Would/Should God communicate directly to everyone in the world?

[Trailblazer]

If you can't understand it, how do you know and/or believe that that's not how god communicate with them?

I believe their claims that God communicated to them because of the evidence that supports their claims.

I do not need to understand how that communication unfolds. That communication was only between them and God, so in order to know that I would have to be a Messenger of God.

 

[Trailblazer]

Then god wouldn't be moral if he doesn't have moral obligations. We can only base his morality off of our own because that's the only sense of morality that we understand. And I'm not talking about relative or subjective morality. If you believe that he only will and chooses according to his knowledge and wisdom, then how do you know that his will and choices are moral or not.

You are right, God is not moral. God is not subject to morality because God is not a human.

moral: concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.
moral means - Google Search

If we believe in God we accept that God is the Source of morality but not subject to it. It is not something we can understand, it is based upon faith. However, it makes logical sense if we think about it because if God is All-Knowing and All-Wise then whatever He wills and chooses according to his consummate knowledge and wisdom has to be better for us than anything we would choose. That is why God is the one who sets the standards for humans.

But a child with a sense of morality does know if a parent is being moral or immoral, even though the child cannot dictate their parent(s) actions.

Likewise, a person who believes in and trusts God knows that whatever God reveals is in their best interest.

 

[LuisDantas]

Since most people in the world believe in God and most of those people believe in God because of a religion:
84 percent of the world population has a faith.
I think it was good enough, because there is no reason to think that everyone has to believe in God. I think that will happen in the future, but the future in not here yet.

Wow.

I could not hope to disagree more if I begged you to help me in achieving such a goal.

You are this close to not being even wrong.

I don't even know where to start.

You are abusing the very basic ideas of God, of religion, and of transcendence, all in the same package. And abusing them with quite some passion, at that.

I would be scared if I saw any viability whatsover in such a view.

It is working for 55% of the world population who are Jews, Christians, Muslims and Baha'is. Most of the other people have a different religion like Buddhism or Hinduism so they have no reason to switch.

About 55% of people are Abrahamic, yes. Whether being Abrahamic is working for them is a whole separate matter.

It makes logical sense that it is the best way because it is the only way we know of that God has ever communicated to humans and if God is All-Knowing and All-Wise it has to be the best way.

Who is "we", paleface?

There are literally thousands of creeds that will argue otherwise, you know.

The Essence (intrinsic nature of God) is beyond human understanding but we can know some Attributes of God and the Will of God through what the Messengers reveal. That is the main reason why God sends them.

That is quite the arbitrary claim. I would not mind you saying that for yourself. But you when you make statements about a God that is presumably universal, things get complicated and need a lot more justification.

And that is quite proper. You should not bother to use concepts (such as "God") which you have no idea of how to use or handle.

I said that. I think that you meant to answer and it ended up lost in the shuffle.

You are correct. God has no need to be recognized

Thanks.

and any bad things that might lie ahead can be communicated through Messengers.

But why would a true God resort to such exotic measures?

All people are equally deserving but they have to work for what they deserve. If people want to believe in God they have to search and make a sincere effort to believe. It is not justice that everyone gets a free ride. That is 'one reason' why direct communication to everyone is not a method God uses.

Sorry, but at the end of the day... I just have no time for such weird, dysfunctional conceptions of deities. I can't help but hope that no one else does, either.

 

[Vinayaka]

If we're discussing this in the context of why having prophets/messengers or not, yeah, I think it would make more sense if God talked to everyone individually. The reason is quite simple. Imagine if you know quantum mechanics and you want to teach a class. But instead of you teaching the class, you pick someone who doesn't understand quantum mechanics and try to teach him quickly and give him some simple overview, he/she kind'a understand, but not fully, and then goes to teach the class. Will the class have the proper understanding of quantum mechanics? Most likely not. If you want them to fully understand it, it's better that you do it yourself, direct to the students.

But then let's say the information you want to give them is life or death. If anything they misunderstand will kill them, it's even more important they get the correct and full information, and not information filtered and interpreted by a single person. I think it's reasonable, even rational, to believe that God would talk to everyone equally, and having prophets is a bad way of doing it.

One of the best analogies for this foolishness I've ever heard. I'll be borrowing it.

 

[Trailblazer]

I get that this thread is a veiled attempt to proselytize for your religion, so should I just assume the Baha'i belief on this: that God has a message for all of humanity?

Well, hang on. Are we still trying to maintain the pretense that this thread isn't about proselytizing for the Baha'i faith? Because if we are, then you'd have to justify why we should assume that your eternal, solitary space alien has any of those attributes.

A person does not have to be a Baha'i to believe that we are made in the image of God and that means we have the potential to reflect God's attributes such as Goodness, Loving, Gracious, Merciful, Just, Righteous, Forgiving, and Patient. Jews, Christians and Muslims all have those same beliefs.

You do not know my motives for posting this thread so you have no right to make such accusations, yet you make them anyway. I have no interest in promoting the Baha'i Faith. I started this thread for a particular reason, and that reason can be verified by going to my forum and reading the threads there.

I have been posting to an atheist almost daily for over five years and he insists that if god existed god would communicate directly to everyone. So I told him I could post his premises on this forum and get other opinions. There are several other threads I have started in the last two years since I have been on RF that were posted because of what he and I were discussing on my forum or on other forums we were posting on at the time.

I have no interest in him becoming a Baha'i, but I will readily admit I think it is in his best interest to believe in God, especially since that is ALL he ever talks about. Why do you think someone would constantly talk about a god they do not believe exists? I do not pretend to know why. He can tell me why if he wants to. All I know is that he does it so I am just going along for the ride.

In my opinion, direct communication from God to everyone in the world is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my entire life. I realize I have a certain bias because of my religion so I posted this here to get other opinions.

 

[night912]

I do not need to understand how that communication unfolds.

Yes you do since you claim that that's not how god communicate with the prophets.

That communication was only between them and God, so in order to know that I would have to be a Messenger of God.

So you don't know that god doesn't communicate in that way.

 

[Trailblazer]

... and I'm not the only one ... must be at least 200 'debate' threads by now

I cannot speak for any other Baha'is, but I have no interest in promoting the Baha'i Faith. Moreover, I am a straight shooter, not a sneaky person. Everyone who knows me knows that. So if I wanted to promote the Baha'i Faith I would make my intentions clear. I would not post a thread like this one.

It only demonstrates arrogance on your part to make assumptions like that. As I told Penguin, I started this thread for a specific purpose, because I have been posting to an atheist almost daily for over five years and he insists that if god existed god would communicate directly to everyone. So I told him I could post on this forum and get other opinions. There are several other threads I have started in the last two years since I have been on RF that were posted because of what he and I were discussing on my forum or on other forums we were posting on at the time.

That is verifiable by going to my forum and reading all the posts between him and me.

 

[night912]

You are right, God is not moral. God is not subject to morality because God is not a human.

moral: concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.
moral means - Google Search

If we believe in God we accept that God is the Source of morality but not subject to it. It is not something we can understand, it is based upon faith. However, it makes logical sense if we think about it because if God is All-Knowing and All-Wise then whatever He wills and chooses according to his consummate knowledge and wisdom has to be better for us than anything we would choose. That is why God is the one who sets the standards for humans.

No, it doesn't make logical sense. If you can't understand something, then you can't know what it is about, ie motives, will, etc. It's also illogical to conclude that the actions of a being with superior knowledge and wisdom are only moral because there is no connection between knowledge and wisdom and someone's action. A being with superior knowledge and wisdom can still act immoral.

Likewise, a person who believes in and trusts God knows that whatever God reveals is in their best interest.

So you either you fully understand god, or that's only an assertion and nothing else. So it means nothing.

 

[Link]

If God exists and God is omnipotent, hypothetically speaking God could communicate directly to everyone rather than communicating through Messengers/Prophets. By everyone I mean every one of the 7.53 billion people in the world.

1. Do you think God (if God exists) would communicate directly to everyone?

• If you think that God would do this, please explain why you think so.
• If you think that God would not do this, please explain why you think so.

2. Do you think it is *reasonable* to expect God (if God exists) to communicate directly to everyone?

• If you think that is a reasonable expectation, please explain why you think so.
• If you think it is an unreasonable expectation, please explain why you think so.

3. Do you think that *rational people* would expect God to communicate directly to everyone?

• If you think rational people would expect God to do that, please explain why you think so.
• If you think rational people would not expect God to do that, please explain why you think so.

If it was possible he would, but even to the highest veils, he must speak through behind their veil, and so the trial of faith and belief in God and his sustaining power and his words, is the result. The highest of the high veils have to at the very least, trust the voice and witness the divine proof of God in themselves. If they doubt God's power in them, for example, and his sustaining them, and see themselves as powers independent of God and having grown their own sustenance and path through sheer will of their own, they would've lost their way. If they saw God not as the source of the glorious voice they hear at the highest reality they are in, and they are the highest signs, they would have lost their way.

You think we would believe in Angels if they came to us, I guarantee most of would accuse these trustworthy spirits of being evil and misguidance. The flip side of course, if Demons come to us trying to impose us their will and trick us they are Angels, we would believe them.

This is proven by the fact the only leaders that came with proofs of their leadership, we give them a severe hard time. While those without proofs and lead, we follow without question.

If you don't know what I'm saying by this to be short: If God communicate to us through our own veils or Angels we would distrust the source.

As for Iblis, he heard God's voice and believed for 6000 years whether the years are by our time or a time of God's reckoning, no one knows, but he disbelieved in God's voice to him through veils he use to trust, just because it was told to prostrate to a human created from clay.

The fact is there is no way to God but through faith.

 

[Trailblazer]

IF God exists (emphasis on "if" there), then BASED ON CURRENT EVIDENCE at our disposal, I would say that NO, God would not communicate directly to everyone. All current evidence points to a God who very VERY much wants to keep his existence a big secret. Communicating through a select few, giving certain people personal experiences and not others, making the Earth appear billions of years old, etc.

It is unreasonable because, BASED ON CURRENT EVIDENCE, God does not want to communicate directly to everyone. Whatever plan He's got going on, communicating directly to everyone is NOT a part of it. If He exists, He has decided to allow there to be a massive amount of confusion over what His nature is, which version of "God" humans have correct, which religion even has the correct "God" attributed to it, He allowed many multiple texts to be written, all different within different belief systems, many containing multiple Gods, He's not stepped in to clarify any of it, or if He has, then He's done so MULTIPLE TIMES, THROUGH MULTIPLE DIFFERENT PEOPLE WHO ALSO REPORT DIFFERENT "UPDATES."

That's great, that's just great... You nipped it right in the bud.
I knew I could count on good responses from the the *rational atheists* on this forum.

Rational people should stick to the evidence. And again, BASED ON CURRENT EVIDENCE, God is not going to communicate directly to everyone. Still not a bad question to wonder WHY that's the case though. Don't have to have an expectation necessarily - just simply asking a question: WHY DOESN'T GOD COMMUNICATE DIRECTLY TO EVERYONE? Especially given many theists' framing of the situation as "God cares about everyone." So, the question can further be simplified: "If He cares about everyone, then why does God not grant the same opportunity to believe via evidence to everyone?" And the utterly confounding nature of that question has led some theists (especially recently I have noticed) to come to the conclusion, and begin to preach that God DOESN'T care about everyone to the same degree. That there are "chosen people," and some people that are just there to get crapped on by the system, apparently (Go chaff!). It's all rather comedic... because those same people will adamantly state that no one can know the mind of God - and yet there they are, telling you they do. Good for a laugh.

Well, I can give you some reasons why God does not communicate directly to everyone according to my religious beliefs.

First, nobody could ever understand direct communication from God unless they had a dual nature, a divine and human nature. Messengers/Prophets have a dual nature and that is why God can speak to them through the Holy Spirit. They alone can understand God because if their divine nature, and because they also have a human nature they can translate what God says into language that humans can understand. This all makes logical sense if people can get beyond their confirmation bias. Yes, everything you said above is correct about all the conflicting religions and messages, but there is an explanation for that too. There is a logical explanation for everything *I believe* as otherwise I would not believe it.

Secondly, even if we could understand God directly, God has *no need* for anyone let alone everyone to believe in Him thus no reason to make Himself known through direct communication or any other way, say like putting a banner in the sky "I am God and I exist" in every region of the world. But how would you know it was from God anyway? It could be from a space alien. Likewise, if you heard a voice in your head saying "I am God and I have a message" how would you know it was God and that you were not just psychotic?

Thirdly, aside from what I said above, another reason God uses Messengers and scriptures to get His messages to humans is so people can exercise their free will and *choose* to believe or disbelieve. It is clear from scriptures in the Bible and other Abrahamic religions that God wants belief only from people who meet certain criteria.

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

If God communicated directly to everyone and that *succeeded* in making everyone believe God exists, then belief would no longer be a choice. No, it will not fly that we would still have a choice, because once we know God exists we no longer have a choice whether to believe or not. True, we still have a choice whether to love and obey God, but once we know we know and then we are stuck with that knowing whether we like it or not.

For example, I do not love God all that much but I still try to follow the teachings and laws of my religion. My husband says I should be an atheist because I do not *really believe* that God is all the things He is cracked up to be in scriptures, loving, merciful, and compassionate, etc. I told him I cannot not believe God exists because I believe God exists but that does not mean I have to like God or love God. That is my own struggle to deal with. I just cannot believe an omnipotent/ loving God would allow so much suffering in the world and what makes it all the worse is the uneven distribution of suffering. Sure, much human suffering is brought on by human free will choices but that does not account for all the suffering humans endure. Some people become collateral damage because of some evil person or they get diseases or have accidents that are not their fault.... But we are just supposed to *believe* God is loving. Sorry, I cannot do it most of the time. All I can do is hope that God understands why and forgives me.

 

[Trailblazer]

Since, according to nearly every Theist I've met, this "god" not only expects worship from it's creation, but absolutely demands it, Or Else?

That's some serious consequences for not giving it what it wants/demands. Dire consequences.

I guess you only know Christians. I do not believe that God expects or demands anything from humans. God commands stuff but that is not the same as demanding stuff.

There might be an *or else* but there is no way to KNOW what that will be or who will get it.

 

[Trailblazer]

If we're discussing this in the context of why having prophets/messengers or not, yeah, I think it would make more sense if God talked to everyone individually. The reason is quite simple. Imagine if you know quantum mechanics and you want to teach a class. But instead of you teaching the class, you pick someone who doesn't understand quantum mechanics and try to teach him quickly and give him some simple overview, he/she kind'a understand, but not fully, and then goes to teach the class. Will the class have the proper understanding of quantum mechanics? Most likely not. If you want them to fully understand it, it's better that you do it yourself, direct to the students.

So you don't think that an Omniscient God would be smart enough to know who to choose to convey His message to all of mankind and that God would choose someone who does not have the capacity to understand and deliver those messages?

Why would you think that everyone in the world would have the capacity to understand direct communication from God? Is God supposed to make them understand if they do not have the intelligence to understand?

But then let's say the information you want to give them is life or death. If anything they misunderstand will kill them, it's even more important they get the correct and full information, and not information filtered and interpreted by a single person. I think it's reasonable, even rational, to believe that God would talk to everyone equally, and having prophets is a bad way of doing it.

That might be true if it was life or death, in which case God might have communicated differently than Messengers, but it would not be directly to humans because humans could never understand direct communication from God, and then they would be even worse off because they did not read the scriptures which can be understood.

 

[Trailblazer]

Of course. Rational people do not necessarily believe self appointed middle men.

But rational people do believe in divinely appointed middlemen.

 

[Trailblazer]

Wow.

I could not hope to disagree more if I begged you to help me in achieving such a goal.

You are this close to not being even wrong.

I don't even know where to start.

You are abusing the very basic ideas of God, of religion, and of transcendence, all in the same package. And abusing them with quite some passion, at that.

I would be scared if I saw any viability whatsover in such a view.

I have no idea what you are responding to, but it sure does not appear to be anything I wrote.
Disagree with what? Wrong about what?

I was just giving some statistics and predictions. How is what I said is abusing the very basic ideas of God, of religion, and of transcendence?

About 55% of people are Abrahamic, yes. Whether being Abrahamic is working for them is a whole separate matter.

There is either one true God or not. How well that works for people is totally irrelevant, unless those people are selfish.

Who is "we", paleface?

There are literally thousands of creeds that will argue otherwise, you know.

They can argue otherwise but unless they have evidence that God has ever communicated in any other way they are up the creek without a paddle.

But why would a true God resort to such exotic measures?

What is exotic about Messengers?

Sorry, but at the end of the day... I just have no time for such weird, dysfunctional conceptions of deities. I can't help but hope that no one else does, either.

And I have no time for any God that would hand out free meal tickets and I can only hope that no one else does either. Obviously that is the case since most people believe in God and they had no free meal ticket.

What, do atheists think believing in God is as easy as falling off a log?
Atheists do not know how good they have it.

 

[Windwalker]

I think that is true, but I did not mean just feeling God's presence, I meant God communicating in audible speech and saying something to the effect of "I am God and I exist and I have some messages for you" -- to everyone.

Why are you placing a condition on how God speaks? "Dear God, I will only accept an audible hallucination to know it's really you. Just say "yes" if you agree."

God doesn't need words.

 

[Trailblazer]

Yes you do since you claim that that's not how god communicate with the prophets.

So you don't know that god doesn't communicate in that way.

Sorry, I am lost. Could you start over?

 

[Trailblazer]

No, it doesn't make logical sense. If you can't understand something, then you can't know what it is about, ie motives, will, etc. It's also illogical to conclude that the actions of a being with superior knowledge and wisdom are only moral because there is no connection between knowledge and wisdom and someone's action. A being with superior knowledge and wisdom can still act immoral.

A being could do that but there is no reason to believe that God does that.
We cannot know God's actions in this world so we either have faith that God acts in our best interest or not.

So you either you fully understand god, or that's only an assertion and nothing else. So it means nothing.

Nobody fully understands God, in fact we can understand very little about God.
It is a belief, not an assertion. It means nothing except to those who believe it.

 

[Vinayaka]

I cannot speak for any other Baha'is, but I have no interest in promoting the Baha'i Faith. Moreover, I am a straight shooter, not a sneaky person. Everyone who knows me knows that. So if I wanted to promote the Baha'i Faith I would make my intentions clear. I would not post a thread like this one.

It only demonstrates arrogance on your part to make assumptions like that. As I told Penguin, I started this thread for a specific purpose, because I have been posting to an atheist almost daily for over five years and he insists that if god existed god would communicate directly to everyone. So I told him I could post on this forum and get other opinions. There are several other threads I have started in the last two years since I have been on RF that were posted because of what he and I were discussing on my forum or on other forums we were posting on at the time.

That is verifiable by going to my forum and reading all the posts between him and me.

Most likely you legitimately don't realise you're even doing it. But if 50 people here recognise it as that, just perhaps they're on to something. (It wasn't me that pointed it out ... this time) A teenager who tries something different like driving a car might be telling his friends about it for a week. He sees it as enthusiasm for his new found skill, but all his friends are sick of him talking about it.

Carry on.

 

[stvdv]

What a beautiful post, with the questions so nicely ordered, and simple.

1. Do you think God (if God exists) would communicate directly to everyone?

• If you think that God would do this, please explain why you think so.
• If you think that God would not do this, please explain why you think so.

Hypothetically: God exists
Yes, God would communicate directly to everyone. But people tend to put all friends in their Smartphone, and keep God in the Cloud.

2. Do you think it is *reasonable* to expect God (if God exists) to communicate directly to everyone?

• If you think that is a reasonable expectation, please explain why you think so.
• If you think it is an unreasonable expectation, please explain why you think so.

Yes, that is very reasonable. God is Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent. So, He has no excuse with all these Omnis to delegate His own stuff.

3. Do you think that *rational people* would expect God to communicate directly to everyone?

• If you think rational people would expect God to do that, please explain why you think so.
• If you think rational people would not expect God to do that, please explain why you think so.

Yes, rational people would expect God to communicate directly to everyone
But, Omniscient God would not expect all people to listen/talk to Him though

 

[Vinayaka]

Why are you placing a condition on how God speaks? "Dear God, I will only accept an audible hallucination to know it's really you. Just say "yes" if you agree."

God doesn't need words.

God needing words most certainly puts it into anthropomorphism. There are so many better ways to communicate. A non-anthropomorphic God has all kinds of ways. Heck, people have all kinds of ways of non-verbal communication.