If prophecies are involved God made sure they were fulfilled by the free will of Baha’u’llah and if anyone tried to stop them from being fulfilled then God interfered.
I get what you are saying, but again from a logical point of view, based on what you are saying, there isn't anything such as free will. I know that you will disagree with me saying this. But it simply follows natural from what you are saying. The moment God can intervene in our free will as he pleases and we do not know what actions could interfere with a prophecy then there can't be free will in any meaningful way.
So you think that people do evil just because they do, and there is no reason except something amiss in their brains? That is proven false by the fact that there are motives for these evil acts such as murder, as people murder for money or sex or even just enjoyment of killing. These are selfish acts so they point to someone who is spiritually and morally depraved and we all have free will so they are responsible for their depravity.
No, i think you approach this backwards in regards to what I mean. So let me try to explain it.
Humans are driven by desires, so for instance a person might starve and in order to get food, they end up killing someone to fulfill this desire. A person might have very strong sexual desires towards children and at some point, no longer be able to suppress them and therefore chooses to act on them, well knowing that the consequence of doing so will lead to the child getting hurt and them being punished if caught. In some cases this will trigger a remorse with the person that did it, which lead to them turning them themselves in, or they might not and continue to do it until caught. And in some case they will feel nothing wrong in what they have done, which are the ones we commonly refer to as psychopaths.
We might refer to what these people chose to do as evil, simply as a way to express our view on what they did in a fast and easy understandable way when communicating with each other. So rather than starting to use in depth and precise words to describe their complete set of actions and what mentally conditions they are in and so forth, we just use a single word.
So hope that make its clear what I mean, so to say that a person do evil really have no meaning, besides it being a quick way to express how we feel. So first you have all the actions that a person does, the you have the person's mental conditions and these combined might result in us labeling the complete set of event leading to something bad as being that of evil.
That is why, I wrote that with time and knowledge about the human brain and what might cause some people to behave or have these desires while others don't While some choose to act on them and others don't, will eventually get rid of the idea of evil, because it will be replaced by a better understanding of why humans do these things.
I would consider their acts evil and probably born of ignorance, and this is why God sends Messengers to instruct us in how to behave.
Well God didn't send anyone to instruct them to do otherwise. Also as the text said, these people were in fact happy and valued social relationships and strong friendship above anything else. If they believed they were doing something evil, you would expect them to not really be happy or value such thing, but probably spend all their time running away from each other.
My point being, that we judge these people based on what
we think is morally right. Which have little to nothing to do with what these people think. It doesn't make them evil, it simply illustrate that morally does not come from God, but is developed independently from humans to humans, based on what condition one is living under and what society one live in.
Clearly these people had gotten something wrong, but to me this is no different from when people sacrificed children or humans to the Gods, or when the bible say that homosexuality is wrong or that people ought to be stoned to death for varies things. Morality or lack there of is developed based on what belief is in a given society at a given point, it would be irrational to think that morals would develop if people in that society did not agree or see the meaning in why something is morally wrong and ought to be changed.
Okay, I agree evil is not an outside force (satan) or something we are born with (original sin). If people do evil it is a free will choice they make because they follow their lower nature rather than their higher nature
I think I understand what you mean, but to me, I would explain it like this. All humans have desires, and most have a mixture of both none harmful ones and harmful ones. Its no secret that a lot of women and children are abused throughout the world everyday, and that we as humans are very good at causing varies harm to each other. So if these harmful desires were not common then it would be strange. Where the difference is between humans is how dominating these are and how well suited one is to suppress them and for some this seems to be more easily done than by others.
So the way I see it, its a struggle between desires and the ability to suppress them.
No, whatever men wrote about God is not necessarily about God. I want to share something with you regarding the Bible that I just posted to someone else. This is about the New Testament but it can also apply to the Old Testament.
I agree with what you wrote about the bible.
But I don't think that it changes the fact, that if one were to remove the bible as a whole and claim that it was no the least truth, then one ought to be an atheist. Because rejecting it, pretty much ruins the foundation for all the major religions, as there is nothing to go on. And would make it possible for anyone to just make up stuff about God as they please. Also it would be pointless even using the bible and its verses to try to explain anything. And this is where faith enters the picture, because obviously one have to decide whether to believe that the bible tells the story of God the creator and Jesus and so forth or if it nothing, but made up stuff.
No, I do not believe everything that men wrote about God. I do not care what the ancient Jews believed. That does not make it accurate. It is not authentic scripture.
I know you do not care about it. But I think that would leave your beliefs somewhat amputated in regards to content and structure. Because what is the creation story according to Bahai faith?.. There is no reason to assume that any of the prophets in the bible ever existed and therefore no basis to assume that the messengers that you believe in is true either are there?
I know you disagree with this, but you picking out things from the bible which you agree is definitely true, while at the same time, "wishing" for all the bibles to be burned, is a type of rational thinking, I have ever heard from you
I know people of other religious pick and choose as well, but at least they can admit that there are certain passages in the bible that are confusing and complicated, but yet it doesn't mean that they should just be disregarded to the extend, that you seem willing to do.
Might be because you have so many different religions to choose from and you go with the ladder approach, so the bible is least trustworthy, then the Quran which is slightly more accurate and then finally Baha'u'llah writings, that are spot on true, I don't know.
I understand your point. I can understand why religious beliefs sound strange to atheists. I cannot speak for other religious people, only for myself.
I think for most atheists, it doesn't really matter much that it is religious beliefs, but rather beliefs in general, which are unsupported, but claimed as being true, that is the issue.
For me its no different than if I watch someone arguing for the Earth being flat, despite having absolutely no evidence, yet they maintain that it is. To me its about being skeptic and critical towards beliefs unless there are evidence to support them. What makes religious beliefs different, is the impact it can have on other peoples life, how it can convince people to behave in certain ways, which is sometimes harmful. That to me, requires justifications from those claiming these truth. And if they can't, Ill fight them, not because of their beliefs, but because of the harm they cause to others.
These beliefs all fit together because there has to be a God for us to have a soul for an afterlife and there has to be an afterlife given all the suffering in the world.
It probably fits well with a God and him being there ...
IF there is a soul and afterlife, but if there isn't and since we have no evidence for them to exists, then to me at least, God is not needed and the explanations can be found else where. Throwing in God, because one need there to be a soul and afterlife to explain suffering is wrong as I see it. Because suffering is perfectly explainable through human behavior and natural causes without the need of a God. But the different is, that if we can acknowledge that, we also know that we can fix it or reduce it, if we put effort into it. Its not a mystery that needs to be solved, but rather changes to how we do things. Expand our knowledge in areas for which we still do not have a complete understanding. God have very little to nothing to offer in this regard.