Atheists, if God existed, would it be reasonable to expect God to...

[Trailblazer]

I know what you believe, I was asking how you know? Beliefs just built on other beliefs seem empty to me, I’m after any actual concrete facts and logic behind them.

I know because of “what I consider” to be evidence that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God. There are concrete facts and logic behind my beliefs, but of course it can never be proven as a fact that there is a God or that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God.

You’re still missing the key point here. If God is all-powerful, he is capable of changing the universe to literally any state possible. Whatever way he wanted it to be, he would make it that way. Therefore, whatever way the universe is must be what an all-powerful God wants by definition (if it exists).

Nobody can know what God wants, we can only know what God allows to exist.

Also, even if God wanted the universe to be a certain way that does not necessarily mean that God would make it that way. The fly in the ointment is human free will. God “might” want something a certain way, but God normally does not interfere with human free will, even though He can.

I don’t expect God to intervene unless God didn’t want things to be the way they are. I’m saying that the fact God hasn’t intervened suggests he is perfectly content with the way things are (or, of course, doesn’t exist).

Logically speaking, you are correct. If God wanted things to be different God would “probably” intervene, although we cannot know that for certain.

That applies to theists too. I’m not the one claiming to know what god wants from us though.

I agree, God only does what He chooses to do, not what we think He should do, and that applies to both theists and atheists. I am not claiming to know what God wants because I cannot know that.

I totally agree. The problem is that a lot of scripture, and most resultant religious teaching, tends to treat God like a powerful human though, even at the same time as declaring God to be entirely beyond human understanding. The entire concept just feels contradictory (though, ironically, very human).

That is the problem with biblical scripture; it makes God almost human. Baha’u’llah clearly explained that the Essence of God is beyond human understanding.God is apart from, and immeasurably exalted above, all created things. God transcends and is independent of all His creatures. That is why God uses Messengers, because God does not relate to humans directly.

Sorry, but that’s just more empty word play. If God is unknowable, God is unknowable. If the “essence” is unknowable, how could we know any messages accurately represent the “will” of that “essence”?

I see no reason why we would need to know the Essence of God (God’s intrinsic nature) in order to know the Will of God. God reveals His Will to Messengers through the Holy Spirit. If we believe that the Messenger represents God, then we believe that what He reveals is identical to the Will of God.

Because if God is unknowable “in essence”, you can’t know anything about him for certain. Even if there are elements you think you know, the unknowable aspect could fundamentally alter or entirely contradict them. You can’t even know any purported messages even come from God.

In order to understand how we can know “something” about God, you have to separate the Attributes of God from the Essence of God in your mind, and you have to realize that the Messengers of God (what Baha’is normally refer to as Manifestations of God) manifest God’s Attributes as well as describing God’s Attributes (or qualities). Some of God’s Attributes that are unique to God are as follows: Eternal, Holy, Unchanging, Impassable, Infinite, Omnipresent, All-Powerful, All-Knowing, All-Wise, Self-Existent, Self-Sufficient, Sovereign, Righteous, and Immaterial.

Some of God’s Attributes that are reflected in the Messengers of God are Benevolent, Compassionate, Loving, Gracious, Merciful, Just, Forgiving, and Patient. All humans have the potential to reflect these Attributes and that is why it is stated in scriptures that we are made in the image of God.

However, the Messengers of God do not manifest the Essence of God; they do not even know the Essence of God as nobody knows it except God. In the Baha’i prayers it says that God is “Sanctified above all Attributes” because God’s Essence is above all His Attributes, since God is much more than can EVER be attributed to Him.

Again, we know the messages come from God if we believe that the Messenger was sent by God.

Beliefs aren’t rational, not even mine. That’s the problem. I’m trying to draw the line between what we can actually rationally conclude and what we just believe. I don’t think we are in a position to declare that any particular god does or doesn’t exist but we can consider a hypothetical god and determine whether its proposed characteristics are internally logically consistent.

So it seems like you are trying to have a rational understanding of a hypothetical God in order to determine if the existence of a God could make logical sense to you. There are certainly many different conceptions of God in the various religions so I think one has to find a God concept that makes sense to them, because otherwise their mind could not accommodate the belief in God. Of course, if God exists, God is what God is, not what people describe Him as, although some of those religious conceptions might be accurately describing God whereas others might be way off the mark.

 

[Trailblazer]

What I understand is that you KEEP making completely unsubstantiated claims. How do you KNOW that no ordinary person is capable of directly communicating with your god being? How do you KNOW that there are 'special messengers' who somehow CAN communicate directly with your god being? How exactly have YOU managed to gain so much insight into this being you claim is incomprehensible? And how exactly does this process work?

Of course these are beliefs that come from my religion, not something I can prove. However, some of them are confirmed by empirical observation. For example, do you see a God communicating directly with anyone? People might imagine that God is communicating with them but anyone can imagine anything... You might say that the Messengers also imagined it, but since there is evidence the supports their claims that is different from ordinary people who make such claims. Ordinary people who make these claims that God communicated to them had no history of a mission and no scriptures attributed to them and no religion that was established in their name.

The Messengers of God do not communicate TO God, God communicates to them, and it is not really a two-way conversation. How it works is not something us ordinary people can understand except that God works through the Holy Spirit. Baha’u’llah explained what happened when that Most Great Spirit came upon Him but I won’t post that unless you want to read it.

How does your god being directly communicating his message to the messenger SOMEHOW make it possible for the messenger to make the message comprehensible to normal people?

It is not God who makes it comprehensible to normal people, it is the Messenger who does that, because He can understand God and He can also understand normal people so He knows how to translate what God reveals to Him and write it in a way so that we can comprehend it. Of course, this has not been the case back into history, since no Messenger of God ever wrote His own scriptures until the Bab and Baha’u’llah came along in the 19th century. Rather, other men wrote down what they thought these Messengers taught, so it is twice or thrice removed from the original Source, God.

Sounds like this messenger is capable of doing things that your god being cannot do. I mean, if this messenger is capable of making a message comprehensible that god in incapable of making comprehensible, then it sounds like the messenger is superior to your god.

That is true, the Messenger can do things that God cannot do, namely relate to humans on earth in a personal way and garner a following and write scriptures. That does not mean the Messenger is superior, just that He has a dual nature, divine and human, so He can act as an intermediary between God and humans. God cannot “show up” on earth because the Essence of God is Spirit, and if the Essence of God did reveal itself on earth ,all created things would be so dazzled and thunderstruck by the evidences of His light as to be reduced to utter nothingness.

Except that you haven't. All you keep doing is CLAIMING that it's impossible, yet you've provided ZERO evidence for your claim. I mean, if you're stating that there are human messengers who ARE capable of communicating directly with your god being, then why would it be impossible for every human being to do so?

Here is the reason: The Messengers of God are another order of creation above an ordinary man. Their souls had pre-existence in the spiritual world before their bodies were born in this world, whereas the souls of all humans come into being at the moment of conception. The spiritual world is where They get their special powers from God. They possess a universal divine mind that is different than ours and that is why God only speaks to them directly and through Them God communicates to humanity.

CLEARLY your god being IS capable of allowing mere human being to comprehend him... that's who these 'messengers' are. So what makes it IMPOSSIBLE for your god being to give this ability to EVERYONE?

Nope, they are not mere human beings; they are divine men, God-men, so they have special qualities and qualifications ordinary humans do not have.

I was responding to YOUR childish question: 2. Even if humans could understand God communicating to them directly, how would it be fair for God to communicate to some people and not to other people? And I replied: Eh... EXACTLY as fair as it would be for God to communicate to a 'messenger' (SOME PEOPLE) and NOT communicate to other people. IF god can communicate to a messenger THEN he should be able to communicate to everyone. So either god has decided to be unfair OR perhaps this god entity is nothing more than a figment of your imagination.

So you tell, ME, is it 'fair' for god to communicate directly with 'messengers' and to not communicate directly with everyone else?

It is not about FAIR vs. UNFAIR; it is about the ABILITY of Messengers to understand God and the INABILITY of ordinary humans to understand God. Why would God communicate to people who could not understand Him?

And that's exactly my point! You are PICKING the message that fits with what YOU might want. You ONLY look at the houses (religions) that YOU have decided fits what YOU want. And that means you are ignoring all of the houses (religions) that you've decided you don't want. But what if the REAL religion happens to be one of those that you don't think 'fits' you? So again I say, either ALL of the various claimed religions are true or MAYBE all of them are false.

No, that is not what I did. I did that with houses, picked the ones that fit, but I did not do that with religions. I just stumbled upon a religion that made sense to me and I read a lot about it and joined it. After that I saw no reason to do comparison shopping and look at other religions, not any more than I compared other men to my husband AFTER I got married.

The other various claimed religions are true but they are outdated. I am not interested in outdated religions any more than I would want an outdated computer OS that cannot be supported and does not run.

Okay, you really need to make up your mind. You JUST got done telling me that you don't HAVE to look at every single house (religion) in order to decide which is true. You wrote; you only pick a few houses that seem like the ones you might buy. But what IF the actual truth from God happens to be one of the 'houses' that you originally thought you wouldn't want to 'buy'? YOU decided YOU didn't have to look at THAT house... yet it turned out to be the TRUE house (religion).

I understand your point and it is a valid point. You could MISS the TRUE religion since you cannot realistically look at all of the religions. That is why you have to be VERY careful which religions end up on your short list and you have to set some criteria the religions would have to PASS before they end upon on your short list.

That's kind of been my point all along. Until you can provide some sort of evidence that there even IS a 'true messenger of God', it's an utter waste of time to go looking.

We know there are True Messengers of God because of the great religions that have been established by them over the course of human history and the effect these religions have had upon civilization.

“The greatest bestowal of God in the world of humanity is religion; for assuredly the divine teachings of religion are above all other sources of instruction and development to man. Religion confers upon man eternal life and guides his footsteps in the world of morality. It opens the doors of unending happiness and bestows everlasting honor upon the human kingdom. It has been the basis of all civilization and progress in the history of mankind....” Bahá’í World Faith, p. 270

The method of identifying a True Messenger of God (divine prophet) is as follows:

“What then is the mission of the divine prophets? Their mission is the education and advancement of the world of humanity. They are the real teachers and educators, the universal instructors of mankind. If we wish to discover whether any one of these great souls or messengers was in reality a prophet of God we must investigate the facts surrounding His life and history; and the first point of our investigation will be the education He bestowed upon mankind. If He has been an educator, if He has really trained a nation or people, causing it to rise from the lowest depths of ignorance to the highest station of knowledge, then we are sure that He was a prophet. This is a plain and clear method of procedure, proof that is irrefutable. We do not need to seek after other proofs.” Bahá’í World Faith, p. 273

WHAT? That's a completely moronic statement. You're going to determine which message is TRUE by automatically ASSUMING that instructions given by Jesus are true? That's like me saying that the way we determine which religion is true is by following what the instructions given by the Hindu Vedas.

As it says in the quote I cited above, we can identify a True Prophet by whether He has really trained a nation or people, causing it to rise from the lowest depths of ignorance to the highest station of knowledge. These are the FRUITS of the Prophets that Jesus was referring to in Matthew 7:15-20, so the instructions Jesus gave are specific to looking at the FRUITS of the Prophet to determine if they are good or evil.

Moses also explained a way we can test the prophets… Does what He promised come to pass?

Deut. 18:22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

 

[j1i]

There is no two judge reciting the sentence at the same time

ROFL... you're right, they don't ALL recite the verdict together. But they DO reach their verdict TOGETHER. Each of the nine justices has EQUAL say in what the verdict will be. They are ALL judges and they TAKE TURNS reading the verdicts. And I an NOT 'twisting' what you say. I'm repeating what you say and each time I'm pointing out that your analogy is WRONG.

There are more than 200 heads of state in every country one head
We speak within the human system, which is a limited force requiring change of individuals because of the illness of one of them or the absence of one of them, but in the case of application be applied one

Care to reword this so that it's not incomprehensible gibberish?

The Koran, which I wrote about God talk about 1400 years ago and is a beautiful reference and gives a reasonable and scientifically convergent conception with the Big Bang and the presence of smoke also cosmic
We cannot see smoke on heavens before 1400 in the earth
But with scientific development, we proved that the universe has dust and this dust is the result of smoke
There is no book before 1400 that speaks of smoke in heaven
Notice how you are defeated simultaneously and spontaneously
I came to you with a paragraph of enormous wisdom

The Koran - which you have FAILED to demonstration is any more legitimate than the Hindu Vedas, The Iliad, or Dianetics, the religious text for Scientology - is just an old book that you have foolishly decided to imbue with some sort of divine significance, simply based upon what the society you grew up in brainwashed you to believe. You quoting it has exactly as much legitimacy for me as me quoting Harry Potter would have significance for you.

Harry Potter story dedicated to children far from the conception of creation It is not mentioned that the heavens were smoke
You should be patient and speak logically
I am not as ignorant or a child as you claim
Koranic verses were put as a sign that there is talk of this thing and not to convince you
Be careful not to get angry, my friend, I am very tolerant and kind hearted

Note what I wrote above. Your citing the Koran is JUST AS silly to ME, as ME citing Harry Potter books is to YOU. You seem to think that just because you have something written in an old book that it's supposed to me meaningful to me. It is NOT. Until you can provide verifiable evidence that your book was actually inspired by a god and not just the product of fallible human beings it is a meaningless argument you are making.

I will respond to you now to prove the inevitability of your failure
You claimed that the Big Bang was the result of magical pixie farting.
Well, I will follow you here, if you understand and are convinced of the correctness of your words
Who's the latest magical pixie farting.
Answer me clearly and without winding and rotation

No, you really need to learn how to comprehend what I write. I did NOT claim that the big bang was the result of a magical pixie farting. What I DID say is that I have EXACTLY AS MUCH EVIDENCE for the big bang being the result of magical pixie farting as YOU have evidence that some God started the big bang. In other words, your moronic claim is JUST AS silly as MY moronic claim. since BOTH are presented WITHOUT EVIDENCE.

I want honest and realistic answers

first: I prove that the Quran is a miracle
Quran said that the heavens had smoke 1400 years ago
We can not see the smoke in the heavens and this scientific evidence calculated for the Quran


Second, human beings multiply. They need cooperation because they are creatures in such a way that requires collective action
But the sun in the solar system does not currently use the system of participation or cooperation in its functions or inherit its function to another suns
If the sun was working billions of years ago without help other suns, what about main sources age, i meant the creator or who made?

Put the possibility of human beings to facilitate the understanding of my idea does not mean that I say that human is complete
If you are very rich will you accept the homeless to share your money and become yourself exactly and controls you?
How then accept the system of participation to the Creator

third
magical pixie farting.
who cause it ?
Science says there is no movement except the cause
Scientific proof where? Don't tricked me
Scientific evidence needs scientific experiment and evidence
I told you that the quan says there is smoke in the heavens and this is scientific evidence 1440 years

Who's latest or causes the magical pixie farting

Do not try to deceive me and lie to you and try to mislead me
Science cannot prove that there is no Creator, or that the source of existence came without existence (founder)

 

[sayak83]

There is a reason I am posting this question and it is for the same reason I posted the other thread I posted about a week ago:

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

The reason I am posting this is because I have been posting to an atheist on some other forums for over five years and he insists that if god existed god would communicate directly to every single person in the world rather than using messengers. He should really come here and post his own question but he won’t come here so I am posting EXACTLY what he wants me to post this time, since he said that the questions on my other thread were not what he would have asked.

Here it is, a direct quote from him, turned into a question for you:

“Is there every reason to believe that if God existed, and wanted to achieve the result of the maximum number of people getting and believing any message he wanted them to get and believe, that he would use the same method used by all imaginary gods (messengers) which achieves results worse than reason demands would be achieved by using what only a real god could use: direct communication?”

Of course he is making an unfounded assumption that God is trying to achieve the result of the maximum number of people getting and believing His message, although there is no way he can know that is what God is trying to achieve.

His premise is that since imaginary gods use messengers a real God would never use a Messenger. What he is really saying is that because there are false messengers (men who claim to speak for God), God would never send a Messenger who speaks for God. Of course this is patently illogical. That is like saying that just because there is a junkyard with junky cars that do not run there cannot be a new car lot down the street with cars that run nicely.

If God thinks that knowing that he exists is vital for us, then yes he would.

 

[HonestJoe]

There are concrete facts and logic behind my beliefs…

You’ve not presented any of them. Remember that the writings of Baha’u’llah (or anyone else) aren’t facts in themselves, just the opinions of another person.

Nobody can know what God wants, we can only know what God allows to exist.

Yet again, if God is all-powerful, what he allows to exist must be what he wants to exist by definition. That’s what all-powerful means.

but God normally does not interfere with human free will, even though He can.

How could you possibly know that? He could be interfering with free will all the time in ways we’re totally unaware of.

There is also the tangential issue of whether true free will can even exist in the context of anything all-knowing existing. If something already knows everything we’re going to do before we do it, how can we be said to have freely chosen?

I see no reason why we would need to know the Essence of God (God’s intrinsic nature) in order to know the Will of God. God reveals His Will to Messengers through the Holy Spirit. If we believe that the Messenger represents God, then we believe that what He reveals is identical to the Will of God.

There is a key distinction between us simply not knowing the “essence” of God and that “essence” being unknowable. If we are fundamentally incapable of even conceiving of the “essence” of God, we’re not going to be able to conceive of any extension or presentation of that unknowable essence. It’s like the difference between going somewhere a long way away and going somewhere imaginary.

In order to understand how we can know “something” about God, you have to separate the Attributes of God from the Essence of God in your mind, and you have to realize that the Messengers of God (what Baha’is normally refer to as Manifestations of God) manifest God’s Attributes as well as describing God’s Attributes (or qualities). Some of God’s Attributes that are unique to God are as follows: Eternal, Holy, Unchanging, Impassable, Infinite, Omnipresent, All-Powerful, All-Knowing, All-Wise, Self-Existent, Self-Sufficient, Sovereign, Righteous, and Immaterial.

Again, these are just word games, designed (not by you) so you can make assertions about what God is but the moment you face any difficult questions or challenges, you can turn around and say we can’t understand. For what it’s worth, I see several of those “attributes” as contradictory, notably the idea of something infinite, eternal and all-powerful having any limiting characteristics at all. How could such a god not be able to “change” and become “material”, “unholy” or “passable” for a while? If God is everything, God is “only” everything.

Again, we know the messages come from God if we believe that the Messenger was sent by God.

That is simply wrong. The words “believe” and “know” mean different things. If you’re going to mess with the fundamental meaning of basic words, there is no point in you communicating with anyone at all.

So it seems like you are trying to have a rational understanding of a hypothetical God in order to determine if the existence of a God could make logical sense to you.

No, that is what we’re trying to do! That is exactly what the question you raised in the title of the thread is trying to do. It seems you just don’t like the rational answers (the core one being “We don’t know at all.”), so you’re trying to twist and spin to remain aligned with your pre-determined beliefs. You’re totally entitled to your own beliefs but you’re not entitled to your own facts.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Apparently you just don’t understand. The ordinary human brain is incapable if comprehending direct communication from God and that is why there has to be a mediator, a man who is more than human, a divine human.

Another way of expressing this idea is to say that God is incapable of communicating directly with humans in a way the ordinary human brain can comprehend.

Why is your God incapable in this way? I thought he was supposed to be omnipotent.

 

[Trailblazer]

If God thinks that knowing that he exists is vital for us, then yes he would.

Not necessarily.

 

[Aupmanyav]

If God thinks that knowing that he exists is vital for us, then yes he would.

Not necessarily.

Give possible reason, just giving your opinion is not enough.

 

[Trailblazer]

Another way of expressing this idea is to say that God is incapable of communicating directly with humans in a way the ordinary human brain can comprehend.

Why is your God incapable in this way? I thought he was supposed to be omnipotent.

God is not incapable, the human brain is incapable of comprehending God.
This had nothing to do with God being omnipotent.

 

[Trailblazer]

Give possible reason, just giving your opinion is not enough.

The reason God does not need to communicate directly to everyone is because God can communicate to Messengers who can make the messages available to everyone.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

God is not incapable, the human brain is incapable of comprehending God.

But that means the same thing.

This had nothing to do with God being omnipotent.

I think it does. *I* can communicate directly with another person in a way that they can comprehend. If God can't do what I - a mere human - can do, does he really deserve to be called "God?"

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The reason God does not need to communicate directly to everyone is because God can communicate to Messengers who can make the messages available to everyone.

Which messenger "can make the messages available to everyone?"

 

[Aupmanyav]

The reason God does not need to communicate directly to everyone is because God can communicate to Messengers who can make the messages available to everyone.

Your God is incapable of straight thinking. Does he not know that the followers of various messengers and various messages will then fight each other? Why does he not chose to communicate with all humans in the world at the same time in their own languages, so that there is no ambiguity? Does he like to see people fighting? Or is this something that your God cannot do?

We are fortunate that our Gods neither have any messages nor any messengers. They made the 'dharma' eternal (Sanatan). They don't need to change 'dharma' in every age like in your case. What was 'dharma' 5,000 years ago is the same as what the 'dharma' is today. It will still be the same 5,000 years from now.

 

[QuestioningMind]

I want honest and realistic answers

first: I prove that the Quran is a miracle
Quran said that the heavens had smoke 1400 years ago
We can not see the smoke in the heavens and this scientific evidence calculated for the Quran


Second, human beings multiply. They need cooperation because they are creatures in such a way that requires collective action
But the sun in the solar system does not currently use the system of participation or cooperation in its functions or inherit its function to another suns
If the sun was working billions of years ago without help other suns, what about main sources age, i meant the creator or who made?

Put the possibility of human beings to facilitate the understanding of my idea does not mean that I say that human is complete
If you are very rich will you accept the homeless to share your money and become yourself exactly and controls you?
How then accept the system of participation to the Creator

third
magical pixie farting.
who cause it ?
Science says there is no movement except the cause
Scientific proof where? Don't tricked me
Scientific evidence needs scientific experiment and evidence
I told you that the quan says there is smoke in the heavens and this is scientific evidence 1440 years

Who's latest or causes the magical pixie farting

Do not try to deceive me and lie to you and try to mislead me
Science cannot prove that there is no Creator, or that the source of existence came without existence (founder)

first: I prove that the Quran is a miracle
Quran said that the heavens had smoke 1400 years ago
We can not see the smoke in the heavens and this scientific evidence calculated for the Quran

ROFL... sorry, but that is NOT proof of anything. All it proves is that an old book claimed that there was once 'smoke' in the heavens. What scientific evidence are you foolishly claiming supports this childish notion?

Second, human beings multiply. They need cooperation because they are creatures in such a way that requires collective action
But the sun in the solar system does not currently use the system of participation or cooperation in its functions or inherit its function to another suns
If the sun was working billions of years ago without help other suns, what about main sources age, i meant the creator or who made?

The sun in our solar system is a product of the Big Bang. What caused the Big Bang? We don't have enough information to say at this point in time. There's is absolutely ZERO evidence that a 'who' was involved in any way.

Who's latest or causes the magical pixie farting

The magical farting pixie has always been. The cause of its fart was magical gas in its magical digestive system.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Of course these are beliefs that come from my religion, not something I can prove. However, some of them are confirmed by empirical observation. For example, do you see a God communicating directly with anyone? People might imagine that God is communicating with them but anyone can imagine anything... You might say that the Messengers also imagined it, but since there is evidence the supports their claims that is different from ordinary people who make such claims. Ordinary people who make these claims that God communicated to them had no history of a mission and no scriptures attributed to them and no religion that was established in their name.

The Messengers of God do not communicate TO God, God communicates to them, and it is not really a two-way conversation. How it works is not something us ordinary people can understand except that God works through the Holy Spirit. Baha’u’llah explained what happened when that Most Great Spirit came upon Him but I won’t post that unless you want to read it.

It is not God who makes it comprehensible to normal people, it is the Messenger who does that, because He can understand God and He can also understand normal people so He knows how to translate what God reveals to Him and write it in a way so that we can comprehend it. Of course, this has not been the case back into history, since no Messenger of God ever wrote His own scriptures until the Bab and Baha’u’llah came along in the 19th century. Rather, other men wrote down what they thought these Messengers taught, so it is twice or thrice removed from the original Source, God.

That is true, the Messenger can do things that God cannot do, namely relate to humans on earth in a personal way and garner a following and write scriptures. That does not mean the Messenger is superior, just that He has a dual nature, divine and human, so He can act as an intermediary between God and humans. God cannot “show up” on earth because the Essence of God is Spirit, and if the Essence of God did reveal itself on earth ,all created things would be so dazzled and thunderstruck by the evidences of His light as to be reduced to utter nothingness.

Here is the reason: The Messengers of God are another order of creation above an ordinary man. Their souls had pre-existence in the spiritual world before their bodies were born in this world, whereas the souls of all humans come into being at the moment of conception. The spiritual world is where They get their special powers from God. They possess a universal divine mind that is different than ours and that is why God only speaks to them directly and through Them God communicates to humanity.

Nope, they are not mere human beings; they are divine men, God-men, so they have special qualities and qualifications ordinary humans do not have.

It is not about FAIR vs. UNFAIR; it is about the ABILITY of Messengers to understand God and the INABILITY of ordinary humans to understand God. Why would God communicate to people who could not understand Him?

No, that is not what I did. I did that with houses, picked the ones that fit, but I did not do that with religions. I just stumbled upon a religion that made sense to me and I read a lot about it and joined it. After that I saw no reason to do comparison shopping and look at other religions, not any more than I compared other men to my husband AFTER I got married.

The other various claimed religions are true but they are outdated. I am not interested in outdated religions any more than I would want an outdated computer OS that cannot be supported and does not run.

I understand your point and it is a valid point. You could MISS the TRUE religion since you cannot realistically look at all of the religions. That is why you have to be VERY careful which religions end up on your short list and you have to set some criteria the religions would have to PASS before they end upon on your short list.

We know there are True Messengers of God because of the great religions that have been established by them over the course of human history and the effect these religions have had upon civilization.

“The greatest bestowal of God in the world of humanity is religion; for assuredly the divine teachings of religion are above all other sources of instruction and development to man. Religion confers upon man eternal life and guides his footsteps in the world of morality. It opens the doors of unending happiness and bestows everlasting honor upon the human kingdom. It has been the basis of all civilization and progress in the history of mankind....” Bahá’í World Faith, p. 270

The method of identifying a True Messenger of God (divine prophet) is as follows:

“What then is the mission of the divine prophets? Their mission is the education and advancement of the world of humanity. They are the real teachers and educators, the universal instructors of mankind. If we wish to discover whether any one of these great souls or messengers was in reality a prophet of God we must investigate the facts surrounding His life and history; and the first point of our investigation will be the education He bestowed upon mankind. If He has been an educator, if He has really trained a nation or people, causing it to rise from the lowest depths of ignorance to the highest station of knowledge, then we are sure that He was a prophet. This is a plain and clear method of procedure, proof that is irrefutable. We do not need to seek after other proofs.” Bahá’í World Faith, p. 273

As it says in the quote I cited above, we can identify a True Prophet by whether He has really trained a nation or people, causing it to rise from the lowest depths of ignorance to the highest station of knowledge. These are the FRUITS of the Prophets that Jesus was referring to in Matthew 7:15-20, so the instructions Jesus gave are specific to looking at the FRUITS of the Prophet to determine if they are good or evil.

Moses also explained a way we can test the prophets… Does what He promised come to pass?

Deut. 18:22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

Of course these are beliefs that come from my religion, not something I can prove. However, some of them are confirmed by empirical observation. For example, do you see a God communicating directly with anyone?

That would be like me claiming that because I don't see magical pixies communicating directly with people that it MUST mean that magical pixies aren't CAPABLE of communicating directly with people. It would be FAR more reasonable to conclude that the reason we don't see magical pixies communicating directly with people is because magical pixies don't actually exist. That's what I'm forced to conclude about your god claims as well.

People might imagine that God is communicating with them but anyone can imagine anything... You might say that the Messengers also imagined it, but since there is evidence the supports their claims that is different from ordinary people who make such claims. Ordinary people who make these claims that God communicated to them had no history of a mission and no scriptures attributed to them and no religion that was established in their name.

That's all it takes for you to conclude that a person's claims about god are real? Does that mean that you think Joseph Smith is a 'messenger'? How about L. Ron Hubbard, was HE communicating directly with god as well? Why then don't you follow Mormonism and Scientology?

Here is the reason: The Messengers of God are another order of creation above an ordinary man. Their souls had pre-existence in the spiritual world before their bodies were born in this world, whereas the souls of all humans come into being at the moment of conception. The spiritual world is where They get their special powers from God. They possess a universal divine mind that is different than ours and that is why God only speaks to them directly and through Them God communicates to humanity.

If you say so. However, that doesn't change the reality that your god being COULD have created EVERYONE so that they could communicate with him, but he CHOSE to only create a handful of 'messengers' capable of understanding him and created the rest of us so that we could not. Why did your god decide to NOT create the rest of us with this universal divine mind and instead force us to rely on these 'messengers' that its so easy for people to fake?

Nope, they are not mere human beings; they are divine men, God-men, so they have special qualities and qualifications ordinary humans do not have.

Again, why? Since your god being decided to create SOME 'god men' it's obvious that he was capable of creating us all as 'god men' who could understand him, but for some reason he chose to create most of us so that we're clueless and in the dark.

It is not about FAIR vs. UNFAIR; it is about the ABILITY of Messengers to understand God and the INABILITY of ordinary humans to understand God. Why would God communicate to people who could not understand Him?

You are the one who originally brought up the 'fairness' aspect. Why would god choose to create beings that he could not communicate directly with?

No, that is not what I did. I did that with houses, picked the ones that fit, but I did not do that with religions. I just stumbled upon a religion that made sense to me and I read a lot about it and joined it. After that I saw no reason to do comparison shopping and look at other religions, not any more than I compared other men to my husband AFTER I got married.

Okay... but that sure sounds as if you're taking a huge risk. After all, you acknowledge that there are false messengers out there. And in order for them to exist they must be fairly convincing to people. In fact, I'd imagine a false messenger would have a VERY appealing message that many people would think makes sense. Not sure your husband analogy holds up. After all, there are potentially innumerable men who COULD have become your 'true' husband. Unless EVERY known religion is the 'true' religion, you might very well have been fooled into picking the wrong one.

The other various claimed religions are true but they are outdated. I am not interested in outdated religions any more than I would want an outdated computer OS that cannot be supported and does not run.

Then I would assume that you'd be a Scientologist, since it's about the newest religion out there.

I understand your point and it is a valid point. You could MISS the TRUE religion since you cannot realistically look at all of the religions. That is why you have to be VERY careful which religions end up on your short list and you have to set some criteria the religions would have to PASS before they end upon on your short list.

Which is why using 'messengers' is such a poor method to use for spreading a true message.

 

[j1i]

first: I prove that the Quran is a miracle
Quran said that the heavens had smoke 1400 years ago
We can not see the smoke in the heavens and this scientific evidence calculated for the Quran

ROFL... sorry, but that is NOT proof of anything. All it proves is that an old book claimed that there was once 'smoke' in the heavens. What scientific evidence are you foolishly claiming supports this childish notion?

Second, human beings multiply. They need cooperation because they are creatures in such a way that requires collective action
But the sun in the solar system does not currently use the system of participation or cooperation in its functions or inherit its function to another suns
If the sun was working billions of years ago without help other suns, what about main sources age, i meant the creator or who made?

The sun in our solar system is a product of the Big Bang. What caused the Big Bang? We don't have enough information to say at this point in time. There's is absolutely ZERO evidence that a 'who' was involved in any way.

Who's latest or causes the magical pixie farting

The magical farting pixie has always been. The cause of its fart was magical gas in its magical digestive system.

Please i don't waste my time

You wrote:-
The magical farting pixie has always been. The cause of its fart was magical gas in its magical digestive system.

Who made the gas?
Who's making the digestive system
If you do not know the answer please give up and don't waste my time,
I will shorten the way for you
God is the first with no beginning and no birth and the last with no end to succession
But the difference is who is the true God
You are now close to reaching it just need a dose of luck


These scientists are unable to survive more than 100 years or a little more
The power of scientists in this sections to speak because it is free hahahaha.
Because of the lack of evidence and proofs, everyone is enjoying their fake ideas
They speak with mood, philosophical and imaginary ideas, contradictory claims and different theories among scholars
huh. Having a degree does not mean you always understand


I am superior to you, one point ahead
Koran says that there is smoke in the heavens, although we can not as humans before 1440 years to see the smoke in the heavens
I have a copy before 1400 in the museum proving this miracle
He even said that meteors that fall, contain copper element

 

[Trailblazer]

You’ve not presented any of them. Remember that the writings of Baha’u’llah (or anyone else) aren’t facts in themselves, just the opinions of another person.

To me, they are not just opinions, they are the Word of God. Of course, I cannot prove that.

There are concrete facts that support my belief that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God and there is logic behind the underpinning theology of my religion called Progressive Revelation.

Yet again, if God is all-powerful, what he allows to exist must be what he wants to exist by definition. That’s what all-powerful means.

I cannot disagree with that (as noted in the quote I posted below): “Just as no human can prevent the sun from rising, no human effort can stop what God has planned or is doing at present.”

How could you possibly know that? He could be interfering with free will all the time in ways we’re totally unaware of.

That is true, we cannot ever know what God is “doing.” I simply mean that in general God does not interfere with human free will.

There is also the tangential issue of whether true free will can even exist in the context of anything all-knowing existing. If something already knows everything we’re going to do before we do it, how can we be said to have freely chosen?

God’s knowing what we will choose does not affect what we choose because God’s essential knowledge surrounds the realities of all things, before, during, and after they happen.

Predestined means that something is destined to happen because it is written on the Tablet of Fate. God KNOWS it will happen, but knowing something will happen is not what causes it to happen:

“Question.—If God has knowledge of an action which will be performed by someone, and it has been written on the Tablet of Fate, is it possible to resist it?

Answer.—The foreknowledge of a thing is not the cause of its realization; for the essential knowledge of God surrounds, in the same way, the realities of things, before as well as after their existence, and it does not become the cause of their existence. It is a perfection of God.......

Therefore, the knowledge of God in the realm of contingency does not produce the forms of the things. On the contrary, it is purified from the past, present and future. It is identical with the reality of the things; it is not the cause of their occurrence........

The mathematicians by astronomical calculations know that at a certain time an eclipse of the moon or the sun will occur. Surely this discovery does not cause the eclipse to take place. This is, of course, only an analogy and not an exact image.”
Some Answered Questions, pp. 138-139

There is a key distinction between us simply not knowing the “essence” of God and that “essence” being unknowable. If we are fundamentally incapable of even conceiving of the “essence” of God, we’re not going to be able to conceive of any extension or presentation of that unknowable essence. It’s like the difference between going somewhere a long way away and going somewhere imaginary.

We cannot ever know the “essence” of God. The “essence” of God is unknowable because we are fundamentally incapable of even conceiving of the “essence” of God. Thus we cannot conceive of any extension or presentation of that unknowable essence. But the “essence” of God is not the same as the Will of God or the Attributes of God.

Again, these are just word games, designed (not by you) so you can make assertions about what God is but the moment you face any difficult questions or challenges, you can turn around and say we can’t understand.

We can understand some things about God, just not everything.

For what it’s worth, I see several of those “attributes” as contradictory, notably the idea of something infinite, eternal and all-powerful having any limiting characteristics at all. How could such a god not be able to “change” and become “material”, “unholy” or “passable” for a while? If God is everything, God is “only” everything.

The reason God cannot change is because God is what God is. God’s essential nature is immaterial, Spirit, so God cannot change and become a material being because then God would no longer be God. Likewise, if God is holy by His very nature, God cannot become unholy because then God would no longer be God. I am having a hard time explaining this so I looked it up and found this website. I am not a Christian so I do not agree with everything t says about Jesus, but I agree with this part and it also addresses some other things we have been discussing.

What does it mean that God is immutable? How can we understand that God’s nature is unchanging since every other created thing changes?

What Immutability Means

Imagine that I am on the couch and I want to mute the sound on my TV but there are no batteries in the remote control. It is impossible for me to mute the TV’s sound with a remote control that has no batteries. That gives us an idea, although it is a poor example, of how it is impossible to mute God’s purpose. We are human and to try and mute what God says in His Word or to thwart the divine will, plans, and purposes of God is a task that is destined to fail. Just as no human can prevent the sun from rising, no human effort can stop what God has planned or is doing at present. God is immutable and that is what the Word of God says as we shall later read about.

God Cannot Change​

God has no need to change for He is complete and perfect in Himself and has no need of anything. The Covenantal name that He gave to Moses to tell the people of Israel just Who God was is this: I AM that I AM or I AM the self-existent One. We are human beings and there was a time when we had no being or did not exist. We are but finite creatures dependent upon food, air, water, sun and so on. We had a beginning and will have a physical ending but God has always existed and there was never a time that He did not exist and there will never be a time when He won’t exist. God needs nothing outside of Himself to exist. He is fully self-sufficient and self-contained.

God’s Unchanging Nature: The Immutability of God​

Trailblazer said: Again, we know the messages come from God if we believe that the Messenger was sent by God.

That is simply wrong. The words “believe” and “know” mean different things. If you’re going to mess with the fundamental meaning of basic words, there is no point in you communicating with anyone at all.

I knew you would catch that because you are very sharp, so I was planning to explain it when you caught it.The word ‘know’ has more than one meaning. If we believe with absolute certainty then we also know. We do not know as if it was a proven fact, but we know nonetheless. So I could have just as easily said: Again, we know the messages come from God if we know that the Messenger was sent by God.
Definition of KNOW

No, that is what we’re trying to do! That is exactly what the question you raised in the title of the thread is trying to do. It seems you just don’t like the rational answers (the core one being “We don’t know at all.”), so you’re trying to twist and spin to remain aligned with your pre-determined beliefs. You’re totally entitled to your own beliefs but you’re not entitled to your own facts.

I am glad you said “we” because I certainly do not know everything and neither do you, so “we” can learn by sharing ideas and beliefs. I like to try to understand what people think and why they think that way since psychology is my other hat and one I wore a lot longer than I have been wearing my religion hat.

You said: “the rational answers (the core one being “We don’t know at all.”” You are kind of the flip side of the atheist I quoted in the OP who has made an imaginary god in his own image. Of course, you only saw what I posted that he said, there is a lot more. He thinks he knows that if God existed God could do anything that is not logically impossible, but I told him that God is not bound by human logic. How can humans know what is possible for God to do based solely upon omnipotence? He also thinks he knows that if God existed God would want everyone to believe He exists so there would not be one single atheist on earth, and he thinks that if God communicated directly to everyone, then everyone would understand God and believe in God.

Talking to you is a refreshing change since you do not think you know everything, or even much at all. However, you might try to understand from a believer perspective we think we can know a few things about God and what God’s Will is, because that is a belief that believers in all the revealed religions share.

That is fine by me if you want to separate beliefs from facts because they are separate. Facts can be proven to everyone but beliefs cannot be proven to anyone except the believer who has them.

 

[Trailblazer]

But that means the same thing.

No, it means something totally different, Imo.

I think it does. *I* can communicate directly with another person in a way that they can comprehend. If God can't do what I - a mere human - can do, does he really deserve to be called "God?"

No, God cannot do what humans can do just because God is God. In fact, the very reason God cannot do what humans can do is because God is not a human.

 

[Trailblazer]

Which messenger "can make the messages available to everyone?"

Baha’u’llah

 

[Trailblazer]

That would be like me claiming that because I don't see magical pixies communicating directly with people that it MUST mean that magical pixies aren't CAPABLE of communicating directly with people. It would be FAR more reasonable to conclude that the reason we don't see magical pixies communicating directly with people is because magical pixies don't actually exist. That's what I'm forced to conclude about your god claims as well.

So you think it would be FAR more reasonable to conclude that the reason you do not see God communicating directly with humans is because God does not exist than to conclude that God is not CAPABLE of communicating directly with people? That is the same as saying that IF God existed God would communicate directly with people…. There is no reason to think that God would communicate directly with people. Moreover, if God exists we know that God does not communicate directly with people so that is not even a logical possibility. Given the empirical evidence there are only three logical possibilities:

1. God exists and communicates through Messengers, or
2. God exists and does not communicate, or
3. God does not exist

Of course, direct communication cannot be the best way to communicate to people since an All-Knowing and All-Wise God would have to know the best way and God does not use direct communication. Moreover, humans do not get to determine how an Almighty God is going to communicate with them, as if God was a short order cook.

That's all it takes for you to conclude that a person's claims about god are real? Does that mean that you think Joseph Smith is a 'messenger'? How about L. Ron Hubbard, was HE communicating directly with god as well? Why then don't you follow Mormonism and Scientology?

First, you have to look at what these men claimed. They did not claim to get communication from God so there is no reason to consider that a possibility. I think that Joseph Smith claimed to hear the voice of Jesus but that is not the same as hearing from God.

If you say so. However, that doesn't change the reality that your god being COULD have created EVERYONE so that they could communicate with him, but he CHOSE to only create a handful of 'messengers' capable of understanding him and created the rest of us so that we could not. Why did your god decide to NOT create the rest of us with this universal divine mind and instead force us to rely on these 'messengers' that its so easy for people to fake?

It makes sense that God never planned to communicate directly with ordinary humans since they are not capable of understanding God.

Why would God need to do that, just because some atheists want direct communication from God?

God wanted to force us to rely upon Messengers and it says that in the scriptures, in so many words. And God always gets what God wants, so the people who relied upon God’s Messengers got the message and the other people were left out in the cold. Nobody can fight the Will of God, He always wins.

It really is not that easy to fake being a ‘real’ Messenger of God, if one looks with a discerning eye. They just need to know what to be looking for and it is not as if the fakes have these qualities.

Again, why? Since your god being decided to create SOME 'god men' it's obvious that he was capable of creating us all as 'god men' who could understand him, but for some reason he chose to create most of us so that we're clueless and in the dark.

Why would God need to create more than one God-man for every age given they can relay the messages to everyone? Should all of us be made President of the United States too just because we do not understand the President?

You are the one who originally brought up the 'fairness' aspect. Why would god choose to create beings that he could not communicate directly with?

I don’t know, ask God, if you can contact Him on His cell. A better question is why would God choose to create beings that he could communicate directly with? In other words, why would the ALMIGHTY God want to be communicating directly with every human in the world? What would be the purpose? God is not a social Being, he is one and alone and remains in His own High Place. No, direct contact with humans is not what God wants; it is what atheists want, but guess who gets what He wants? [/quote]

Okay... but that sure sounds as if you're taking a huge risk. After all, you acknowledge that there are false messengers out there. And in order for them to exist they must be fairly convincing to people. In fact, I'd imagine a false messenger would have a VERY appealing message that many people would think makes sense.

I do not know of any such messengers who I would be attracted to. I am very discerning. He would have to meet ALL the criteria before I would even consider him, not the least of which is fulfilling all the Bible prophecies and prophecies of all the other major religions. Baha’u’llah is the only one who meets that criteria. Also, His Writings are a big part of the proof for me.

Not sure your husband analogy holds up. After all, there are potentially innumerable men who COULD have become your 'true' husband. Unless EVERY known religion is the 'true' religion, you might very well have been fooled into picking the wrong one.

That raises a good point. All the major religions are ‘true’ according to the Baha’i Faith but the Baha’i Faith is the religion for this age in history, so it was a slam dunk for me. Why would I want an older religion that has a message that is not even pertinent to this age, a religion that has become corrupted by men over the course of time, when I can have the new and pristine religion with the message for this age? That would not be logical, and I make my choices according to logic.

The husband analogy is not that great because more than one man ‘potentially’ could have worked out, many people marry several times, but there is only one true religion for this age, jut as there is only one religion that God wants everyone to follow in every age. The reason there is so much disunity and strife in the world is because there are so many different religions but in the future there will be only one religion everyone will follow, as that was ordained by God.

Then I would assume that you'd be a Scientologist, since it's about the newest religion out there.

Scientology is not a religion because there is no God behind it. Scientology does not even claim that there is a Messenger of God who revealed it. I think you need a brief definition of the nature of religion so we will be on the same page:

“And now concerning thy question regarding the nature of religion. Know thou that they who are truly wise have likened the world unto the human temple. As the body of man needeth a garment to clothe it, so the body of mankind must needs be adorned with the mantle of justice and wisdom. Its robe is the Revelation vouchsafed unto it by God. Whenever this robe hath fulfilled its purpose, the Almighty will assuredly renew it. For every age requireth a fresh measure of the light of God. Every Divine Revelation hath been sent down in a manner that befitted the circumstances of the age in which it hath appeared.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 81

Which is why using 'messengers' is such a poor method to use for spreading a true message.

It is the only method that can be used to get the same message out to everyone in the world. God is not going to reveal the over 15,000 tablets that Baha’u’llah wrote to every person in the world. People just have to do their homework and they can find the true religion. There are no free rides because God does not give any free rides.