Atheists: If God existed…

[Moz]

You are very welcome…

What I posted is just one angle on progressive revelation in the context of what the Messengers of God had as part of their missions -- from individual to nation to the world. There is a lot more to progressive revelation than that. Individuals progress spiritually over time and the world we live in changes over time, and that is why we need a new Messenger of God in every age.

I do not think that Islam was a continuation of Jesus message, although I think that Muhammad renewed some of the spiritual verities that Jesus taught and He validated the status of Jesus as a Messenger of God. From what I recall reading, Muslims believe that Jesus is the greatest Messenger of God that has ever existed besides Muhammad.

The message of Baha’u’llah was the continuation of Jesus’ message.

Jesus said that He had more to say and do in the future.

John 10:16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

John 16:12-13 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

Baha'is believe that Baha'u'llah was the return of the Spirit of Jesus, the second coming, who, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, came to say and do what Jesus did not say and do, because humanity was not ready for that 2000 years ago.

Baha'u'llah came to unite humanity into one fold, in fulfillment of John 10:16.
Baha'u'llah came to reveal truths that humanity was not ready to hear 2000 years ago, in fulfillment of John 16:12-13.

It is good to ask these questions, but unfortunately I do have the answers… Well, I guess the answer I would have is that maybe Muhammad came to prepare the way for Baha'u'llah, as nation building prepared the way for when Baha'u'llah would come to unite the world. How could the world be united if nations were not first established all over the world?

Well as a Baha’i I believe we are to follow the example Baha'u'llah set forth, which is similar to what Jesus taught. Love is of the utmost importance but another thing that Baha'u'llah stressed was justice.

2: O SON OF SPIRIT! The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.
The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 3-4

64: O OPPRESSORS ON EARTH! Withdraw your hands from tyranny, for I have pledged Myself not to forgive any man’s injustice. This is My covenant which I have irrevocably decreed in the preserved tablet and sealed with My seal.
The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 44

I do not believe that Jesus put that much emphasis on justice, but rather only taught that we are to love God and one another; correct me if I am wrong because I was not raised as a Christian so I do not know the Bible very well.

I do not believe that Mormonism is based upon a revelation from God to Joseph Smith because I do not believe Joseph Smith was a Messenger of God (Prophet). Baha’is believe he was a “seer” but that does not mean he got a revelation from God. I view the Mormon Faith as a sect of Christianity because it is based upon Jesus Christ, and Mormons worship Jesus, who got a revelation from God. They simply believe that they got some additional information from Joseph Smith.

I hope that makes some sense.

Hi.
Obviously i have another view but i really do appreciate the way you are very openly sharing and i really don't want to nit pick or slide into disagreement. Enough of that on here already. I will do some reading and thinking and in the same spirit i would encourage you to actually learn more about the precursor faiths to your belief system and maybe a little history as well. For instance Tom Holland is a good historian who writes well researched easy to digest entertaining history of both the Islamic conquest and the rise of the Papacy during the crusades, Millenium and In the shadow of the Sword.

Just one example ...... Muslims believe that Jesus is the greatest Messenger of God that has ever existed
besides Muhammad. While this is true they reject every single word recorded by him in the bible. The Muslims quotes about Jesus come from apocryphal gnostic works of the 2nd century. Their Jesus and the christian Jesus are NOT the same man.

Also an understanding of history is very helpful....... How could the world be united if nations were not first established all over the world? This is very hard to square with how nations were really established. The treaty of Westphalia in 1648 is universally accepted as the dawn of the nation state and that had nothing to do with Islam, which was then and still is today, trying to keep the Old system of rulership going. Their was nothing new or innovative about Islamic government as far as i can tell. Theocratic government is the OLD model.

Anyway i encourage you to do some reading and i'll do the same.
Peace.

 

[Trailblazer]

It's good enough for you when it comes to Jesus but not good enough when it comes to Krishna, even though the message of reincarnation seems pretty important too?

The message of reincarnation contradicts what Jesus taught and what all the Abrahamic religions teach, so I summarily dismiss it as false.

No loving God would ever send souls back to this earth for a do-over so I could never believe in a God who did.

 

[Trailblazer]

Hi.
Obviously i have another view but i really do appreciate the way you are very openly sharing and i really don't want to nit pick or slide into disagreement. Enough of that on here already. I will do some reading and thinking and in the same spirit i would encourage you to actually learn more about the precursor faiths to your belief system and maybe a little history as well. For instance Tom Holland is a good historian who writes well researched easy to digest entertaining history of both the Islamic conquest and the rise of the Papacy during the crusades, Millenium and In the shadow of the Sword.

I sure wish I had time to read but I barely have time to answer posts right now.

Just one example ...... Muslims believe that Jesus is the greatest Messenger of God that has ever existed
besides Muhammad. While this is true they reject every single word recorded by him in the bible.

Such as?
Or maybe what they reject is the Christian interpretation of the Bible.

The Muslims quotes about Jesus come from apocryphal gnostic works of the 2nd century. Their Jesus and the christian Jesus are NOT the same man.

Did it ever occur to you that the Christian conception of Jesus (e.g., that Jesus was God incarnate) is not the correct one and that it was fabricated by the Church?

Also an understanding of history is very helpful....... How could the world be united if nations were not first established all over the world? This is very hard to square with how nations were really established. The treaty of Westphalia in 1648 is universally accepted as the dawn of the nation state and that had nothing to do with Islam, which was then and still is today, trying to keep the Old system of rulership going. Their was nothing new or innovative about Islamic government as far as i can tell. Theocratic government is the OLD model.

I did not mean to imply that all the nations we have today were established during the Dispensation of Muhammad, only that He introduced the idea of the nation state.

Anyway i encourage you to do some reading and i'll do the same.
Peace.

I am sure I have a lot to learn, if only I had the time. My life is very busy right now but maybe later.

 

[Moz]

I sure wish I had time to read but I barely have time to answer posts right now.

Such as?
Or maybe what they reject is the Christian interpretation of the Bible.

Did it ever occur to you that the Christian conception of Jesus (e.g., that Jesus was God incarnate) is not the correct one and that it was fabricated by the Church?

I did not mean to imply that all the nations we have today were established during the Dispensation of Muhammad, only that He introduced the idea of the nation state.

I am sure I have a lot to learn, if only I had the time. My life is very busy right now but maybe later.

Hi.
Good questions.
It is not a hard to find whether christian and muslim teaching is compatable and if one claims they are of the same source then it's probably a good idea to look into. Just go to utube and search for christian muslim debate in an hour you'll get a pretty good overview of the complexities and major differences.

The idea that Muhammed created the nation state needs to be examined... if you google "history of the nation state" and chose any of the dozens of articles you will not find any that credit Islam with any part of it. Some actually point out how the Imperial systems, including Islam resisted the move to nationhood.

Peace

 

[ArtieE]

The message of reincarnation contradicts what Jesus taught and what all the Abrahamic religions teach, so I summarily dismiss it as false.

That is irrational and illogical. The validity of any message should be objectively judged on its own merits and not be compared to or dismissed because of personal beliefs one happens to have.

No loving God would ever send souls back to this earth for a do-over so I could never believe in a God who did.

The validity of reincarnation does not depend on what you personally are capable of believing.

 

[Trailblazer]

The validity of reincarnation does not depend on what you personally are capable of believing.

Nor does it depend upon what you are personally capable of believing.

Believe whatever you want to believe, I will believe what I believe.

I am not going to argue, so when I can see someone has their mind made up, there is nothing more to discuss.

 

[Trailblazer]

So basically you are telling us that all the people you call Messengers or Prophets or Manifestations of God didn't leave a single message worth anything today. Nothing they said or did is valid or useful today?

Sorry, that is not what I meant to convey. It is a Baha’i belief that the spiritual teachings of all the older religions are just as valid today as they ever were because spiritual truth does not change over time, it is eternal. It is only the social teachings and laws of religion that change over time.

Also, a new message is revealed in every new age, and according to Baha’u’llah that is the message we are to be paying attention to, because it contains the instructions that are needed from God through Baha’u’llah to address the problems humanity is facing in this new age.

 

[ArtieE]

Sorry, that is not what I meant to convey. It is a Baha’i belief that the spiritual teachings of all the older religions are just as valid today as they ever were because spiritual truth does not change over time, it is eternal. It is only the social teachings and laws of religion that change over time.

Also, a new message is revealed in every new age, and according to Baha’u’llah that is the message we are to be paying attention to, because it contains the instructions that are needed from God through Baha’u’llah to address the problems humanity is facing in this new age.

So what does Baha’u’llah say about how to fix global warming and plastic pollution and city smog etc?

 

[Trailblazer]

So what does Baha’u’llah say about how to fix global warming and plastic pollution and city smog etc?

He did not address that specifically since it did not exist at the time He wrote His Tablets.
However, from what He wrote it is obvious that it is humans who have to come up with the solutions to the problems we have in the world since God is not going to come swooping down and fix these problems for us. We have to use the best science along with the spiritual teachings Baha'u'llah revealed to solve these problems.

 

[night912]

That is all true because we do not believe in God until we believe in the Messenger. Belief in the Messenger comes first. The Messenger reveals God and if we believe that the Messenger reveals god then we believe God exists. I do not see why it is circular because I am not beginning with what I am trying to end with. Circular reasoning - Wikipedia

Yes you are. If you are going to use Wikipedia to support you, please read the whole article and understand what is written.

From Wikipedia:

Circular reasoning is often of the form: "A is true because B is true; B is true because A is true."

God is true because the messenger is true; the messenger is true because god is true.

Don't agree? Let's do it your way.

The messenger is true because god is true; god is true because the messenger is true.

Either way, they're both circular. Why won't you accept the facts when it's so clear and right in front of you?

But you don't have to take my words, there's always Wikipedia, just make sure that you are able to understand the English language first.

Although it's not scripture written from messenger of god, this is a good quote to remember.

"When someone believes that something is true but does not know that it is true, that person is not wise, he/she is ignorant. When that person knows something is true and believes that it is true, that person is wise and not ignorant."

 

[Trailblazer]

The messenger is true because god is true; god is true because the messenger is true.

Either way, they're both circular. Why won't you accept the facts when it's so clear and right in front of you?

But you don't have to take my words, there's always Wikipedia, just make sure that you are able to understand the English language first.

The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning

 

[night912]

The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning

At least it's a start for you. Now that you've accepted that your argument is circular, next all you have left is to see if your argument is logically valid and sound.
Valid means nothing if it's not logically sound. There's a difference. But you don't have to take my words, there's always Wikipedia.

Again, before you use Wikipedia to support your argument, please read the whole article and understand what is written. Otherwise you end up looking as if you didn't understand the English language .

The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. Circular reasoning is not a formal logical fallacy but a pragmatic defect in an argument whereby the premises are just as much in need of proof or evidence as the conclusion, and as a consequence the argument fails to persuade. Other ways to express this are that there is no reason to accept the premises unless one already believes the conclusion, or that the premises provide no independent ground or evidence for the conclusion.

 

[ArtieE]

The message of reincarnation contradicts what Jesus taught and what all the Abrahamic religions teach, so I summarily dismiss it as false.

In a previous post you wrote and I quote: "I do not care what the Bible says. The Bible was not written by a Manifestation of God, it was written by men who wrote whatever they felt like writing."

Then you write: "We have what others claimed they taught, and that is good enough for me, in the case of Jesus, since that is all we have, and it is an important message." Whatever happened to "I do not care what the Bible says"?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

@ 9-10ths_Penguin

It appears as if part of this thread has been deleted so I could not respond to your actual post, but I had saved it in a Word document yesterday as I do with all longer posts, so I can still respond to it.

If it was deleted, I'm sure it was for a reason. I'd suggest asking the mods in Site Feedback before reposting stuff they deleted.

 

[Trailblazer]

In a previous post you wrote and I quote: "I do not care what the Bible says. The Bible was not written by a Manifestation of God, it was written by men who wrote whatever they felt like writing."

Then you write: "We have what others claimed they taught, and that is good enough for me, in the case of Jesus, since that is all we have, and it is an important message." Whatever happened to "I do not care what the Bible says"?

It would depend upon the context whether I care about what the Bible says.

That men wrote whatever they felt like writing is probably not true because I think those men were guided by the Holy Spirit. That has to be good enough for me because that is all we have since Jesus never wrote anything.

 

[Trailblazer]

Now that you've accepted that your argument is circular, next all you have left is to see if your argument is logically valid and sound.
Valid means nothing if it's not logically sound. There's a difference. But you don't have to take my words, there's always Wikipedia.

Validity and Soundness

A deductive argument is said to be valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false. Otherwise, a deductive argument is said to be invalid.

A deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true. Otherwise, a deductive argument is unsound.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/

I cannot prove that my premises are true, so I am not presenting an argument. I was never trying to prove anything to anyone; I just presented what “I believe is true.”

The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. Circular reasoning - Wikipedia

Even though I cannot prove my premises are true, if my premises are true then my conclusions must be true.

So if the premise Baha’u’llah is a Messenger of God is true, then the conclusion God exists must be true.

Conversely, the conclusion God exists must be true if the premise Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God is true.

 

[Trailblazer]

If it was deleted, I'm sure it was for a reason. I'd suggest asking the mods in Site Feedback before reposting stuff they deleted.

I found out why it was deleted by doing what you suggested. Now I will know what to do if this happens again.