Are Baha’u’llah’s prophecies coming true?

[Sheldon]

Hmm, to me obviously you are not up for a meaningful discussion.
All the best

Well, it is you and not me who has ignored what the other has posted. It seems you have not heard of Occam's razor, and do not know what an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy is, and you seem to think evasion when asked is a meaningful response? Whereas pointing out flaws in the reasoning of your question, and use of known logical fallacies in your claims, is somehow meaningless? I'm afraid I can't agree, but if you don't wish to address those flaws and irrational claims in your post, then that is of course your right.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Apples are very tasty.

Nothing is tasty but apples.

Do you see how my second claim, exactly like yours, does not follow from the first claim?

Sorry, no I do not.

Regards Tony

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Why did he make humans susceptible to misguidance? Why did he not create such that cannot be misguided? He was the creator. He destroyed the humanity once in the flood. The faults were there even after that. He wsent thousands of manifestations, the mistake is still there. What kind of God is he? Can he do anything right? He even created faulty angels.

To truly Love we must experience hate. We are thus born on the balance between Love and Hate. We are in a state that needs to be educated about Love, it must be brought from us by using free will. Love can not be forced. That is why Muhammad told us there is no compulsion is religion, there is no compulsion for us to pursue Love, which is the apex of all virtues, all virtues eminate from Love.

This matrix is a perfect construct for us to experience and practice Love.

Regards Tony

 

[Sheldon]

The hardest challenges, are the easiest to quit on.

God has always given us our hardest challenges.

Apples are very tasty.

Nothing is tasty but apples.

Do you see how my second claim, exactly like yours, does not follow from the first claim?

Sorry, no I do not.

Really? Well clearly just because apples are tasty, it does not follow that nothing is tasty but apples, you see that much I trust?

So I offered this to compare with your two claims I quoted:

1. "The hardest challenges, are the easiest to quit on."

2. "God has always given us our hardest challenges."

The point is that whilst I can see the rationale behind the first claim, your second claim does not follow from your first at all, it is in fact little more than a bare assumption.

 

[ppp]

Each person dies anyways. No body lives for ever.

That's supposed to be some sort of defense for genocide? Go announce that at the next PTA meeting.

And I notice that you had no answer to the question posed -- Why didn't God just do it right the first time? Considering your stated indifference to human life, I don't expect that you have a considered answer to this either.

 

[CG Didymus]

This caused a few among the small number of His followers to turn away from Him, and to this testify the records of the best-known books. These you must certainly have perused; if not, undoubtedly you will. Finally, as stated in books and traditions, there remained with Him only forty or seventy-two of His followers. At last from the depth of His being He cried aloud: “Lord! Leave not upon the land a single dweller from among the unbelievers.”4

Yes, the bolded part, is an allusion to punishment that was sent to them, and killed all of the unbelievers.

I don't know if I said "all" but Investigate Truth did.

Then is that a real, historical event? If so, then God did intervene and killed all the unbelievers. So, that means at one time there were only believers left on Earth? Yeah, right.

And here I question whether such a thing could possibly have really happened. I'm asking him if he really believe at one time only believers were left alive and all unbelievers were killed. I don't believe such a thing ever happened, even though Baha'u'llah makes it sound like it did. Now if it was only the "unbelievers" in Noah's area. That's okay with me, and I still don't believe it.

The problem with that kind of rendition is CG, the text you quoted does not say "All the unbelievers". In this case, you had inserted the word "All" there. Do you understand?

What ever the text is, we have to understand from its particular context...

Each occasion will have a particular context. Its very poor scholarship to generalise things like that so easily.

The English word Unbelievers is put there out of no choice anyway. What other single word could one use? So I would like to urge you to dig a bit deeper than that.

Hope you understand.

First of all I'm not a scholar and am not trying to be one. Next, are you sure I was the one that inserted "all" into the conversation and not Investigate Truth?

The point I was trying to make is that this book of Baha'u'llah's was supposed to answer all sorts of questions, and right from the start it says that Noah was 950 years old. Baha'is don't believe that and can't explain what Baha'u'llah meant by that. Then, Baha'u'llah's version of the story of Noah is completely different than the Bible version.

In the Bible story everybody except Noah and his family are killed. The whole world is flooded. I agree with Baha'is, this is probably a fictional story. But what about Baha'u'llah's story? For Baha'is that must be accurate? That must be historical? I don't think so. And the story about Hud and Salih is supposed to be true? Then... what are these "best-known" books that "testify" to what he is saying? Do you have any idea?

Then... how literal do Muslims take the Quran? Because it mentions Hud and Salih does that automatically make it true? It seems to for Baha'is. But then Baha'is make the Bible stories untrue. Like the ones I usually bring up to the Baha'is. Baha'u'llah says that Ishmael, not Isaac, was the son taken by Abraham to be sacrificed. Again, was either story true? Why would Baha'is break away from taking most all of these stories as being symbolic and not literally true?

Then the biggest one of all... The resurrection story. Do you believe the Baha'i version? That he died and never came back to life and that he, the same Jesus, is not coming back? And I would mind if you gave me the Islamic version of the story. But the NT story, to me, makes it clear, that Jesus was killed, came back to life in some kind of body that had flesh and bone, yet could appear and disappear. And that it says that he showed himself to be alive by many proofs.

If it's not true, fine. If the followers of Jesus made it up, that's okay with me. But by what is said in the gospels seems to me that they are trying to say that Jesus did, physically, come back to life. Again, I'm not going to try and do some in depth, scholarly search for any of this. If you have some information from your beliefs and research, then I'd love to hear it.

 

[InvestigateTruth]

That's supposed to be some sort of defense for genocide? Go announce that at the next PTA meeting.

And I notice that you had no answer to the question posed -- Why didn't God just do it right the first time? Considering your stated indifference to human life, I don't expect that you have a considered answer to this either.

I did. Maybe to someone else.
The answer is, God's creation is gradual. It is like evolution. We cannot say, why we were before some kind of apes or monkeys, and gradually evolved to human being. That would be unnatural. The creation of God is organic. It goes through a process. And this process sometimes requires cleansing. That means sometimes a part of creation needs cleansing.

 

[firedragon]

I don't know if I said "all" but Investigate Truth did.

And here I question whether such a thing could possibly have really happened. I'm asking him if he really believe at one time only believers were left alive and all unbelievers were killed. I don't believe such a thing ever happened, even though Baha'u'llah makes it sound like it did. Now if it was only the "unbelievers" in Noah's area. That's okay with me, and I still don't believe it.

First of all I'm not a scholar and am not trying to be one. Next, are you sure I was the one that inserted "all" into the conversation and not Investigate Truth?

The point I was trying to make is that this book of Baha'u'llah's was supposed to answer all sorts of questions, and right from the start it says that Noah was 950 years old. Baha'is don't believe that and can't explain what Baha'u'llah meant by that. Then, Baha'u'llah's version of the story of Noah is completely different than the Bible version.

In the Bible story everybody except Noah and his family are killed. The whole world is flooded. I agree with Baha'is, this is probably a fictional story. But what about Baha'u'llah's story? For Baha'is that must be accurate? That must be historical? I don't think so. And the story about Hud and Salih is supposed to be true? Then... what are these "best-known" books that "testify" to what he is saying? Do you have any idea?

Then... how literal do Muslims take the Quran? Because it mentions Hud and Salih does that automatically make it true? It seems to for Baha'is. But then Baha'is make the Bible stories untrue. Like the ones I usually bring up to the Baha'is. Baha'u'llah says that Ishmael, not Isaac, was the son taken by Abraham to be sacrificed. Again, was either story true? Why would Baha'is break away from taking most all of these stories as being symbolic and not literally true?

Then the biggest one of all... The resurrection story. Do you believe the Baha'i version? That he died and never came back to life and that he, the same Jesus, is not coming back? And I would mind if you gave me the Islamic version of the story. But the NT story, to me, makes it clear, that Jesus was killed, came back to life in some kind of body that had flesh and bone, yet could appear and disappear. And that it says that he showed himself to be alive by many proofs.

If it's not true, fine. If the followers of Jesus made it up, that's okay with me. But by what is said in the gospels seems to me that they are trying to say that Jesus did, physically, come back to life. Again, I'm not going to try and do some in depth, scholarly search for any of this. If you have some information from your beliefs and research, then I'd love to hear it.

If I misrepresented you, I apologise.

 

[Sheldon]

We cannot say, why we were before some kind of apes or monkeys, and gradually evolved to human being. That would be unnatural.

It's an assumption on your part that there is a "why", and evolution is the very antithesis of unnatural?

 

[ppp]

I did. Maybe to someone else.
The answer is, God's creation is gradual. It is like evolution. We cannot say, why we were before some kind of apes or monkeys, and gradually evolved to human being. That would be unnatural. The creation of God is organic. It goes through a process. And this process sometimes requires cleansing. That means sometimes a part of creation needs cleansing.

If I had asked you what you think your god's creation is like, then that world have been a relevant response. But that is not what I asked, @InvestigateTruth. What I asked was, If your god had a a plan for what he wanted his humanity to be like, then why didn't he make humanity right in the first place?

 

[CG Didymus]

Just as we see today, how much pain and suffering is happening in the world.
If humanity had accepted unity of mankind, and followed Baha'u'llah's guidance did we have these issues today?
It is not just the matter of believing in existence of a God. It is about the need of humanity to follow guidance of God, that comes for a specific time. Each age has its own conditions, and therefore a new set of Laws are required to cure the problems of the age. Bahais believe, in our Time, that guidance came from Baha'u'llah.

There is a problem with following the "guidance" from God. Some people, again I'll use the Aztecs, had a false made up God that they were believing in and following. Lot's of people had concepts of Gods that we no longer believe were real. That's what we are asking Baha'is... Do you have some proof and evidence that God is real and that your prophet was sent by this God?

It's kind of unprovable. So, what can we go by? The prophecies? Too vague and easily made to fit whatever a person wants. His writings? Some of us don't think his writings prove anything. In fact, by what I found at the very beginning of his one book, made me question him even more. Is the world crumbling? Are we heading for the "end"? Very well could be. But is what the Baha'is saying true?

If so, then God is putting us through all this because a few world leaders in the 19th Century rejected and didn't let him take control. That would be like the Baha'is going to Putin and telling him to let them take over. It's not going to happen. And even if the Baha'is went to Biden and told him to give them control and the world will become united in peace and love. It's not going to happen.

That's why I think, if God is real, it was his plan all along to send somebody that would be rejected. And then he'd be justified to put the world into all sorts of chaos. Wars, pandemics, and the environmental problems. But... let's say this is the end. What do the Baha'is do next? What if the people of the world revolt and get rid of all the "old world" order leaders and tell Baha'is, "You take over. You fix this." What would Baha'is do? Are they ready to be the world government? To be this "new" world order? I don't think so.

What is the next step? Because it could happen very soon. A nuclear exchange could very well happen, then what? The old order is gone. Most of the world is destroyed. God's plan is moving forward just as he prophesied. Radioactivity everywhere. What do Baha'is do next? What is the next step that Baha'is say must be done?

 

[CG Didymus]

We are creations of God. I believe He does not want His creations be misguided, and only materialistic and worldly. He wants His creation be true human beings, spiritual, bright and like angels. So, if He has to destroy it, and start it over again, He can.

That's sounds stupid. God supposedly knew what would happen, but is surprised that it did happen? Why create a flawed human being that he knows is not going to do the right things and will continually reject him and his messengers. If that's not what he wanted then yes. Destroy this version of humans and make some better ones.

And that, or something similar, has always been the threat. "Do good or God will destroy you." "Do good or God will send you to hell." Then we find out, from the Baha'is, those threats and God following through with those threats were true. They were metaphorical. A metaphorical hell, a metaphorical flood, a metaphorical Sodom and Gomorrah. Zap evil people. Like right now, save the Ukrainians and wipe out the Russian army. Now that would be impressive.

 

[CG Didymus]

Rather lacking in empathy or compassion. Not the best qualities for a parent. But even setting that aside, why didn't he just do it right the first time?

I'm five hours late. I just responded to that same post and said the same thing. He doesn't like humans the way they are, then why did he make us the way we are? Was he expecting a miracle or something? Supposedly, God knows already. Why the threats? He knows his threats don't work. He knows his messengers don't get accepted and, in a lot of ways, just add to the confusion.

 

[ppp]

I'm five hours late. I just responded to that same post and said the same thing. He doesn't like humans the way they are, then why did he make us the way we are? Was he expecting a miracle or something? Supposedly, God knows already. Why the threats? He knows his threats don't work. He knows his messengers don't get accepted and, in a lot of ways, just add to the confusion.

I know! It just doesn't make any sense. That god makes decisions like he is a cross between an 80s horror movie and a telenovela. It makes engaging melodrama, but is just not credible as the thought processes of intelligent being capable of of rational thought.

 

[InvestigateTruth]

If I had asked you what you think your god's creation is like, then that world have been a relevant response. But that is not what I asked, @InvestigateTruth. What I asked was, If your god had a a plan for what he wanted his humanity to be like, then why didn't he make humanity right in the first place?

I exactly replied to that.

From beginning He had a planned this way. He had planned it to create it in steps or stages.
It is not like God planed to have a perfect creation, and then now He failed and thus, He has to destroy it and make a better one No!
Humanity creation has different cycles.
The precious cycle was called Adamic cycle. In Bahai theology, we are now in a new humanity cycle which started with Bahaullah.
It is like constructing a building. This building has become old. Now, this old building cannot be renovated even. It has to be ruined and in place of it a better one be built.

That is how creation of God is through Revelations. The Revelations came according to capacity of humanity. And that's how Adamic cycle was. Now, we have come to a new human era, where humanity has a greater capacity to understand. Thus, God now creates a better creation according to this new capacity. The old building, it will fall on its own as it is now happening. This was the older world order, which is collapsing and evenentually completely destroyed, and instead a new one is replacing it.

 

[CG Didymus]

OK. So you object to killing all unbelievers at once, but you're fine with killing selected groups of unbelievers.
Fair enough.

Yeah, as if the stories are really true. We all were told those Bible stories. God drowned everyone in the flood. God destroyed all the evil people in Sodom and Gomorrah. He had the Israelites kill all the people, including women and children in Jericho. He destroyed Nineveh. He even had Israelites kill each a couple of times. God keeps purging out the evil unbelievers, where do the new ones come from?

Again, as if these stories really happened. I think they were just stories told to get people to fear this invisible, vengeful, wrathful God of theirs.

 

[KWED]

He replaces it with a better one.
If you mean, why from begining He did not create one absolutely perfect, then, the answer is, perfecting creation is a gradual process.

Not for an omnipotent and omniscient god, by definition.
If god needs to practice doing stuff to get it right, he clearly isn't god.
QED.

 

[KWED]

But I did. I said Book of Iqan written in two days, by a Peson who did not have education or learnings in religion.
To me, it is a clear evidence that Bahaullah had innate knowledge.
Remember, I asked, where did Bahaullah got His knowledge according to historical evidences? I have not seen anyone here including yourself to provide an answer for that. So, the ball is in your side. I'm not looking for conjecture or guesses. I'm looking for an answer based on investigation of truth.

Are you asking how Bahaullah knew stuff that millions of people already knew?
Jeez, that's a tough one. Guess it could only have been by magic.

 

[ppp]

We are creations of God. I believe He does not want His creations be misguided, and only materialistic and worldly.

So that sentence says that your god does not want humans to be misguided.

From beginning He had a planned this way. He had planned it to create it in steps or stages.
It is not like God planed to have a perfect creation, and then now He failed and thus, He has to destroy it and make a better one No!

But this sentence seems to say that that he planned a creation where humans were misguided.

Or are you claiming that humans came out in a way that was counter to your god's plans?


Please reconcile these apparent contradictions.

 

[KWED]

Why did you ask me that question though? Instead of responding to my question, which was "If Baha'u'llah did not have religious education, how was He aware of all those concepts in other religions",
You ask another question.
Do you see how you avoid the actual discussion by derailing it?

He did not have a "formal education" (ie. didn't attend recognised schools), but as a member of the privileged aristocracy and the son of a government official it is ridiculous to claim he had no education whatsoever. He is also known to have been "well read". Formal education is not the only route to education and knowledge.
Genuinely surprised you weren't aware of this basic stuff.