Will Mankind Survive?

[Trailblazer]

I think its pointless to sacrifice animals, because its superstition, but in biblical times they did, that is what im talking about, that they had rules for how to do this in the bible.

I am glad you consider this superstitious and pointless. I consider it utterly disgusting and I cannot believe that God had anything to do with it, and if God did not order this, what then would I believe God ordered all those human killings?

This is what I wrote to another about free will, so that is how I see it:

So eventually we get to this as I see it:
We have free will with limitations based on passed experiences. How you choose to understand your limitations decide the amount of free will you think you have.

Whether that is true or not, I have no clue. But to me that seems most likely to be true.

I can pretty much agree with that. I have much that I have written about free will but here is what I posted tonightto the atheist poster on another forum who I keep talking about:

Each individual's behavior can be traced to conditions and circumstances from the past but that does not mean they have no control over what they choose to do in the present.

I am not implying that we can do “anything” we want to do. Free will but that it is constrained by many factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances. How free we are varies with every given situation we find ourselves in. However, we have the ability to make more than one choice. Otherwise, we would just be at the mercy of our past experiences and our heredity. If humans did not have free will how could we be responsible for our actions and held accountable in a court of law?

I will make my answer based on my own world view this time, which means that I will work with the assumption that I see no evidence for God, otherwise I think you might find my answer slightly weird.

But first of all, I don't believe good and evil exists and besides when im writing here on the forum, I very rarely use the words to describe anything. To me "Good" and "Evil" are simply describing words for whenever something in considered beneficial or none beneficial. So for instance, I wouldn't refer to Hitler as being evil, but rather I would call him sick and I think there is a natural explanation for why he ended up doing what he did.

Furthermore, if religious evil existed, it would also mean that there are no logical reason for why a baby could not be born evil, which I do not believe is possible, but rather that a persons behavior is formed through out their lives. Obviously a baby might be born with psychological issues, which would make them sick rather than evil.

With that in mind and to adresse your post.

I don't think free will is purely the reason for evil, but that passed experiences and biological issues might cause certain people to behave in ways that we would refer to as being evil. And in some cases these people are simply incapable of controlling themselves, despite knowing that they might be doing something wrong. So when you say that humans are responsible for all evil in the world. I would agree, but also acknowledge that this is far more complicated than people tend to make it. If a person is not born evil, it means that they are shaped into behaving like that during their life. This means that its not easy to figure out why or how someone turns out the way they are or what exactly led them to do, whatever action they ended up doing.

I pretty much agree with everything you said, and the fact that I believe in God has no bearing on what I believe about good and evil. Even if God did not exist your answer would be the truth, as I see it, because it makes logical sense. To pick out what I agree with that you said:

“I don't think free will is purely the reason for evil, but that past experiences and biological issues might cause certain people to behave in ways that we would refer to as being evil. And in some cases these people are simply incapable of controlling themselves, despite knowing that they might be doing something wrong.” I only said free will is the reason for evil because what people choose to do based upon past experiences and biological factors is what leads to evil actions. I would only add that I think some people could control themselves if they wanted to, they just choose not to because they are selfish. I would also add that there are some people without a conscience so theyreally do not think they are doing anything wrong and some are even proud of their misdeeds. So obviously, as you said, this is far more complicated than people tend to make it.

I really couldn't agree less with what you are saying here

Its sound like you imagine that there are like X amount of evil intents and to get rid of them God have to allow them, is that what you mean?

No, that is not what I meant. I meant that if someone has an evil intent and god stopped them from doing the evil deed they wanted to do, that person would still have the evil intent, so he would still be an evil person. So God stopping him from an evil act would not change him, it would only protect the victim of his crime. He would still remain the same evil person he was.

Also if these evil intents and suffering is suppose to teach people lessons, you are going to run into issues. First of all it doesn't explain why they have to exist in the first place, I know your answer will be, due to free will. But you can have free will without evil, I don't see any reason why that shouldn't be possible.

You could not have free will without evil UNLESS everyone used their free will to choose to do only good deeds. Of course that is what God had in mind when He sent Messengers with teachings and laws, and so it would be possible to have only good deeds if everyone adhered to the teachings and laws of the Messengers. This is the solution to evil, the solution isnot expecting God to override peoples’ choices in order to prevent people from doing evil deeds, as my atheist friend believes should happen. But since he will not admit we have any free will at all, he cannot accept my proposed solution.

But also there is no reason a persons evil acts have to hurt someone else in order to teach that person a lesson. God could punish the evil person and leave the good person unharmed. Secondly I would imagine you having some problems explaining, how a murder victim is learning anything? But also why their death is needed to teach their love ones a lesson. Third you would run into issues with children/babies that die at birth or at a very young age and what exactly they learned from that?

You are right, the victim does not need to be the recipient of evil acts in order to learn a lesson; I was only saying that if the victim overcomes and becomes a stronger person as a result of suffering then they have become a better person for it. So in effect what I am saying is that both the perpetrator and the victim have the potential to learn and grow, not that they actually will.

Ideally the evil person would be the only one who is punished but since there has to be a victim of his evil, it cannot work that way in real life.

Of course a murder victim has not learned anything and it would be heartless to say that it is worth someone having to die just so the loved ones left behind mightlearn lessons from this, even if they do. Many religious people would argue this point that it is okay that someone died because it makes us stronger but I am not that insensitive to suffering, not at all. This stupid idea that “he went to heaven” so that makes it a-okay that he died makes me want to puke. Sometimes the way Baha’is talk when someone dies is as if their loved one just took off on a luxury liner cruise to the Caribbean, sick.

Nothing is learned when babies or children die at birth or when young, it is just a tragedy. All we have been told is that there is great recompense in the afterlife and they are plunged into the mercy of God. What they missed out on learning in this world they will learn in the spiritual world.

Furthermore, which is in relation to what I wrote above about me not believing in good and evil. You would run into issues with natural evil as suffering due to these could not be explained by human acts. But suffering caused because God wanted Earth to work like that.

There is no way to know why God created the world where natural evil such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and hurricanes exist that cause suffering. What I observe is that the survivors normally rebound and some are stronger for it. Maybe that is the reason for it, I don’t know.

So I agree that these experiences might help a person become stronger, but its not necessarily a positive experience or something that people should prefer and it is not even certain that it will be beneficial for the person in the end either.

I can agree with that. These experiences might help people or not. All people and their life circumstances are so different so we cannot generalize. Moreover, I am not suggesting people seek out suffering just so they can learn lessons. The world already has enough suffering embedded in it. People who are lucky not to suffer much can still grow and be spiritual. In fact, those people might be able to do more to help humanity since e they are not weighed down by suffering. I have never been able to do much to help other people because of my suffering although I have wanted to.

I probably wouldn't write what you did to the other atheist as I think he would most likely reach the same conclusion or something very similar as mine.

He reaches some of the same conclusions as you do on some things but certainly not on all things. Since he does not think we have any free will he thinks god would be responsible to prevent all the evil and suffering in the world, if god existed. I do not think you believe that but maybe I missed something.

 

[Trailblazer]

So at least according to the bible Baha'u'llah could be a false prophet, how exactly would you be able to tell? As you have said countless of times, we can't trust the bible, wouldn't that be what someone following a false prophet would say? So I hope you can see how easy it would be for me to make such claim in relation to the bible.

I remembered that you had asked me this when my daily bahaiteachings.org article came into my e-mail today, so here it is...
We can know someone is a Prophet without the Bible.

How to Tell When a New Prophet Appears

https://bahaiteachings.org/how-to-tell-new-prophet-appears

What event, historical trend or spiritual signal could reliably indicate the advent of a new divine messenger?

We know, historically, that the advent of those messengers—Christ, Abraham, Buddha, Muhammad, just to name a few—had tremendous impacts on future civilizations.

So the first and most obvious sign for any observer in the modern era would certainly have to be the fact of the cataclysmic change in human society which occurred nearly concurrent with the birth of the Baha’i Faith.

By any metric one cares to look at, something revolutionary happened around the middle of the 19th century. Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with science, history and the advancement of humanity can see that just about every aspect of human affairs radically changed during that period.

In just a few short years, scientific, economic, social and artistic changes began occurring at an exponential rate. Within a lifetime, humans went from riding horses to traversing the heavens. In every arena of human life, these radical changes unleashed both wonderful and dangerous forces. Humankind can now realistically end all life on this planet as we know it, or create a paradise scarcely imaginable by our ancestors. Clearly this period of massive change represents the single most important and significant event of human history. The Baha’i teachings say those changes proceed directly from the regenerative power of a new religious revelation brought by Baha’u’llah:

The Call of God, when raised, breathed a new life into the body of mankind, and infused a new spirit into the whole creation. It is for this reason that the world hath been moved to its depths, and the hearts and consciences of men been quickened. Erelong the evidences of this regeneration will be revealed, and the fast asleep will be awakened. – Abdu’l-Baha, quoted by Shoghi Effendi in The World Order of Baha’u’llah, p. 169.

A hundred years ago, Abdu’l-Baha recognized that event as a “new age of reformation:”

From every standpoint the world of humanity is undergoing a reformation. The laws of former governments and civilizations are in process of revision; scientific ideas and theories are developing and advancing to meet a new range of phenomena; invention and discovery are penetrating hitherto unknown fields, revealing new wonders and hidden secrets of the material universe; industries have vastly wider scope and production; everywhere the world of mankind is in the throes of evolutionary activity indicating the passing of the old conditions and advent of the new age of reformation. Old trees yield no fruitage; old ideas and methods are obsolete and worthless now. Old standards of ethics, moral codes and methods of living in the past will not suffice for the present age of advancement and progress. – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 438.

If one seriously still waits for another event of more import to humanity, that wait will be in vain. It would indeed be strange if God didn’t warn us about this event.

But the amazing fact is that the Bible did warn and many Christians did indeed identify the mid-19th century as the time for the fulfillment of Biblical prophecies. Some of the more famous of these predictions came from the lay Baptist minister William Miller, and his calculations of Christ’s return actually coincide with 1844—the year of the declaration of the Bab. The existence of the Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses are traceable to the religious fervor of this period, and to the Biblical predictions made by Miller.

Another protestant sect formed in southern Germany, known as the Templars, actually settled in present day Haifa to await the coming of Christ—just shortly before Baha’u’llah was sent there as a prisoner. These facts warrant a much closer investigation by anyone who claims the Christian faith and holds to the belief that Christ’s promised return is a real historical event.

Beyond the timing and similarities with Christ’s first coming, the very nature of the Baha’i teachings themselves clearly prefigure the major issues which would face humanity in the coming centuries: the unity of the human race, the emancipation of women, reconciling science with religion, the dangers of civilization’s impact on the environment, the dangers of religious fanaticism and the fundamental unity of all major religions on the planet. The Baha’i Faith lays out a clear and logical map to guide humanity through this tumultuous age. Already in retrospect over the past 150 years, this guidance has proven its value on numerous questions, from the primacy of girl’s education in development, the importance of collective security in international relationships and the handling of racial, religious and ethnic tensions, just to name a few.

Then there are the explicit prophecies given by Baha’u’llah, many of which came true in dramatic fashion in his lifetime and after. For example, he predicted the destruction of monarchies in favor of republics, and the decline of the temporal power of the clerical establishment. Specifically, the Baha’i teachings prophesied the downfall of Napoleon III, Sultan Abul-Aziz, the collapse of the Caliphate and the prefiguring of World War I and II.

Finally, apart from the timing, the predictions, caliber and character of the Bab, Baha’u’llah and their followers, any observer can see the direct and observable effects which the Baha’i Faith has had on the lives of those who follow its teachings. In the words of Christ, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” Within a generation those families who became early followers of this new religion became some of the most accomplished and influential, a powerful force in the modernization of their country. Before the clerical establishment lobbied to close them, Baha’is built and ran some of the best schools and hospitals in Iran—schools of such renown that the crown prince himself attended. This despite the fact that many originally came from the poor and uneducated classes, and as result of embracing this new Faith underwent severe persecution. However, due to the central importance of universal education in the Baha’i teachings, they championed education in Iran especially of girls, by being the first to build girls schools and making sure their all their children received the best education possible. Outside of Iran, the Baha’i faith’s educational efforts in many developing countries, despite their small numbers, have already had a significant impact. One example is in Columbia, where these efforts have helped millions to access education as documented by the Brookings Institute.

Still, despite the strong Biblical prophetic evidence, the momentous changes in human society, the prescient teachings and the evidence of good works, such a powerful claim ultimately rests on an intangible spiritual force which seekers must observe for themselves. Just as the power of Christ’s first revelation convinced his followers due to the spiritual power of his words as recorded in the Gospel, so too the power of his second coming must be perceived by turning to the words Baha’u’llah revealed as recorded in his numerous tablets and prayers available for all to read.

Ultimately, the effect these words have on me conditions my belief. When experienced in the right way, they can act as a transformative door to pure joy and understanding of a real heaven on Earth.

written by

Vahid Houston Ranjbar is a physicist currently working at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in Brookhaven National Labs. His field is spin dynamics and accelerator physics. Read more

 

[Nimos]

God does not speak directly to humans because humans could never understand God. Only the Messengers can understand God because they have a divine mind.

But the messengers are humans as well, right? Also we should blindly follow what these messengers are telling us?

However, most people simply endure their suffering and don’t complain about it.

Everyone does, doesn't matter if your an atheist or not. Because we have no choice. But maybe the difference is, that I put my hope in humanity and science and that we as species can solve these issues, that is where my true hope is. But merely making the point that if a God should exists that he should remove it, as there is no logical reason why he shouldn't, as we are going to figure it out anyway, it just takes longer. And there is no reason why people in our age has to suffer for certain things, as there is no reason why those before us had to suffer for things we don't suffer from anymore. There is nothing wrong in wanting to remove as much suffering from the world as possible. Why we should just accept it seems like a strange view. So you also think that scientists should stop finding cures and doctors should just pack up their things and get a new job? I doubt you think that is a good idea. But if you truly believe that suffering is just something that we should just endure and not complain about, then that ought to be a good solution right?

The communication has not been confusing or ineffective for everyone, only for a few atheists. Jews understood Moses quite well, Christians understood Jesus, Muslims understood Muhammad, and Baha’is understand Baha’u’llah; so what’s the problem with Messengers?

How can you say that it have not been ineffective, you have 1000s of different Christian directions, several Islamic ones (Not sure how many), where some of them kill each other, terrorism as a result of some of it, that blows up both Christians, atheists and other Muslims, because of these so called clear messengers. If that is effective to you, then I can obviously not say anything that would convinced you otherwise, but it does make me wonder, how according to you, would an ineffective way then look like, can you try to explain that. So assume that the messengers were confusing, how would you think the world would then look like? How would we see Christians behave? Muslims? Jews? and Atheists?

How do you know that they are not helping in any way? What would you expect to see if they were working? Of course, it would help if people actually read them and believed them.

Because if they did, people would believe in the same God, the same scriptures and the same things. All of these religious views can not be correct at the same time. I have ever only heard Bahai sort of make that claim. Either Jesus is the son of God or he is not. Its not possible that he is just the son of God for Christians and merely a prophet for others. And you would have to go through each claim that makes people believe in different things to figure that out. And it haven't been possible for the last 2000+ years, so the chances of it ever happening is rather slim.

You and all the other atheists... What God does is never good enough. However, it is good enough for 93% of people in the world who are believers, why is that?

Because whenever people talk about their religion they switch off their rationality, critical thinking and skepticism. I gave you some examples of this earlier. But will do it again.

If I made a claim that Big foot exists, wouldn't you question that claim and demand me to put forward some evidence for it, most likely a living or dead one, so that we could examine it? There is absolutely no rational reason why you ought to believe me before I supplied you with such evidence. And until I do, im merely making a claim that is worth absolutely nothing. I hope you would agree with that?

So in this case you have no issue using skepticism and critical thinking to figure out that this is what you would require from me, to even start considering believing what I say is true. First after a potential Big foot have been examined and we can biological determine that it is in fact a completely new species, would you be convince that they existed.

But when an atheist is told that a person is raised from the dead, were born by a virgin, that certain people are messengers of a God, which created the universe and something called heaven. That a prophet flew to heavens on a horse or pegasus or whatever Muhammed flew their on. Then we are just being to stubborn not to believe it. Do you see the difference? To me there is no difference between someone claiming that Big foot exists and all these things, without any evidence they are merely claims. But for religious people accepting all these things is perfectly fine. And that is why I say that they just throw away their rationality, skepticism and critical thinking whenever they talk about their religious beliefs. Its a question of faith and hope, which as I already mentioned several times is not how one obtain truth, if that is what one is after. And to most atheists, since we don't see evidence for God, we can be critical and skeptic about him as well.

Give me a break, spiritual truth has not been revealed by science, and it is spiritual truth that is so vitally necessary to change people in the world, science only changes the world we live in.

But no one have demonstrated that spiritual truth even exists? What does it even mean, what do you consider to be so and how do you show that it is true?

Do you really think it is necessary to understand EVERYTHING? Only God understands everything. If you cannot accept that there will always be mysteries in life then religion is not for you. Even science has not figured out everything, science is constantly evolving.

Im an atheist I don't even believe in God, let me remind you. So obviously religion is not for me
But whenever I see or hear about a mystery I think we should examine it and if we can't figure out what it is, then the conclusion is that we don't know. And not that God did it or whatever conclusion one might jump to because they believe that is true. That is the opposite of rational thinking. We don't just jump to conclusions if we don't know something.

Simply put, God keeps having to remind people because they behave like children, kind of like mom having to keep telling Johnny to stop playing in the street. If humans had gotten the message God would not have to keep reminding them. Look around and you will realize that humans STILL have not gotten the message of who God actually IS and what He can do to them.

As we have already talked about, I think this is explained by the ineffective way that God decided to reveal the so call truth, no one can figure it out. People believe left right and center, all claiming to know the truth. So it is expected that lots of people believe different things and some of us, none of it.

That’s a cute diagram, but do you really believe it? I do not believe Satan even exists so I already don’t believe that he killed anyone; so why would the stories about what God did be true? I guess you are not including the people who were purportedly wiped out in the flood of Noah?

I don't believe any of it, but then again im an atheist. So whenever you see me write anything like this, Im referring to what the bible is telling us about the biblical God as that is the only material we have to go by and these numbers are for the most part added from those given in the bible, some of them like the flood is estimated. But the point is that God kills a whole lot more than you would think. Which were the point, when you asked me if I thought God killed or ordered the killing of anyone, so the answer is yes according to the bible.

Why is it disrespectful towards those people that spend time and energy to do something good for the world? You really like to twist things in order to make God into the fall guy, don’t you?

Do you agree that a good personal goal in life is to aim and achieve happiness and that this is a valid and logic aim for all humans, regardless of how one achieve it? A person might be a murderer and a psychopath, but even for such person the aim for happiness is still a logic aim, even if that means the person will murder others. Im not saying that the murder is doing something right, but merely that for such person the aim is the same as for everyone else. The big difference is, that such person does not care about hurting others to achieve their own happiness, which is why we are in our good right to judge and jail such person.

So if the goal for all people is to achieve happiness, then we can look at what stuff stand in the way to achieve this. For most people disease and loosing love ones due to these, reduces their happiness. Therefore lots of people that work in areas to make cures and fix people, do a tremendous amount of work to help the worlds population to increase happiness. This is individuals that find these things important and care to spend time and research into these things, so when people thank God for their work, I think that is disrespectful. So I don't say it to have a go at God, but merely that he should not even be mentioned when it comes to these things, because its the hard work of humans that are to be praised. I think this might be due to me misunderstanding what you mean with progressive revelation, which if I understood correctly only refer to spiritual truths, which I asked about above, as I have no clue what that is, but maybe that will explain what you mean. But I can accept that you do not specifically want to give credit to God for scientific discoveries.

I honestly don't see why you would feel offended by atheist questioning God, when religious people keep calling him all good, omnipotent and omniscient. So lets try to do it some other way. If God is all these things, can you mention a thing that he can not do? And im not talking about making a squared circle etc. But can you specify where Gods limits are in regards to what he can do?

Continue..

 

[Nimos]

God does not want to convince you, He wants you to convince yourselves by looking at the evidence He provides... I must have typed this 100 times by now, and counting since most of my posts have been to atheists for the last five years.

And yet you don't wonder why any of us don't get it? If you read the stuff I wrote above again about religious people throwing out their critical thinking and skepticism when talking about their religion, that will answer it. I have already read the bible and there is nothing in it, that are valid evidence for a God, just because its written in a book doesn't make it true. A person making a claim, doesn't make something true either and I really don't understand why religious people can't see that this is true when talking about their religion and when not as there is no difference. That is why we use and should be careful about what methods we use to seek truth, i have already explained to you how I do it. And you already said that you never go back and question your starting point, because you know it right and if you recall from the earlier post, I tried to explain to you, that if your starting point is wrong, the chance of your conclusion being so as well, is definitely the most plausible explanation. And I would be surprised if you didn't agree with me on this for everything other than your religion, because anything else would be ignorant when it comes to seeking truth.

No, there is nothing you can test for to prove God exists, as religion is not the same as science.

And when there is nothing to test, the most rational position is to not believe it until there is. Its no different than you not believing in Big foot, just because someone say they saw one. The most rational position is that there is no such thing as Big foot, wouldn't you agree?

I consider it utterly disgusting and I cannot believe that God had anything to do with it, and if God did not order this, what then would I believe God ordered all those human killings?

God did order it, it was how to redeem one self in the OT.

Each individual's behavior can be traced to conditions and circumstances from the past but that does not mean they have no control over what they choose to do in the present.

I don't know what this other persons position is, but from what you are writing, he sounds like a determinist, which basically means that one could trace everything back to the big bang and therefore everything we end up doing is due to that and therefore we have no free will. But again, it just sounds like this is what he believes, so might be wrong.

I pretty much agree with everything you said, and the fact that I believe in God has no bearing on what I believe about good and evil.

It must have some bearing, if you believe that God decide what is good and evil? My position is that this is decided by humans and may vary from person, culture, society etc. But ultimately there is no such thing as evil or good in a religious sense. So God can't really define it as I see it, so I assume we differ on that view?

You could not have free will without evil UNLESS everyone used their free will to choose to do only good deeds.

I assume you use the same meaning of evil here as I do, that its just something that is not beneficial for an individual? I honestly think most people live their lives without even considering evil actions as an option. I can only speak for my self, but me, as everyone else make lots of decisions daily, yet none of them is between "good" and "evil", its basically between "best" and "better" or what to say, if that makes sense? To put it very simple, the choice of free will for most people on a day to day basis is not whether you should "kill the cat for fun" or "stroke it to make it happy", but it might be whether you should stroke its head or its back. Does that make sense? So I don't see why evil is needed for free will?

Ideally the evil person would be the only one who is punished but since there has to be a victim of his evil, it cannot work that way in real life.....
Nothing is learned when babies or children die at birth or when young, it is just a tragedy. All we have been told is that there is great recompense in the afterlife and they are plunged into the mercy of God. What they missed out on learning in this world they will learn in the spiritual world.

But what you wanted to explain was why God allowed suffering, which were so people could learn. But if God allows suffering so the evil person can learn something at the cost of the good one. Then you still run into problems, I think. And the same goes with babies. Remember that I answered what you wrote as a possible explanation of why God allowed suffering.

There is no way to know why God created the world where natural evil such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and hurricanes exist that cause suffering. What I observe is that the survivors normally rebound and some are stronger for it. Maybe that is the reason for it, I don’t know.

Again it was an answer to your explanation of "why God allowed suffering." And for your explanation to be a valid or good one, it would need to be able to answer these questions. So when you answer my reply with "There is no way to know why God created..." and "Nothing is learned when babies or children dies at birth.." then your possible explanation falls apart, and there is nothing wrong with that. But just that its simply not valid and if you don't agree with it yourself, then there is no reason for me to comment on it, as it would be rather pointless discussing something none of us think is a plausible explanation.

 

[Trailblazer]

But the messengers are humans as well, right? Also we should blindly follow what these messengers are telling us?

No, they are not ordinary humans. They are both divine and human… If we do not accept that they are more than just men, then there would be no reason to believe what they revealed about God.

This passage explains it:

“And since there can be no tie of direct intercourse to bind the one true God with His creation, and no resemblance whatever can exist between the transient and the Eternal, the contingent and the Absolute, He hath ordained that in every age and dispensation a pure and stainless Soul be made manifest in the kingdoms of earth and heaven. Unto this subtle, this mysterious and ethereal Being He hath assigned a twofold nature; the physical, pertaining to the world of matter, and the spiritual, which is born of the substance of God Himself. He hath, moreover, conferred upon Him a double station. The first station, which is related to His innermost reality, representeth Him as One Whose voice is the voice of God Himself.... The second station is the human station, exemplified by the following verses: “I am but a man like you.” “Say, praise be to my Lord! Am I more than a man, an apostle?” ” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 66-67​

Everyone does, doesn't matter if your an atheist or not. Because we have no choice. But maybe the difference is, that I put my hope in humanity and science and that we as species can solve these issues, that is where my true hope is.

That is not really a difference from what I believe as I also put my hope in humanity and science. I do not think that God is going to fix anything, which is a magical thinking. There is no reason God should fix what humans can fix by themselves, and we do not even know if God could do that. This idea that because God is omnipotent, God can and should intervene in our lives on earth, is really absurd. The way God intervenes is to send Messengers that reveal the blueprint instructions so we can fix our own problems. Yes, hypothetically, IF God could fix these things, it would not take as long as it would take for humans to fix them, but that is a big IF.

And there is no reason why people in our age has to suffer for certain things, as there is no reason why those before us had to suffer for things we don't suffer from anymore. There is nothing wrong in wanting to remove as much suffering from the world as possible.

There is a reason why we had to suffer things in the past, before the scientific era, because we did not have science and medicine as we have it today. The reason we still suffer from certain things is that science has not yet made the discoveries that will eradicate them; diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer for example. But science is making progress in that direction.

No, there is nothing wrong with wanting to remove as much suffering as possible, but in the meantime, we have to endure the suffering we have not yet removed. Some people are going to complain about suffering, but complaining does not remove it, and it might even make the suffering worse. The best solution is to work to try to eliminate as much suffering as possible.

How can you say that it have not been ineffective, you have 1000s of different Christian directions, several Islamic ones (Not sure how many), where some of them kill each other, terrorism as a result of some of it, that blows both Christians, atheists and other Muslims up, because of these so called clear messengers.

I understand what you mean, but it is not the Messengers are not to blame just because all these people were confused. Surely, the Bible is confusing, because it can be interpreted in so many different ways, and maybe that is even true for the Qur’an to some degree. I do not have an explanation as to why these scriptures were revealed this way in the past; all I can say is that the Baha’i scriptures are not confusing, and they offer people an opportunity to better understand the meaning of the scripture of the past.

So, yes, they are confusing, but they have still been effective in getting people to believe in God and understand the essential spiritual truths.

Because if they did, people would believe in the same God, the same scriptures and the same things.

Why would they? The reason they do not believe in the same God, the same scriptures and the same things is because every religious people clings to their own scriptures rather than looking at the revelations from God that come after theirs. How then can they get the updated information?

All of these religious views can not be correct at the same time. I have ever only heard Bahai sort of make that claim.

The religions are all correct, but since man misinterpreted and corrupted the scriptures they appear to disagree with the other religions. Jesus is the Son of God but only figuratively, not literally, because God does not have biological offspring. Jesus is also a Prophet of God, but these are things that most people cannot know and understand unless they read the Baha’i Writings.

And that is why I say that they just throw away their rationality, skepticism and critical thinking whenever they talk about their religious beliefs. Its a question of faith and hope, which as I already mentioned several times is not how one obtain truth, if that is what one is after. And to most atheists, since we don't see evidence for God, we can be critical and skeptic about him as well.

What I was referring to when I said: “What God does is never good enough. However, it is good enough for 93% of people in the world who are believers, why is that?” was that God uses Messengers, Prophets, or whatever you want to call them, to communicate to humanity, and atheists do not accept that method of communication. I was not suggesting you believe in all the superstitious beliefs of the various older religions.

True, there is no proof that these men got messages from God, but there can never be proof of something like that, only evidence. What I am saying is that atheists do not accept the evidence that these Messengers came from God. There was not as much evidence as there is for Baha’u’llah for any of the previous Messengers, but now we have it, so why talk about the past? People were still able to believe in these older Messengers based upon faith in unverifiable scriptures, but now we have authentic scriptures.

But no one have demonstrated that spiritual truth even exists? What does it even mean, what do you consider to be so and how do you show that it is true?

Spiritual truth has been revealed in all the world’s great religions and people who live these religions know there is such a thing. Spiritual truth refers to the spiritual virtues and divine qualities which are eternal. They are spiritual and not material truth; faith, knowledge, certitude, justice, piety, righteousness, trustworthiness, love of God, benevolence, purity, detachment, humility, meekness, patience and constancy, showing mercy to the poor, defending the oppressed, uplifting the fallen... These virtues of humanity are renewed in each of the different religious cycles because at the end of each cycle the human virtues disappear, so they need to be renewed.

Im an atheist I don't even believe in God, let me remind you. So obviously religion is not for me.
But whenever I see or hear about a mystery I think we should examine it and if we can't figure out what it is, then the conclusion is that we don't know.

I totally agree with you. We should never assume God did anything; that is the opposite of rational thinking. We just have to accept we do not know after we have examined it and cannot figure it out.

As we have already talked about, I think this is explained by the ineffective way that God decided to reveal the so call truth, no one can figure it out.

That might have been true in the past, but it is no longer true now, as Baha'u'llah and those who He entrusted as part of His Covenant explained everything we need to know.

Do you agree that a good personal goal in life is to aim and achieve happiness and that this is valid and logic aim for all humans, regardless of how one achieve it?

I do not believe that personal happiness should be the goal in life, because that is not a Baha’i belief. The Baha’i Short Obligatory Prayer summarizes what we were created for, thus what the goal of life is.

“I bear witness, O my God, that Thou hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee. I testify, at this moment, to my powerlessness and to Thy might, to my poverty and to Thy wealth.

There is none other God but Thee, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.”​

That does not preclude personal happiness, but that is not our goal, or at least it shouldn’t be our goal. Spiritual happiness can be a goal though but that involves living for other people, not just for ourselves.

So if the goal for all people is to achieve happiness, then we can look at what stuff stand in the way to achieve this.

So people who work in areas to discover cures for disease, or people who work in mental health fields are doing a service to humanity and that is a spiritual act rather than selfish act.

So I don't say it to have a go at God, but merely that he should not even be mentioned when it comes to these things, because its the hard work of humans that are to be praised.

It is the hard work of humans that warrant praise, since that is what God has enjoined us to do. Baha’u’llah wrote:

“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, pp. 81-82

“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, p. 149​

But I can accept that you do not specifically want to give credit to God for scientific discoveries.

No, of course God does not get the credit. All the credit accrues to humans because they exerted the effort.

If God is all these things, can you mention a thing that he can not do? And im not talking about making a squared circle etc. But can you specify where Gods limits are in regards to what he can do?

I cannot specify that based upon the attributes of good, omnipotent and omniscient. Only God knows what God can do.

 

[Trailblazer]

And yet you don't wonder why any of us don't get it? If you read the stuff I wrote above again about religious people throwing out their critical thinking and skepticism when talking about their religion, that will answer it.

No, I do not wonder why, not after all these years, because I know why. Atheists do not like the ‘idea’ of Messengers. Of course I know some of the reasons why they don’t like them, but I still do not understand why they cannot accept the reality that this is the ONLY way God communicates and they cannot make God change His ways since God does only what He chooses to do.

I have already read the bible and there is nothing in it, that are valid evidence for a God, just because its written in a book doesn't make it true. A person making a claim, doesn't make something true either and I really don't understand why religious people can't see that this is true when talking about their religion and when not as there is no difference.

First, as I said before, the Bible is not the only Holy Book that was ever revealed, and second, I know that just because something is written in a book, that does not make it true, because that is logic 101. It is also logic 101 that it could be either true or false and it is up to us to investigate and determine if it is true or false, if it matters enough to us.

That is why we use and should be careful about what methods we use to seek truth, i have already explained to you how I do it. And you already said that you never go back and question your starting point, because you know it right and if you recall from the earlier post, I tried to explain to you, that if your starting point is wrong, the chance of your conclusion being so as well, is definitely the most plausible explanation. And I would be surprised if you didn't agree with me on this for everything other than your religion, because anything else would be ignorant when it comes to seeking truth.

Well, that was a while back, so I cannot recall all the details of it. I do not know what you mean by starting point?

And when there is nothing to test, the most rational position is to not believe it until there is. Its no different than you not believing in Big foot, just because someone say they saw one. The most rational position is that there is no such thing as Big foot, wouldn't you agree?

If you are like some other atheists I have talked to, waiting for something you can test, you may as well hang it up right now, because there will never be any way to test for God. People have been discussing whether God exists since the dawn of time and there have always been those who cannot believe in God.

God did order it, it was how to redeem one self in the OT.

That makes me think that part of the OT was written by men and was not inspired by God.

It must have some bearing, if you believe that God decide what is good and evil? My position is that this is decided by humans and may vary from person, culture, society etc. But ultimately there is no such thing as evil or good in a religious sense. So God can't really define it as I see it, so I assume we differ on that view?

I believe that God sets the standards as to what is good and evil, and it does not vary by culture. Good and evil are universal, so for example murder is always evil and caring about others as yourself is always good.

I assume you use the same meaning of evil here as I do, that its just something that is not beneficial for an individual? I honestly think most people live their lives without even considering evil actions as an option. I can only speak for my self, but me, as everyone else make lots of decisions daily, yet none of them is between "good" and "evil", its basically between "best" and "better" or what to say, if that makes sense? To put it very simple, the choice of free will for most people on a day to day basis is not whether you should "kill the cat for fun" or "stroke it to make it happy", but it might be whether you should stroke its head or its back. Does that make sense? So I don't see why evil is needed for free will?

I agree it is not a good vs. evil because those are two extremes at opposite poles of a continuum. Most people are good, so our free will decisions are more along the lines of best or better. Also, what might be best for one person would not be best for another person.

But what you wanted to explain was why God allowed suffering, which were so people could learn. But if God allows suffering so the evil person can learn something at the cost of the good one. Then you still run into problems, I think. And the same goes with babies. Remember that I answered what you wrote as a possible explanation of why God allowed suffering.

I think suffering is simply inherent in the physical world. A benefit that can accrue to humans as a result is that they learn lessons and sometimes become stronger but I do not think that is the reason God designed the world the way He did. We can learn and grow without suffering just by living, gaining education and experience and making decisions.

Again it was an answer to your explanation of "why God allowed suffering." And for your explanation to be a valid or good, it would need to be able to answer these questions. So when you answer my reply with "There is no way to know why God created..." and "Nothing is learned when babies or children dies at birth.." then your possible explanation falls apart, and there is nothing wrong with that. But just that its simply not valid and if you don't agree with it yourself, then there is no reason for me to comment on it, as it would be rather pointless discussing something none of us think is a plausible explanation.

I do not think there really is a good explanation for why we suffer, except for the fact that suffering is inherent in a physical world. Suffering might help some people grow spiritually but it might break other people and make them bitter and angry, and this depends upon their attitude towards their suffering and their ability to withstand it. There are so many differences in people that it is impossible to have a pat answer, a one-size-fits all.

Sometimes people do not learn anything from suffering, it is just a tragedy. I was only saying there is the potential to learn, not that everyone does. It really all depends upon how they interpret their suffering. If they have an attitude that it is for their benefit obviously that will affect them differently than if they see it as pointless and cruel.

Most people who hear the stories of how I live and what I endure tell me that they like talking to me because it makes them feel as if there problems are really minor. Many tell me they would never tolerate all I do, but I do not see that there is much I can do to change it right now, so I just try to accept it. Once suffering is embraced, it does not seem as bad as if you try to fight it and control it, because sometimes there is really nothing one can do about it.

 

[Nimos]

No, they are not ordinary humans. They are both divine and human… If we do not accept that they are more than just men, then there would be no reason to believe what they revealed about God.

So how do you demonstrate that these are more than mere men making claims? The passage you quote is not evidence for anything, if Baha'u'llah claims that him and the other messengers are more than just human and divine inspired as well. One of his own writings or any writing for that matter is not evidence for it being true.

Remember that I just wrote and you just agreed with it and called it "logic 101" that because something is written down or someone make a claim, that this does not proof anything? So when Baha'u'llah make a claim and then provide a written text with why it is true, then its absolutely worthless as we have no way to test that claim.

I do not think that God is going to fix anything, which is a magical thinking. There is no reason God should fix what humans can fix by themselves, and we do not even know if God could do that. This idea that because God is omnipotent, God can and should intervene in our lives on earth, is really absurd.

So God only intervene in the world through these messengers? and the only thing they can do is write confusing scriptures? Let me remind you that there are around 6 million people that believe in the Bahai faith and you are the ones that make the claim that all religions are true. Out of the 93% or how many it was, religious people in the world by far the majority of them do not agree with you or Baha'u'llah.

So what you are saying is, if I understood you correct is that, it is through our believe in the messengers and accepting whatever they say as truth, that we can understand God? And we have no way to verify that these are in fact messengers or that they are even telling the truth, and that is acceptable for you?

The way God intervenes is to send Messengers that reveal the blueprint instructions so we can fix our own problems.

What blueprints are you talking about, can you give an example of one?

There is a reason why we had to suffer things in the past, before the scientific era, because we did not have science and medicine as we have it today. The reason we still suffer from certain things is that science has not yet made the discoveries that will eradicate them; diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer for example. But science is making progress in that direction.

So science improves our lives directly and it very easy to see and feel the effect of it. As a comparison to God, how do we feel or see the effect of God? Again let me remind you that some people are atheists, lots of people do not share your view on the Bahai faith and lots of people are being mistreated as a result of religion, so where do we see the clear effect of God in the world?

I understand what you mean, but it is not the Messengers are not to blame just because all these people were confused.

Sure they are, if Jesus is a messenger and Muhammed then they are to blame as well, its partly their words that people try to understand and follow and constantly disagree about, what means. Most of the bible, if not all, is written by so called prophets.

Surely, the Bible is confusing, because it can be interpreted in so many different ways, and maybe that is even true for the Qur’an to some degree.

Both of them are. Remember that the Qur'an is also based on the Bible and if we conclude that the Bible is untrustworthy then is the Qur'an, as a lot of the stories are share between them. Also let me remind you that its not all Muslims that agree with Isis and all the other nutcases running around killing in the name of Allah, most of the people that are being blown up and killed are other Muslims. And there is no way for any Muslim to claim that Isis interpretation is not correct and therefore them not being true Muslims, that is one of the huge issues with Islam as there is no overall guideline of how to understand the Qur'an. So to say it is only to some degree true for the Qur'an is not true, it is as confusing as all other religious scriptures are.

I do not have an explanation as to why these scriptures were revealed this way in the past; all I can say is that the Baha’i scriptures are not confusing, and they offer people an opportunity to better understand the meaning of the scripture of the past.

Im sorry but from what you are writing, I find that hard to believe, when you write the following: "Jesus is the Son of God but only figuratively, not literally, because God does not have biological offspring." I have never heard anyone make that claim and it is not what any Christian believe either, as far as I know. So if the Baha'i scriptures offers that as an explanation, it makes little sense when it comes to better understanding the scriptures, as this is not what anyone believes in the first place.

Besides that you have countless of times, reached the conclusion that a lot of the stuff in the bible is not to trusted because it was written by men, this is also highly in contrast to what most Christians believe, that might acknowledge that some of these texts are poetic stories. But would not reach the conclusion that the bible is not to be trusted. Also as we have already talked about, there is no way for you to verify which of these texts are true or not. You seem to simply disagree with all those that you don't personally agree with. For instance when you write this later in your reply regarding animal sacrifice: That makes me think that part of the OT was written by men and was not inspired by God. Im sorry, but as we also talked about earlier, you can't simply cherry pick whatever verses you like as being true and those you disagree with, you just throw out, as you make the whole bible and the Qu'ran as well for that matter completely pointless as anyone can just cherry pick whatever they like from them. And ultimately it would make believing in God an absolute irrational position, as you can't trust anything written about him in the scriptures and therefore pointless to even read them.

Why would they? The reason they do not believe in the same God, the same scriptures and the same things is because every religious people clings to their own scriptures rather than looking at the revelations from God that come after theirs. How then can they get the updated information?

No, no... look Baha'i makes a claim that you got new and better information than they do and they disagree, they do not share your conviction that what Baha'u'llah is saying is true, if they did there would be more than approximately 6 million Baha'i. Its really that simple.
Its like JW saying that all the Christians in the world ought to believe like they do because they have newer person claiming to know the truth, and that these people are just not getting it. There is approximately 8.5 million JWs in the world, so just with the Bahai religion, the reason that there ain't more, is because others religious people, do not agree with JW. So it have nothing to do with having newer information, when these are not verified as being more true than those before them. Look it the same with you, you are not interested in getting updated information either, as long as you don't believe that the person giving them to you is a messenger that Baha'u'llah talked about.

The religions are all correct, but since man misinterpreted and corrupted the scriptures they appear to disagree with the other religions.

You have to stop saying this It ruins your own position as it makes Baha'u'llah appear more and more as someone that simply made up stuff. The reason for that is that you keep referring to spiritual truth and that all religions are correct, except when they are misinterpreted and corrupted and yet there is no way to demonstrate which of them is so. And therefore ultimately no way to even know what God Baha'u'llah is talking about. And that this most likely is just someone he made up. I know you will strongly disagree with this, but from a rational point of view, you are ruining your own material for making any claim for a God, that is based on the Bible or the Qu'ran. Imagine I gave you a book called "The Yurima'th" which is a book explaining the purpose of the creator. Some of the things in this book can't be trusted, but I have no clue which part it is. Would you benefit anything in regards to truth, when reading this book, if you couldn't validate any of it and whether one thing you read were true or not? Now another person give you another book called "The Gai'mas" based partly on what was written in the "The Yurima'th", based on what you know about it, would you from a rational point of view, expect that book to hold anymore truth?

True, there is no proof that these men got messages from God, but there can never be proof of something like that, only evidence. What I am saying is that atheists do not accept the evidence that these Messengers came from God. There was not as much evidence as there is for Baha’u’llah for any of the previous Messengers, but now we have it, so why talk about the past? People were still able to believe in these older Messengers based upon faith in unverifiable scriptures, but now we have authentic scriptures.

That is exactly what Im saying, its purely based on faith and have nothing to do with truth or even seeking it. And don't get me wrong, having faith is fine, no problem with that. But it simply can't be assumed to be truth.

Spiritual truth has been revealed in all the world’s great religions and people who live these religions know there is such a thing. Spiritual truth refers to the spiritual virtues and divine qualities which are eternal. They are spiritual and not material truth; faith, knowledge, certitude, justice, piety, righteousness, trustworthiness, love of God, benevolence, purity, detachment, humility, meekness, patience and constancy, showing mercy to the poor, defending the oppressed, uplifting the fallen... These virtues of humanity are renewed in each of the different religious cycles because at the end of each cycle the human virtues disappear, so they need to be renewed.

But besides the faith and love of God and stuff related to that, none of it have anything to do with spiritual truth. "Mercy for the poor", "Defending the oppressed" etc. is perfectly explained without spirituality as we are social animals, look how close we live together we basically let "strangers" look out for our kids and elders etc. We are a species that requires trust to survive and have lots of emotions making us capable of creating strong bonds between each other. All of this have much more rational explanations that spiritual truth. Remember that humans survived and lived together long before the concept of God were created.

Continue..

 

[Nimos]

Well, that was a while back, so I cannot recall all the details of it. I do not know what you mean by starting point?

I totally agree with you. We should never assume God did anything; that is the opposite of rational thinking. We just have to accept we do not know after we have examined it and cannot figure it out.

This were based on how to validate and test ones own beliefs and to constantly question them. So for instance when you write as reply to me: "I totally agree with you. We should never assume God did anything" Then we don't agree at all, because my starting point is to question the existence of God, I want to figure out based on my method whether its most likely that God exists or doesn't exists.

Therefore my starting point is:
1. Is it possible or reasonable to assume that a God exist?

But if you read what your starting point is, when you write "We should never assume God did anything", that is what I mean by having a wrong starting point and going back and test it. Because you already jumped to the conclusion that God does exist, even though you say that the way we get to learn God is through the messengers, which we can't validate to actually tell the truth or not. Therefore jumping to the conclusion or using the starting point that God exists is irrational, when it comes to seeking truth. Again if that is your faith and you simply claim that, then there is no issue. But to claim that it is the truth is not. That is why I say that we have to be careful with what method we use when it comes to seeking truth, because if not, we might fool or deceive ourselves, sometimes without knowing. Therefore one has to stay true towards the method and be absolutely as certain as one can be, that one do this correctly. Because if we don't we get our starting point wrong. A starting point can never be an assumption that something is already true. Does that make sense?

I think I made the example earlier using UFOs, so if we use a starting point like this:
1. What planet does UFOs come from?

Do you see why this is not a valid starting point for seeking truth? Even asking that question makes no sense, if its a UFO, it means its unidentified so assuming it comes from any planet other than Earth is not a valid starting point, when we have no clue what they are. And until we actually have some good evidence for UFOs, that we can examine we can't draw any other conclusion than we don't know.
So to turn it into a good starting point we could rewrite it into the following:

1. Do UFOs exists and if so, what are the plausible explanations for them?

Since we have limited evidence for them, we eventually can take a position of either believing that they most likely do or they don't, but this doesn't mean we achieved truth, merely faith in one or the other. But if we were really interested in UFO, we would keep track of the varies cases going on and keep putting these sighting and claims to the test. But until we have some hard evidence, we would hold the ultimate position that we simply don't know, and accept that whatever we believe is most likely to be true, is purely based on faith and not truth. Does that make sense?

That might have been true in the past, but it is no longer true now, as Baha'u'llah and those who He entrusted as part of His Covenant explained everything we need to know.

Based on what I just wrote above, do you agree that what you write here is simply a claim? its not truth just a claim.

That does not preclude personal happiness, but that is not our goal, or at least it shouldn’t be our goal. Spiritual happiness can be a goal though but that involves living for other people, not just for ourselves.

If what makes you happy is to help others and not be selfish, it ultimately makes you happy as well. Some might say that their goal is to help animals in need, and most likely they do this because they care for animals and seeing animals doing well, makes them happy. So it doesn't matter what a person does in order to achieve happiness. For an individual thriving towards being personal happy as a live goal, still makes most sense as this does not prevent them for helping others if that is what makes them happy. If you only help other people because your religion tells you to, I would personally consider stop following it and find something that makes you happy instead. But my guess is that you do find a lot of happiness in your religion and from helping others through it etc.

I cannot specify that based upon the attributes of good, omnipotent and omniscient. Only God knows what God can do.

Ok, so theoretically when an atheist or your atheist friend, say that God should remove evil that is plausible and therefore not invalid for him to think God ought to do. As none of us know what the limits of God is, but since we make the claim that he is omnipotent, omniscient and all good, that this does in fact from a logic point of view make it possible for him, correct?

I know some of the reasons why they don’t like them, but I still do not understand why they cannot accept the reality that this is the ONLY way God communicates and they cannot make God change His ways since God does only what He chooses to do.

We don't have anything against the messengers, we just don't see any evidence for them telling the truth and again as explained above about seeking truth, it would be irrational to jump to the conclusion that they are, when these evidence is not there. Therefore we hold the position that we don't know and that it is most likely that they are not messengers of God.

If you are like some other atheists I have talked to, waiting for something you can test, you may as well hang it up right now, because there will never be any way to test for God. People have been discussing whether God exists since the dawn of time and there have always been those who cannot believe in God.

Yes and that is where faith comes into the picture and whether its most likely and rational to believe in something for which there are no evidence or not. And as long as we have none, then its just not rational to believe it. Again you don't just believe in Big foot, because someone tells you they do, you would never do that with anything except for when it comes to your religion, because otherwise you would believe anything you were told and I know that, no, even a partly rational person on Earth does that.

Good and evil are universal, so for example murder is always evil and caring about others as yourself is always good.

But murder is not always bad, when the nazi defectors or whoever tried to murder Hitler failed, wouldn't it have been good had they actually managed to do it?

I agree it is not a good vs. evil because those are two extremes at opposite poles of a continuum. Most people are good, so our free will decisions are more along the lines of best or better. Also, what might be best for one person would not be best for another person.

I have a slightly hard time following you So you do agree with me that you do not need evil then for free will to be there? And if you don't need it, then God could potentially remove it if he wanted, and we would still have free will, right?

I think suffering is simply inherent in the physical world.

I completely agree and this makes perfect sense in a physical and natural world where an all good God does not exists. But I do not think it follows from one where he does.

 

[Trailblazer]

So how do you demonstrate that these are more than mere men making claims? The passage you quote is not evidence for anything, if Baha'u'llah claims that him and the other messengers are more than just human and divine inspired as well. One of his own writings or any writing for that matter is not evidence for it being true.

I never said that what Baha’u’llah wrote about Himself and others being a Messenger of God is the evidence that what He wrote is true.

Nobody can prove that anyone got messages from God, only the Messenger knows that. Whether we choose to believe the claim or not is based upon the evidence that supports the claim.

It would be circular reasoning to believe someone was a Messenger of God just because He said so, but it is not circular reasoning because there is evidence that can be used to support His claim. Anyone can say that they are a Messenger of God but why would I believe them without a lot of evidence to back up that claim? The evidence for Baha’u’llah is as follows:

• What He was like as a person (His character);

• What He did during His mission on earth;

• The history of His Cause, from the time He appeared moving forward;

• The scriptures that were attributed to Him or scriptures that He wrote;

• What others have written about Him;

• The Bible prophecies that He fulfilled by His coming,

• The prophecies of other religions that He fulfilled by His coming;

• The predictions He made that have come to pass;

• The religion that He established (followers), what they have done and are doing now.

So God only intervene in the world through these messengers? and the only thing they can do is write confusing scriptures? Let me remind you that there are around 6 million people that believe in the Bahai faith and you are the ones that make the claim that all religions are true. Out of the 93% or how many it was, religious people in the world by far the majority of them do not agree with you or Baha'u'llah.

The way we know that God intervenes is through the Messengers. God might intervene in other ways but they are imperceptible.

There are logical reasons why by far the majority of religious people in the world do not agree with Baha'u'llah.

The reason the Baha’i Faith is not as large as it could be are as follows:

1. Many people have not even heard of the Baha’i Faith.
2. Of those who have heard of it, not many people have actually looked at the evidence.
3. If they do look at the evidence they usually find it wanting, and below I will explain the reasons they find it wanting, which are related to the slow growth of all new religions.

One reason people do not accept the new Messenger because he brings new teachings that are diametrically opposed to the status quo, Baha'u'llah was a radical, just as was Jesus a radical to the Jews who were entrenched in their religious traditions. That is why the new Messenger is not accepted by those to whom He presented himself initially. But even after that, for centuries, the followers of the older religions cling to their older religions and older messengers as being the only truth from God, making it impossible for them to recognize and accept a new Messenger, because they have a bias against anything that is “different” from what they already believe and/or they are happy with what they already believe. The rest of the world population is nonbelievers and they already do not like the whole idea of messengers of God or that God should/would communicate that way.

The biggest obstacle to the growth of the Baha’i Faith is the fact that about 84% of people in the world already have a religion and they are happy with their religion. So there you have 84% of the world’s population, the vast majority of which are not even willing to consider the Baha’i Faith in order to determine if it is true or not. Then we have the rest of the world’s population who are agnostics or atheists or people who believe in God but dislike any religion...

In short, even if they are willing to look at the evidence, there is a lot of prejudice before even getting out the door to look at the evidence. Prejudice will surely prevent people from recognizing the truth of anything because they have closed their mind before they even looked at the evidence. You are a case in point.

So what you are saying is, if I understood you correct is that, it is through our believe in the messengers and accepting whatever they say as truth, that we can understand God? And we have no way to verify that these are in fact messengers or that they are even telling the truth, and that is acceptable for you?

That is what I am saying, that the only way to understand God is through His Messengers. I think logically, so I understand why it can never be proven that a Messenger of God got communication from God. But since I have so much evidence that indicates He was telling the truth that is good enough for me. It has to be good enough if I want to believe in God and get the messages that were revealed. Verifiable proof is not necessary because I think the evidence is so good, but then again I know what is contained in all the evidence categories I listed above, whereas you don’t.

What blueprints are you talking about, can you give an example of one?

One example is The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh.

Shoghi Effendi explains the plans Baha’u’llah laid out for the future of humanity.

So science improves our lives directly and it very easy to see and feel the effect of it. As a comparison to God, how do we feel or see the effect of God? Again let me remind you that some people are atheists, lots of people do not share your view on the Bahai faith and lots of people are being mistreated as a result of religion, so where do we see the clear effect of God in the world?

We are not going to see God doing anything because nobody has ever seen God. We see it through what the Baha’is are doing in the world because they are the ones who are carrying out the instructions that Baha’u’llah set forth.

Sure they are, if Jesus is a messenger and Muhammed then they are to blame as well, its partly their words that people try to understand and follow and constantly disagree about, what means. Most of the bible, if not all, is written by so called prophets.

The Messengers of past religions had no control over how their words were recorded in scriptures that were attributed to them. That is very much unlike Baha’u’llah who wrote His own scriptures. If Baha’u’llah’s Writings are confusing to some people, we can also read what His appointed interpreters Abdu’l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi wrote, so the Baha’i Faith is easy to understand, unlike past religions.

Both of them are. Remember that the Qur'an is also based on the Bible and if we conclude that the Bible is untrustworthy then is the Qur'an, as a lot of the stories are share between them.

There really is only one solution to untangle this big mess from past religions and it is the Baha’i Faith. But if people reject the Baha’i Faith the big mess will continue as it has been. Eventually Baha’u’llah will be recognized by everyone in the world and people will know the truth but that is going to be a long way off, unless the Baha’is do something differently to proclaim and teach the religion.

(CONTINUED ON NEXT POST)

 

[Trailblazer]

Im sorry but from what you are writing, I find that hard to believe, when you write the following: "Jesus is the Son of God but only figuratively, not literally, because God does not have biological offspring." I have never heard anyone make that claim and it is not what any Christian believe either, as far as I know. So if the Baha'i scriptures offers that as an explanation, it makes little sense when it comes to better understanding the scriptures, as this is not what anyone believes in the first place.

The whole point is to correct the false understandings of the Christians, not to agree with them. How could God have biological offspring unless God was a human? This is an absurd belief. I do not know what we even need the Baha’i Faith to realize that! Son of God means the relationship a father would have with a son.

Im sorry, but as we also talked about earlier, you can't simply cherry pick whatever verses you like as being true and those you disagree with, you just throw out, as you make the whole bible and the Qu'ran as well for that matter completely pointless as anyone can just cherry pick whatever they like from them. And ultimately it would make believing in God an absolute irrational position, as you can't trust anything written about him in the scriptures and therefore pointless to even read them.

Regarding the Bible, I certainly can pick out what I consider true and toss out the rest, keeping in mind that the Bible has many transcription and translation errors and there is no way to know who wrote what and on top of all that it was written by men. On the other hand maybe some things I have rejected really were from God, but since I don’t know I will not accept them. And it really does not matter anyway because the Dispensations of Moses and Jesus ended a long time ago, so who are we will talking about them? This seems absurd to be but then I am a Baha’i.

As for the Qur’an, the Dispensation of Muhammad has also come to an end but at least the scripture are authentic, unlike the Bible.

No, no... look Baha'i makes a claim that you got new and better information than they do and they disagree, they do not share your conviction that what Baha'u'llah is saying is true, if they did there would be more than approximately 6 million Baha'i. Its really that simple.

I am really surprised that you are this illogical so you cannot understand why the Baha'i Faith is still relatively small compared to the older religions. Most of the reason is that it is still very new compared to all the other religions. All new religions are always small in the beginning.

All religions grow slowly in the beginning. There were 7,530 Christians at the end of the first century. How many Jews became Christians in the first century? There were 5 million Baha’is at the end of the first century. Bahá'í statistics - Wikipedia There are now about 7 million Baha’is in the world, whereas there are only 14 million Jews in the world, even though Judaism has been around for 3,800 years. Clearly, size is not a measure of success.

I know you will strongly disagree with this, but from a rational point of view, you are ruining your own material for making any claim for a God, that is based on the Bible or the Qu'ran.

I am not making a claim for God that is based upon the Bible or the Qur’an. I am making a claim for God that is based upon the Revelation of Baha’u’llah. If I had my way, all the Holy Books of the past except the Qur’an would be eradicated because (a) they are so outdated, and (b) they are not authentic.

You are the one who keep bringing up the Bible, not me. We no longer need the Bible because we have the Revelation of Bahaullah. I know this is a bold claim but this is what I believe. Some other Baha’is would disagree because they have their own viewpoints and they refuse to relinquish the Bible.

That is exactly what Im saying, its purely based on faith and have nothing to do with truth or even seeking it. And don't get me wrong, having faith is fine, no problem with that. But it simply can't be assumed to be truth.

As I pointed out above, there is evidence so it is not solely based upon faith. If you are waiting for proof, there will never be proof that God exists or that any Messenger was sent by God.

But besides the faith and love of God and stuff related to that, none of it have anything to do with spiritual truth. "Mercy for the poor", "Defending the oppressed" etc. is perfectly explained without spirituality as we are social animals, look how close we live together we basically let "strangers" look out for our kids and elders etc.

What you say is true, you can have all of those spiritual virtues without belief in God, but faith and love of God are probably the two most important virtues if we were created to know and worship God, which is a core Baha’i belief and a core belief of all the Abrahamic religions.

 

[Trailblazer]

This were based on how to validate and test ones own beliefs and to constantly question them. So for instance when you write as reply to me: "I totally agree with you. We should never assume God did anything" Then we don't agree at all, because my starting point is to question the existence of God, I want to figure out based on my method whether its most likely that God exists or doesn't exists.

Therefore my starting point is:
1. Is it possible or reasonable to assume that a God exist?

I do not think we should assume anything without any evidence at all.

But if you read what your starting point is, when you write "We should never assume God did anything", that is what I mean by having a wrong starting point and going back and test it. Because you already jumped to the conclusion that God does exist, even though you say that the way we get to learn God is through the messengers, which we can't validate to actually tell the truth or not. Therefore jumping to the conclusion or using the starting point that God exists is irrational, when it comes to seeking truth.

As I said before that was not my starting point. I did not believe God exists until I investigated and came to believe in Baha’u’llah. I consider Baha’u’llah the evidence that God exists so that is why I believe that God exists.

Again if that is your faith and you simply claim that, then there is no issue. But to claim that it is the truth is not.

I only claim that it is the truth I believe in. Since I cannot prove it to anyone else, I cannot claim it is the truth for anyone else except myself.

That is why I say that we have to be careful with what method we use when it comes to seeking truth, because if not, we might fool or deceive ourselves, sometimes without knowing. Therefore one has to stay true towards the method and be absolutely as certain as one can be, that one do this correctly. Because if we don't we get our starting point wrong. A starting point can never be an assumption that something is already true. Does that make sense?

You have to be true to your methods of determining truth and I have to be true to my methods. My methods are different from yours because I am a different person.

Of course that makes sense. We should never assume something is true without fully investigating it. My starting point was that no God exists and I knew nothing about Messengers of God so I was starting from scratch. I was a blank slate before I became a Baha’i since I had no preconceptions.

Based on what I just wrote above, do you agree that what you write here is simply a claim? its not truth just a claim.

It is a claim that could be true or false. Apparently what you do not understand is that once we have accepted that Baha’u’llah was a Manifestation of God we believe everything that surrounds His Revelation is the absolute truth. The entire religion rests on whether Baha’u’llah was who He claimed to be or not.

If what makes you happy is to help others and not be selfish, it ultimately makes you happy as well. Some might say that their goal is to help animals in need, and most likely they do this because they care for animals and seeing animals doing well, makes them happy. So it doesn't matter what a person does in order to achieve happiness. For an individual thriving towards being personal happy as a live goal, still makes most sense as this does not prevent them for helping others if that is what makes them happy.

But what if helping other does not make them happy? What if adulterous affairs and drinking in bars is what makes them happy?

If you only help other people because your religion tells you to, I would personally consider stop following it and find something that makes you happy instead. But my guess is that you do find a lot of happiness in your religion and from helping others through it etc.

You cannot separate it out like that. When I was not following the teachings of my religion very well and did not take them seriously I was selfish and I did not want to help others. It is because of what Baha’u’llah wrote that I want to help others sine I know that it was enjoined by God through Baha’u’llah, but it is still sincere. As I see it, it would be selfish for me to find something else just because it makes ME happy, but I think I understand your point, that helping others should be a sincere desire, not something I am doing only because I am obligated to. I can agree with that.

Ok, so theoretically when an atheist or your atheist friend, say that God should remove evil that is plausible and therefore not invalid for him to think God ought to do. As none of us know what the limits of God is, but since we make the claim that he is omnipotent, omniscient and all good, that this does in fact from a logic point of view make it possible for him, correct?

From a logical point of view I understand, but after that it falls apart because God is not a short order cook who can be ordered around. God does only what He chooses so we can assume God does not choose to eradicate evil in the world and we should not expect God to do that. This is where my issue is: It is wrong to think that God OUGHT to do anything He is not already doing because that implies that God is not doing what He ought to do. If God is All-Knowing and All-Wise and Infallible questioning what God does or does not do is illogical because no human possesses any of those attributes. Do you understand what I mean?

We don't have anything against the messengers, we just don't see any evidence for them telling the truth and again as explained above about seeking truth, it would be irrational to jump to the conclusion that they are, when these evidence is not there. Therefore we hold the position that we don't know and that it is most likely that they are not messengers of God.

I agree it would be irrational to jump to the conclusion that they are Messengers of God but by the same token it is irrational to assume that they are not unless you have done a thorough investigation. Why is it the most likely that they are NOT Messengers of God?

Yes and that is where faith comes into the picture and whether its most likely and rational to believe in something for which there are no evidence or not. And as long as we have none, then its just not rational to believe it.

But it is NOT that we have NO evidence. It is only that we have no proof. There is plenty of evidence that supports the claim of Baha’u’llah, atheists simply do not accept the evidence that is there because they want verifiable proof. That is why I said you might as well hang it up unless you ae willing to change your requirements.

But murder is not always bad, when the nazi defectors or whoever tried to murder Hitler failed, wouldn't it have been good had they actually managed to do it?

That is a special situation. I meant a person murdering for money, sex, or just for the thrill of it, I did not mean murdering for a possible good reason. It would have been good if they had murdered Hitler if it would have prevented all those Jews from being murdered.

I have a slightly hard time following you

So you do agree with me that you do not need evil then for free will to be there? And if you don't need it, then God could potentially remove it if he wanted, and we would still have free will, right?

What we need is free will for evil to exist because free will allows people to choose to do evil. We need free will to function in society so it cannot be removed. God could override free will in order to remove evil, but why should God do that, when humans can learn to be good and not evil? If God took over and did what humans can do for themselves, God would not be doing humans any favors because they will never learn anything. Moreover, the evil human would still have the evil intentions so God would just have to take over his will and make him into a robot to stop him from doing evil.

I completely agree and this makes perfect sense in a physical and natural world where an all good God does not exists. But I do not think it follows from one where he does.

Unless you (a) know why God created it this way and/or (b) could create a better world, you really have no legitimate complaint, but I can certainly what you would question an all good God that created a world like this with so much suffering and I also question it.

 

[Nimos]

• What He was like as a person (His character);

• What He did during His mission on earth;

• The history of His Cause, from the time He appeared moving forward;

• The scriptures that were attributed to Him or scriptures that He wrote;

• What others have written about Him;

None of these are evidence.

• The Bible prophecies that He fulfilled by His coming,

Unless you can demonstrate why the bible say that it is him, it could just as well be someone else its talking about. Also where in the bible is his coming predicted?

• The prophecies of other religions that He fulfilled by His coming;

Can't comment on this one, as I don't know which religion(s) you are talking about.

• The predictions He made that have come to pass;

Already commented on this and don't really think the predictions I looked at sounded a lot difference than what we have heard before. Meaning rather weak and unspecific things which you can fit into a lot of things.

• The religion that He established (followers), what they have done and are doing now.

Lots of people have established religions and cults. It basically just requires someone to believe them and start following them.

In short, even if they are willing to look at the evidence, there is a lot of prejudice before even getting out the door to look at the evidence. Prejudice will surely prevent people from recognizing the truth of anything because they have closed their mind before they even looked at the evidence. You are a case in point.

No one can be expected to look at all the evidence for each religious claim out there, I doubt anyone have done that and cared to spend as much time on other religions as they do their own. If the evidence were as clear as day, why don't you think people agree with you?

Can you present what you consider to be the 3 most solid evidence?

Shoghi Effendi explains the plans Baha’u’llah laid out for the future of humanity.

But this is not much different than what the bible or the Quran does, as I see it, just another approach, right?

We are not going to see God doing anything because nobody has ever seen God. We see it through what the Baha’is are doing in the world because they are the ones who are carrying out the instructions that Baha’u’llah set forth.

Ok, so what all the other religious people have been doing throughout the last 2000+ years, is basically just wasting their time? or at least they have spend time and keep spending time spreading misinformation, that must be rather frustrating?

The whole point is to correct the false understandings of the Christians, not to agree with them. How could God have biological offspring unless God was a human? This is an absurd belief. I do not know what we even need the Baha’i Faith to realize that! Son of God means the relationship a father would have with a son.

I think you might have misunderstood me. Christians don't believe that Jesus is just some random normal guy, that is the son of God. My point was that if the Bahai's teaching is to correct false understanding in Christianity, it doesn't make much sense to point out stuff they don't believe in the first place.

Regarding the Bible, I certainly can pick out what I consider true and toss out the rest, keeping in mind that the Bible has many transcription and translation errors and there is no way to know who wrote what and on top of all that it was written by men. On the other hand maybe some things I have rejected really were from God, but since I don’t know I will not accept them. And it really does not matter anyway because the Dispensations of Moses and Jesus ended a long time ago, so who are we will talking about them? This seems absurd to be but then I am a Baha’i.

As for the Qur’an, the Dispensation of Muhammad has also come to an end but at least the scripture are authentic, unlike the Bible.

I think you have completely missed the point here. If the God you believe in is original the one from the bible, then you move to the Quran and then finally Baha'u'llah, if none of the scriptures INCLUDING the Quran which share a lot of stories with the bible, is not to be trusted. Then you basically have no clue which God you believe in, except you are giving the Bahai religion complete control over your beliefs and you just follow. You can't trust any scriptures with the position you are taking and therefore you are in no position to question anything that they claim is truth. This is basically blind faith. And again, claiming that all these scriptures in the bible or the Quran may or may not be about God, only underline that there is no way to demonstrate that Baha'u'llah, even if he is a messenger of God, is one from the God of the bible or Quran, but might be something completely difference. Any characteristics laid out in the bible or the Quran should have absolutely no value to them, if you should approached it from a rational point of view.

Did Baha'u'llah write anything about the God he believed in? What he is like? Dislike? capable of? etc?

I am really surprised that you are this illogical so you cannot understand why the Baha'i Faith is still relatively small compared to the older religions. Most of the reason is that it is still very new compared to all the other religions. All new religions are always small in the beginning.

I know, but my point is, that if the evidence are so mind blowing good and solid, it should take no time to convince people. Wouldn't you agree?

As I pointed out above, there is evidence so it is not solely based upon faith. If you are waiting for proof, there will never be proof that God exists or that any Messenger was sent by God.

Im trying to tell you that this is not evidence, but claims. That is why it is crucial to know the difference between them. Believing claims to be true leads to ignorance, believing in evidence to be true leads to proof. There is a huge difference.

I consider Baha’u’llah the evidence that God exists so that is why I believe that God exists.

Baha'u'llahs word can never be evidence. Again he makes a claim and you buy it as being the truth, because you mix up claims and evidence. You can have faith in Baha'u'llah saying the truth, but again that simply means that you have faith and are no nearer the truth.

Continue...

 

[Nimos]

I only claim that it is the truth I believe in. Since I cannot prove it to anyone else, I cannot claim it is the truth for anyone else except myself.

There is only one truth when we talk about stuff like this. Its not like its true for some and false for others. Either Baha'u'llah is a messenger from God or he is not. There is no middle ground.

You have to be true to your methods of determining truth and I have to be true to my methods. My methods are different from yours because I am a different person.

Im trying to help you see that your method might be slightly flawed, when it comes to your religion. Again I have no doubt you do just fine when its about anything else.

It is a claim that could be true or false. Apparently what you do not understand is that once we have accepted that Baha’u’llah was a Manifestation of God we believe everything that surrounds His Revelation is the absolute truth. The entire religion rests on whether Baha’u’llah was who He claimed to be or not.

But that is what blind faith is, accepting things without questioning them. That can be slightly dangerous, you might have heard stories of people in cults when they accept blind faith. Also you would have to agree with me then, that you are not really interested in the truth when it comes to this, if you are already certain that what you are being taught is the absolute truth. You might say that you are interested in the truth, but to me it seems like you are more interested in just holding on to what you believe is truth regardless of it actually being the case.

But what if helping other does not make them happy? What if adulterous affairs and drinking in bars is what makes them happy?

Well if helping other doesn't make them happy they ought to do something else. For some people life is to just drink and sit in bars, if that makes them happy, that is what they ought to do. Now im not talking about alcoholics here, as most of them do it because of a need, it doesn't have anything to do with achieving happiness. Remember a lot of things in life can interfere with how we can achieve happiness, that is why we ought to improve society to allow for humans to flourish in achieving it.

You cannot separate it out like that. When I was not following the teachings of my religion very well and did not take them seriously I was selfish and I did not want to help others. It is because of what Baha’u’llah wrote that I want to help others sine I know that it was enjoined by God through Baha’u’llah, but it is still sincere.

And that is fine, if your happiness comes from doing "Bahai" works or what to call it and this being to help others, that is fine. But obviously if you only do it, because of Bahai faith then I still think you should do something else. You know there are lots of way to help others, it doesn't require you to spend a lot of time, but you can give money to those people that really enjoy it and they will appreciate it. There is nothing wrong, with not personally wanting to be involved in helping others. Ones heart can be in the right place in many different ways.

From a logical point of view I understand, but after that it falls apart because God is not a short order cook who can be ordered around. God does only what He chooses so we can assume God does not choose to eradicate evil in the world and we should not expect God to do that. This is where my issue is: It is wrong to think that God OUGHT to do anything He is not already doing because that implies that God is not doing what He ought to do. If God is All-Knowing and All-Wise and Infallible questioning what God does or does not do is illogical because no human possesses any of those attributes. Do you understand what I mean?

You should have stopped here: "From a logical point of view I understand" if we just agreed that none of us know anything about what God is capable of and you just earlier in one of your replies said, that we have no clue how God intervene in the world except through the messengers. Then everything you start to claim after that initial sentence makes no sense at all as you are simply guessing and starts to claim what God can and can not do, when we just established that none of us know.

I agree it would be irrational to jump to the conclusion that they are Messengers of God but by the same token it is irrational to assume that they are not unless you have done a thorough investigation. Why is it the most likely that they are NOT Messengers of God?

Because this is how rationality, critical thinking and skepticism works. Every time you are presented with a claim you should demand evidence to back up the claim if you are to take it serious.

Its the same as if I said to you: "I saw a flying elephant yesterday, it was using its ears as wings", Just because I can't show you the flying elephant doesn't make that position equally trustworthy as one where elephants doesn't fly.

So when I highlight "every time" and "demand" above, it is because you should demand from me to provide you with evidence for a flying elephants for you to even consider it to be plausible in the first place. Its not up to you to take my word or spend time trying to find a flying elephant. I made the claim therefore you can demand me to provide you with whatever evidence you find sufficient to convince you that flying elephants actually do exists. Its referred to as burden of proof, which is on the person that makes the claim. Therefore when it comes to someone claiming to be a messenger of God, the burden of proof is on them and no one else and therefore the most rational position for anyone to take regarding such claim, is that they are not a messenger of God.

But it is NOT that we have NO evidence. It is only that we have no proof. There is plenty of evidence that supports the claim of Baha’u’llah, atheists simply do not accept the evidence that is there because they want verifiable proof. That is why I said you might as well hang it up unless you ae willing to change your requirements.

Evidence lead to proof, so either the evidence are fairly weak or they are not evidence at all. That is a prediction I will make here

That is a special situation. I meant a person murdering for money, sex, or just for the thrill of it, I did not mean murdering for a possible good reason. It would have been good if they had murdered Hitler if it would have prevented all those Jews from being murdered.

It doesn't really matter what you meant, when we are talking about objective good and evil. If something is objectively evil, it means that its evil regardless of humans being there or not. But when we are looking at it from human point of view, it means that murder have to be wrong no matter what and that is simply not the case. That is why I don't believe in objective good and evil, but that it doesn't exists and everything that we label as being either is subjective.

What we need is free will for evil to exist because free will allows people to choose to do evil.

I need to stop you here. This make no sense, because what you are saying is that God gave us free will so evil could exists. That pretty much turn thing upside down.

Unless you (a) know why God created it this way and/or (b) could create a better world, you really have no legitimate complaint, but I can certainly what you would question an all good God that created a world like this with so much suffering and I also question it.

But that assumes that God does exist and I don't do that well

 

[TransmutingSoul]

I need to stop you here. This make no sense, because what you are saying is that God gave us free will so evil could exists. That pretty much turn thing upside down

The Bible has answered that;

Isaiah 45:7 "I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things."

It is saying God has given a creation where Light and darkness exist.

God created us at the edge of darkness and shows us how to reach for the light. This world is a matrix for our soul. A place where we can choose to develop our spiritual limbs, our spiritual capacity.

This a world of opposites. God is all Good, lack of that good is the opposite.

Sorry trailblazer is the essay writer and I note you can match the essays.

It is a big subject just by itself.

Regards Tony

 

[Nimos]

Isaiah 45:7 "I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things."

It is saying God has given a creation where Light and darkness exist.

I know that verse, it seem to have different translations. However I don't think what you say it means is correct. If we follow the verse, it says that God create darkness and also create disaster. So wouldn't it be more correct to understand it as God also do these things? Which we then classify as evil, or at least some of us would, in a world which is claimed to be created by an all good God.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

I know that verse, it seem to have different translations. However I don't think what you say it means is correct. If we follow the verse, it says that God create darkness and also create disaster. So wouldn't it be more correct to understand it as God also do these things? Which we then classify as evil, or at least some of us would, in a world which is claimed to be created by an all good God.

I see it as I form the Light, thus darkness is created, also possible.

The light is the animating force, prosperity is the animating force. No light, we have darkness, no prosperity we have disaster.

I see this is what is needed for us to be able to freely choose to Love. Without the choice, how can we know what it is to Love?

Regards Tony

 

[Trailblazer]

The Bible has answered that;

Isaiah 45:7 "I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things."

It is saying God has given a creation where Light and darkness exist.

The first part is saying that but the second part is saying God brings prosperity and creates disaster.

God created us at the edge of darkness and shows us how to reach for the light. This world is a matrix for our soul. A place where we can choose to develop our spiritual limbs, our spiritual capacity.

This a world of opposites. God is all Good, lack of that good is the opposite.

You make it sound so simple, just choose to develop our spiritual limbs. Sure, we have free will but it is constrained so not everyone develops their spiritual limbs. So what happens to the other people who fall by the wayside?

All this is very poetic, but it is illogical to say God is all Good if God creates disaster. Also, we know that God created a world in which many people would suffer, often through no fault of their own. If they brought on their own suffering by their own poor choices that might be excusable, but to subject innocent people to a torture chamber, many for their entire lives, is not my idea of an All Good God.

I think theists really need to take a hard look at the God they believe in.

The reason I can still be a Baha’i is because I do not blame Baha’u’llah for any of this suffering because He did not create the world. One cannot blame the mailman who delivers the mail for the way the post office was built.

God can come and get me if He wants to for saying this but I cannot be less than honest about how I feel. A dear friend of mine is suffering right now and I can barely breathe; and no, I cannot be detached from it because I have feelings for him.

 

[Trailblazer]

I know that verse, it seem to have different translations. However I don't think what you say it means is correct. If we follow the verse, it says that God create darkness and also create disaster. So wouldn't it be more correct to understand it as God also do these things? Which we then classify as evil, or at least some of us would, in a world which is claimed to be created by an all good God.

It certainly seems like that is what the verse says. If the verse really represents what God said, it does not seem like an all good God to me.

 

[Trailblazer]

None of these are evidence.

They are all evidence that indicates that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God, but they are not proof. Do you know the difference between evidence and proof?

Evidence: anything that helps to prove that something is or is not true:EVIDENCE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid:https://www.google.com/search

Proof: evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement: https://www.google.com/search

Something is scientifically verifiable if it can be tested and proven to be true. Verifiable comes from the verb verify, "authenticate" or "prove," from the Old French verifier, "find out the truth about." The Latin root is verus, or "true." Definitions of verifiable.

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/verifiable

Unless you can demonstrate why the bible say that it is him, it could just as well be someone else its talking about. Also where in the bible is his coming predicted?

It cannot be someone else, if Baha’u’llah ALREADY fulfilled the prophecies BY His coming; when He came, where He appeared, what He did on His mission, and the geographical places that exist as the result of His Coming, not to mention the fact that the Baha’i World Centre is in Haifa, Is on Mt. Carmel, all in fulfillment to various prophecies... I could go on and on, but f you want to read about the prophecies you can read Thief in the Night by William Sears.

Can't comment on this one, as I don't know which religion(s) you are talking about.

You can read about it on this website: Prophecy Fulfilled Webpage

Already commented on this and don't really think the predictions I looked at sounded a lot difference than what we have heard before. Meaning rather weak and unspecific things which you can fit into a lot of things.

The predictions were neither weak nor unspecificNot only did Baha’u’llah know things He did not learn in any school, He also predicted many things that later came to pass. Here is a list of 30 specific things Baha’u’llah knew and things He predicted that later came to pass: The Challenge of Baha'u'llah

Lots of people have established religions and cults. It basically just requires someone to believe them and start following them.

That is only PART of the evidence.

No one can be expected to look at all the evidence for each religious claim out there, I doubt anyone have done that and cared to spend as much time on other religions as they do their own. If the evidence were as clear as day, why don't you think people agree with you?

I thought I answered that, but maybe you did not understand. I just got the same question from that atheist I told you about on my forum and I wrote this up, which is essentially what I told you before:

Despite the good evidence, the reasons people do not join up are as follows:

1. Most people are not even willing to look the evidence in order to determine if it is true or not.
2. Even if they are willing to look at the evidence, there is a lot of prejudice before even getting out the door to look at the evidence.
3. 84% of people in the world already have a religion and they are happy with their religion so they have no interest in a “new religion.”
4. The rest of the world’s population are agnostics or atheists or believers who are prejudiced against all religion.
5. Agnostics or atheists and atheists and believers who have no religion do not believe that God communicates via Messengers.
6. Baha’u’llah brought new teachings and laws that are very different from the older religions so many people are suspicious of those teachings and/or don’t like the laws.

All you have to do is ask people why they don’t sign up and they will gladly tell you, thus verifying what I just said.

Can you present what you consider to be the 3 most solid evidence?

Baha’u’llah explained how we are supposed to establish the truth of His claim. First, we examine His own Self (His character); second we examine His Revelation (everything that surrounds His Mission on earth); and third we look at His words (His Writings).

All this evidence can be researched and verified to be connected to Baha’u’llah, so nobody can say that Baha’u’llah did not offer proof that supports His claim to be a Messenger of God.

“Say: The first and foremost testimony establishing His truth is His own Self. Next to this testimony is His Revelation. For whoso faileth to recognize either the one or the other He hath established the words He hath revealed as proof of His reality and truth. This is, verily, an evidence of His tender mercy unto men. He hath endowed every soul with the capacity to recognize the signs of God. How could He, otherwise, have fulfilled His testimony unto men, if ye be of them that ponder His Cause in their hearts. He will never deal unjustly with any one, neither will He task a soul beyond its power. He, verily, is the Compassionate, the All-Merciful.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 105-106

But this is not much different than what the bible or the Quran does, as I see it, just another approach, right?

I am not sure what you mean. The Bible and the Qur’an did not lay out any plans for humanity the way Baha’u’llah did.

Ok, so what all the other religious people have been doing throughout the last 2000+ years, is basically just wasting their time? or at least they have spend time and keep spending time spreading misinformation, that must be rather frustrating?

I never said that. The other religious people did what they were enjoined to do by their religions for the last 2000 years. Now it is time to move on and do what Baha’u’llah has enjoined us to do.

I think you have completely missed the point here. If the God you believe in is original the one from the bible, then you move to the Quran and then finally Baha'u'llah, if none of the scriptures INCLUDING the Quran which share a lot of stories with the bible, is not to be trusted. Then you basically have no clue which God you believe in, except you are giving the Bahai religion complete control over your beliefs and you just follow. You can't trust any scriptures with the position you are taking and therefore you are in no position to question anything that they claim is truth. This is basically blind faith. And again, claiming that all these scriptures in the bible or the Quran may or may not be about God, only underline that there is no way to demonstrate that Baha'u'llah, even if he is a messenger of God, is one from the God of the bible or Quran, but might be something completely difference. Any characteristics laid out in the bible or the Quran should have absolutely no value to them, if you should approached it from a rational point of view.

I only ever said that I am not sure which stories in the Bible are literally true, because I do not know. I did not say that the Bible is not about God. Baha’u’llah wrote that the Bible is God’s greatest testimony to His creatures. As for the Qur’an, I believe it is more authentic than the Bible because we know that scribes wrote what Muhammad had told them.

Did Baha'u'llah write anything about the God he believed in? What he is like? Dislike? capable of? etc?

Baha’u’llah wrote a lot about the God that revealed Himself to Baha’u’llah. Most of the book entitled Gleanings is about God.

I know, but my point is, that if the evidence are so mind blowing good and solid, it should take no time to convince people. Wouldn't you agree?

No, I do not agree. Above, I explained why people are not convinced, despite the good evidence.

Im trying to tell you that this is not evidence, but claims. That is why it is crucial to know the difference between them. Believing claims to be true leads to ignorance, believing in evidence to be true leads to proof. There is a huge difference.

It is not claims, it is evidence. Evidence does not lead to proof if something cannot be proven.

Baha'u'llahs word can never be evidence. Again he makes a claim and you buy it as being the truth, because you mix up claims and evidence. You can have faith in Baha'u'llah saying the truth, but again that simply means that you have faith and are no nearer the truth.

I do not mix up claims with evidence. I know that claims are not evidence. I already told you what I consider to be evidence that Baha’u’llah was who He claimed to be and I told you it is not proof, because nobody can prove that a Messenger got messages from God.

 

[Trailblazer]

There is only one truth when we talk about stuff like this. Its not like its true for some and false for others. Either Baha'u'llah is a messenger from God or he is not. There is no middle ground.

That is true, He was either a Messenger of God or not, but I cannot state it as a claim because I cannot prove it.

Im trying to help you see that your method might be slightly flawed, when it comes to your religion. Again I have no doubt you do just fine when its about anything else.

What is flawed about my methods?

But that is what blind faith is, accepting things without questioning them. That can be slightly dangerous, you might have heard stories of people in cults when they accept blind faith. Also you would have to agree with me then, that you are not really interested in the truth when it comes to this, if you are already certain that what you are being taught is the absolute truth. You might say that you are interested in the truth, but to me it seems like you are more interested in just holding on to what you believe is truth regardless of it actually being the case.

How do you know I have not questioned my beliefs? I have questioned them for years and years, but I always end up believing them.

Well if helping other doesn't make them happy they ought to do something else. For some people life is to just drink and sit in bars, if that makes them happy, that is what they ought to do. Now im not talking about alcoholics here, as most of them do it because of a need, it doesn't have anything to do with achieving happiness. Remember a lot of things in life can interfere with how we can achieve happiness, that is why we ought to improve society to allow for humans to flourish in achieving it.

I am sorry, I do not agree that the purpose of like is to achieve personal happiness, so maybe that is where atheists part ways with believers.

And that is fine, if your happiness comes from doing "Bahai" works or what to call it and this being to help others, that is fine. But obviously if you only do it, because of Bahai faith then I still think you should do something else. You know there are lots of way to help others, it doesn't require you to spend a lot of time, but you can give money to those people that really enjoy it and they will appreciate it. There is nothing wrong, with not personally wanting to be involved in helping others. Ones heart can be in the right place in many different ways.

My personal happiness does not come from doing Baha’i works but it is a duty nonetheless. Sometimes I derive spiritual happiness from it and sometimes I don’t want to do it at all.

Because this is how rationality, critical thinking and skepticism works. Every time you are presented with a claim you should demand evidence to back up the claim if you are to take it serious.

That is what I did, I looked at the evidence.

Therefore when it comes to someone claiming to be a messenger of God, the burden of proof is on them and no one else and therefore the most rational position for anyone to take regarding such claim, is that they are not a messenger of God.

I do not have the burden of proof because I did not make the claim. Baha’u’llah made the claim and He provided proof to back up His claim. If you do not think that evidence is sufficient then you are in no way obliged to believe Baha’u’llah was a Messenger. It’s that simple.

Evidence lead to proof, so either the evidence are fairly weak or they are not evidence at all. That is a prediction I will make here

No, evidence does not lead to proof, because there is no way to prove God exists or that anyone is a Messenger of God, for obvious reasons. If God cannot ever be proven to exist, how can ot be proven that God spoke to a Messenger? Think.

It doesn't really matter what you meant, when we are talking about objective good and evil. If something is objectively evil, it means that its evil regardless of humans being there or not. But when we are looking at it from human point of view, it means that murder have to be wrong no matter what and that is simply not the case. That is why I don't believe in objective good and evil, but that it doesn't exists and everything that we label as being either is subjective.

I can go along with that. Murder is usually wrong, but there can be exceptions. Do you also think that sometimes rape and adultery are not wrong.

I need to stop you here. This make no sense, because what you are saying is that God gave us free will so evil could exists. That pretty much turn thing upside down.

No, that is not what I meant. I meant evil exists because God gave man free will. In other words, man commits evil acts because man can choose to commit them.

But that assumes that God does exist and I don't do that well

It does not assume that God exists, it is hypothetical. If God exists, do you think that God could have created a world without suffering and if so what would it look like?