Convince me that God is loving

[rational experiences]

We are human biology human consciousness all born by human sex.

Science.

Then humans contest human science.

No he says...
my brother got created first from the heavens.

Natural history said human life is mother human father spiritual natural with all animal species two of. Lived with nature's garden biology rooted in grounds mass.

Nature garden with gods rock. Law. Natural. No thesis.

First position human is observation of all things natural. No argument it's legal.

So you idolise a man brother who is mutual equal a man to yourself.

No he says he's special I'm not.

Okay.

Who is first in human life?

Your father.

Was he special? Not really.

Advice. All father's tribal the same father for everyone owned the same DNA.

Did you babies with sister all be born mutual too?

Yes.

By sex.

How did you claim you now existed?

By woman's human cell womb ova ovary. I'm special a man as I'm not a woman. As you were created especial not the woman's cell.

Is now used as a lying status position in men's lives. Still all claiming why my brother is special.

As in mind history none of us now we're first parents or first babies. Just their experience.

We infer to that memory now.

How just thinking lied to humanity after life mind body was sacrificed. And only healing brings you back to mutual human conscious reality.

If you ignore indoctrinations you get the same answers. Life is legal laws natural mutual equal all supportive.

 

[Truthseeker]

IMO:

In Hinduism there are 3 stages:
1) Duality = Dvaita
2) Non Duality = Advaita
3) Qualified Non-dualism = Vishishtadvaita

Teaching of Bahaullah as you described seems to me to be 3) Qualified Non-dualism

IMO, it's not about one is good and the other is not or better or different. All 3 can be used when we are on our Spiritual Quest. I believe God will Guide us right. IF you follow Bahaullah you get there, IF I follow Sai Baba I get there also.

Bottom line, God is beyond all 3 paths. The Paths are tools to be used, not the end Goal. Hence Paths may/will be different, BUT God is One.

I hope this clarifies a bit

There are many paths to God, but if the person is sincerely seeking God, he will get there.

 

[Brian2]

Are you familiar with the saying "the buck stops here"? President Truman had it on his desk, to indicate that as he had ultimate power (in the Administration) he had ultimate responsibility.

Your mother is not responsible for your evil because she could have no knowledge that you would turn out that way. (That's assuming you are evil, which I'm sure you're not). If she had the power to foresee that you would become evil and went ahead and had you anyway, then she would be responsible for what happened, wouldn't she? If you captured a fox and released it into your neighbor's hen house, would you try to avoid responsibility by blaming the fox for what happened? I'm sure the verdict would be that you had full knowledge of what foxes do in hen houses and you would have to pay to replace the hens.

God did not fob of His responsibility onto others to take care of the evil things that His creatures were doing and that He knew they would end up doing. He shouldered it to the point of sending His Son to become a creature and suffer and be tortured to death for those sins. (with the Son being God that means God really shouldered the responsibility to deal with things)

 

[Alien826]

Yes, I agree If you did something that caused them to fight, then you are partially responsible.

Exactly. No matter how much I did to make the fight more likely, they chose to fight, and that makes them responsible too. And our law reflects that. Another factor is that I could not be absolutely sure that they would fight. And yet another is that I was not responsible for their aggressive nature, though I may have selected them in my devious plan for that reason. Now lets see how it differs with God.

God is partially responsible for everything that has happens in the universe following his creative action, but only because God made it possible by His creative action.

Partially responsible means that God is not fully responsible for everything that happens, good or bad.
God is not responsible for human free will choices and actions since God takes no part in them.

God gave humans free will making it possible for humans to choose to commit evil acts.

Was I quite sure that these two people would fight. No. Was God quite sure that suffering would result from his creation. Yes.

Was God responsible for our less than perfect nature? Yes, he designed it that way. Call it free will if you like but he still enabled us to make bad choices.

If a car manufacturer makes a car that can go very fast, and a man buys the car and chooses to drive way over the speed limit and thereby kills people in an accident, the car manufacturer is not held responsible.

Once again, that is a human example that may not apply to God. In a sense, there is no point making a car (racing cars excluded) that can exceed speed limits. What is the point in making a car that will do 150 mph for use on our current roads, where speed limits top out at 80 or so? Isn't it just to appeal to people's vanity and sell more cars? Nevertheless, the analogy is a bad one. Better would be a manufacturer that makes cars where the brakes fail on a regular basis.

Over to you.

 

[Alien826]

God did not fob of His responsibility onto others to take care of the evil things that His creatures were doing and that He knew they would end up doing. He shouldered it to the point of sending His Son to become a creature and suffer and be tortured to death for those sins. (with the Son being God that means God really shouldered the responsibility to deal with things)

So, knowingly causing endless suffering then fixing it, or joining in with the suffering, is alright? Note that it hinges on the word "knowingly". If it was like a situation where someone causes something to go horribly wrong by mistake then accepts full responsibility and does his best to make it right even accepting personal suffering as part of that restitution, then yes, that's praiseworthy. But how about if the suffering was built into the plan all along? And the "fix" was also planned? It makes me think of firefighters that deliberately set fires so they can look good putting them out. (Yes, that does happen).

This is why I prefer the concept of an inept god that is struggling to fix his mistakes. I can forgive that, once he admits it, and assist in the fix. But (according to human theologians, I have no idea what any real god might be like) God doesn't admit his mistake. He blames it all on us!

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I wasn't aware that you have the experience of observing the 5 pillars of Islam

Except for the hajj, I have, but not as a Muslim (although maybe I've done that as well, having been to Malaysia and Indonesia, which I understand are alternate destinations apart from Mecca). None of that makes life better for me except the world travel.

In this case "evil" means the opposite of peace. iow not moral evil.

Are we free to just assign whatever meaning we like to the words in scripture? OK. Resurrection is a metaphor that doesn't mean literal revivication of a dead body, and God is metaphor for the laws of physics.

Does "of God" mean that God is ultimately responsible? If so then it could be said that God is ultimately responsible because He created us and we ended up doing evil. It would be the same as saying that my mother is at least partially responsible for the evil stuff that I have done.

Is your mother omniscient and omnipotent? If so, then yes, she is responsible for whatever harm you do.

There are many paths to God, but if the person is sincerely seeking God, he will get there.

There are many gods believed in, but none detected. If gods exist, there is no path to them. Nobody knows anything about gods, nor could they if gods cannot be observed. I'm looking for what is true about the world, not gods unless they show up. If you look for gods, you'll see them, just like the ID people who kept finding irreducible complexity that wasn't there. It's called observer bias, and its why clinical trials are double-blinded: "Double-blind study - A type of clinical trial in which neither the participants nor the researcher knows which treatment or intervention participants are receiving until the clinical trial is over. This makes results of the study less likely to be biased. This means that the results are less likely to be affected by factors that are not related to the treatment or intervention being tested."

 

[Trailblazer]

If gods exist, there is no path to them.

The only path to God is the Messengers of God.

 

[Trailblazer]

with the Son being God that means......

The Son cannot be both God and the Son of God. That is logically impossible.

 

[Trailblazer]

Exactly. No matter how much I did to make the fight more likely, they chose to fight, and that makes them responsible too. And our law reflects that. Another factor is that I could not be absolutely sure that they would fight. And yet another is that I was not responsible for their aggressive nature, though I may have selected them in my devious plan for that reason.

Now lets see how it differs with God.

Was I quite sure that these two people would fight. No. Was God quite sure that suffering would result from his creation. Yes.

Of course God KNEW that suffering would result from His creation, but God's knowledge of that is not what CAUSES the suffering.

Nevertheless, if God had not create a world in which suffering could take place, then suffering could not take place, but happiness could not take place either. I say that because the nature of this world offers opportunities for both suffering and happiness.

I'll tell you a story, I just remembered it. On another forum, there was an atheist who was formerly a Christian who I used to post to for about eight years, practically daily. Once he told me that God could have created a world where there was only happiness, and no suffering. He told me that is what he thinks God should have done. Maybe he was thinking of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

He also said that God could have created humans so they will never die. I told him he should rejoin the Christians who believe that is the way it was 'in the beginning' and the way it was intended to be forever.

Later, after I lost my husband, I thought about his proposal and it sounded like a good idea, but I could not realistically see how it would be possible if nobody ever died, or what would be the point. As it is now, nobody ever dies except physically, since the soul continues on and takes on a spiritual body. If God did anything wrong, it was putting a veil between this world and the spiritual world, such that we have no choice but to have faith that it exists. Moreover, even though I know that the spiritual world exists that does little to allay my sadness owing to separation from my husband.

Was God responsible for our less than perfect nature? Yes, he designed it that way. Call it free will if you like but he still enabled us to make bad choices.

No, God did not design humans to be less than perfect. God created us all good, not perfect, but after that the ball was in our court to become more or less good, or even evil, since we all have free will.

Yes, we are free to make bad choices, but how is that God's fault? If we were not free to make bad choices we could not make good choices either.

Once again, that is a human example that may not apply to God. In a sense, there is no point making a car (racing cars excluded) that can exceed speed limits. What is the point in making a car that will do 150 mph for use on our current roads, where speed limits top out at 80 or so? Isn't it just to appeal to people's vanity and sell more cars? Nevertheless, the analogy is a bad one. Better would be a manufacturer that makes cars where the brakes fail on a regular basis.

I do not know why car manufacturers make cars that can do 150 mph.

Why is my analogy a bad analogy?

Why is a manufacturer that makes cars where the brakes fail on a regular basis a good analogy?
I don't understand how that is an analogy at all. Nobody chooses to have their brakes fail.

Are you saying that God makes humans such that they have no choice except to fail?
That makes no sense since not all humans fail.

 

[SDavis]

@SDavis

Did you mean to comment on my post?

Actually I started to comment and changed my mind, twice.

 

[stvdv]

There are many paths to God, but if the person is sincerely seeking God, he will get there.

The word "but" usually is used when the person thinks there is a problem, in this case with "there are many Paths to God"

I rather would phrase it like:
"There are many paths to God, butand if the person is sincerely seeking God, he will get there"

I would not use "but" here, as I realize that all Paths as brought to us by Saints, Prophets, Avatars, Messengers are Granted to humanity by God...I rather not critique ("but") God for this

In this case I would not reply to God starting with "but", instead I would thank God for Granting us so many Paths,

and they all lead to God...isn't that great?

 

[Truthseeker]

I rather would phrase it like:
"There are many paths to God, butand if the person is sincerely seeking God, he will get there"

I like your phrasing better.

 

[stvdv]

I like your phrasing better.

I like that...

Mostly because coming from you, this probably means that Bahaullah also likes it better, which was the impression I got from reading His Book.

One of the major updates, IMO, Bahaullah gave Abrahamics...is to see all major Religions as opportunities (Paths) to reach the Divine, and stop fighting (wars) over differences in beliefs

From Hindu POV this update is so important that this alone proves that Bahaullah is a genuine Messenger of God,

 

[Brian2]

So, knowingly causing endless suffering then fixing it, or joining in with the suffering, is alright? Note that it hinges on the word "knowingly". If it was like a situation where someone causes something to go horribly wrong by mistake then accepts full responsibility and does his best to make it right even accepting personal suffering as part of that restitution, then yes, that's praiseworthy. But how about if the suffering was built into the plan all along? And the "fix" was also planned? It makes me think of firefighters that deliberately set fires so they can look good putting them out. (Yes, that does happen).

This is why I prefer the concept of an inept god that is struggling to fix his mistakes. I can forgive that, once he admits it, and assist in the fix. But (according to human theologians, I have no idea what any real god might be like) God doesn't admit his mistake. He blames it all on us!

I would not be surprised if there was no other possibility. In making beings like angels and humans there may have been no other possibility than they or a percentage of them would do what was evil.
In that case the choice would have been to not create them or to do it and work towards bringing as many humans to repentance and trust in Him as possible. (We are not told about the angels)

 

[Brian2]

Are we free to just assign whatever meaning we like to the words in scripture? OK. Resurrection is a metaphor that doesn't mean literal revivication of a dead body, and God is metaphor for the laws of physics.

You can do that if you like. I would try to see what a word means in context and in a language word book.
The basic meaning is moral evil and in a purely secular sense can mean physical injury or times of distress.
When I look at the context I see that it is showing contrasting opposites.
Most translations take note of these things and translate accordingly.
Isa 45:7 I form the light and create the darkness; I bring prosperity and create calamity.
Isaiah 45:7 - God Calls Cyrus

Is your mother omniscient and omnipotent? If so, then yes, she is responsible for whatever harm you do.

My mother believed that all her children would do wrong even though she was not omniscient or omnipotent. The evil was inevitable.
My mother believed that all the inevitable evil would be fixed one day by God so that people would no longer do evil and would be happy.
What if the evil was going to be inevitable in the creation of beings like humans?
I suppose you think that God (assuming He exists) has dealt with it in the wrong way.

 

[Brian2]

The Son cannot be both God and the Son of God. That is logically impossible.

You aren't the only one who does not understand the Trinity.
What if the Father is the one true God and His Spirit is alive and more than a thing and was not created,,,,,,,,,,, and His Son is exactly like His Father and gets His life from His Father and has always been with the Father and shares the same Spirit with the Father?

 

[samtonga43]

The Son cannot be both God and the Son of God. That is logically impossible.

Haven't you heard of the suprarational?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

In making beings like angels and humans there may have been no other possibility than they or a percentage of them would do what was evil.

Did God know that before he created them? If so, God is responsible for creating that evil. It doesn't speak well of this creator that he finds his failures intolerable and punishes them. It's also not very omnipotent to not be able to do something that I can do and do do every day - coexist with the shortcomings of others.

You can do that if you like.

Everybody is free to interpret scripture as they wish. You do. Even fundamentalists are making a choice about how to read and understand the words.

I would try to see what a word means in context and in a language word book.

It's this fluidity of interpretation that allows the religion to evolve under the influence of humanistic values despite the words being fixed. We see this in the discussions of biblical slavery. A few millennia back, slavery was acceptable to the bible writers. The rules for it were elucidated. Have you seen the American news about five cops who beat a man to death recently? He died three days after the beating, which would be acceptable if he were a slave of the Hebrews in antiquity. Obviously, the modern Christian needs to sanitize all of that, and he has by changing meanings. Was it this thread where we saw owned people called servants rather than slaves? We are told how this was helpful to these people. That's revisionism. No idea that offends modern sensibilities is to be taken literally.

The basic meaning is moral evil and in a purely secular sense can mean physical injury or times of distress.

It means whatever you want it to mean. It also means whatever I or anybody else wants it to mean. There is no literal secular meaning for evil. That's a religious term referring to a disembodied universal principle in conflict with its opposite. I'm a humanist. We don't consider either physical injury or distress evil. Also, words like divine and sin have no meaning to a humanist except in metaphorical terms.

I bring prosperity and create calamity.

And why doesn't that deserve to be called evil to the Abrahamic theist? That's a perfect description of Satan in the garden. Calamity of biblical proportion befell man following that. And yes, the omniscient, omnipotent creator of Satan is responsible for Satan and for unleashing it on the earth, and for building it an eternal torture pit. I understand that much or all of that is unacceptable to the modern Christian, and so he just redefines everything. Nothing means what it says because the meanings of those words have changed.

My mother believed that all her children would do wrong even though she was not omniscient or omnipotent. The evil was inevitable.

Then she was not responsible for the harm that's inherent in human nature. Whoever was the author of that nature is responsible for it, assuming that that harm could be foreseen and prevented.

I suppose you think that God (assuming He exists) has dealt with it in the wrong way.

If God exists, he is either not omniscient, not omnipotent, or not omnibenevolent.

Haven't you heard of the suprarational?

Nothing transcends reason. One can avoid it, but not transcend it. The following comes from firebrand atheist and antitheist Pat Condell. The language is pretty much in-your-face (apologies), but the argument is sound:

Faith-peddlers like to put themselves beyond question by claiming that their faith transcends reason, the very thing that calls it to account. How convenient. Yes, faith transcends reason the way a criminal transcends the law. The word "transcendent" is very popular with religious hustlers because they never have to explain precisely what they mean by it, other than some vague superior state of understanding more profound than mere reason, which is crude and simplistic next to the subtleties and profundities of belief without evidence. If you hear a senior clergyman (and you will) using the word “transcendent" to explain the nonsense he claims to believe, then you know two things: one: he doesn't know what he's talking about, and two: he doesn't want you to know what he's talking about either.

Faith doesn't transcend reason at all. Faith sidesteps reason. It runs away from reason because reason threatens its cozy bubble of delusion, so faith disqualifies reason the way a Dutch criminal court disqualifies truth, and witnesses, and for much the same reason.

If you're a believer, your faith allows you to adopt a set of beliefs that make absolutely no sense, knowing that you won't be measured by whether they make sense, but by the level of piety you exhibit in believing them. In other words, your willingness to deny reality becomes a measure of your virtue. No wonder religion is so popular.​

 

[Alien826]

I would not be surprised if there was no other possibility. In making beings like angels and humans there may have been no other possibility than they or a percentage of them would do what was evil.
In that case the choice would have been to not create them or to do it and work towards bringing as many humans to repentance and trust in Him as possible. (We are not told about the angels)

You are making two suggestions.

1. It was not possible to make humans that are "better" than we are. My response is that humans vary in their "morality level". We see that it is possible for a human with a very high moral "score" to exist. If it is possible for some such humans to exist, then all humans could have been made at this higher standard. So though I'll grant the possibility that a perfectly moral human could not exist, it's clear that, as a group, we could be a lot better than we are.

2. Creation is a better choice than non creation. Given #1 (though if I'm right, a third option, a "better" creation exists), then we're looking for some reason why what we have with all it's suffering is better than nothing. I think, as we're assuming God's benevolence, there has to be some reason, and that reason can't be because he was bored or for his own benefit. Personally, I would not be comfortable being in heaven if the price for that was the suffering of others. (Let's make sure this is understood, as I sense a misunderstanding coming. According to your last sentence, the only way to get people in heaven is to create this world where many suffer and a few are rewarded. If I were to be among the rewarded, I would not be able to enjoy that reward knowing how many suffered to bring it about.)

 

[Trailblazer]

Are we free to just assign whatever meaning we like to the words in scripture? OK. Resurrection is a metaphor that doesn't mean literal revivication of a dead body,

No, resurrection as it is referred to in the Bible does not mean revivication of a dead body.

Resurrection: resurrection› the act of bringing something that had disappeared or ended back into use or existence
resurrection

The Bible does not say that God brings people back from a state of Decomposition. That belief came about because of a misinterpretation of scriptures. Paul was talking about a spiritual resurrection into a spiritual body, not a physical resurrection into a physical body.

1 Corinthians 15 New Living Translation

40 There are also bodies in the heavens and bodies on the earth. The glory of the heavenly bodies is different from the glory of the earthly bodies.

44 They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.

50 What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever.

51 But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed!

54 Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die,[c] this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory.[d]

Read full chapter

God made the natural laws, and Decomposition is one of the natural laws. Bodies die and decompose and the soul (spirit) then passes from this world into another world. The man himself continues to live since man is not a man because of his body but because of his spirit, for it is the spirit that thinks in man, and thought is what constitutes man.

The death of man is merely his soul passing from one world into another and when the soul passes from this world into the spiritual world it takes on a new form comprised of spiritual elements. Since there is nothing physical (e.g., oxygen, water, food) in the spiritual world (heaven) a physical body cannot exist there and is of no use to anyone. I also believe that Jesus is alive in heaven in a spiritual body that is immortal, not alive in a physical body.

The following quote explains what I believe happens to our body and our spirit (soul) when we die physically. It's pretty straightforward and was written by a bible-believing Christian.

421. When the body is no longer able to perform the bodily functions in the natural world that correspond to the spirit’s thoughts and affections, which the spirit has from the spiritual world, man is said to die. This takes place when the respiration of the lungs and the beatings of the heart cease. But the man does not die; he is merely separated from the bodily part that was of use to him in the world, while the man himself continues to live. It is said that the man himself continues to live since man is not a man because of his body but because of his spirit, for it is the spirit that thinks in man, and thought with affection is what constitutes man. Evidently, then, the death of man is merely his passing from one world into another. And this is why in the Word in its internal sense “death” signifies resurrection and continuation of life. Heaven and Hell, p. 351​

Ecclesiastes 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.