Clearly, God wants us to worship Him, but why should we?

[Trailblazer]

But how do they reconcile what the Bible says with what they say?

What does the Bible say about Adam that would preclude Him being a Prophet?

 

[Trailblazer]

Trailblazer said: Why do you think that God wants to convince you?

I am told this time and time and time again. Also here again, I feel you are not holding to your own tenets/beliefs, or are not thinking before you post. So often I feel that theists just contradict themselves willy-nilly, and don't even detect the conflict because I think they often feel that as long as they are defending God and their religion they can do no wrong. You may not even be conscious of it, but seriously here, "WHY" do I think God wants to convince me?

So you believe that God wants to convince you just because some believers tell you that? Where do they get their information about God? They get it from scriptures. I do not know anywhere in the Bible where it says God wants to convince you so I think that is a projection of what believers believe what they think God would want onto the scriptures or else they have not thought it through. I mean if an omnipotent God wanted to convince you He could easily do so but that would interfere with your free will choice to choose.

You accept all sorts of things that point to God wanting to convince humanity of His existence. YOU believe them. Not me, obviously, but YOU do. So for you to ask a question like this seems oddly disingenuous - like you're trying to change what God is to your mind, or make me question my position by considering that there is some different sort of God than what I might think there is. Believe me when I say that I do not think there is ANY SORT of God out there. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.

There is a HUGE difference between saying that God wants you to believe in Him and saying God wants to convince you to believe in Him. Simply put, God wants you to believe in Him, but only if you choose to by virtue of your own free will.

Think about it. if an omnipotent God wanted to convince you it would be as easy as falling off a log. NOTHING is difficult for an omnipotent God.

But YOU believe... and you believe He has sent messengers, and you therefore MUST believe that He takes some interest in humanity. You likely believe that He would want you to spread the word, and convince others so that they might come to know the "truth" of what the "messengers" have to report.

I do believe God has sent Messengers and God has an interest in humanity and I believe that God wants me to spread the word, because Baha’u’llah wrote that.

But that is where it ends. God does not want me to convince others; God wants people to convince themselves by doing their own independent investigation of truth

If you didn't care about this message and its implication for others, then when I challenged you you may simply say "it is not for your eyes or ears" or "it won't make sense to you" and be done with it. But that is not, at all, what you do. You say "See here, this man has done this" and "See here, the evidence that God has sent this man." These are attempts to convince... even if they are said in defense.

Nope, they are not attempts to convince you, they are just me doing my job and presenting the information you need if you want to investigate further. Everyone has the capacity to come to belief on their own. I go strictly by what Baha'u'llah wrote:

“It follows, therefore, that every man hath been, and will continue to be, able of himself to appreciate the Beauty of God, the Glorified. Had he not been endowed with such a capacity, how could he be called to account for his failure…… For the faith of no man can be conditioned by any one except himself.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 143

This still isn't good enough. For this to qualify for me, you would have to describe/prove that there is no way for any given human being to attain these things without divine intervention. This is not evidence of anything accept that these things have come to pass.

That can never be proven so I guess you will never be convinced, so I guess there is no point even looking at the evidence. You want proof, not evidence, and there is no proof.

Then you must understand why such a quote would almost never be compelling to a person who wasn't already primed to believe. And if you understand that, then why would you mention it when pressed for evidence?

It was not meant to be compelling and it was not meant to be evidence.

It was entirely useless toward that end, I assure you. And this all points to what I have been saying anyway - these texts were written in such a way that assumes that you "know God" or believe in some form of "higher power" like God. And in so doing, it is only for the people who have already built up a model of such in their minds and allowed themselves to be compelled by what I feel is nothing but flowery language.

I already told you that. The Writings of Baha’u’llah are not intended to be evidence for nonbelievers. They are either for Baha’is or other believers who are investigating the Baha’i Faith.

A whole lot of people are looking for "more" from the world, and have these lofty, spiritual expectations. Is it any wonder that they turn their heads to look when someone says they have something to offer that supposedly meets those expectations? It is absolutely no wonder to me. Just a shame is all.

What are your lofty spiritual expectations and what do you think would meet them? How would you ever know what to look for? If you know nothing about God how would you know what a revelation from God would look like?