhere near true that "The spiritual teachings of all religions are the same." To be able to say/believe that is to admit that you are walking through the world with blinders on.

If you are looking at what has happened to the religions over the course of time, I am in full agreement with you; these religions are fractured and messy. They are no longer the pristine religions that were originally revealed by God to the Messengers.

What we see in religions today is nothing more than what humans have done to these religions over the course of time to change them and corrupt them. Thus they are no longer the religions of God, but rather the religions of man. Baha’u’llah is His Manifestation, meaning the Manifestation of God for the present age.

“This is the Day when the loved ones of God should keep their eyes directed towards His Manifestation, and fasten them upon whatsoever that Manifestation may be pleased to reveal. Certain traditions of bygone ages rest on no foundations whatever, while the notions entertained by past generations, and which they have recorded in their books, have, for the most part, been influenced by the desires of a corrupt inclination. Thou dost witness how most of the commentaries and interpretations of the words of God, now current amongst men, are devoid of truth. Their falsity hath, in some cases, been exposed when the intervening veils were rent asunder. They themselves have acknowledged their failure in apprehending the meaning of any of the words of God.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 171-172​

It is important to note that all religions go through stages which can be likened to seasons of the year. The first stage is spring... That can be likened to a spiritual springtime which begins after a religion is originally revealed by God to a messenger. God is real to man and it is a living Faith.

As time goes on religion goes into its summer season, the peak of its influence; but then it goes into a season of late summer and early fall. During these seasons, theology takes over and there is an intellectual acceptance rather than an inner conviction of God’s truth.

Finally, religion goes into a late fall and winter season in which material power becomes the determining factor, and faith in God does not dominate any longer. Only the outward form of the religion remains because the original spirit is gone. People are believers in name only. Religion falls behind the times and it cannot understand nor interpret what is happening in the present world. This is where the older religions such as Judaism and Christianity are at today, in the winter season.

The Baha’i Faith is new so it is in its spring season. Baha’is who are involved are passionate about their Faith just as in the early days of Christianity. But of course it does not have much influence yet, it is much too new, as it takes a long time to establish a religion and gain many adherents. I believe that will change over time, but it will take a long time, particularly because most religious people are attached to their older religions, thus not even open to looking at a new religion, let alone investigating it seriously.

I think this conversation is over. Seriously... your words hold nothing of use for me. Much of your position I consider naive and so far from what I would consider correct (or even in the ballpark) that it is a complete waste of time discussing further. Take care.

Take care then....

 

[Trailblazer]

What motive would an honest employee have to steal? Still, stores and banks have cameras over the tills.

The motive for an employee to steal would be that they want or need money. There is no way that stores and banks can know if their employees are honest.

Why would someone struggle and sacrifice most of His life, undergoing persecution, exile and imprisonment, attempts on his life and even death, simply because He claimed to be a Messenger of God?

Baha’u’llah was born into a wealthy family, of nobility and privilege, so He could have been a minister in the government and led an easy life. Instead, because of His claim to have a “new message” from God was considered a threat to the Muslim clergy and government, He lost all His property and possessions and was imprisoned and exiled from one county to another for 40 years.

Being able to verify means that a person can be above reproach. Which is stronger confirmation that a person is relaying a message faithfully?

Anyone who is interested in believing in Baha’u’llah would have to do the necessary research in order to determine for themselves if His claim was above reproach.

- the fact that a messenger has good character, or
- the fact that he has good character AND the fact that he would have had no opportunity to lie.

Our judgement of a person's character can be wrong, so if your trust in the message is based entirely on your judgement of the character of the messenger, the message will always have some level of doubt.

Yes, we can be wrong in our judgment, which is one reason Baha’u’llah gave us other ways of determining who He was. Baha’u’llah said that the evidence is (1) the Person of the Messenger (His character); (2) everything that surrounds His Revelation (the history); (3) everything that He wrote (His scriptures)

“It is true that there is no way they can prove they got a message from God.”

So then this creates a barrier to acceptance of the message.

Not for people who have looked at the evidence and come to believe with absolute certitude that He did get a message. At this point, they have in effect proved it to themselves.

Why do you think God would want barriers to acceptance of his message?

God does not purposely put up barriers, but God tests His servants so they can prove their sincerity and willingness to exert the necessary effort to believe in Him

That makes the problem worse. Every set of hands the message goes through is another potential point for error to creep in. How much error? There's really no way to tell.

You are correct, that can happen, but that is resolvable if you read the original scriptures and interpret them for yourself. Because all humans will read and interpret the same scriptures a little differently, everyone will have a slightly different understanding of what the message means, but they can be in the same ball park.

“Messengers of God are both human and divine by nature. They are inerrant in the way they receive and reveal messages from God.”

... you assume. With no real way to confirm.

No, I believe with no way to confirm, and I believe because I understand how and why Messengers came to be divine and the explanation makes sense to me.

Clearly written... by the messenger, not by God, right?

God does not write because God is not a man with hands and there are no pens and paper where God resides. God delegates that task to the Messengers because they have a human nature as well as a divine nature.

That's impossible. Even with the best translation, nuance is lost: what rhymes or has a certain meter in one language won't have this in another. A pun in one language won't be a pun in another. Idioms vary from culture to culture (and from generation to generation within the same culture).

You are correct, something is always lost, and that is one reason some Baha’is learn Persian and Arabic. However, those Baha’is who also know English can verify to those of us who only speak English that the essential meaning of the messages have not been altered by the translations. If the translators know the original languages of the scriptures as well as the language they are translating them into many problems can be avoided.

And translation often requires the translator to infer things that aren't in the original text: if you're translating the sentence "you look happy" into French, do you translate "you" as "tu" or "vous?" Depends on what we assume about the attitude the person speaking has toward the person they're addressing, which may or may not be clear from the text.

Translation is partly a creative endeavor on the part of the translator.

That is true. The Guardian of the Baha’i Faith, Shoghi Effendi, was highly qualified to translate the original Writings of Baha’u’llah, and he translated the most important Tablets before he died in 1958. There are many Tablets that still need translating, so the UHJ hires highly qualified translators who sit on committees in order to consult and concur on the translations.

How could you "check him out carefully?"

What set of things about a person could you check that could justify the conclusion "... therefore, we can trust anything that this guy says comes from God?"

There is so much that one can read about Baha’u’llah but one has to start somewhere. A good place to start is The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Volumes 1-4, which cover the 40 years of His Mission, from 1853-1892.

You realize that all you did here is beg the question, right?

All I can ever know is what was written by Baha’u’llah and His appointed interpreters. Otherwise, I can know nothing about God and Messengers of God.

So then it's about what capabilities God is capable of instilling in humans.

No, it is about what capabilities God chose to instill in humans. God never planned to communicate directly to humans so humans did not evolve with that capability to understand God.

So regular humans don't have any way to confirm that a supposed message from God actually came from God?

Not in the sense you want it confirmed, but once one has done their homework and confirmed that Baha’u’llah was being truthful about His claim, it all falls into place.

So if someone seems good, this is a sign they're a messenger?

No, not at all. What Jesus meant in Matthew 7:15-20 is that if their fruits are bad we can automatically rule them out and deem them a false prophet. In that case there is no need to look at them any further

Being a good person is certainly is not enough to deem anyone a Messenger of God because there are many “good people” in the world.But of course one thing is rather obvious; there are many good men in the world who never claimed to be Messengers of God so there is no need to look at them and wonder if they are, since they never claimed to be. The only serious candidates to look at would be those who actually made the claim. Now, if one puts any trust in the Bible, then the prophecies fulfilled by Baha’u’llah place Him in a category by Himself because nobody else could have fulfilled certain prophecies that were very specific. Those care covered in the book entitled Thief in the Night by William Sears. I never read that book before I became a Baha’i, because I was never a Christian, and the Bible did not mean anything to me, but when I did finally read that book it was just further confirmation that Baha’u’llah had to be who He claimed to be, the return of Christ and the promised Messiah of the OT that the Jews still await.

Even if - for reasons that you haven't really explained - God can't communicate with "non-messengers" directly, God could still do better than what you suggest he's doing now.

You are right about that. God could do better in order to garner more followers if God wanted to garner more followers, because God is Omnipotent. Thus if we are logical we have to conclude that God did not have a need to garner any more followers than He did, only enough followers to get the job done, which means building the New World Order (Kingdom of God) visualized by Baha’u’llah. Notably the Kingdom of God on earth was also visualized by the prophets in the OT.

In the first few centuries after a “new religion” is revealed to a Messenger, there are only a few followers and there are many reasons for that I can explain if you want to know. I explained those to an atheist on another forum so I have that written up.

You have done an excellent job of explaining why, if God sent a Messenger, everyone would not know He was a Messenger or believe in Him. That is because you actually used your logical mind to think it through, whereas the atheist on the other forum only looked at the relatively small number of Baha’is in the world and refused to look at the actual reasons why the numbers are still small. Rather than considering them, He just held to his premise that if a Messenger was from God everyone would know that and everyone would believe in Him and he repeatedly called my stated reasons “excuses.” He even told me that God needs an excuse for not making “everyone” believe in Him, which is highly illogical because (a) an Infallible God cannot need any excuses for anything, and (b) there is no reason to think that it is God’s will that everyone believes in Him.

For instance: many messengers. If a thousand - or even a dozen - messengers all lived at the same time, all in total agreement with each other and all supporting what each other says, any one messenger who decided to change the message could be easily spotted. It wouldn't be completely foolproof, but it would address some of the inherent problems with having one messenger at a time.

I fully agree and that is quite a creative solution to what you perceive as problems inherent in having only one Messenger at a time. A dozen all in total agreement with each other and all supporting what each other says would be adequate. There could still be a ‘main” Messenger, and having others that concurred sure make it a lot easier to spot the main Messenger. Instead, what we see are the early followers, the disciples of the Messengers, who concur with the Messenger and spread His message.

God sure could have done it differently, if God had wanted to garner more followers with His Messenger, so the only logical conclusion is that God did not want it to be that easy and God did not need to garner a lot of followers, at least not yet. More will hop on board later, as in the distant future Baha’u’llah has assured us that everyone will recognize Baha’u’llah.

 

[LuisDantas]

I do not understand why God beliefs have to be personal in order to be acknowledged with reason.

Because the alternative just doesn't work. God beliefs exist in a wide variety at odds with each other and with observable reality.

I understand why absolute certitude is kind of an oxymoron, but that is just a way of saying I am absolutely certain of my beliefs, I have no doubts.

I hope that you are fortunate enough not to be harmed too seriously by that certitude... and that you do not inflict too much harm on others with it, either.

Because the logical assumption to make is that such harm will come. That is usually what happens.

However, if we depend upon their existence we depend upon their existence. I do not see any problems inherent in the use of Messengers.

Are you aware of the Battle of the Camel, or of the Shia / Sunni split in general, and how much grief it encourages? Of the many Mahdi claimants, including the bloody events caused by one back in 1979 in Saudi Arabia? Come to think of it, of the issues that arose in late 19th century as the Bab and Bahai Faiths arose and that to deal with the fallout of their claims in societies that were not convinced of their validity? I seem to recall that to this day there are issues related to the acknowledgement of the Bahai Faith by a faction of Babs or former Babs, even.

I almost forgot to mention the dehumanization of atheists by many of those presumed Messengers, but that is a very serious issue in and of itself.

You do not know that for a fact unless you can prove it.

Oh, but we do. With at the very least as much legitimacy as anyone who claims to have absolute certainty of God's existence, mind you. Except that, for reasons that should be obvious, atheism requires an enormously smaller burder of proof and is indescribably safer for ourselves and for the people who deal with us.

I see no reason why there would be a need for more than one Messenger of God in every age, because the information revealed by that Messenger can be communicated to everyone in the world.~

That amounts to proposing an oddly self-limiting, very inefficient concept of God. But then again, I don't see any need for a specific god-messenger at any time, so maybe it works out.

To the best of my understanding, you are placing in those Abrahamic-styled revelations of a presumed god roles that I find entirely redundant, and that are much better fulfilled by anonymous, everyday inspiration, good will and sincere effort.

God needs an intermediary because God cannot speak to humans directly, since God is not a material being. Humans need an intermediary because they could never understand communication from an ineffable God.

That is a very specific, very restrictive understanding of the role of divinity; one that I happen not to favor, and that I strongly suspect to be flat out unworkable and contradictory.

If I am not mistaken, it is also incompatible with the text of the Baghavad Gita. At one point Krishna actually reveals himself in his true form to Arjuna, after an extended vacation in human form as his counselor and helper.

You have to admit that there is some difficult irony in the idea that God can miraculously create existence itself, yet is helpless to communicate directly with most people. I don't think that it is even well supported in many Abrahamic doctrines.

The difficulties people have in recognizing the Messenger is one way God tests His servants so they can prove their sincerity and willingness to put for effort in order to know God’s will...

Is that so? How would you, or anyone, know?

From where I stand, it would make a lot more sense to assume that they are instead the playtoys of Shaitan in order to separate those willing to be drunk with pride and self-delusion from those who keep true to reason and common sense.

That is also highly speculative at best, but easier to reconcile with known facts.

Some pass the test and some fail. It was never intended that everyone would recognize the Messenger or believe in God, at let not thus far in the history of religion.

Again, that is an odd and inexplicable limitation to impose in such a God.

However, that will change in the future. Eventually everyone will recognize Baha’u’llah and everyone will believe in God.

Why, isn't it fortunate then that you Bahais have us atheists around to keep you on guard against the drawbacks this apparently entirely justified pride of pioneerism?

Because otherwise you might, you know, face the ugly reality of hubris at some point.

Newsflash: the Bahai Faith holds no monopoly of religious wisdom. Never did, never will. And it does itself no favors in playing with the temptation of believing so.

The messages that the Messengers reveal are reconcilable since they are not contradictory, they are successive, each message building upon the previous message. It is like building a house from the ground up.

That is the doctrine's claim, certainly. One that it clearly inherited from its precursor, Islaam. Which may itself have been inspired by Christianity's.

There is no shortage of claims of One True Ways that show that they preserve the "true essence" of all other "truly valid" ones.

I can understand the appeal. But the pitfalls are at least just as real and must be watched against.

We’ll see. The future is not here yet.

I am not betting on that.

They are necessary because there can be no direct communication between God and man. The Messengers are human-like but they are also Godlike so they can bridge the gap between an ineffable God and humans. Messengers have a divine mind so they can understand, receive and communicate messages from God to humans in a way that humans can understand them.

Interesting narrative, but not a very convincing one. It is just too easy to counter with demonstrable facts, as well as with its own premises.

Messengers of God do not have the same limitations that humans have because they are a higher order of creation above an ordinary human.

How convenient, from a social control perspective. And how unconvincing, from a religious or even theological one.

As beliefs go, that one is about as arbitrary as they come.

Quite the contrary, only if the Abrahamic model is used can we know anything about God, through God’s Messengers.

Apparently many people actually believe in that.

I can't claim to see any logic in that.

 

[Muffled]

Pascal was right. Reason is corrosive for faith. Either there is God or reason. The two cannot coexist.

To paraphrase Descartes:

God: you don’t think. Therefore I am.

Ciao

- viole

I believe Pascal had not well reasoned that out when he said it or his reasoning was fallacious.

 

[Muffled]

In philosophy, there are different kinds of knowledge. One of those is experiential knowledge. I suspect that the author of the article had this in mind when it comes to being all-knowing. In order to be all-knowing, this must also include experiential knowledge. Therefore, the one-god must have experienced lust personally in order to be all-knowing, which is inconsistent with being morally perfect.

I believe then the problem is that the author has preferred to define all-knowing that way. I believe the Bible does not indicate that but does support the all knowing through intelligence.

 

[viole]

I believe Pascal had not well reasoned that out when he said it or his reasoning was fallacious.

I think he was rasonable. Belief in God entails automatically the suspension of reason. At least for that part of out cognition.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Muffled]

osgart said "Allowing evil does not bring about good.."

I believe sometimes it does work that way. However the concept is that those who are evil need an opportunity to repent and that doesn't happen unless they are living.

 

[Muffled]

I think he was rasonable. Belief in God entails automatically the suspension of reason. At least for that part of out cognition.

Ciao

- viole

I believe by being automatic you have retreated from reason. If you can't prove it, saying it doesn't make it so.

 

[Muffled]

The Abrahamic
The traditional Abrahamic religions are reaching the end of their two millennial run. They no longer meet the intellectual and spiritual needs of a quickly advancing humankind.

I see New Age and non-dualism (God and creation are not-two) as the religion of the future. We are a ray of the One Consciousness learning that is what we are = God-Realization; Self-Realization.

I believe you will qualify as a false prophet. There are still prophecies in the Bible to be fulfilled and they will be.

 

[viole]

I believe by being automatic you have retreated from reason. If you can't prove it, saying it doesn't make it so.

C’mon. What are the rational reasons that make you believe in Allah? It just needs a bit of reason to realize how untenable that is.

Ciao

- viole

 

[sooda]

I believe you will qualify as a false prophet. There are still prophecies in the Bible to be fulfilled and they will be.

Which ones? I think its very confusing with the futurists forever changing the identity of Gog and Magog, the AntiChrist and the Beast..


The people of the prince which is to come will destroy Jerusalem and the temple.

This was fulfilled by Titus and the Roman Empire in 70 AD. In the war with the Jews, the Roman army besieged and destroyed Jerusalem, burned the temple, and killed many Jews.

 

[George-ananda]

I believe you will qualify as a false prophet. There are still prophecies in the Bible to be fulfilled and they will be.

And I believe you are too a part of the previous century's dichotomy of Christianity verses Atheism.

I am not against you and prefer Christianity to Atheism any old day myself.

My point is that in this day of increased exposure and education where everybody 'thinks for themselves', many are not intellectually and spiritually satisfied by either of the two old positions. I believe a New Age of spirituality is dawning before our eyes at this time in history and it is one that better meets the intellectual and spiritual needs of modern man.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

In philosophy, there are different kinds of knowledge. One of those is experiential knowledge. I suspect that the author of the article had this in mind when it comes to being all-knowing. In order to be all-knowing, this must also include experiential knowledge. Therefore, the one-god must have experienced lust personally in order to be all-knowing, which is inconsistent with being morally perfect.

OTOH, could an all-powerful God gain experiential knowledge without committing the act? If God can do anything, then presumably yes.

 

[Yerda]

If God created sexual attraction in all species as a means to perpetuate the lifeforms that he created here (including us) then why does he need to experience that attraction to program reproductive behaviors into his creatures?

I think the argument is that for God to know what lust (or envy or hate) feel like then He has to have experienced them. You can't know envy without feeling it. Since He knows all the stuff He must, by definition, know this. Therefore He has sinned. So moral perfection and complete knowledge are logically incompatible. So God is either morally imperfect or there are things even He doesn't know.

 

[Deeje]

I think the argument is that for God to know what lust (or envy or hate) feel like then He has to have experienced them. You can't know envy without feeling it. Since He knows all the stuff He must, by definition, know this. Therefore He has sinned. So moral perfection and complete knowledge are logically incompatible. So God is either morally imperfect or there are things even He doesn't know.

I don't have to eat garbage to know it tastes bad.....

I don't have to experience the results of sexually transmitted disease to understand why God promotes sexual morality.

Why do you think God does? Why do you place human limitations on a Being who has none?

Do you know why evil even exists?

Do you know why God was going to keep the knowledge of what was good and evil in his own jurisdiction?

What do you think would have happened if the first humans had simply obeyed God and told the devil to "get lost"?

 

[osgart]

I don't have to eat garbage to know it tastes bad.....

I don't have to experience the results of sexually transmitted disease to understand why God promotes sexual morality.

Why do you think God does? Why do you place human limitations on a Being who has none?

Do you know why evil even exists?

Do you know why God was going to keep the knowledge of what was good and evil in his own jurisdiction?

What do you think would have happened if the first humans had simply obeyed God and told the devil to "get lost"?

Then none of us would be born sinful if our first parents told the devil to "get lost", right?

 

[Trailblazer]

I hope that you are fortunate enough not to be harmed too seriously by that certitude... and that you do not inflict too much harm on others with it, either.

Because the logical assumption to make is that such harm will come. That is usually what happens.

I might be harmed by my certitude if my beliefs are false, but atheists might be harmed by their non-belief if it is false, and God actually exists.

I do not see how my certitude could harm anyone else unless I tried to inflict my beliefs upon others, and they are false.

“However, if we depend upon their existence we depend upon their existence. I do not see any problems inherent in the use of Messengers.”

Are you aware of the Battle of the Camel, or of the Shia / Sunni split in general, and how much grief it encourages? Of the many Mahdi claimants, including the bloody events caused by one back in 1979 in Saudi Arabia? Come to think of it, of the issues that arose in late 19th century as the Bab and Bahai Faiths arose and that to deal with the fallout of their claims in societies that were not convinced of their validity? I seem to recall that to this day there are issues related to the acknowledgement of the Bahai Faith by a faction of Babs or former Babs, even.

None of what you cited was not caused by the use of Messengers, it was caused by the humans who professed to follow them. Thus it was human error.

I almost forgot to mention the dehumanization of atheists by many of those presumed Messengers, but that is a very serious issue in and of itself.

I do not know exactly what you mean by dehumanization or which Messengers did that. What did these Messenger say that was dehumanizing?

“You do not know that for a fact unless you can prove it.”

Oh, but we do. With at the very least as much legitimacy as anyone who claims to have absolute certainty of God's existence, mind you. Except that, for reasons that should be obvious, atheism requires an enormously smaller burden of proof and is indescribably safer for ourselves and for the people who deal with us.

I do not claim to have certitude that God exists in the sense of having actual proof; I only have what I call “inner certitude.” Likewise, an atheist can have inner certitude that there is no god and either position is logically possible.

Atheism does not require a burden of proof because it is the default position. Belief also has no burden because the existence of God cannot be proven.

Atheism is only safer if God does not exist, but if God exists, then belief is safer.

That amounts to proposing an oddly self-limiting, very inefficient concept of God. But then again, I don't see any need for a specific god-messenger at any time, so maybe it works out.

Why do you think the use of one Messenger in every age is self-limiting or inefficient? God could use another method to communicate to humans but I cannot think of a more efficient method.

To the best of my understanding, you are placing in those Abrahamic-styled revelations of a presumed god roles that I find entirely redundant, and that are much better fulfilled by anonymous, everyday inspiration, good will and sincere effort.

Those who are inspired and have good will and make a sincere effort are living the life God intended, and many of them are atheists. So maybe there is no need for them to know or follow what the Messengers revealed, unless there are other benefits, like knowing the purpose of life and how that knowledge will affect the afterlife. Another reason I can think to have a Messenger is to get everyone on the same page and working together for the good of the whole of humanity. That has not worked very well throughout history because people always cling to the older Messengers even after a new one appears, causing division and strife. That is not the Messenger’s doing, it is human error.

That is a very specific, very restrictive understanding of the role of divinity; one that I happen not to favor, and that I strongly suspect to be flat out unworkable and contradictory.

It is not really a matter of what we like. It is workable for most people in the world who go through a Messenger or some kind of holy man to relate to God.

You have to admit that there is some difficult irony in the idea that God can miraculously create existence itself, yet is helpless to communicate directly with most people. I don't think that it is even well supported in many Abrahamic doctrines.

I never said that God is helpless to communicate directly to people, I said that humans are unable to understand communication from God. I am aware that Christians believe that God communicates to them through the Holy Spirit, but I do not know the other Abrahamic doctrines that state that God communicates to them directly. Baha’u’llah explained why God does not communicate to ordinary humans. It is related to the nature of God.

“To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute, such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it from His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His praise, or that human heart comprehend His fathomless mystery. He is and hath ever been veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men. “No vision taketh in Him, but He taketh in all vision; He is the Subtile, the All-Perceiving.” 1No tie of direct intercourse can possibly bind Him to His creatures. He standeth exalted beyond and above all separation and union, all proximity and remoteness. No sign can indicate His presence or His absence; inasmuch as by a word of His command all that are in heaven and on earth have come to exist, and by His wish, which is the Primal Will itself, all have stepped out of utter nothingness into the realm of being, the world of the visible.” The Kitáb-i-Íqán, p. 98​

Then Baha’u’llah explained how a Messenger (pure and stainless Soul) is able to bridge the gap between God and humans.

“And since there can be no tie of direct intercourse to bind the one true God with His creation, and no resemblance whatever can exist between the transient and the Eternal, the contingent and the Absolute, He hath ordained that in every age and dispensation a pure and stainless Soul be made manifest in the kingdoms of earth and heaven. Unto this subtle, this mysterious and ethereal Being He hath assigned a twofold nature; the physical, pertaining to the world of matter, and the spiritual, which is born of the substance of God Himself. He hath, moreover, conferred upon Him a double station. The first station, which is related to His innermost reality, representeth Him as One Whose voice is the voice of God Himself... The second station is the human station, exemplified by the following verses: “I am but a man like you.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 66-67​

Is that so? How would you, or anyone, know?

I only know what has been revealed by Baha’u’llah. Similar things about God testing His servants have been revealed by other Messengers of God, so that is cross-verification.

The way to know who Baha’u’llah was is to look at the evidence, namely His Life,His Person, everything that surrounds His Revelation, and His Writings.

“Some pass the test and some fail. It was never intended that everyone would recognize the Messenger or believe in God, at let not thus far in the history of religion.”

Again, that is an odd and inexplicable limitation to impose in such a God.

That limitation is not a limitation of God, as God has no limitations; only humans have limitations.

Why, isn't it fortunate then that you Bahais have us atheists around to keep you on guard against the drawbacks this apparently entirely justified pride of pioneerism?

Because otherwise you might, you know, face the ugly reality of hubris at some point.

Newsflash: the Bahai Faith holds no monopoly of religious wisdom. Never did, never will. And it does itself no favors in playing with the temptation of believing so.

Newsflash: That Baha’i Faith does not teach that it has a monopoly on religious wisdom.

“Let no one, however, mistake my purpose. The Revelation, of which Bahá’u’lláh is the source and center, abrogates none of the religions that have preceded it, nor does it attempt, in the slightest degree, to distort their features or to belittle their value. It disclaims any intention of dwarfing any of the Prophets of the past, or of whittling down the eternal verity of their teachings. It can, in no wise, conflict with the spirit that animates their claims, nor does it seek to undermine the basis of any man’s allegiance to their cause. Its declared, its primary purpose is to enable every adherent of these Faiths to obtain a fuller understanding of the religion with which he stands identified, and to acquire a clearer apprehension of its purpose. It is neither eclectic in the presentation of its truths, nor arrogant in the affirmation of its claims. Its teachings revolve around the fundamental principle that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is progressive, not final. Unequivocally and without the least reservation it proclaims all established religions to be divine in origin, identical in their aims, complementary in their functions, continuous in their purpose, indispensable in their value to mankind.” The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, pp, 57-58​

“The messages that the Messengers reveal are reconcilable since they are not contradictory, they are successive, each message building upon the previous message. It is like building a house from the ground up.”

That is the doctrine's claim, certainly. One that it clearly inherited from its precursor, Islam. Which may itself have been inspired by Christianity's.

There is no shortage of claims of One True Ways that show that they preserve the "true essence" of all other "truly valid" ones.
I can understand the appeal. But the pitfalls are at least just as real and must be watched against.

I do not know what would be the pitfalls of preserving the "true essence" of all other "truly valid" religions. Truth is Truth and spiritual truth does not change over time.