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

[Vinayaka]

The Execution of the Báb was just what you described. What happened after that was no less spectacular.

The heroic age of the Baha’i Faith is unparalleled in the annals of religious history. Also unparalleled are the over 15,000 Tablets, all of which Baha’u’llah wrote in his own Pen or dictated to His secretary after which time He stamped the Tablets with His official seal to authenticate them.

There is no need to whisper in anyone’s ear since God can communicate to one messenger who can write Tablets and make them available to everyone in books an don the internet.

Not even close. Your comment is just Baha'i proselytizing, and not much else.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

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.

What?

Since when did you start assuming that the message of this messenger of God robs us of our reason for going on?

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.

No, it assumes that when God decides to do something, that thing happens.

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.

No; it assumes that whatever choices human beings make, God can foresee them and take them into account.

If God sets a plan in motion to achieve some goal and then realizes later that the plan is no longer on track to achieve that goal and intervention is needed, then the plan - and therefore God’s ability to plan - has failed, at least in a small way.

When you bring up free will in this context, you’re really just trying to justify the failure; saying “free will!” doesn’t argue that the failure didn’t happen or wasn’t a failure on the part of God; it argues that the failure should be considered justified or acceptable: “my God isn’t perfect but that’s okay,” not “my God is perfect.”

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

What do you mean “what I believe?” We’re talking about hypotheticals. I don’t believe in any gods at all.

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.

... because they went off the “straight path,” indicating that God’s creation has gone awry?

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

I think things are more good than they are bad and that there’s a general trend to improvement over time, but there’s certainly room for improvement. I don’t think I would be able to believe that the world was the creation of a perfect being. Perfect creators don’t create imperfect things; if they do, then this means they’re actually imperfect creators.

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.

Because God’s creation wasn’t good enough to sustain itself?

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.

I think you’re misunderstanding me: if God’s creation needs assistance from God, then this means that there was a mistake in God’s creation that needs fixing. There are no mistakes in the creation of a perfect creator.

 

[PureX]

Yes, that is what they do because most people need verification, since they lack spiritual eyes and ears.

It isn't spiritual eyes and ears that people lack, it's omniscience. There is no way a limited human could ascertain the existence of an unlimited deity. Just as there is no way for a finite, imperfect, mortal human to verify that the ideas of infinity, or perfection, or eternity are anything more than ideas. Reason and honesty force most of us to acknowledge these limitations. And all the feats of magic or pretenses of "spiritual insight" do not change the reality of what we are, and what we are not.

Faith is not based on knowledge, it's based on our lack of it, and on our willingness to hope, anyway.

 

[Brickjectivity]

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.

I feel life is short, and people are always distracted with work, sadness, happiness and more work. If you are not working you atrophy and approach poverty, and if you do work it hurts. If you have children there goes a huge chunk of your attention. If you are happy then someone else is not. Learning is an active mentally painful process not as simple as drinking. Going against the flow is painful, too. I cannot blame people for wanting to fit in with the culture they know. Also as people grow older having invested their hopes in a particular way of living they have a strong tendency to keep going like a boulder rolling downhill. We all are also naturally dismayed when faced with choices.

 

[Audie]

I am technically not a creationIST
I actually find most of the things claimed by creationISTs to be false.
Furthermore, I am considering things -not telling scientists to believe things their rules will not allow.

I also don't understand your point -perhaps you could make it more clear?.

I was being a bit sarcastic -as complete evidence would be proof.
I understand that science cannot accept certain things until there is absolute scientific proof.
I am able to make decisions based on overwhelming evidence which is not yet absolutely complete -because I'm not just trying to be a scientist -but then I have experienced evidence which I personally cannot reproduce for another -and have sought things in which others have no interest.

If you didnt mean what you said, then i guess this is moot.

 

[Audie]

I feel life is short, and people are always distracted with work, sadness, happiness and more work. If you are not working you atrophy and approach poverty, and if you do work it hurts. If you have children there goes a huge chunk of your attention. If you are happy then someone else is not. Learning is an active mentally painful process not as simple as drinking. Going against the flow is painful, too. I cannot blame people for wanting to fit in with the culture they know. Also as people grow older having invested their hopes in a particular way of living they have a strong tendency to keep going like a boulder rolling downhill. We all are also naturally dismayed when faced with choices.

You seem to be bothered by the very things that life consists of.

 

[columbus]

Why wouldn’t a deity do such a thing? If a deity wanted to communicate a message to humanity, how else could a deity do it?

I can understand why the primitive people who invented religion would imagine a God who needs prophets and Scripture and such to let us know things. They had no better abilities to spread a message themselves. Even the most powerful emperor was limited to the abilities of speaking to people nearby and, at best, having people hand copy proclamations and carry them on horseback to people further away.

The concept of mass communication simply didn't exist, much less the technology for it. So the primitives weren't able to create a God with such abilities.

But that was then and this is now.

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.

I am communicating with you, and a bunch of other people stretched around the globe, right now. Nothing supernatural, it's cheap and easy and hugely accessible. Almost anyone can do it.

Surely God is not limited to prophets any more either. He can do much better than that. And it would be easier now than ever to demonstrate that a Message is actually from God Himself, and not some human with delusions of grandeur. Just tell us something that we don't already know.
Tom

 

[Etritonakin]

If you didnt mean what you said, then i guess this is moot.

Ummmmmm which part don't you think I meant?
Would some not require the re-creation of all things as proof -and still say that is not necessarily how it happened the first time?

 

[Trailblazer]

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

Yes, I think that they would be the most "open" to the new messenger, because they would not be clinging tenaciously to their older messengers.

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

Absolutely. He would have his character and life and mission and writings as evidence of that. Those would be unmatched by anyone else in the age in which he appeared.

 

[Audie]

Ummmmmm which part don't you think I meant?
Would some not require the re-creation of all things as proof -and still say that is not necessarily how it happened the first time?

I was being a bit sarcastic -as complete evidence would be proof.
I understand that science cannot accept certain things until there is absolute scientific proof.

I am some confused by what you mean, and dont mean. Sarcasm notoriously does not work well.. see Poe's law. About all it can be counted on to do is either confuse or enrage people.

In the event, "proof" is not a word used in science, for the reason that, well,
things in science cannot be proven. Absolute scientific proof is a concept with no meaning. i could enlarge on that if you like.

Regardless, if you intended to say the above, I am even more in the dark.

"Recreation of all things", I dont get that either.

 

[Audie]

Yes, I think that they would be the most "open" to the new messenger, because they would not be clinging tenaciously to their older messengers.

Absolutely. He would have his character and life and mission and writings as evidence of that. Those would be unmatched by anyone else in the age in which he appeared.

"God" would, of course, be in a position to know what would work and what would not!

 

[columbus]

He would have his character and life and mission and writings as evidence of that.

I don't see that as very good evidence. Lots of people with character and integrity write and do important things.
Tom

 

[Trailblazer]

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

God knows that because God is omniscient, but God is not going to DO anything about it, because God does not interfere in our free will choice to believe or not believe. In other words, God does not force His Will upon anyone.

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.

The message WAS intended for all of humanity, and eventually all of humanity will get the message, but when the messenger first appears and for a long time afterward, only a few people will recognize the messenger. It has been that way throughout recorded history.

“There were 1,000 Christians in the year 40, 1 400 Christians in 50, 1,960 Christians in 60, 2,744 Christians in 70, 3 842 Christians in 80, 5,378 Christians in 90 and 7,530 Christians at the end of the first century.

These figures are very suggestive, and reinforce the point that in its initial decades the Christian movement represented a tiny fraction of the ancient world.” From: How many Jews became Christians in the first century?

The only way that everyone would believe in the messenger when he first appears or in the early years would be if God MADE them believe, which would mean taking away their free will to choose. God never does that.

 

[ChristineM]

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.

It would need proof, without that, the messenger has nothing, could even be just another fundy trying to boost his/her unfounded ideas

 

[Brickjectivity]

You seem to be bothered by the very things that life consists of.

I don't mean to whine only to say the search for truth is expensive in terms of time and happiness, so I am not surprised when people cannot pay. How can I expect people in general to ignore their work and feelings to take up a search for truth that they know may not be rewarding? What person tarping a house in a rainstorm leaves that house and all their belongings, children, animals, food in the rain to search for truth? That analogy is exactly what life is like, too, for most. Everything breaks down and needs repair or replacement. Feelings and thoughts cloud judgement. Desire rages, and mice get into the pantry.

 

[Etritonakin]

I was being a bit sarcastic -as complete evidence would be proof.
I understand that science cannot accept certain things until there is absolute scientific proof.

I am some confused by what you mean, and dont mean. Sarcasm notoriously does not work well.. see Poe's law. About all it can be counted on to do is either confuse or enrage people.

In the event, "proof" is not a word used in science, for the reason that, well,
things in science cannot be proven. Absolute scientific proof is a concept with no meaning. i could enlarge on that if you like.

Regardless, if you intended to say the above, I am even more in the dark.

"Recreation of all things", I dont get that either.

Well.......at least we can still generally like and have good will toward each other.

Language can be confusing.

I like the concept of being given a pure language by one with knowledge of all as prophesied in the bible.
Even if one does not believe, it is an awesome concept.
Sure would make things easier, too.

 

[Trailblazer]

"God" would, of course, be in a position to know what would work and what would not!

Yes, God knows everything, but God's definition of working is not what we define as "working."

 

[Audie]

God knows that because God is omniscient, but God is not going to DO anything about it, because God does not interfere in our free will choice to believe or not believe. In other words, God does not force His Will upon anyone.

The message WAS intended for all of humanity, and eventually all of humanity will get the message, but when the messenger first appears and for a long time afterward, only a few people will recognize the messenger. It has been that way throughout recorded history.

“There were 1,000 Christians in the year 40, 1 400 Christians in 50, 1,960 Christians in 60, 2,744 Christians in 70, 3 842 Christians in 80, 5,378 Christians in 90 and 7,530 Christians at the end of the first century.

These figures are very suggestive, and reinforce the point that in its initial decades the Christian movement represented a tiny fraction of the ancient world.” From: How many Jews became Christians in the first century?

The only way that everyone would believe in the messenger when he first appears or in the early years would be if God MADE them believe, which would mean taking away their free will to choose. God never does that.

"God" never does anything that makes it possible to detect him.
Indistinguishable from not existing at all. The ways this
explained / rationalized convince only the already-convinced.

Your "the only way" seems like a tacked-on rationalization.

"God" the omni could have thought of a thousand ways to
achieve w / o forcing or imposing on free will in the least.

Let "Jesus" go back to Pilate and ask if he'd like to try it again.

Oh, and this- our free will choice to believe or not believe.

I dont get that. Seriously, it is just a choice, with you?

That does not work with me. I dont just decide what
to believe, like say, that Trump is the greatest.
Or that I can fly. I cannot fool myself that way.
I do not see the value in self-deception.

How can you or anyone possibly choose what you are going to believe?

 

[ChristineM]

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.

If they can provide evidence, that is the validation i and i assume others require.

And with that validation, faith dies and knowledge takes over.

The idea is not unacceptable to atheists, however in the past there have been so many claimed messengers who fell over the first time someone said prove it that a messenger with proof would come as something of a shock. The evidence would need to strand up to scrutiny.

How you got to believe is mostly down to simple, lifelong brainwashing without the inclination to investigate the claims put before you. Most of you were force fed a diet of god from birth onwards

 

[Trailblazer]

It would need proof, without that, the messenger has nothing, could even be just another fundy trying to boost his/her unfounded ideas

It has ample evidence but there can never be verifiable proof that a messenger got a message from god because god is not verifiable.
The evidence is proof to those who believe in the messenger.