What would you expect people to do if a real God sent a real Messenger to earth?

[Trailblazer]

Why send messengers anyway? Why wouldn't God just appear in the sky and start bellowing at everyone? Or why not just have the Moon or the Sun start talking?

One reason is because God cannot communicate everything He wants to communicate by bellowing out at one location. The message is long and it has to reach all of humanity, which is why we need written scriptures.

But if God did appear on earth, God is SO powerful that all created things would be so dazzled and thunderstruck by the evidences of His light as to be reduced to utter nothingness.

 

[Trailblazer]

If it can be verified the message is from a real god then atheism would essentially cease, one cannot be an honest non believer if evidence exists.

There would still be some disbelief though, essentially a new form, a fundamentalist non believer. As today a fundi will believe without question god exists despite the 100% lack of evidence then with evidence there would be a small hardcore of deniers whom everyone else shakes their head and facr palms.

You would see streets would be full of pre message believers screaming "told you so"

I guess the evangelicals would become a major business and get listed in fortune 500.

Of course, not only atheism would end, so would faith. Faith is nothing when hard evidence hits you between the eyes

I guess you are describing what would happen if everyone “believed” that the messenger was from God. I did not imply that the messenger would be verifiable, only that the messenger would be a real messenger of a real god.

 

[Trailblazer]

I think that they would incessantly say that the burden of proof was on the messenger as the messenger explained every last detail of everything which collectively provided the complete evidence, and then say that no one piece of evidence was proof -and then they might reason that even if God exists, they see no reason for him to exist. Then the messenger might see no point in continuing and go away.

That is exactly what they should do, look at what the messenger claimed and then look at the evidence that supports that claim, and at least some nonbelievers do that. However, most nonbelievers have confirmation bias and prejudice against the idea of messengers, so that clouds their judgment of the evidence that is right before their faces.

But if they determined that messenger was sent by God, and God exists, why would they say God has no reason to exist?

Do you think that the messenger would go away simply because a few people see no reason for God to exist?

 

[Trailblazer]

Without validation it would of course have to be a leap of faith. And such leaps are common on a lesser scale, every time you walk in the street you have faith that one of the many possible misadventures wont make it your last outing. Could be subconscious but it is still a leap.

For atheists such an event would be a major leap from no faith to belief in the evidence of a god

It would require some faith but if the messenger was a real messenger of a real god we would assume that he would be able to provide a lot of evidence to back up his claim. In that case the faith would be reason-based faith, not blind faith.

It is true that for atheists such an event would be a major leap from no faith to belief in the evidence of a god, so it is no big surprise that the idea of messengers is unacceptable to atheists. However, how do atheists think believers got to be believers? Most of us did not believe in God BEFORE we found our messenger/religion.

 

[Trailblazer]

I don't know if we could expect it necessarily, but I would hope that people would have the wherewithal to request from this being what, exactly, it wanted or expected from us and what its intent regarding us was, rather than just jump on the "worship" train without some amount of contemplation/regrouping.

I honestly don't know if I would even "worship" a real God, if one presented itself. There would have to be some ultimate point to it. A god certainly doesn't simply deserve outright worship by default.

Wow, that is a great answer!

I would expect that too and the real messenger of a real god would provide exactly that. It would not want anything from us, but it would tell us exactly what God wanted or expected from us and what God’s intent was regarding us.

The messenger would be “required” to explain to you why you should worship God, the ultimate point to it. God gave humans the ability to reason, so God does not expect humans to do things unless there is a good reason to do them.

 

[Trailblazer]

I believe the creator has made certain aspects of himself known to some over time -and will make himself known to all over time.
There is no real need to prove or disprove every aspect of God before that -unless we want to know and see how it might affect us now. People make decisions without complete proof either way, anyway.

I fully agree.

The existence or nonexistence of God makes little difference if we are no different for it.
The best course of action really does not change regardless.

I fully agree.

The main difference is that the existence of God would mean things were possible which otherwise would not be -like waking up from a dirt nap, an awesome city being prepared elsewhere possibly by other created beings being brought down to earth, peace on earth, an end to war, capable and non-corrupt government, transferring one's "person" into a body capable of just about anything, not becoming extinct because we blew ourselves up or otherwise had a big "Oooops" moment.....etc., etc.

Our existence is possible only because God exists so that is one thing that would not be otherwise possible. Also, peace on earth, an end to war, a capable and non-corrupt government are all only possible because there is a God. Granted, humanity has to make these things happen, but they cannot do it alone.

This is a complex subject.

 

[Trailblazer]

My first question would be to question the motive of needing to send just a messenger in the first place?

My next question would be, what is the morality of arbitrarily elevating a single being into "messenger" status over everyone else? How is that helpful, or even Fair?

My next question would be wondering about the now dubious morality of this "god" being-- and was it really a god, and not some Alien Super-advance Tech, who's hidden motives could not possibly be good.....

The messenger is needed because humanity needs a message from God from age to age to promote individual spiritual growth and give moral guidance to humans in order to help them solve problems in society.

Who God chooses to be His messenger has nothing to do with morality. God chooses the ones who are qualified for the job at given intervals in history. Messengers have special qualifications because their souls were pre-existent in the spiritual world where I presume they were being prepared for their missions on earth.

If you are wondering about the dubious morality of the Bible God, wonder no more. Most of what was attributed to God in the Bible is are just stories that had the purpose of conveying spiritual truths.

 

[Trailblazer]

Exactly what they are doing now.

In other words, nobody would recognize the messenger or realize what god had done and life would go on as usual.

That is what happens when the messenger first comes and for a long time afterwards. However, the messenger is having a huge impact on the world even though people do not realize it.

 

[Trailblazer]

Therefore, my answer to the question as made in the OP is, honestly: nothing. I would not expect anything, not even the recognition of whoever those god and messenger would happen to be. There is no logical reason to expect gods and their messengers to be detectable. An existence with gods and messengers is exactly the same as one without those, until and unless some reason is presented to expect otherwise.

I agree with you in part. There would be few people who would recognize the messenger, especially when he first appeared and for centuries afterward. Part of the reason for this lack of recognition is that they look just like ordinary men; and they are men, but they are more than men. They are, for lack of a better word, God-men, because they have a spiritual nature, which is born of the substance of God Himself, and a physical nature, pertaining to the world of matter. Since that spiritual nature cannot be seen by our physical eyes, but rather only with our spiritual eyes, only those people with spiritual eyes will recognize the messenger.

An existence without gods and messengers is not the same as with, since without them, the world would completely perish.

Now, if you want to know what I would expect to see to convince me that both a meaningful deity (or deities) and some person or persons that particularly qualify as its messengers exist, it is a toss up between I just happening to feel like perceiving everyday people as such (and that does happen, although I still don't find the words meaningful enough to deserve usage) or seeing actual evidence of people and a message that truly indicate wisdom and personal development. I guess some people would prefer miracles, but I am not a miracle person.

That is exactly what you should be looking for, evidence of a messenger and a message that would promote wisdom and personal development. That is one way you can detect a true messenger of God.

 

[Trailblazer]

Could Baha'ullah create a bird from dust , because according to Al Qur'aan Al A'zhiim : Al Nabi Al 'Iisa AS could create a bird from dust . Do you think that by doing so , that Al Nabi Al 'Iisa AS
become The Creator also ?

Baha’u’llah could do any miracle asked of Him. He offered to do a miracle for some Muslim clerics and they said they would believe Him if He did that miracle. However, they backed out of the deal and failed to show up.

 

[Trailblazer]

They would listen to and believe the messenger.

Any god worth his salt should be capable of being convincing.

I agree, the messenger of god should be convincing in the sense of having a lot of evidence to support his claim, but not everyone is going to be convinced because all people think and process information differently.

God is not responsible to convince people to believe in the messenger. They are responsible to convince themselves, given the evidence available.

 

[Trailblazer]

This would be a bad time for that to happen. First, every major country, politician and religion would scrutinize any claimant. In fact it would only be reasonable to be refuse to accept the moral yoke of any self proclaimed deity. If they came claiming authority we must resist and would do so. To arrive in splendor and claim deity would be a pointless endeavor, for we are not capable of confirming identities. There would always be questions both about their identity and their morality and if not it would mean they had reduced us and made us back unto amoral animals.

I agree, this would be a bad time. But the last messenger came in the mid-19th century, which was a different time. God knows when to send His Messengers.

No, nobody can prove that a messenger got a message from God, if that is what you mean. There would always be questions about their identity for the bulk of people. However, as always happened throughout history, a handful of people would believe the messenger was from God, and gradually over time the numbers of believers would increase as his teachings proved useful for humanity.

 

[Trailblazer]

Or have everyone just be born knowing whatever God wants us to know.

If that were the case there would be NO REASON for us to have to traverse this physical existence in the material world, learning as we go.

Any sort of intervention by God would imply that his creation is imperfect... and therefore that he's an imperfect creator.

That is overly simplistic and it assumes that god should create everyone so perfect such that they can never stray off the path and make mistakes. It assumes that man does not have free will to choose between right and wrong, which would make man a robot, God’s pre-manufactured robot, a being without the ability to make any choices; or at the very least it assumes a being that could only make good choices, kind of like what Christians believe about Adam and Eve before they sinned.

What you believe is as much of a fantasy as what Christians believe.

Logically speaking, if God is All-Knowing and All-Wise, and if man has free will, this would imply that God knows more than man about what man needs and man is in need of any guidance from God. That is why the messengers are sent, to guide humanity to the straight path.

While I dismiss most of deism as ridiculous, one valid point that the deists make is that a god whose creation keeps running fine by itself would be a more competent god than one who has to keep tweaking his creation to make it run properly.

LOL, is what you see on the television news an example of a creation that is running properly?

God does not tweak His creation. God sends the messengers to assist man to tweak himself. They are Educators, just as necessary as the educators children need to learn and grow. If God had never sent them humanity would have completely perished long, long ago.

Edit: IOW, any creator-god that needs to send messengers is at least a bit of a failure as a creator-god.

So a God that uses messengers is a failure. That could only be true if mankind does not need any assistance from God after he is created; but since messengers have been sent from the dawn of human history, you cannot prove that mankind ever got by without the assistance of messengers of God.

 

[Mock Turtle]

So, what if the Messenger and His appointed representatives explained all of that to people? The Messenger who represented the God would have good explanations but not excuses, since (logically speaking) an infallible/omnipotent/omniscient God needs no excuses. Only humans need excuses.

People should use their good judgment before they accept a messenger who claims to speak for a god. That is no small thing.

Still makes little sense to me - and I doubt it ever will. And, like some have mentioned, there might still be those who would not believe because it contradicts their existing belief.

 

[Trailblazer]

Still makes little sense to me - and I doubt it ever will. And, like some have mentioned, there might still be those who would not believe because it contradicts their existing belief.

The main reason religious people won't even look at the new messenger is because he brings a message that is different from their existing belief and the new messenger is different from their older messenger.... strange new guy on the block.

Another issue I just realized is that some people just cannot grasp the whole concept of messengers of God.
It is not an easy one to grasp, it took a lot of reading on my part.

But the biggest issue is that most people are not willing to do what it takes to figure all this out because they are content enough with whatever they already believe or disbelieve; so sincere seekers of God's truth are rather rare.

 

[Mock Turtle]

The main reason religious people won't even look at the new messenger is because he brings a message that is different from their existing belief and the new messenger is different from their older messenger.... strange new guy on the block.

Another issue I just realized is that some people just cannot grasp the whole concept of messengers of God.
It is not an easy one to grasp, it took a lot of reading on my part.

But the biggest issue is that most people are not willing to do what it takes to figure all this out because they are content enough with whatever they already believe or disbelieve; so sincere seekers of God's truth are rather rare.

My problem, more than any other perhaps, is in knowing the fallibility of humans, and hence anything derived from them or via them - such as writings from the past or from their experiences as related to the rest of us always being 'on the shelf' - that is, being suspect. I do the same for much of science unless it can be verified beyond doubt, so why would I not do this for anything else? I can't really see a way around this issue.

 

[Trailblazer]

My problem, more than any other perhaps, is in knowing the fallibility of humans, and hence anything derived from them or via them - such as writings from the past or from their experiences as related to the rest of us always being 'on the shelf' - that is, being suspect. I do the same for much of science unless it can be verified beyond doubt, so why would I not do this for anything else? I can't really see a way around this issue.

On concept the people do not grasp is that Messengers of God are not just ordinary human beings... Below is an apt description... I can explain more later... It is way past my bedtime since I have to get up really early and go to work tomorrow.

A Messenger of God is a subtle, mysterious and ethereal Being that has been assigned a twofold nature; the physical, pertaining to the world of matter, and the spiritual, which is born of the substance of God Himself. His body is human but His Soul was not conceived at conception like ours, but was rather pre-existent. In that preexistence His Soul was given the capacity to receive direct revelations from God. Although the Messenger had to translate that Revelation into a form we could understand, His Words are endowed with an invisible spiritual force.

 

[sun rise]

I fully agree. So wouldn’t that mean that only a numbered few people would recognize and believe in that Messenger at least in the beginning?

Yes, I see it that way as well.

 

[Jumi]

The message would be very new and different, and the messenger would claim to supersede the previous messengers that God sent, so the message would not be popular among people who tenaciously hang onto their older messengers and older religious beliefs.

In effect do you see that non-religious people would be the best "targets" of this new messenger?

The messenger would claim to speak for God and He would have a mission that was entrusted to him by God and he would write scriptures. He would gain a following and a religion would be established.

Would he offer evidence that his message comes from God and not from his own inspiration?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I agree, the messenger of god should be convincing in the sense of having a lot of evidence to support his claim, but not everyone is going to be convinced because all people think and process information differently.

And a god wouldn’t be able to take that into account?

God is not responsible to convince people to believe in the messenger. They are responsible to convince themselves, given the evidence available.

What do you see as the purpose of a messenger from God?

I’m assuming that the purpose of a messenger from God is to communicate a message to humanity. If that message isn’t accepted by all of humanity, then God has failed to achieve the purpose he chose.

... unless a messenger wasn’t intended for all of humanity at all, but was only intended for a specific group.