Ok then. I'll try and share some of my thoughts. I'm just not very good as you with words. Maybe I can just share some of my ideas.
My understanding is God sends His Prophets, Teachers, Educators, Messiahs etc with Teachings and a Holy Book to guide us then leaves it all up to us to follow it, reject it, use bits of it etc. This is offered to us to help us but we are free to reject it without any consequences or repercussions.
So a good first question. Every Christian I have ever met asserts that God is perfectly capable of making himself known to any person – it does not just have to be a prophet or messiah. Anybody.
Yet, if we accept that God really does only send his prophets and teachers for the benefit of the rest of us, that leaves open the question of how the hell we are supposed to know which ones are really sent from God, and which ones are rogue. So, you may accept Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Jesus. But what about Joseph Smith? What about Mohammed? What about David Koresh or Marshall Applewhite? The world has had an endless supply of such “prophets and teachers,” and if you look at what they prophecy and teach, and how they so completely contradict each other – then you know that the world also has an endless supply of misinformation, and no real way to figure out what is really from God and what is not. This is an absolutely fatal mistake for any deity wanting what you think God wants. And if God is what you think He is, then it is a mistake that clearly says, “you’re wrong.”
God does not punish us for not believing in Him or accepting His Prophets. That would make Him an oppressor and dictator and that's not the case.
Okay, but you’ve just denied the central tenets of both Christianity and Islam – a little less than half of all the population of the earth. And you don’t think God has mismanaged the message?
Almost all of what we suffer is brought on by ourselves. So things like AIDS, somewhere a law of nature or uncleanliness has resulted in disease. It is not a punishment from God like some people have said. Somehow we have introduced the disease into our societies. Same with other diseases. Science can discover the root causes. Nothing to do with God.
Now this is manifestly untrue. The plain fact is that almost everything that we suffer is 100% natural – that is, if God is responsible for nature, then almost everything that we suffer is from God. The Zika virus is not caught by anybody doing anything unclean – it’s caught by being bitten by one of God’s own creatures – available to infect you in their billions. Extremely few of the diseases and illnesses we suffer are caused by anything we’ve done. (Actually, much to the contrary, many of the natural diseases that we can now cure, we can cure because of our own efforts, not by anything that God did for us.)
Things like starvation through poverty and wars. Again, we've set up a system that spends $trillions on weapons for war yet no universal free Medicare? No universal free education to create a skilled fully employee world? Why are all our resources being spent on destroying human life instead of enriching it - greed?
Very possibly, but since when is anything free? But when starvation is caused by drought, when poverty is caused by lack of available resources, when people die because they’ve been dragged away by a wave caused by a deep underground (where no human has ever interfered) fault having a little hiccup and causing a tsunami – well none of those things are because of anything we’ve done.
Your problem now, since you believe that everything happens for a reason, is to find an answer to “what’s the reason, if it isn’t us?”
Now in all the Holy Books we are told to be virtuous and upright but we choose instead to set up a system which favours the rich and wealthy and so many poor go without medicine, education and work.
Did not one of your “prophets” or “teachers” say “Slaves, obey your masters?” Did not one your teachers ask about the face on a coin and say, “if this is Caesar’s, render to Caesar what is his?” Did not one your Messiahs say “give up all you have?”
Again it's our fault. Again with Tsunamis and earthquakes. Scientists are saying that man has polluted the atmosphere and changed the weather and even science are not blaming these things on God but man.
Nope, not true. Sure, we’re doing a ****-load of damage to our own atmosphere and many of our ecosystems. But earthquakes (the source of tsunamis) is (as the book of Job makes very clear), the very handiwork of God. “Were you there when I laid the foundation of the world?”
Now if we look at the advices, counsels etc of say the recent Manifestation, Baha'u'llah. He taught a better way of doing things, a better system based upon justice and human rights rather than just money. But we reject it and then complain when things we have put in place go wrong.
Maybe it is better, but why should I believe Baha’u’llah and not Joseph Smith or Muhammad? (By the way, Baha’u’llah didn’t leave any room for me – a gay guy – either.)
It's our man made system that's stuffed up. It's our injustices that are causing the wars and conflicts not a God. God just sends His Manifestation and allows us to continue on the path of destruction if that be our wish.
And how do you think we get here? It’s because we have to find some way to survive in the world that we inhabit. It’s not a perfect world. It has limited, excessively unevenly distributed resources. Hell, the Jews live in the ONLY place in the Middle East with no oil! What do you do when somebody raids your house to take away everything? Let them? Or do you fight back? Many wars, most conflicts, are caused because societies find themselves in terrible situations they can find no other way to resolve.
And sometimes, just because some people are really, really nasty and f****d up.
God only 'offers' a way out, a better system but we are free to reject it and go our own way which we have and this is the result. We've created our own bed now we have to sleep in it.The starving children don't have to starve if we had a better system that cared for all humanity but we only look out for our own nationality, interests etc and invest $trillions in war not life.
What “better system?” The only thing on offer from God is “believe this, then die, and I’ll take care of you after that.” We are sleeping in the only bed we have – and according to you, that is the bed that God made for us. It comes with all the warts I’ve mentioned, pretty much all natural (or “God-created” if you prefer).
But I do see what you’re saying, and here we might find some common ground – I am a Humanist, which means that I believe in the essential value of every human person. But as a Humanist, I’ve come to think that the only possible way to actually do that is to lay aside all of my prejudices – racial, societal, sex-oriented ------- and religious! All of them. And only think of people as people. God has nothing to do with that perspective. I do and they do.
The injustices, the starvation, the extremes of weather. Everyone points to man for these problems . Only man can fix these things but only if he wants to.
No, actually, we can’t fix every problem. One day, our sun will explode (won’t that be uncomfortable?) and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it. Earth’s plates will continue to move, and one day Vancouver will shake part of itself under the sea, and California will lose most of its most populated areas – and there’s nothing we can do about it. Those are, if I take your world-view to heart, part of “God’s plan.”
We could stop being proud and have a look at the ideas and counsels God has offered us through Baha'u'llah but the choice is ours and if we say no then we are left alone by God.
Did that work for the Báb?
