Baha'i and Messengers

[rational experiences]

Between two types of human thoughts.

I want God to know God to own god myself in a Machine reaction never ending resource.

If I am the God then I own God.

How are you a resource or infinite as eternal?

Maybe you are claiming an eternal flame?

God theist scientist.

Versus I know God to live a good loving kind caring human life. As a self imposed spiritual purpose as a human.

A vastly different God concept.

 

[Sundance]

That is precisely what I said. Everybody may not be made a messenger but God should have his authorized spokespersons in every part of the world at all times. Any point of difference, we could go to the local representative of Allah. Not just one in a thousand years. But when did Allah did the correct thing? Scriptures are full of the mistakes that he made, the flood for example. Created man and was satisfied, but see, what humans have done to the world!

Hmmmm…Aup, your comment is thought-provoking. I’ll try to answer this the best I can.

Outside of the Teachers who bring Divine Wisdom, all of the different texts that communicate those Teachings, and the various chains of succession from Teachers to student, we don’t necessarily need to have a representative of God on Earth at all times. God has given to each of us the freedom, the responsibility to study these things and come to our own understandings. It’s said that “in the clashing of different opinions, the spark of truth is manifest.”

As for when God did the correct thing, from whose perspective are we looking? What may be the correct course of action to any one of us may not be so to Him, and vice versa. None of us know His Mind.

God’s initial creation of human beings was as good, “in His Image”, as the verse in Genesis goes. But human beings do have two inclinations: one towards the good, the other towards the evil. In Judaism, they call these yetzer tov and yetzer hara.


Concerning the Flood story, the reason is given in the Torah: the wickedness of most of humanity. I believe that the story can offer a bit of insight as to what’s wrong with human nature. In this, you have a point. Some people are just dedicated to the wrong things in life, and unless right-minded individuals take action or (more fundamentally) there’s something higher than the fickleness of human will pointing the way to the Supreme Good, the world’s going to tank.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Fromm wrote the book in 1955.

"It will come into existence with the appearance of a new great teacher, just as they have appeared in previous centuries when the time was ripe." (Erich Fromm 1955)

If he supposedly wrote what you have quoted (I have not read his book). then he was not referring to Bahaollah who was long dead by that time and Bahai religion had already come into existence. He was waiting for some other teacher and one more religion. Another thing that surprises me is why the Bahai reference is not there on the cover page of his book that you have with you. Where did it get lost?

And how does it matter if he wrote something according to his views? Religionists and Atheists, all have their various views. It was not a message from any God. He was not even a theist. Wikipedia says "Fromm was reportedly an atheist but described his position as "nontheistic mysticism".

He was just expressing his views nothing to do with the Baha’i Faith.

 

[Trailblazer]

Just a few posts ago, you said that messengers are God in flesh. An now, you are changing your statement! Trailblazer, how many times I have told you to be consistent? But you never are.

I said that they are God manifested in the flesh, not God incarnated in the flesh. This article explains the difference between an Manifestation and an incarnation.

“The Christian equivalent to the Bahá'í concept of Manifestation is the concept of incarnation. The word to incarnate means 'to embody in flesh or 'to assume, or exist in, a bodily (esp. a human) form (Oxford English Dictionary). From a Bahá'í point of view, the important question regarding the subject of incarnation is, what does Jesus incarnate? Bahá'ís can certainly say that Jesus incarnated Gods attributes, in the sense that in Jesus, Gods attributes were perfectly reflected and expressed.[4] The Bahá'í scriptures, however, reject the belief that the ineffable essence of the Divinity was ever perfectly and completely contained in a single human body, because the Bahá'í scriptures emphasize the omnipresence and transcendence of the essence of God…..

One can argue that Bahá'u'lláh is asserting that epistemologically the Manifestations are God, for they are the perfect embodiment of all we can know about God; but ontologically they are not God, for they are not identical with God's essence. Perhaps this is the meaning of the words attributed to Jesus in the gospel of John: 'If you had known me, you would have known my Father also' (John 14:7) and 'he who has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9)…”

Jesus Christ in the Bahá'í Writings

 

[KWED]

Well done for taking the time to quote these passages.

The way I have read these passages say to me that the fate we cannot change is our material death in this world. We can pray to God to delay that fate, but we are told it is better to pray for God's Will to be done in this regard. In this age that also includes using medical sciences through the best of doctors.

The conditional and impending is where we can use free will. We are given this life to obtain spiritual limbs, that is obtain to a virtue and moral life, this is the born again option given in the Bible.

This capacity of free will also has to acknowledge that it has boundaries, as we are created as a human spirit that needs connection to the Holy Spirit via the Spirit of Faith. That is also Heaven and Hell. Heaven is the choice to embrace God and He'll is remoteness from God.

Hardly surprising that you choose to interpret those statements in a way that suits you.
However, it is clear and without ambiguity that some of god's decrees about our future life are fixed and unchangeable. Therefore god does indeed remove our free will in some circumstances - which is obviously a problem.

Big topic and the best explanations are given by Abdul'baha as to what Baha'u'llah meant.

Those were explanations from Bahaullah and Abdulbaha.
Do we need them to explain their explanations now?[/quote]

 

[KWED]

Such it is to have been given a free will choice.

But have we? Bahaullah and Abdulbaha themselves admit that we don't always have free will.
Why do you think god removes our free will in some instances?

 

[loverofhumanity]

But have we? Bahaullah and Abdulbaha themselves admit that we don't always have free will.
Why do you think god removes our free will in some instances?

What do you think? I wonder what would happen if we didn’t die in this world. what would the population be and how would we deal with more people than we have space for. I think that this is just a stopover for us to learn before we move on to higher forms of life.

 

[Vinayaka]

Well, it was important that you did, because a lot of us, including me, assumed Hinduism was the name of the religion and then there were many sects of Hinduism. It was assumed by some of us that all Hindus believed in Krishna. When I was first taught about the Baha'i Faith, I assumed they were telling me the truth. And what did all that "assuming" get me? Baha'is talk of not taking the word of other people but to personally investigate the truth. That's all I'm doing. But it is still hard to get Truth from people. It's always their truth. And that would be okay if some people didn't go around preaching their truth is The Truth. But what can they do? Their God and religion tells them that they must go tell the world.

Thanks. Looking back, it was a bit of an overreaction on my part. Are people interested in learning about Hinduism going to ask Hindus, go to a Hindu temple, or are they going to look up some small barely alive faith, and ask them about Hindus? Looking at it from that perspective. we barely need to stand up and correct the misconceptions. Over on another large forum, the Hinduism section has 100 000 members. But yes, I suppose it did help a few people, mostly non-Bahai' like yourself.

I will be taking another breather from this. It always leads nowhere. Just when you think you've convinced somebody of the inaccuracy portrayed, they prove you wrong, by reiterating the same old party line of Krishna being a prophet, the founder of Hinduism.

Carry on. I have many preparations to do today for a festival. Thank God for Columbian flower growers.

 

[Vinayaka]

I do not know that, but we believe Krishna to be an Avatar and accept the Bhagavad-Gita as a Holy Book.

Then why say it? Post 545, first line.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Then why say it? Post 545, first line.

Yes you are correct.

 

[Aupmanyav]

God’s initial creation of human beings was as good, “in His Image”, as the verse in Genesis goes. But human beings do have two inclinations: one towards the good, the other towards the evil.

Is that not God's inefficiency? Made a bridge and it collapsed on the first trial. I am referring to Adam. His first product failed.
It is like a road constructed in India. When the minister went to inaugurate it by breaking a coconut (as Hindus are wont to do), instead of the coconut, the road broke down. See it here:
Road breaks but not coconut - Google Search

 

[Aupmanyav]

He was just expressing his views nothing to do with the Baha’i Faith.

The link that Vinayaka gave had a reference to Bahais.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I said that they are God manifested in the flesh, not God incarnated in the flesh.

But you said messengers are God himself. Bahaollah said many things, 17,000 'tablets' (sic!). He provided no evidence for what all he said. Talk, talk and talk.

 

[loverofhumanity]

The link that Vinayaka gave had a reference to Bahais.

Yes but I didn’t get the reference from that link but from the book itself which I own.

 

[ppp]

This is not true. According to the Bahá’í Teachings, there have been (theoretically speaking) countless Messengers and Books that have come and will continue to in the distant future.

Huh? That can't be. There haven't been countless numbers of people who have lived on earth. What sort of "countless" are we talking about? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Millions? Tens of millions? Billions?

 

[Vinayaka]

The link that Vinayaka gave had a reference to Bahais.

If a Baha'i is reading anything, and with confirmation bias well set in his brain, he'll pull a quote and link it to Baha'i faith. Even if the quote doesn't match, he'll make it match. The idea is that Baha'u'llah created it all. I once read that Baha'u'llah, time traveler that he is, created Krishna.

In the same vein, the 99 % of stuff that doesn't agree with the basic tenets, progressive manifestation, or the far more vague unity of mankind, is discarded as woefully false. Your atheism is a perfect example of that. OTOH, people like me just accept your atheism as part of the diversity of mankind, and leave it at that.

 

[KWED]

No, it is the other way around....
One can only believe God exists is one sees evidence for God.
Makes sense

Yes, that would make sense but Seeker of White Light said "Not every human has opened their heart enough to gain the wisdom to understand message from God or messengers"
which implies that in order to see the evidence one must first open one's heart to god, which is not possible if you believe god doesn't exist.

 

[KWED]

He did not remove it, He gave it.

Look, I have explained several times, in detail, with examples, how the Abrahamic god removes free will.
If all you are going to do is keep repeating "But We Have Free Will!", without any further explanation then you might as well not bother.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Your atheism is a perfect example of that.

Care to tell me where it is false? And what substitute you have for it? As a former Shaiva, still having a connection with Lord Shiva (he is still my friend, I bear his name, ever in company with me), I do not mind being made fun of by you.

Yes, that would make sense but Seeker of White Light said "Not every human has opened their heart enough to gain the wisdom to understand message from God or messengers"
which implies that in order to see the evidence one must first open one's heart to god, which is not possible if you believe god doesn't exist.

Seeker of White light has his own messenger and his own book to defend.

 

[KWED]

We were created with an ego so we would have to struggle with our ego and overcome it.....

"This test is just as thou hast written: it removeth the rust of egotism from the mirror of the heart until the Sun of Truth may shine therein. For, no veil is greater than egotism and no matter how thin that covering may be, yet it will finally veil man entirely and prevent him from receiving a portion from the eternal bounty.”
Bahá’í World Faith, pp. 371-372

Circular logic. If we don't have the ego, we wouldn't have to overcome it.
Also remember that the ego that god created us with is what prevents billions of people from seeing the truth of god.
What was the point of that? Doesn't god want people to know his truth?

And again, unless we accept the teachings of your particular version of god, how do we even know that we have an ego preventing us from seeing the truth? Remember that the ego is preventing us from accepting those teachings.
And round we go again...