Do you think that God should communicate directly to everyone in the world?

[Milton Platt]

In my faith, God provides evidence for His existence when He sends a message. We learn what to look for.

And how can you know the message is from your god?

 

[Trailblazer]

Again, you are not making sense. You can’t demonstrate that anything at all said or done by a supposed messenger has anything to do with the actual existence of a god. If you cannot examine the god and determine that said god and attributes exist, then you cannot claim that anything to do with a messenger represents those supposed attributes. You are making a claim for which you have no evidence. You are merely defining your god into existence by claiming certain attributes and then saying they originate in a god, without showing that the god exists to have them. The only way to know if a given god has given attributes is to be able to examine the god.

The Catch-22 as I said before is that we can never know God directly, so we can never “examine the God.” The “reason” God sends Messengers is because we can never know anything about God directly. Messengers are the only way we can know God’s Attributes since they reflect and reveal them to us.

I did not say or even imply one needs to know everything about a god to know it exists, so that is a red herring. We do not know everything about anything, really, but we know things exist because we have objective ways to test their existence.

I was not saying that you said that you need to know everything about God. I knew that was not a requirement of yours. I was just trying to explain what we “can” and “cannot” know about God because that is an important concept to understand.

How do you think we can “objectively” test the existence of a God that we have no access to, a God that is not a material Being?Some believers think that God gives them signs which are evidence of His existence, but there is no way to verify that those signs came from God. According to my beliefs nothing can indicate the absence or presence of God so we can never know what God is “doing” or “not doing.” We might “believe” that God did something but that can never be proven.

So let’s forget about what you call “essence” and focus on attributes, then. How can we examine the god to establish it has said attributes? A messenger is useless for this purpose, since that would be hearsay.

Again, we have no access to God directly, so we can never examine the God. A Messenger reflects all the Attributes of God so that is how we know those Attributes (since we cannot examine God directly).

I really do not like that word hearsay used to describe the messages that a Messenger of God received from God because a Messenger of God is not an ordinary human being; He is a higher order of creation, between a God and a man, a God-man for lack of a better word.He is sent by God for the express purpose of revealing God’s Attributes and revealing God’s Will.

And again, if your god interferes with natural cause and effect, the interference should be measurable. If he does not interfere with the natural world in any way, then the god is irrelevant.

And again, we can never “know” what God is “doing” so we cannot measure how God interferes with cause and effect. No sign can indicate God’s absence or presence.

Why do you think that God would be irrelevant if He does not interfere with the natural world? Nobody can ever know if or when God interferes in the natural world but the way God “intervenes” in the human world is by sending Messengers who bring messages and bring the Holy Spirit to the world, thus affecting affect every living thing.

The upshot is that God works through Messengers because that is how God has “chosen” to work. That is how God makes His existence known to man, and that is how God reveals His Attributes and His Will for humanity in every age.

 

[Trailblazer]

I hope you see that I can say the same thing about any God. Even the ones I can make up one right now.

It is not difficult. I can always fall back on humans failures and weaknesses when something is not understood.

I could make an argument for Mickey Mouse having created the Universe with a (misunderstood) message inspired to His prophet Walt. Don’t you see it? You just need to watch a cartoon with Mickey and Minnie to clearly see that He created the Universe for us and He developed a plan for each of us. Don’t you understand how? Your fault. You think to be better than Mickey Mouse.

You can say anything you want and make up anything you want to, but that does not make it true. The fact that you can make something up does not mean that Messenger made something up, logically speaking.... He either did or didn’t make it up and that has nothing to do with what anyone else does. It is the Fallacy of Hasty Generalization to say that just because there were a lot of false prophets all prophets are false prophets.

And that is why God or Gods should stop using middle men and take leadership at last. And speak directly to each one of us, so that we tomorrow we wake up believing in the same thing.

You cannot tell an omnipotent God how it should communicate and you cannot know more than an omniscient God about the best way to communicate.

God does not want us to wake up believing the same thing unless we found that same thing ourselves by reading what the Messenger revealed... God does not want to make people believe anything. Speaking to everyone directly would be on infringement on our free choice to believe or not believe... God wants everyone to make their own choices. That is one reason among many that God sends Messengers. People can choose to believe in them or not.

But all He does is producing a deafening silence. And He is so silent for reasons that are so obvious that it is mind boggling that people do not see them. Their fault again, I guess.

Unless God reveals the reason to a Messenger, nobody can ever know why God is silent but God Himself.

 

[Milton Platt]

The Catch-22 as I said before is that we can never know God directly, so we can never “examine the God.” The “reason” God sends Messengers is because we can never know anything about God directly. Messengers are the only way we can know God’s Attributes since they reflect and reveal them to us.

I was not saying that you said that you need to know everything about God. I knew that was not a requirement of yours. I was just trying to explain what we “can” and “cannot” know about God because that is an important concept to understand.

How do you think we can “objectively” test the existence of a God that we have no access to, a God that is not a material Being?Some believers think that God gives them signs which are evidence of His existence, but there is no way to verify that those signs came from God. According to my beliefs nothing can indicate the absence or presence of God so we can never know what God is “doing” or “not doing.” We might “believe” that God did something but that can never be proven.

Again, we have no access to God directly, so we can never examine the God. A Messenger reflects all the Attributes of God so that is how we know those Attributes (since we cannot examine God directly).

I really do not like that word hearsay used to describe the messages that a Messenger of God received from God because a Messenger of God is not an ordinary human being; He is a higher order of creation, between a God and a man, a God-man for lack of a better word.He is sent by God for the express purpose of revealing God’s Attributes and revealing God’s Will.

And again, we can never “know” what God is “doing” so we cannot measure how God interferes with cause and effect. No sign can indicate God’s absence or presence.

Why do you think that God would be irrelevant if He does not interfere with the natural world? Nobody can ever know if or when God interferes in the natural world but the way God “intervenes” in the human world is by sending Messengers who bring messages and bring the Holy Spirit to the world, thus affecting affect every living thing.

The upshot is that God works through Messengers because that is how God has “chosen” to work. That is how God makes His existence known to man, and that is how God reveals His Attributes and His Will for humanity in every age.

Two key points, which I have already stated to you more than once:

1. We do not have to directly observe the god to determine if it exists. We can indirectly observe the effects it has on the natural world, as distinguished from the way the natural world would work with out any interference from a god. In other words, if the god distorts natural laws and processes, we should be able, by experiment, to measure that. We cannot "observe" gravity, for instance, but we can measure it's effects. I offered answering prayers as an example, and also provided you with the Pew Research Center as an example of someone who has done such research.
If the god has virtually no apparent effect on the natural world, then even if such god existed, it would be irrelevant.

2. You saying that the god works through messengers does not make it a fact. The messenger saying he/she received the information from a god does not provide evidence, either. You must demonstrate that a given messenger actually received messages, instructions, and/or knowledge from said god. Even if everything the messenger is purported to have said is 100% accurate, you still have not established the origin of the information. You must demonstrate the existence of the god before you can postulate that it is an agent which provides information to the supposed messenger. And even if you were to establish the existence of the god beyond all reasonable doubt, you still have to demonstrate that any information the messenger has came from that particular entity. I have no idea how one would do such a thing......but that is what is required before you can move from mere belief to knowing. You have virtually all of your work ahead of you...........

Your position is a faith based one, not a knowledge based one. That's fine if you are comfortable with basing your life on faith. I prefer to base mine on knowledge. I'm just trying to get you to understand there is a difference.


I hope this makes my position clearer for you.

 

[Neuropteron]

Do you think that God should communicate directly to everyone in the world?

If you think God should do that, please explain why you think so.
If you think God should not do that, please explain why not.

Please explain the reasons for your answer.

Thanks, Trailblazer

---------

According to his own statement, yes, God sould communicate with us, and he does through his word the Bible.
Correspondingly we are able to talk to him in prayer.

Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good. And what is JHVH requiring of you? Only to exercise justice, to cherish loyalty, and to walk in lmodersty with your God!

 

[Trailblazer]

Two key points, which I have already stated to you more than once:
1. We do not have to directly observe the god to determine if it exists. We can indirectly observe the effects it has on the natural world, as distinguished from the way the natural world would work with out any interference from a god. In other words, if the god distorts natural laws and processes, we should be able, by experiment, to measure that.

As I said before there is no way we can ever know the effects God has upon the natural world because we can never know what an unknowable God is “doing.”

We cannot "observe" gravity, for instance, but we can measure it's effects. I offered answering prayers as an example, and also provided you with the Pew Research Center as an example of someone who has done such research.

I was never able to find the study online, but I do not really think studies like this prayer study prove anything as to whether God answers prayers or not.

If the god has virtually no apparent effect on the natural world, then even if such god existed, it would be irrelevant.

God probably does have an effect upon the natural world but we cannot prove it or know what those effects are. God is unknowable, except for His Attributes and His Will for every age in history. That means the actions of God are unknowable.

2. You saying that the god works through messengers does not make it a fact. The messenger saying he/she received the information from a god does not provide evidence, either. You must demonstrate that a given messenger actually received messages, instructions, and/or knowledge from said god.

Nobody can prove that in any objective way. The Messenger is the only one who could know because He had the experience.

Even if everything the messenger is purported to have said is 100% accurate, you still have not established the origin of the information. You must demonstrate the existence of the god before you can postulate that it is an agent which provides information to the supposed messenger.

The origin of that information cannot be established as a fact. That is impossible since God is unknowable to anyone else except the Messenger.

Don’t you think that if the existence of God could be demonstrated it would have been demonstrated it by now? So there are three mutually exclusive logical possibilities:

1. God exists and communicates via Messengers; so we can know something about God, or
2. God exists and does not communicate at all, so we can know nothing about God, or
3. God does not exist

Any one of these possibilities is as logical as another

And even if you were to establish the existence of the god beyond all reasonable doubt, you still have to demonstrate that any information the messenger has came from that particular entity. I have no idea how one would do such a thing......but that is what is required before you can move from mere belief to knowing. You have virtually all of your work ahead of you...........

You do not require much do you?

You raised a good point though. Even if we could prove that God exists by some means other than the Messenger we would still not know that the Messenger got a message from God.

So don’t you see? We are right back where we started, trying to prove the Messenger got a message from God. But if we could prove that the Messenger got a message from God, then we would know that God exists, since a God has to exist in order to communicate a message.

Your position is a faith based one, not a knowledge based one. That's fine if you are comfortable with basing your life on faith. I prefer to base mine on knowledge. I'm just trying to get you to understand there is a difference.

Faith is necessary at the onset of the search in order get the show on the road. In other words, we have to be able to entertain the “possibility” that God exists and uses Messengers to communicate. That is not blind faith but rather reason-based faith because there is evidence from scriptures that God communicated to various Messengers, although nobody can prove that. Then we would look at a particular Messenger to determine if the evidence that supports His claim is adequate to believe He actually got a message from God. Although it is not objective knowledge of God there is a lot of objective evidence that supports the claim of Baha’u’llah to have received a message from God. If we determine that evidence is adequate we can move from questioning to certainty that Baha’u’llah got a message from God. At that point our faith is based upon knowledge, knowledge of Baha’u’llah. To Baha’is, knowledge of Baha’u’llah constitutes knowledge of God, since Baha’u’llah is a perfect mirror image of God who has God’s Attributes and God’s Knowledge.

I hope this makes my position clearer for you.

Yes indeed.
I hope my position is clear as well.

There seems to be a chasm between atheists and most believers regarding the Messengers of God. For some reason, religious believers are able to believe that Messengers represent God but for some reason atheists have a problem believing that. For over four years I have been discussing this with atheists and agnostics mostly on other forums, before I came to RF last December. These conversations continue.

I have made some good friends on the other forum I post on but we have not made much headway regarding the Messengers. Psychology is my other hat and one I wore a lot longer than my religion hat, so I have vowed to get to the bottom of this even if it kills me. All atheists and agnostics are individuals so I am sure their reasons differ, but there are some common threads that run through all their protestations. Of course, one of those is that nobody can prove that Messengers got a message from God, another is that almost exclusively men who have claimed to be Messengers of God were phonies. However, that does not prove that there are no “real” Messengers of God, logically speaking.

Finally, there are quite a few atheists who like you require that God’s existence be proven before they would be willing to believe in a Messenger was from God. For some reason, they cannot grasp the concept that if God uses Messengers exclusively as proof of His existence, there will not be any other proof. One cannot make an Omnipotent God do anything differently than it wants to do and an Omniscient God knows the “best way” to communicate to humanity. This to me is logical, very logical. I do not understand why others don’t understand.

 

[Trailblazer]

---------

According to his own statement, yes, God should communicate with us, and he does through his word the Bible.
Correspondingly we are able to talk to him in prayer.

I agree that God communicated through the Bible and we can talk to God in prayer, but atheists do not consider that "direct communication." Some atheists want God to speak to everyone in the world directly. They think God should speak directly in the ears of all 7.44 billion people in the world. For these atheists, the Bible or other religious scriptures are not evidence that God exists. The only evidence they would believe is direct communication from God to them.

 

[viole]

You can say anything you want and make up anything you want to, but that does not make it true. The fact that you can make something up does not mean that Messenger made something up, logically speaking.... He either did or didn’t make it up and that has nothing to do with what anyone else does. It is the Fallacy of Hasty Generalization to say that just because there were a lot of false prophets all prophets are false prophets.

Cool, but since I believe all religions are made up, I am not sure how that helps you. Since you have no way to show that God X is more true than God Y, you will always have to trust the middle men (aka prophets).

You cannot tell an omnipotent God how it should communicate and you cannot know more than an omniscient God about the best way to communicate.

Of course I can. Look : God, please, speak out!

And again, i can say the same about Mickey Mouse or Apollo.

God does not want us to wake up believing the same thing unless we found that same thing ourselves by reading what the Messenger revealed... God does not want to make people believe anything. Speaking to everyone directly would be on infringement on our free choice to believe or not believe... God wants everyone to make their own choices. That is one reason among many that God sends Messengers. People can choose to believe in them or not.

Apart from being an obvious rationalization of His silence, I am not sure what selnse it makes.

Does He want us to believe in Him, and He wants to be sure that we choose freely? Him who? There are thousands alternatives. So, it looks more like the lottery.

I really think He needs to talk. But I am sure He will not do that. For clear reasons.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Trailblazer]

Cool, but since I believe all religions are made up, I am not sure how that helps you. Since you have no way to show that God X is more true than God Y, you will always have to trust the middle men (aka prophets).

That is the very truth. You will always have to trust Messengers of God.

Of course I can. Look : God, please, speak out!

Go right ahead, but you are wasting your time because God already spoke to Baha’u’llah and He is not going to be speaking again till at least 2852 A.D.

And again, i can say the same about Mickey Mouse or Apollo.

Say whatever you want to. I won’t make it true.

Apart from being an obvious rationalization of His silence, I am not sure what sense it makes.

Rationalization: the action of attempting to explain or justify behavior or an attitude with logical reasons, even if these are not appropriate. https://www.google.com/search

God is under no obligation to explain or justify His behavior to you. Sorry you do not like the logical reason, but it is the reason God does what He does.

God is under no God has no obligation to speak to you or anyone except His Chosen Messengers.

Does He want us to believe in Him, and He wants to be sure that we choose freely? Him who? There are thousands alternatives. So, it looks more like the lottery.

I really think He needs to talk. But I am sure He will not do that. For clear reasons.

God would rather have you choose freely to not believe in Him than to be coerced into believing in Him.

It is not the place of any human being to tell an omnipotent God what He “needs to do.” You can do that if you want to but it is very presumptuous to think you know more than an omniscient God about what He needs to do.

God already talked to Baha’u’llah. It is quite obvious that He is the Messenger of God for this age in history, to anyone who is willing to look at the evidence.

You think you know the reasons God won’t talk to you? Please share.

 

[Neuropteron]

I agree that God communicated through the Bible and we can talk to God in prayer, but atheists do not consider that "direct communication." Some atheists want God to speak to everyone in the world directly. They think God should speak directly in the ears of all 7.44 billion people in the world. For these atheists, the Bible or other religious scriptures are not evidence that God exists. The only evidence they would believe is direct communication from God to them.

.........

Certainly true, but God does things his way and will not be dictated by unbelievers or dance to their tune.
That being said Ezekiel did prophesy that he would reveal themselves to them and "force" them to acknowledge his sovereignity, however it will be to their detriment. (Ez 38:23)

All the best

 

[Trailblazer]

.........

Certainly true, but God does things his way and will not be dictated by unbelievers or dance to their tune.
That being said Ezekiel did prophesy that he would reveal themselves to them and "force" them to acknowledge his sovereignity, however it will be to their detriment. (Ez 38:23)

All the best

Ezekiel 38:23 King James Version (KJV)

23 Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

Why do you think that verse means that he would reveal themselves to them and "force" them to acknowledge his sovereignty, to their detriment?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I agree that God communicated through the Bible and we can talk to God in prayer, but atheists do not consider that "direct communication." Some atheists want God to speak to everyone in the world directly. They think God should speak directly in the ears of all 7.44 billion people in the world.

Why would this be unreasonable for an omnipotent god to do?

For these atheists, the Bible or other religious scriptures are not evidence that God exists.

That’s right: hearsay is very poor quality evidence. A story of a miracle, for instance, can never establish that the miracle happened, since stories of miracles can be made up.

Generally, religious scripture is a better fit for the idea that the religion and its god(s) are human fabrication than they are for the idea that the scripture was actually inspired by a god.

The only evidence they would believe is direct communication from God to them.

It’s not so much that; it’s more this: the only evidence that is useful for establishing that a god exists is evidence that can’t be explained by saying that the evidence was a human fabrication.

As long as you’re relying on someone else’s say-so as evidence for gods, you’ll have to deal with questions like “what if they authors were mistaken?” and “what if they just made it all up?” and “even if they were being honest and accurate, are there relevant details they didn’t report?”

Direct communication from god would be one way of getting rid of these questions: if the evidence isn’t being filtered through a messenger, then questions about the reliability of the messenger don’t apply.

Physical evidence would be another way to do it, provided that we could justify why the evidence necessarily points to a god.

Another way to do it would be to establish that the messenger is reliable, but so far, you’ve failed to do this.

... and before you go through your list of the Baha’i qualifications for “messenger” for the umpteenth time, understand that if your list of qualifications can’t logically support the conclusions “... therefore he couldn’t have been wrong” and “... therefore we know he reported on every relevant detail,” then they’re useless at actually establishing the reliability of the messenger.

The real issue so far is that religious scripture by itself is generally consistent with the religion being a human fabrication, so it’s basically useless for establishing that the scripture was inspired by God and isn’t a human fabrication.

Does that make sense?

 

[Trailblazer]

Trailblazer said: I agree that God communicated through the Bible and we can talk to God in prayer, but atheists do not consider that "direct communication." Some atheists want God to speak to everyone in the world directly. They think God should speak directly in the ears of all 7.44 billion people in the world.

Penguin said: Why would this be unreasonable for an omnipotent god to do?

What God does is not about what God can do. God can do anything because God is omnipotent, but that does not mean that God has to exercise His omnipotence. What God does is about what God wants to do. It is precisely because God is omnipotent that God only does what He wants to do, not what humans want Him to do. Don’t you think if God is All-Knowing and All-Wise, God knows the best way to communicate to the humans He created? That is only logical, thus we as humans with the ability to reason should consider it reasonable.

I cannot speak for what is unreasonable to God, God does not reason as humans do... All we can know about God is in scriptures, and from those we can know that God wants us to come to Him by Love and Desire, not my coercion. If God intruded on our minds by communicating to us directly, God would be interfering with our free will choice to search for Him and find Him if we want to.

If God spoke to everyone directly, God would be intruding on our consciousness. Not every one of 7.44 billion people in the world are interested in God, not by a long shot. If they were, they would not be so engrossed in self and the worldly things. The ones who are interested find God in the revealed religious scriptures. God set it up that way and God speaks through the Word. God spoke through the Word in the Bible but it is difficult to understand what was meant and as such the Bible was terribly misconstrued by Christians early on... Thus the Christian doctrines were created by man and they led Christians astray for the most part. As a result, the actual teachings of Jesus were lost in a maze of doctrines such as original sin, saved and forgiven by the cross, and raised by the resurrection, and Jesus is going to return to establish the Kingdom.

Now God has spoken again through Baha’u’llah and He clarified the meaning of much of the Bible.

That’s right: hearsay is very poor quality evidence. A story of a miracle, for instance, can never establish that the miracle happened, since stories of miracles can be made up.

That is true, but miracles are not important because they are only valuable to those who witnessed them. The Bible stories are just stories used to convey inner spiritual truths. As such, it does not matter if they actually happened.

Generally, religious scripture is a better fit for the idea that the religion and its god(s) are human fabrication than they are for the idea that the scripture was actually inspired by a god.

If that is how you view them, that is how you view them. The more I read and understand the Bible, the more I realize it is not human fabrication; although it was written by humans, it was inspired by God. Sure, much of the original meaning was lost in transcription and translation, but spiritual Truth shines through.

By contrast to the Bible, the Writings of Baha’u’llah speak directly from God because Baha’u’llah speaks from the station of the Father, with great power and authority. It is God speaking through Him. That I know.

It’s not so much that; it’s more this: the only evidence that is useful for establishing that a god exists is evidence that can’t be explained by saying that the evidence was a human fabrication.

Of course you can always say it was human fabrication if it comes from a human. The salient point if that a Messenger of God is more than human (see below). But one should never just accept that without doing the necessary investigation and doing it with an open mind.

As long as you’re relying on someone else’s say-so as evidence for gods, you’ll have to deal with questions like “what if they authors were mistaken?” and “what if they just made it all up?” and “even if they were being honest and accurate, are there relevant details they didn’t report?”

Direct communication from god would be one way of getting rid of these questions: if the evidence isn’t being filtered through a messenger, then questions about the reliability of the messenger don’t apply.

God wants you to ask all these questions but God does not want to provide the answers for you and thereby make it easy and straightforward; it is humans who want it to be easy. And since God is the one in charge of communication to us, God calls the shots as to how that will be accomplished and how easy it will be.

God gave us an intelligent mind and our own innate powers and our own volition so we could sort all these things out on our own. The answers to the questions are all in the scriptures. They are much easier to comprehend in the Baha’i Writings than the Bible because they were written for this age in history so they are tailored for where humanity is now at is in his spiritual evolution.

The Baha’i Writings also contain additional answers to questions that had not been revealed in the days of old, because thousands of years ago humanity was not ready to hear what we are now ready to hear. In every age more truths are revealed according to our needs and our capacity to understand, and that process will continue forever.

“How great the multitude of truths which the garment of words can never contain! How vast the number of such verities as no expression can adequately describe, whose significance can never be unfolded, and to which not even the remotest allusions can be made! How manifold are the truths which must remain unuttered until the appointed time is come! Even as it hath been said: “Not everything that a man knoweth can be disclosed, nor can everything that he can disclose be regarded as timely, nor can every timely utterance be considered as suited to the capacity of those who hear it.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 176​

It is possible to sort all this out with what is in scriptures but it takes (a) motivation and (b) effort, and this requires a sacrifice of time.

“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​

It is not like falling off a log, but one has to start somewhere if one wants to discover the truth. It is a never-ending process as one can never learn everything there is to know.

We all have different capacities and different life situations so it is more difficult for some people than for others, but it we all have the capacity to recognize the Beauty of God in the person of His Messenger. It simply takes the exercise of our volition.

“Know thou that all men have been created in the nature made by God, the Guardian, the Self-Subsisting. Unto each one hath been prescribed a pre-ordained measure, as decreed in God’s mighty and guarded Tablets. All that which ye potentially possess can, however, be manifested only as a result of your own volition. Your own acts testify to this truth…
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 149​

Physical evidence would be another way to do it, provided that we could justify why the evidence necessarily points to a god.

I do not think we can ever know what God is “doing” so I do not think we can ever establish that anything that happened in this physical world points to a God. All we can do is conjecture, but that is not even evidence, let alone proof.

Another way to do it would be to establish that the messenger is reliable, but so far, you’ve failed to do this.

The caveat and a very important one is that nobody can establish that the Messenger is reliable for anyone else. We all have to do our own independent investigation of the Messenger and come to our own conclusions. Otherwise, we are not getting it firsthand thus we are taking someone else’s word for it.

“Bahá’u’lláh asked no one to accept His statements and His tokens blindly. On the contrary, He put in the very forefront of His teachings emphatic warnings against blind acceptance of authority, and urged all to open their eyes and ears, and use their own judgement, independently and fearlessly, in order to ascertain the truth. He enjoined the fullest investigation and never concealed Himself, offering, as the supreme proofs of His Prophethood, His words and works and their effects in transforming the lives and characters of men.” Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, p. 8​

... and before you go through your list of the Baha’i qualifications for “messenger” for the umpteenth time, understand that if your list of qualifications can’t logically support the conclusions “... therefore he couldn’t have been wrong” and “... therefore we know he reported on every relevant detail,” then they’re useless at actually establishing the reliability of the messenger.

Well, I am not sure exactly what you are saying here so you will have to elaborate on that. If I go through that list and investigate everything on it, it logically supports the conclusion that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God.

The real issue so far is that religious scripture by itself is generally consistent with the religion being a human fabrication, so it’s basically useless for establishing that the scripture was inspired by God and isn’t a human fabrication.

Does that make sense?

Yes, it makes sense, but if you have concluded that then there is no point going any further, so there is no point investigating Baha’u’llah. I mean logically speaking, if you think religions scripture is no more than human fabrication there is no more reason to be reading it than any other book.

The premise I have set forth is that the Revelation of Baha’u’llah is a Revelation from God because Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God who was uniquely capable of receiving communication from God. He was able to receive it because He was more than an ordinary human being, a higher order to creation whose soul received this capacity in heaven before He was born on earth, and He had a divine mind and special capacities ordinary humans do not have. It that is not true, then no conclusions follow, so we may as well close up shop and go home.

Does that make sense? You have to accept the premise before you can even entertain the conclusion.

 

[Neuropteron]

Ezekiel 38:23 King James Version (KJV)

23 Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

Why do you think that verse means that he would reveal themselves to them and "force" them to acknowledge his sovereignty, to their detriment?

.........

A references to the original mss, or even checking different translations gives the indications or the sense of the nations being "forced" to acknowledge his Godship. In the translation you are using "shall know" although not techniqualy wrong is missing the forcefullness of the original meaning.

One indication that you are quoting a loose paraphrased translation is the fact that the tetragrammaton has been replaced with "the Lord".

It is of course your choice, personally I do not use translations that are overtly eliminationg certain words to support church doctrines.

Rev 22:19 ...if anyone takes anything away from the words of the scroll....God will take his portion away from the tree of life.

All the best

 

[Trailblazer]

A references to the original mss, or even checking different translations gives the indications or the sense of the nations being "forced" to acknowledge his Godship.

In the translation you are using "shall know" although not techniqualy wrong is missing the forcefullness of the original meaning.

One indication that you are quoting a loose paraphrased translation is the fact that the tetragrammaton has been replaced with "the Lord".

I looked at all the other English translations and most all of them say the Lord. What do you think it should say?

It is of course your choice, personally I do not use translations that are overtly eliminationg certain words to support church doctrines.

How does that support Church doctrines?

Rev 22:19 ...if anyone takes anything away from the words of the scroll....God will take his portion away from the tree of life.

What words were eliminated?
How can we trust the Bible if there are so many different translations and they mean different things. I mean how can we know which translation is correct? You say one thing, another Christian says something else. What is the criterion for deciding who is correct?

 

[Neuropteron]

I looked at all the other English translations and most all of them say the Lord. What do you think it should say?

How does that support Church doctrines?

What words were eliminated?
How can we trust the Bible if there are so many different translations and they mean different things. I mean how can we know which translation is correct? You say one thing, another Christian says something else. What is the criterion for deciding who is correct?

........

Translations are based on master texts, who in turn are based on extant manuscripts. Also there are word for word translations such as Kingdom Interlinear or the Diaglot , which are used for the Greek part of the Bible. Although it is not practical to read the whole Bible in this way, it is not that difficult to assure oneself of controversies regarding the different rendering in translations. We simply have to come to terms with the fact that "translations" are not inspired.

Most translations have at least some mistakes, some have thousands which is the reasons for constant revisions (sometimes only because words change meaning with time). Some errors occur because of personal or church opinions. The KJV is a good example, translators of the KJ were complaining that they were dictated to translate according to the whim and fancy of the king.

Obviously this is a bit tedious, but those who want to know what God originally inspired men to write down find the effort worthwhile.

Cheers

 

[viole]

That is the very truth. You will always have to trust Messengers of God.

Which one? There must be thousands.

Go right ahead, but you are wasting your time because God already spoke to Baha’u’llah and He is not going to be speaking again till at least 2852 A.D.

Say whatever you want to. I won’t make it true.

Rationalization: the action of attempting to explain or justify behavior or an attitude with logical reasons, even if these are not appropriate. https://www.google.com/search

God is under no obligation to explain or justify His behavior to you. Sorry you do not like the logical reason, but it is the reason God does what He does.

I am not saying God is rationalizing the reasons why He does not speak. That would be self defeating. It is you who are rationalizing why He does not speak, when alternative explanations of the silence of God are much more obvious.

God is under no God has no obligation to speak to you or anyone except His Chosen Messengers.

God would rather have you choose freely to not believe in Him than to be coerced into believing in Him.

Him Who? Virtually all Gods have middle men who are not less convincing.

And how could people living before Balla’ha.’ha (or whatever) choose Him freely?

It is not the place of any human being to tell an omnipotent God what He “needs to do.” You can do that if you want to but it is very presumptuous to think you know more than an omniscient God about what He needs to do.

God already talked to Baha’u’llah. It is quite obvious that He is the Messenger of God for this age in history, to anyone who is willing to look at the evidence.

It is so obvious that I never heard of Him.

You think you know the reasons God won’t talk to you? Please share.

What is there to share? I think it is pretty self evident why God does not talk to me, and to nobody else.

Except Balla’ha’ha, of course

Ciao

- viole

 

[Trailblazer]

Which one? There must be thousands.

No, there were only a few Messengers of God, one in every age.

I am not saying God is rationalizing the reasons why He does not speak. That would be self defeating. It is you who are rationalizing why He does not speak, when alternative explanations of the silence of God are much more obvious.

What are those alternative explanations; that God does not exist? There is no reason to think that if God exists God would speak to everyone and many reasons to think He would not.

Him Who? Virtually all Gods have middle men who are not less convincing.

There is only One True God and there are Messengers of God, one in in every age.

And how could people living before Balla’ha.’ha (or whatever) choose Him freely?

Obviously they wouldn’t. Ideally, they would choose whoever the Messenger was for the age they were living in.

It is so obvious that I never heard of Him.

What does that have to do with anything? It only means that the Baha’is are not doing a very good job of getting the message out.

What is there to share? I think it is pretty self evident why God does not talk to me, and to nobody else.
Except Balla’ha’ha, of course.

Do you mean because God does not exist? There is absolutely no reason to think that God would talk to everyone, of God existed. There is no need to, because God can speak to one Messenger in every age who can get the message out to everyone.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What are those alternative explanations; that God does not exist?

That's certainly on the table until you give a good reason to exclude it, which you haven't done yet.

There is no reason to think that if God exists God would speak to everyone and many reasons to think He would not.

Replace "everyone" with "anyone" and I might be inclined to agree with you.

 

[Milton Platt]

As I said before there is no way we can ever know the effects God has upon the natural world because we can never know what an unknowable God is “doing.”

I was never able to find the study online, but I do not really think studies like this prayer study prove anything as to whether God answers prayers or not.

God probably does have an effect upon the natural world but we cannot prove it or know what those effects are. God is unknowable, except for His Attributes and His Will for every age in history. That means the actions of God are unknowable.

Nobody can prove that in any objective way. The Messenger is the only one who could know because He had the experience.

The origin of that information cannot be established as a fact. That is impossible since God is unknowable to anyone else except the Messenger.

Don’t you think that if the existence of God could be demonstrated it would have been demonstrated it by now? So there are three mutually exclusive logical possibilities:

1. God exists and communicates via Messengers; so we can know something about God, or
2. God exists and does not communicate at all, so we can know nothing about God, or
3. God does not exist

Any one of these possibilities is as logical as another

You do not require much do you?

You raised a good point though. Even if we could prove that God exists by some means other than the Messenger we would still not know that the Messenger got a message from God.

So don’t you see? We are right back where we started, trying to prove the Messenger got a message from God. But if we could prove that the Messenger got a message from God, then we would know that God exists, since a God has to exist in order to communicate a message.

Faith is necessary at the onset of the search in order get the show on the road. In other words, we have to be able to entertain the “possibility” that God exists and uses Messengers to communicate. That is not blind faith but rather reason-based faith because there is evidence from scriptures that God communicated to various Messengers, although nobody can prove that. Then we would look at a particular Messenger to determine if the evidence that supports His claim is adequate to believe He actually got a message from God. Although it is not objective knowledge of God there is a lot of objective evidence that supports the claim of Baha’u’llah to have received a message from God. If we determine that evidence is adequate we can move from questioning to certainty that Baha’u’llah got a message from God. At that point our faith is based upon knowledge, knowledge of Baha’u’llah. To Baha’is, knowledge of Baha’u’llah constitutes knowledge of God, since Baha’u’llah is a perfect mirror image of God who has God’s Attributes and God’s Knowledge.

Yes indeed.
I hope my position is clear as well.

There seems to be a chasm between atheists and most believers regarding the Messengers of God. For some reason, religious believers are able to believe that Messengers represent God but for some reason atheists have a problem believing that. For over four years I have been discussing this with atheists and agnostics mostly on other forums, before I came to RF last December. These conversations continue.

I have made some good friends on the other forum I post on but we have not made much headway regarding the Messengers. Psychology is my other hat and one I wore a lot longer than my religion hat, so I have vowed to get to the bottom of this even if it kills me. All atheists and agnostics are individuals so I am sure their reasons differ, but there are some common threads that run through all their protestations. Of course, one of those is that nobody can prove that Messengers got a message from God, another is that almost exclusively men who have claimed to be Messengers of God were phonies. However, that does not prove that there are no “real” Messengers of God, logically speaking.

Finally, there are quite a few atheists who like you require that God’s existence be proven before they would be willing to believe in a Messenger was from God. For some reason, they cannot grasp the concept that if God uses Messengers exclusively as proof of His existence, there will not be any other proof. One cannot make an Omnipotent God do anything differently than it wants to do and an Omniscient God knows the “best way” to communicate to humanity. This to me is logical, very logical. I do not understand why others don’t understand.

If, as you state, there is no way to detect whether a god interacts with the world, and virtually no way to detect the existence of the god, then it is absolutely NOT logical to presume the god exists or that there are any messengers who speak for the god. If, as you stated, the god does not interact with nature in any measurable way, then the god would be irrelevant, anyway.
The messenger is not proof of anything but your own belief in the messenger. That is all.
I challenge you to demonstrate by use of your messenger that actual presence of the god.