Atheists: What would you consider credible communication from God?

[james blunt]

Thanks for sharing your story. Now I understand how you became a *temporary atheist.* Something similar happened to me although it was not quite that dramatic. For about 10 years, I was angry at God and hated Him, so I shut myself off from God, although I never stopped believing God existed. Then in June 2014 when I was going through a major life crisis and no amount of counseling was helping me, I got really desperate and turned to God. This was not a conscious thing; just one day I asked my husband for Gleanings to read on the bus. I had not read it in decades, and I was reading it on the bus on my way home from work. I just started to cry because I suddenly knew that I was hearing the Voice of God and at the point I really connected to Baha’u’llah and realized who He was. I have read Gleanings about five times since and as you know I refer to it often. I have also read the Iqan a few times.

My life has not been the same since that day. I started to recover from my grief that was the result of life circumstances that propelled me towards God, and I started my own forum in October 2014. I still do not have a very good attitude towards God, but I know that is my own personal problem so I do not blame God anymore since I realize that is illogical. I do have short relapses in judgement but they do not even last a day.

I agree. It is through Baha’u’llah that we can have a relationship with God, but Baha’u’llah is the Sadratu’l-Muntahá, the “Tree beyond which there is no passing,” The fact that God is closer to us than we are to ourselves does not mean that we can get close to God, not without Baha’u’llah or another Manifestation of God such as Jesus.

I think that quote does have *something* to do with our relationship to God. God is one and alone and has no associates since God is inaccessible directly.

“How wondrous is the unity of the Living, the Ever-Abiding God—a unity which is exalted above all limitations, thattranscendeth the comprehension of all created things! He hath, from everlasting, dwelt in His inaccessible habitation of holiness and glory, and will unto everlasting continue to be enthroned upon the heights of His independent sovereignty and grandeur. How lofty hath been His incorruptible Essence, how completely independent of the knowledge of all created things, and how immensely exalted will it remain above the praise of all the inhabitants of the heavens and the earth!” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 261-262​

I do not believe we can have a personal relationship with God. That is a Christian belief, not a Baha’i belief. Here is something I wrote up for a post a while back:

“Nay, forbid it, O my God, that I should have uttered such words as must of necessity imply the existence of any direct relationship between the Pen of Thy Revelation and the essence of all created things. Far, far are They Who are related to Thee above the conception of such relationship! All comparisons and likenesses fail to do justice to the Tree of Thy Revelation, and every way is barred to the comprehension of the Manifestation of Thy Self and the Day Spring of Thy Beauty.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 4​

What Baha’u’llah meant in this passage when He said that “All comparisons and likenesses fail to do justice to the Tree of Thy Revelation” was that there is nothing that can compare to the Tree, nothing that can do justice to that Tree. That Tree is the Manifestation of God that comes in every age. It has been referred to the Sadratu’l-Muntahá, the “Tree beyond which there is no passing.”

The Manifestations of God stand on the All-Highest Throne, and they are the Tree beyond which there is no passing, the Habitation of everlasting might and glory. We cannot pass beyond Them and get to God without Them. We need to go through them to (a) know anything about God or (b) have any relationship with God.

“The “sacred Lote-Tree” is a reference to the Sadratu’l-Muntahá, the “Tree beyond which there is no passing” (see note 128). It is used here symbolically to designate Bahá’u’lláh.” The Kitáb-i-Aqdas. p. 236​

“Give ear unto the verses of God which He Who is the sacred Lote-Tree reciteth unto you. They are assuredly the infallible balance, established by God, the Lord of this world and the next. Through them the soul of man is caused to wing its flight towards the Dayspring of Revelation, and the heart of every true believer is suffused with light. Such are the laws which God hath enjoined upon you, such His commandments prescribed unto you in His Holy Tablet; obey them with joy and gladness, for this is best for you, did ye but know.”
The Kitáb-i-Aqdas. p. 73​

So now back to the mystical relationship with God. We can have a mystical relationship with God through a Manifestation of God such as Baha’u’llah and that is what prayer and meditation is all about, but we cannot go directly to God and have a mystical relationship with God.... We need the Intermediary, the Manifestation of God, who is our only connection to God. Baha’u’llah is called the Tree beyond which there is no passing because we cannot just pass beyond Baha’u’llah and go directly to God.

Think of it as God being down at the end of a road. The Manifestation of God is like a Gate across the road and we can go no further than that Gate. We can approach that Gate but even that Gate is a mystery we cannot ever fully comprehend. That is why that passage says “every way is barred to the comprehension of the Manifestation of Thy Self and the Day Spring of Thy Beauty.”

This idea that we cannot have a *direct relationship* with God is further confirmed by Shoghi Effendi:

"We will have experience of God's spirit through His Prophets in the next world, but God is too great for us to know without this Intermediary. The Prophets know God, but how is more than our human minds can grasp. We believe we may attainin the next world to seeing the Prophets. There is certainly a future life. Heaven and hell are conditions within our own beings."
(From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, November 14, 1947)
Lights of Guidance (second part): A Bahá'í Reference File​

I can agree with that. That is as God intended it to be.

Maybe God is fake and some rich man pretends to be God .

 

[Trailblazer]

Come back to me when everybody is a Baha, or whatever.

Your rationalizations are totally unconvincing. If He whispers in the ears, or reveals Herself, to a multitude of different so called prophets, and delegates everything to fallible middle men that might even add to the transmission error, as we observe in the different religions, it is not clear why he does not do it directly.

In the Writings of Baha’u’llah, it has been made perfectly clearwhy God does not communicate directly to everyone, but rather only communicates to chosen Messengers. If people do not like that *logical explanation* they do not have to accept it. We all have free will to choose.

Again the most rational, natural, common sense, pasimonous explanation is that those so called prophets just made things up.

No miracle nor divine bad communicators required. Just human standard behavior. It is amazing you guys do not see it.

Since you do not know anything about God (without reading what a Messengerrevealed)you are shooting in the dark, so you cannot understand WHY God does not communicate *directly* to everyone. There are logical reasons for those who care to be logical. The others can just go on believing that God should communicate to everyone directly, but God is never going to do that, so they will never know anything about God or what God wants of them.

There is no *reason* to think that the “true” Messengers of God made things up. What would be their motive? All of them suffered and sacrificed and got nothing for themselves. By contrast, when we look at the false messengers it is abundantly clear that they had selfish private motives. Also, the true Messengers had teachings and laws that were of value to humanity, but the false ones had nothing but bunk.

Moreover, if one looks with a Baha’i perspective they can see how all the true Messengers were tied together, how their missions were connected, one leading to the next. By contrast, if we look at the false messenger we see no such thing. All we see is a lone man who wanted people to believe in him and worship him. No true Messenger ever wanted to be worshiped and that is another way we can differentiate true from false. By your fruits you shall know them, as Jesus said. It is not that difficult to differentiate between good fruit and rotten fruit.

 

[Trailblazer]

Now then, consider the child born to a Buddhist or Hindu family, or one born to an atheist family. And while you are considering that, consider yourself, born to your family. No child has any free will whatsoever in the matter of their birth. Nor do they have any free will when it comes to what they are taught to believe. And yet, "free will" is utterly useless if there is no reliable information for it to act upon. So the Buddhist child, the Hindu child, the atheist child, the Baha'i child and all the others will grow having only the information given to them by their parents, their communities, and their religious teachers. And that information will almost certainly not include competent information about all the other beliefs out there.

It is true that children are influenced by their parents, their communities, and their religious teachers. If they are born into a religion, they come to accept that it true, likewise with atheism. However, after they become adults they are free to choose to walk away from that religion; although most people don’t, I have many atheist friends who dropped out of Christianity. They are then free to be atheists or search for other religions.

You see, if your God wants me to make a competent free choice to believe, the very minimum He needs to do is make whatever the truth is available to everyone. Absent that, competent free choices are impossible. You see, it is just possible that the Mormons are the only ones who got it right (according to South Park, anyway), and everybody else is a loser and going to hell. The Mormons have a book, too, and it claims to have been delivered directly from God, just like all the others.

God has made religious truth available to everyone through scriptures. It is our responsibility to research those scriptures and decide which religion is true, if we want to believe and free choices are possible since we all have free will to choose.

Your notion of free will in belief is a crock. You didn't get to your beliefs by free will choice either -- it was fed to you before you knew how to think about it.

You are wrong about that. Both my parents dropped out of Christianity long before I was born so I was not raised in any religion, nor to have a belief in God. I then stumbled upon the Baha’i Faith during my first year of college, researched it, and decided it was true. It was a free will choice to become a Baha’i.

In my case, I was fed none of it, so I have all of it available to me to look at, and I have. And in the end, I concluded that god belief simply does not make sense in the reality in which I find myself. The contradictions, while believers are able for some reason to ignore them as if they weren't there, are simply too great for me to ignore.

Well, it’s good that you were not indoctrinated as a child. Thankfully, Baha’i was the first religion I encountered. It explains how all the religions fit together, and why there are contradictions between religions, because of how man altered the originally revealed scriptures and attributed false meanings. The Baha’i Faith is all very logical, which is why I believe it. I have no mushy gushy feelings about God. I was not raised to have those, but I was raised to be a critical thinker.

 

[Trailblazer]

God absolutely communicates with everyone — because communication is, in essence, creation. Thus, all created being is in a constant, unbroken communication with God. Being omnipresent, omniscient and all powerful -/ there is no need in God to prove to anyone that this communication is real. God does not have any needs to be proven — because “He” is beyond doubt.

I agree that God does not have any responsibility to prove Himself to anyone. To me, it is obvious that God exists, but not all people think like me. They want evidence. I believe that God provides that evidence when He sends Messengers such as Jesus, and the scriptures are also evidence. This is all the evidence God provides, aside from Creation, which is indirect evidence. God is not going to kowtow to people who want another kind of evidence such as direct communication to them, because God is not a short order cook. God is Omnipotent, meaning He can do anything, but conversely, God does not do anything He does not WANT to do.

 

[Trailblazer]

I do.

 

[joelr]

That is what God wants but that is not what happens because humans have free will and some people *choose* not to believe in the Messengers.

In short, God does not have Messengers doing superhuman things because God does not want us to believe in them based upon those things. God wants them to show up and act like ordinary men, which makes it necessary for us to take a serious look at them in order to determine if they are the real deal. In short, God does not want to make it that easy because then we would not have to work for our belief, and then the lackadaisical people could not be differentiated from the sincere seekers who put forth a lot of effort.

I do not believe that Jesus and Moses did all the superhuman things that were attributed to them, but rather that was stories that were used to convey certain spiritual truths. Jesus might have had special powers to heal the sick but that is something all Messengers of God have.

We do have an update, a “new” Messenger of God who came in the 19th century, but He did not act like Superman for the reasons I explained above.

I like your imagination. You are not asking for much are you?

Sorry, God will never do the finger snap because God does not want to make people believe in Him, He wants it to be a free will choice.

Little problem here.
Ok, no superheroes. Although now you're interpreting the bible in a way that supports what you want to say. So Moses didn't part a sea or Jesus did not do all the miracles.
That's first off a huge problem. Any metaphors at all then you open the door for all metaphors, we know there were agnostcs claiming the resurrection story was a metaphor. These gnostics were a large part of Christianity.

The second problem is what's left behind for study does not look like a spiritual text, it looks like an almost exact copy of pagan cults and it's written in a style no author wrote history in. It's written using devices that expert writers of the time would use when writing mythology. Parables, ring structure, Markan sandwiches, stories withing stories, events that happen, say 20 events, then a major event happens and the next 20 events are reverse of the last 20.

Highly mythical. All of the elements were in the OT, found in Jewish angelology and of course pagan savior gods.
Not to mention the OT began to pick up speed after it copied everything revelant from Persia. Right after the Persian invasion?
We also have an ancient Egyptain leader who was basically Moses (Moses is an Egyptain name also) and beieved in one ultimate god and so forth.

So god sent messengers and in the end, upon study, we have obvious myths that make no sense to treat as real events in any way, not historical, not probable, or proveable except as copy-cat deity styles?
No outside reliable sources? God couldn't work that out? Just turn out the sun for one day and have it show up in all world cultures histories?
Maybe a few real prophecies? 1905 asteroid strike. Earth is round, light goes around 7 x a second.
Eath is going around the sun with other planets. All stars are very far away, would take light 4 years to reach the closest one.

Everything written = human knowledge already known. The hippy Jesus, Vedic knowledge was around. Thomas gospel confirms this as do historical stories of Buddhist showing up in Rome.

No, that's the best a god could do yet Hindu/Vedic scripture reads very insightful, not like mythology (except when that is the point - to learn a myth lesson) conveys spirituality without all the Jewish "everyone is a sinner" and a god who can't get anything done without blood magic?
What god would be surprised that this wasn't impressing modern people. The same god obsessed with blod magic sacrifice. An archaic idea that should not be part of any history of any god, except in myth.
"The devil changed history to look like Jesus was a pagan copy" worked for the first 20 centuries but it's not working anymore.

Wasn't even working for many of the USA founders. So this line of thinking makes no sense.
Unless this is a trickster god like Loki who were also in American Indian myths.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I agree that God does not have any responsibility to prove Himself to anyone.

He doesn't? Why not?

I mean, I understand that nobody could force an omnipotent god to do what he doesn't want to do, but you say that God is good. If this is true, then this means that God has voluntarily taken on the responsibilities that come with being good.

Part of being good means being fair and ethical. I don't see how the system you propose - where people are treated differently on the basis of whether they accept the claims of a "messenger" that God knows full well many will find ridiculous - is fair or ethical.

Now... I agree that God has no obligation to be fair or ethical, but if he didn't, it would be incorrect for us to call him "good" (or "entirely good," at least).

 

[Trailblazer]

He doesn't? Why not?

Because God is not responsible to anyone.

I mean, I understand that nobody could force an omnipotent god to do what he doesn't want to do, but you say that God is good. If this is true, then this means that God has voluntarily taken on the responsibilities that come with being good.

You do not get to define what is good. God defines that.

You can have a personal opinion as to what *you think* is good but that has no standing to anyone except yourself. So *you think* it is good for God to prove he exists, but God does not think it is good for you. God is good so God only does what He thinks is good *for us.* God does not think that is good for us, or He would have done it.

I do not have time to explain why He doesn’t prove Himself right now, I have to go to work and it is a long haul. Ask me later if you want to know.

Part of being good means being fair and ethical. I don't see how the system you propose - where people are treated differently on the basis of whether they accept the claims of a "messenger" that God knows full well many will find ridiculous - is fair or ethical.

First, God is not a human so God is not subject to being ethical. Since God is All-Knowing and All-Wise as well as All-Powerful, God sets the standards for humans as to what is ethical; humans do not set ethical standards for God, that is backwards.

However, God is just which means God is fair.

Why should it matter to God is *some people* think that the idea of Messengers is ridiculous? Why should God cater to those few people? Nobody is treated differently, that is the whole point. The Messengers are sent to everyone and everyone is treated the same way, free to choose whether to believe in them or not.

Now... I agree that God has no obligation to be fair or ethical, but if he didn't, it would be incorrect for us to call him "good" (or "entirely good," at least).

Ethics does not apply to God, but God is fair. There is nothing *unfair* about God using Messengers. God cannot help it if some people don’t *like the idea* and want something else instead. God does not run a catering serve. God does what is best for the collective whole.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Because God is not responsible to anyone.

Not even to himself?

You do not get to define what is good. God defines that.

Nonsense. Divine command theory is a load of rubbish. If God were to exist, he would be just another player in the game. He might have the power to issue commands and to punish people who disobey, but this does not automatically make those commands good or disobeying them evil.

You can have a personal opinion as to what *you think* is good but that has no standing to anyone except yourself.

Same for God.

So *you think* it is good for God to prove he exists, but God does not think it is good for you.

No, I think it's good to act out of fairness. A god who doled out rewards and punishments based on an unfair test would not be a fair god.

God is good so God only does what He thinks is good *for us.* God does not think that is good for us, or He would have done it.

How do you know that God is good?

I do not have time to explain why He doesn’t prove Himself right now, I have to go to work and it is a long haul. Ask me later if you want to know.

That wasn't what I was asking this time, and frankly, unless you're going to bring something new to the table, I'm not interested in hearing you repeat the same set of claims again. Your arguments were flawed the first time and they haven't improved with age.

First, God is not a human so God is not subject to being fair and ethical.

So you don't think that fairness and ethics are necessary parts of being good?

Since God is All-Knowing and All-Wise as well as All-Powerful, God sets the standards for humans as to what is fair and ethical; humans do not set the standards for God, that is backward.

"Setting a standard" does not define what is good. If God told us to meet an evil standard, the fact that God commanded it wouldn't make those evil commands good.

Nevertheless, God is just which means God is fair.

Finally: you do agree that God is fair.

Do you think that a god who is fair would do unfair things?

Why should it matter to God is *some people* think that the idea of Messengers is ridiculous? Why should God cater to those few people?

It matters because it implies that God set them up to fail. All the parameters of the game were set by God, so God skewed things to create the outcome.

Nobody is treated differently, that is the whole point. The Messengers are sent to everyone and everyone is treated the same way, free to choose whether to believe in them or not.

But they aren't treated the sane way because of the starting conditions, which were set by God.

Imagine a race where people start at different distances from the finish line, some racers carry heavy weights, some are tied to each other, and some are out of earshot of the starting signal. Would you say that the race is fair just because everyone is supposed to cross the same finish line?

Ethics does not apply to God, but God is fair. There is nothing *unfair* about God using Messengers.

Actually, messengers are inherently unfair. Using messengers means that the opportunity to hear the message will vary.

I'd bet good money that the vast majority of the world hasn't even heard of Baha'u'llah. Even if they're credulous enough to accept the Baha'i message on his say-so, they still haven't even been afforded that opportunity.

God cannot help it if some people don’t *like the idea* and want something else instead.

God cannot help it? You think that human nature is so powerful that even an omnipotent god can't overcome it?

God does not run a catering serve. God does what is best for the collective whole.

God set all the starting conditions and set all the parameters of the test that he expected his own creation to pass.

I heard a quote in the context of policy and risk management, but I think it applies here as well: "if you're going to write your own test, you'd better get 100%." An omnipotent god, testing his own creation and the things that flowed from it according to his own standards, has no excuse whatsoever for failing to achieve an outcome that's the slightest bit less than what he wanted.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

God cannot dial it back because God is not a human being. God is God and cannot change His nature..

Yet one more thing you "know" about god, which flies in the face of your claim that you don't know anything about god.... !

But. This sort of god? Is **not** repeat **not** all powerful. If it cannot dial itself back? IT IS NOT ALL KNOWING TOO.

Rather limited, in fact.

God is by nature what God is, unlimited. God is by nature unchanging. God has no interest in dialing it back in order to be able to communicate with humans. Any God that kowtows to humans is not God.

"unlimited". Except for several EPIC FAIL traits: It cannot dial itself back, in order to speak to everyone.

It cannot muster up enough "god magic" to become convincing to the majority on earth-- let alone everyone.

It cannot control it's own massively over-stuffed Ego.

NOT ALL POWERFUL. NOT ALL KNOWING.

Ooops!

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Because God is not responsible to anyone..

So. Just a Big Bully, then? Kind of an *** too? Gotcha.

You do not get to define what is good. God defines that..

ABSOLUTELY FALSE. Let GOD speak for GOD on this subject, and NOT repeat NOT through some failure as an... ahem... "messenger".

What? God cannot speak for itself? We know: That is the way of MYTHS, you see.

You can have a personal opinion as to what *you think* is good but that has no standing to anyone except yourself. So *you think* it is good for God to prove he exists, but God does not think it is good for you. God is good so God only does what He thinks is good *for us.* God does not think that is good for us, or He would have done it..

MIGHT DOES NOT MAKE RIGHT. Fail.

I do not have time to explain why He doesn’t prove Himself right now, I have to go to work and it is a long haul. Ask me later if you want to know..

He doesn't because:

1) He is a giant azz, a jerk, a Cosmic Bully-- malicious, and enjoys people's pain
2) He's not really a god at all, and absolutely lacks the power to prove himself
3) He is suffering from an Infinite Case of Not Existing.

Which is it?

First, God is not a human so God is not subject to being ethical. Since God is All-Knowing and All-Wise as well as All-Powerful, God sets the standards for humans as to what is ethical; humans do not set ethical standards for God, that is backwards..

MIGHT DOES NOT MAKE RIGHT. Fail.

However, God is just which means God is fair..

100000 times FALSE: It is patently UNFAIR to stoop to using Special Favorites.

Why should it matter to God is *some people* think that the idea of Messengers is ridiculous? Why should God cater to those few people? Nobody is treated differently, that is the whole point. The Messengers are sent to everyone and everyone is treated the same way, free to choose whether to believe in them or not..

MIGHT DOES NOT MAKE RIGHT.

Ethics does not apply to God, but God is fair. There is nothing *unfair* about God using Messengers. God cannot help it if some people don’t *like the idea* and want something else instead. God does not run a catering serve. God does what is best for the collective whole.

False. False, and False. Also? Might does NOT make Right. AGAIN.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

God doesn’t WANT to impart information and override free will. That is why God doesn’t do so, not because it would cause damage..

LMAO! Riiiight. So this... ahem.... "god" of yours? LACKS THE POWER TO DIAL HIMSELF BACK?

Not much of a god, is it?

Do you think God cares if you are impressed?

Do you think *I* care about such a monster as you have imagined? LOL!

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

I did not say might makes right, I said omniscience makes right..

LMAO! Dude!(ette)! THAT IS THE EXACT SAME THING!

Your god? Is absolutely IMMORAL...

God knows how to but God chooses not to do what God knows how to do. Omnipotence cuts both ways.

MIGHT DOES NOT MAKE RIGHT.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Why should He, just because you want Him to? Sorry, God does not take orders from humans. .

Me? I do not care either way: I am 100% convinced your god is just another myth, in a long string of similar myths about a MONSTER-GOD who cannot manage a simple card trick.

LOL!

You can scream "GOD IS EVIL" but that doesn't make God evil. That is because YOU do not determine what God is; God determines that. .

MIGHT DOES NOT MAKE RIGHT: Your god is pure EVIL. And it's not ME saying this.

Moral Philosophy says this.

So what? That does not prove a damn thing, except that many humans are evil. .

And your god? The most evil of them all-- if it were real....

God is under NO obligation to do anything. God gave humans a brain and free will to act morally. God is not subject to morals because God is not a human..

Dead Beat Dad syndrome. Evil.

No, it is proof that humans do evil things..

So YOU claim-- but your description of your god? IS ONE OF A VERY EVIL BEING.

Nice attempt at a dodge. Why should God be responsible to prevent what humans are fully capable of preventing?.

I never asked about that: PROJECTION/STRAWMAN.

You have that backwards. It is humans who are evil because of neglect.

Dead Beat Dad syndrome: EVIL. (your god, not people)

 

[BilliardsBall]

Absolutely! And have done so. But I'm rather ordinary; however brilliant writers have not only written better books, some are still alive today.


Yes. Can you, in yours? No? This is because the bible is full of contradictory messages. It's so very *not* consistent, that there are more than 40,000 different brands of 'chrisitan' today.

That number grows each year.


Rabbit Trail. If god were real, and still around? There would be modern, recently created bible.

My stupid cell phone has monthly updates. I expect the Ultimate Creator of the Universe to update the bible with each new change in language and understanding.

You appear to be content with a Bronze Age book that is so out of date, it's nearly worthless.

It IS worthless as a Moral Guide: the bible states slavery is just fine, so long as you don't kill your slaves right away.

I think I understand. Let me restate your arguments, to ensure I understand?

1) You've written a better book(s) than the number one bestselling, most read book, ever.

2) The Bible is inconsistent, self-contradictory, powerless--this would explain why currently, it has inspired 40,000 different people movements, who go beyond voting or simple affirmation to spending their time, money and life adhering to these movements.

3) If God exists, we'd have a modern, recently created re-Bible, not a timeless, evergreen Bible that is the explanatory power of #s 1 and 2 above.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

God is by nature what God is, unlimited. God is by nature unchanging. God has no interest in dialing it back in order to be able to communicate with humans. Any God that kowtows to humans is not God.

Not "kowtowing to humans;" designing and creating humans the way he wants them to be.

You've proposed a god whose own works - humanity - don't meet the standard that God proposed for himself. This is entirely about God failing his own test, not about humanity demanding things from God.

If God really does want humanity to know him and really was the creator of everything, then every human being who doesn't know him represents a failure on the part of God.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

God doesn’t WANT to impart information and override free will. That is why God doesn’t do so, not because it would cause damage.

This does not even begin to make sense. Having information with which to make wise choices is the only thing that permits real free will. Without that, you're just guessing in the dark.

But the damage is done...by not imparting information that can be reasonably and rationally determined to be true, we have a world in which religions have been fighting and killing each other since religion started. So it would appear that you think that's what God wants.

 

[columbus]

Having information with which to make wise choices is the only thing that permits real free will.

This!
If you want to go somewhere, but don't know where the place is, are you really free to choose to go there? No.
Information is what enables free will. The common Abrahamic premise, that God can't be clear to protect out free will, is ridiculous.
Tom

 

[Hawkins]

Who would know the best way to communicate to humans in order to accomplish what God wants to accomplish, humans or God?

Maybe to your surprise, I was ever "trained" to reckon messages from an entity from the simplest to the most complicated. I thus did my own speculation on how thing work, that is, how a message convey in an unambiguous manner. I speculate that there's one thing in common, it's more like a protocol which is recorded in Acts 14:3. I call this a time trick. It is a making use of human's incapability to reach a futuric moment. It's thus a confirmation of message by a futuric mean.

Acts 14:3 (NIV2011)
So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders.

This is usually done only to an extent where your doubt is "settled", no less no more. It won't be done more obvious than necessary to remove your doubt that you are carrying the message. This confirmation has several key characteristics. First, as mentioned above, it's somehow a "time trick", that is, the so-called "signs" in the above verse is somehow "pre-told" before it happens. Second the "signs" are related to the message you are carrying, it is thus acting as a confirmation of the message. In effect, it is a time trick to confirm a message in an unambiguous manner. The third, a "sign" comes real fast (as fast as like within 2 minutes of a "pre-telling".

It goes typically like this,
I was touched by the Holy Spirit that a message needs to by convey, but how can I tell it's from the Holy Spirit instead of my own imagination. So now I have "doubt". Then I said to myself, "I definitely need a sign to confirm the message at hand". Then you will caught by a surprised happened usually within 2 minutes with a "sign" closely related to the message. However it won't be as evident as it can surpass the need to clearing your doubt, at the same time you won't be able to make it evident to a third person. This is almost the rule. I speculate that this is so because "you still need faith, no matter what ever after you received messages this way as many times as God demands". Paul has a lot of experience. He ever even talked to the angels. Yet he put that he had fought a good fight of faith.

More complicated messages go a different way but with the same common "time trick". Long before I was turned to Christian, I heard a piece of news that someone tried to read the contents written in unknown ancient language from an artifact drove himself mad. That's the syndrome of reading something super complicated with multiple layers of meanings. That is to say, reading complicated messages without being properly guided (by the Holy Spirit) may have a chance to drive you insane.

I called the complication I ever experienced as a "2 x 3 matrix". It's more like a burst of tons of messages all appearing in your mind, that you mind is full of different messages at the same time that you have to sort them in the order of importance instead of "chronically". And later on you can only remember the top 10 in the list (of importance). I thus conclude that a more complicated "3 x 3 matrix" would definitely drive a human insane.

 

[viole]

In the Writings of Baha’u’llah, it has been made perfectly clearwhy God does not communicate directly to everyone, but rather only communicates to chosen Messengers. If people do not like that *logical explanation* they do not have to accept it. We all have free will to choose.

Well, that implies that you believe what Baha’u’llah said. I don’t. For the same reasons I mentioned above. For sure, this atheist here does not rate this as reliable communication from God.

Obviously.

Since you do not know anything about God (without reading what a Messengerrevealed)you are shooting in the dark, so you cannot understand WHY God does not communicate *directly* to everyone. There are logical reasons for those who care to be logical. The others can just go on believing that God should communicate to everyone directly, but God is never going to do that, so they will never know anything about God or what God wants of them.

Well, of course I know nothing about God. Which one, by the way? They must be thousands. But you asked me. I did not ask you, what make your Baha’ allah whatever so compelling.

There is no *reason* to think that the “true” Messengers of God made things up. What would be their motive? All of them suffered and sacrificed and got nothing for themselves. By contrast, when we look at the false messengers it is abundantly clear that they had selfish private motives. Also, the true Messengers had teachings and laws that were of value to humanity, but the false ones had nothing but bunk.

Well, first of all I would like to see how you differentiate between the true messangers and the false ones, without begging the question.

Their motive? We know that people can kill themselves and all their families because they strongly believe that some starship hiding behind a comet will pick their dead souls up.

So, we know people delude themselves. It happens all the time. You must believe all those prophets from the competion deluded themselves. Deluding oneselves is vastly more plausible than gods talking only to selected people.

Moreover, if one looks with a Baha’i perspective they can see how all the true Messengers were tied together, how their missions were connected, one leading to the next. By contrast, if we look at the false messenger we see no such thing. All we see is a lone man who wanted people to believe in him and worship him. No true Messenger ever wanted to be worshiped and that is another way we can differentiate true from false. By your fruits you shall know them, as Jesus said. It is not that difficult to differentiate between good fruit and rotten fruit.

You make the assumption that good fruits are really good and it is not the other way round. For what you know, God could be an evil being that likes you to believe that, while secretly trying to split people.

See? In order to believe prophet X, you must have some a priori assumptions that makes him believable. And that, is logically untenable, if god did not whisper to you too.

Ciao

- viole