So now we have a god that keeps changing its mind and leaves unclear scriptures. Incompetence is looking more and more likely as the only alternative to non-existence.
No, God never changes His mind, but God changes the message He reveals to humanity, since
humanity news a new and different message in every new age. God did not change His mind because what is in the mind of God surrounds the realities of all things, before, during, and after they transpire on earth. In other words, God has always known that He would send a new message in 1852 AD.
It is all very logical. The medication you got from the doctor 20 years ago for an ailment you had 20 years ago is no longer needed if you no longer have that ailment. Today if you go to the doctor complaining of a new ailment the doctor will prescribe a new medication. That is what Messengers do, prescribe a new message for the age we are living in.
“The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.”
“No man, however acute his perception, can ever hope to reach the heights which the wisdom and understanding of the Divine Physician have attained. Little wonder, then, if the treatment prescribed by the physician in this day should not be found to be identical with that which he prescribed before. How could it be otherwise when the ills affecting the sufferer necessitate at every stage of his sickness a special remedy?”
Still just words. As for their 'coming', you mean that they were born, lived and died. They may have been good and sincere poeple but there is still zero evidence that they were right in their claims about 'God'.
There is evidence but there is no proof.
Evidence: the available body of facts or information
indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid:
https://www.google.com/search
Evidence is anything that you see, experience,
read, or are
told that
causes you to believe that something is true or has
really happened.
Objective evidence definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
How about what you consider to be the most impressive example....? Sorry but I've chased down endless supposed 'fulfilled prophesies' only to find them to be rather comical. I'm certainly not going to read a book to find others.
The list of 30 predictions that Baha'u'llah made is on Pages 38-40
What is most impressive to me might not be the most impressive to you. #2 is the most impressive to me (pp. 43-46)
Prophecy 2: The defeat of Germany in two bloody wars, resulting in the 'lamentations of Berlin'.
While shouts of victory were still echoing throughout Germany, Baha'u'llah warned its rulers not to tread the same path of aggression the French Emperor had followed to his doom. In His book of laws, the
Kitab-i-Aqdas (Most Holy Book), composed around 1873, Baha'u'llah addressed these words to Germany's Kaiser William I:
O King of Berlin!... Do thou remember the one whose power transcended thy power [Napoleon III], and whose station excelled thy station. Where is he? Whither are gone the things he possessed? Take warning, and be not of them that are fast asleep. He it was who cast the Tablet of God behind him, when We made known unto him what the hosts of tyranny had caused Us to suffer. Wherefore, disgrace assailed him from all sides, and he went down to dust in great loss. Think deeply, O King, concerning him, and concerning them who, like unto thee, have conquered cities and ruled over men. The All-Merciful brought them down from their palaces to their graves. Be warned, be of them who reflect. 63
Baha'u'llah then painted this amazing word-picture of a Germany broken and bleeding in the wake of two successive armed conflicts:
O banks of the Rhine! We have seen you covered with gore, inasmuch as the swords of retribution were drawn against you; and you shall have another turn. And we hear the lamentations of Berlin, though she be today in conspicuous glory. 64
During His Western tour in 1912, 'Abdu'l-Baha, citing this and other prophecies of Baha'u'llah, warned that a 'universal European war' was both imminent and inevitable. His predictions were widely reported at the time in the American, Canadian and European press, as were His appeals for a multinational peace process based on His father's principles. Returning to His home in the Holy Land, 'Abdu'l-Baha prepared for the coming upheaval by stockpiling food and medical supplies. Haifa, as the world centre of the growing Baha'i movement, was by now a site of pilgrimage for large numbers of believers from East and West. About six months before the outbreak of hostilities, 'Abdu'l-Baha imposed a moratorium on new pilgrimages and began sending away pilgrims already at Haifa. The timing of these phased departures was such that by the end of July 1914, no visitors remained. The wisdom of His actions became apparent when, in the opening days of August, World War I suddenly erupted, stunning the world and incidentally exposing Haifa and the Holy Land to grave hardships and danger.
While touring California in 1912, 'Abdu'l-Baha reportedly said the impending struggle would 'set aflame the whole of Europe', wreaking unprecedented havoc: 'By 1917 kingdoms will fall and cataclysms will rock the earth. '65* Subsequent events fully justified these projections. However, German victories during this period, and especially during its last great push in the spring of 1918, were so imposing that Baha'u'llah's vision of Germany in defeat was widely ridiculed throughout Persia by enemies of the Baha'i Faith. Only with the sudden, unexpected breakup of the German juggernaut did the truth of the prophecy become clear. Then the banks of the Rhine were, indeed, 'covered with gore' as the 'swords of retribution' were drawn against the nation.
Germany's national nightmare was, however, only beginning. Further disclosing the implications of His father's words, 'Abdu'1-Baha wrote in January 1920: 'The Balkans will remain discontented. Its restlessness will increase. The vanquished Powers will continue to agitate. They will resort to every measure that may rekindle the flame of war.'66 He still more explicitly stated that 'another war, fiercer than the last, will assuredly break out'.67 This came to pass with the rise of Hitler's Third Reich and the onset of World War II -although, as before, the German campaigns were at first so successful they seemed more apt to discredit than to confirm the prophecy of Baha'u'llah. The Allied victory seemed, till the very end of the war, anything but a foregone conclusion.
And still, events continued to unfold the meaning of the prophecy. The 'lamentations of Berlin', as predicted by Baha'u'llah, replaced the 'conspicuous glory' it had enjoyed in His day. After the first war, that once-great city was tortured by the terms of a treaty monstrous in its severity; after the second, it was carved into zones controlled by the Eastern and Western blocs. The infamous Berlin Wall, erected in 1961, became a concrete symbol of the tragedy and agony that for more than forty years continued to wrack the city. (As I first wrote these words in November 1989, the Berlin Wall was opened for the first time, and more than two million jubilant persons poured through it in a single day. Less than a year later, Germany was once again one nation, though still troubled by many difficulties.)
*These comments (from notes taken by Mrs Corinne True, a prominent American Baha'i of the period) were published in
The North Shore Review, Chicago, 26 September 1914.
(Continued on next post)