Do you love God?

[Eddi]

With all due respect, God did not make you, your parents made you, so if you are grateful to be alive you should love your parents for bringing you into this world.

God ultimately made me as he created the universe!

 

[Trailblazer]

God ultimately made me as he created the universe!

In that sense, yes.

 

[Kenny]

Of course not all persons act only out of love, but what you are saying is that God is a person who acts out of love.

Yes… and, yes!

Baha'is also believe that God is a person in the sense of being personal, but not a physical person. We believe that the intrinsic nature of God can never be known and that all that can e known about God comes from scriptures.

While the Baháʼí writings teach of a personal god who is a being with a personality (including the capacity to reason and to feel love), they clearly state that this does not imply a human or physical form.[2] Shoghi Effendi writes:​

​

What is meant by personal God is a God Who is conscious of His creation, Who has a Mind, a Will, a Purpose, and not, as many scientists and materialists believe, an unconscious and determined force operating in the universe. Such conception of the Divine Being, as the Supreme and ever present Reality in the world, is not anthropomorphic, for it transcends all human limitations and forms, and does by no means attempt to define the essence of Divinity which is obviously beyond any human comprehension. To say that God is a personal Reality does not mean that He has a physical form, or does in any way resemble a human being. To entertain such belief would be sheer blasphemy.[15][16]​

God in the Baháʼí Faith​

So, what you are saying is that God created us in His own image so that would mean that God knows what we think and feel.

There is much truth in above! Of course, we would diverge somewhat when we believe that this Being which transcends all human limitations and form, did come as man and does, in an intimate and experientially way, understand the humanness of our being.

This is where I start to have a problem because I believe that God is unknowable so I don't think there is any way to know how God thinks or feels about us as individuals. Rather, I believe we can only know what is revealed in scriptures about God's thoughts and desires which is not specific but rather general.

I would agree that we will never fully know God as He is an infinite being and we still process through finite minds. And, certainly, scriptures will give us a general understanding of God’s thoughts and desires. (I always enjoy where we can agree)

But because His Holy Spirit is now joined with my spirit, I believe we can go beyond just scripture.

For an example: Scripturally we know that God is a God of love and that He loves us. But when I had a dream where God picked me up and His love flooded my being in such depth that I realized His love so pales that love that I have for my wife and how His love fills every desire on my being… it may not be in black and white in scripture, but I receive a deeper understanding of love even though it isn’t written.

On the other hand, Baha'i scriptures say that God is closer to us than we are to ourselves, so you might be saying something similar.

“Consider, moreover, how frequently doth man become forgetful of his own self, whilst God remaineth, through His all-encompassing knowledge, aware of His creature, and continueth to shed upon him the manifest radiance of His glory. It is evident, therefore, that, in such circumstances, He is closer to him than his own self. He will, indeed, so remain for ever, for, whereas the one true God knoweth all things, perceiveth all things, and comprehendeth all things, mortal man is prone to err, and is ignorant of the mysteries that lie enfolded within him….”​

Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 186​

YES and AMEN!

I can agree with that since the Bible says that God is unchanging, immutable.

AMEN!

What about if your wife died, God forbid? That is the emptiness I feel every day with my husband gone, and there is nothing I can do about it.
I believe that God knows how I feel, but that does not make the emptiness go away.

Sorry to hear that. It is a difficult time and I can’t imagine it. I trust that God’s Holy Spirit can fill the void since He always fills what is void. May it come sooner than later.

I understand that because it is how I feel when I am guided by God to do something or not do it.
I have save myself from a lot of trouble ever since I started listening to that voice.

AMAZING! WOW! BEAUTIFUL. I am sure He is doing just that!

I don't think there is any way we can know why some people are healed and others are not. I believe we just have to accept that as God's will.

Can I agree and disagree at the same time? You are right, we can never know why some people are healed and others are not. But I think there are cases where we can.

Okay. God cannot lie, it says that in the Bible.

I'm game if you are. We can always learn things from these discussions.

That is a long subject. But, as I understand it, it has to do with the taking back and restoring the authority that Adam (or mankind) gave to Satan which to get back legally and literally, He had to come completely human.

The same to you!

 

[Revoltingest]

Do you love God?

No.
And if he existed, he doesn't seem all that lovable.
(I don't believe any gods exist.)

Note:
"God" is the proper name for the Christian god.
So I assumed that in my response.

 

[Psalm23]

I love God very much

Do you love God?

Yes

 

[Trailblazer]

There is much truth in above! Of course, we would diverge somewhat when we believe that this Being which transcends all human limitations and form, did come as man and does, in an intimate and experientially way, understand the humanness of our being.

Baha'is believe that Jesus was a Manifestation of God in the flesh and most Christians believe that Jesus was God incarnated in the flesh.

1 Timothy 3-16 KJV
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

The following excerpt from a longer article explains the difference between an incarnation of God and a manifestation of God:

Being manifested in the flesh is not the same as being incarnated in the flesh. The excerpt below from a longer article explains the difference between a Manifestation of God and an incarnation of God.

“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)…..

The New Testament, similarly, contains statements where Jesus describes Himself as God, and others where He makes a distinction between Himself and God. For example, 'I and the Father are One (John 10:30); and 'the Father is in me, and I am in the Father (John 1038); but on the other hand, 'the Father is greater than I (John 14:28); and 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19). These statements do not contradict, but are complementary if one assumes they assert an epistemological oneness with God, but an ontological separateness from the Unknowable Essence.”

Jesus Christ in the Bahá'í Writings

I would agree that we will never fully know God as He is an infinite being and we still process through finite minds. And, certainly, scriptures will give us a general understanding of God’s thoughts and desires. (I always enjoy where we can agree)

Nor can we fully understand Jesus since He is far too great for the human mind to comprehend.

But because His Holy Spirit is now joined with my spirit, I believe we can go beyond just scripture.

Yes, I know what you mean, although Baha'is have a different way of understanding how the Holy Spirit is joined to our spirit. We would say it has a direct connection to our soul through the instrumentality of our body rather that it "lives inside" our body. That is explained in the last sentence of the paragraph below.

Question.—What is the Holy Spirit?

Answer.—The Holy Spirit is the Bounty of God and the luminous rays which emanate from the Manifestations; for the focus of the rays of the Sun of Reality was Christ, and from this glorious focus, which is the Reality of Christ, the Bounty of God reflected upon the other mirrors which were the reality of the Apostles. The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles signifies that the glorious divine bounties reflected and appeared in their reality. Moreover, entrance and exit, descent and ascent, are characteristics of bodies and not of spirits—that is to say, sensible realities enter and come forth, but intellectual subtleties and mental realities, such as intelligence, love, knowledge, imagination and thought, do not enter, nor come forth, nor descend, but rather they have direct connection.
Some Answered Questions, p. 108

25: THE HOLY SPIRIT

For an example: Scripturally we know that God is a God of love and that He loves us. But when I had a dream where God picked me up and His love flooded my being in such depth that I realized His love so pales that love that I have for my wife and how His love fills every desire on my being… it may not be in black and white in scripture, but I receive a deeper understanding of love even though it isn’t written.

Thanks for sharing that experience. Indeed, love is not just something that can be understood by reading about it in scriptures. It means a lot more when it is experienced.

I like to watch TV programs like Highway to Heaven and Touched by an Angel which remind me of God's love.

Sorry to hear that. It is a difficult time and I can’t imagine it. I trust that God’s Holy Spirit can fill the void since He always fills what is void. May it come sooner than later.

Thanks. It is just something I have to endure day by day. Just like the loss of child, the loss of a spouse remains with us always.

Speaking of the void, it is a Baha'i belief that God created us out of His love for us, but if we close off the channel through which God's love flows to us then God cannot fill the void. In other words, if we don't love God then it makes it hard to feel God's love for us.

4: O SON OF MAN! I loved thy creation, hence I created thee. Wherefore, do thou love Me, that I may name thy name and fill thy soul with the spirit of life.

5: O SON OF BEING! Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee. Know this, O servant.

The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 4

AMAZING! WOW! BEAUTIFUL. I am sure He is doing just that!

I do need all the help I can get, that's for sure!

Can I agree and disagree at the same time? You are right, we can never know why some people are healed and others are not. But I think there are cases where we can.

I agree.

That is a long subject. But, as I understand it, it has to do with the taking back and restoring the authority that Adam (or mankind) gave to Satan which to get back legally and literally, He had to come completely human.

I think I addressed the completely human part above, but to add to that I don't believe that God can become completely human since God us spirit, according to the Bible. God can manifest Himself as a human but the essence of God still remains in it's own high place.

How Bahai's believe that Jesus Christ restored man's relationship to God after the fall of Adam is explained in this chapter.

Question.—In verse 22 of chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians it is written: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” What is the meaning of these words?

Answer.—Know that there are two natures in man: the physical nature and the spiritual nature. The physical nature is inherited from Adam, and the spiritual nature is inherited from the Reality of the Word of God, which is the spirituality of Christ. The physical nature is born of Adam, but the spiritual nature is born from the bounty of the Holy Spirit. The first is the source of all imperfection; the second is the source of all perfection.

The Christ sacrificed Himself so that men might be freed from the imperfections of the physical nature and might become possessed of the virtues of the spiritual nature. This spiritual nature, which came into existence through the bounty of the Divine Reality, is the union of all perfections and appears through the breath of the Holy Spirit. It is the divine perfections; it is light, spirituality, guidance, exaltation, high aspiration, justice, love, grace, kindness to all, philanthropy, the essence of life. It is the reflection of the splendor of the Sun of Reality.

All sin comes from the demands of nature, and these demands, which arise from the physical qualities, are not sins with respect to the animals, while for man they are sin. The animal is the source of imperfections, such as anger, sensuality, jealousy, avarice, cruelty, pride: all these defects are found in animals but do not constitute sins. But in man they are sins.

Adam is the cause of man’s physical life; but the Reality of Christ—that is to say, the Word of God—is the cause of spiritual life. It is “a quickening spirit,” meaning that all the imperfections which come from the requirements of the physical life of man are transformed into human perfections by the teachings and education of that spirit. Therefore, Christ was a quickening spirit, and the cause of life in all mankind.

Adam was the cause of physical life, and as the physical world of man is the world of imperfections, and imperfections are the equivalent of death, Paul compared the physical imperfections to death.

Some Answered Questions, pp. 118-120

 

[DNB]

Okay, I can go along with that if we believe what is in the Bible.

I do not think it is possible to love God that much as you believe is merited because you are only human, but the very fact that you KNOW you are deficient in that regard speaks volumes to God, as He knows your every thought. All you can do is strive to do better.

You are the only one who knows yourself, how you think and feel and how you live.
It sounds like you have a conflict between loving God vs. loving self and the world. Of course, Jesus in His perfect wisdom knew that people had such conflicts, which is why He said:

John 12:24-26 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.

Matthew 16:24-26 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

I have no such conflict because I do not love myself or the world, but I also do not love God the way I should because I see so much suffering in the world and I wonder how God could be loving or good. So what I see in the world does not align with what scripture says, and that is where my conflict comes from.

ok, therefore, we both have a fundamentally different scale to determine our guilt - your god, according to yourself, is less holy than mine.

 

[Trailblazer]

ok, therefore, we both have a fundamentally different scale to determine our guilt - your god, according to yourself, is less holy than mine.

I don't think that's the case since we both believe in the same God...
Rather, I think you believe God has higher expectations of you than I believe He has.

 

[Ajax]

God is holy, righteous and just, in him their is no darkness. His patience, mercy, compassion and love is beyond measure, He is all wise and all knowing.
Therefore, God is perfect, beautiful, glorious, and love itself - He is worthy and deserving of every single human's devotion and worship.

It is a great pity though that he likes/accepts slavery and he doesn't like crippled people...

Lev 21:16 "GOD spoke to Moses: “Tell Aaron, None of your descendants, in any generation to come, who has a defect of any kind may present as an offering the food of his God. That means anyone who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed, crippled in foot or hand, hunchbacked or dwarfed, who has anything wrong with his eyes, who has running sores or damaged testicles."

 

[DNB]

I don't think that's the case since we both believe in the same God...
Rather, I think you believe God has higher expectations of you than I believe He has.

You said yourself that you don't think that He's good?

 

[DNB]

It is a great pity though that he likes/accepts slavery and he doesn't like crippled people...

Lev 21:16 "GOD spoke to Moses: “Tell Aaron, None of your descendants, in any generation to come, who has a defect of any kind may present as an offering the food of his God. That means anyone who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed, crippled in foot or hand, hunchbacked or dwarfed, who has anything wrong with his eyes, who has running sores or damaged testicles."

Representing God, and presenting offerings to Him are entirely different issues than being accepted into His people - which the cripple and lame were.
One could not offer an oblation that had a blemish, and it was required that the priest be consecrated and ceremonially clean to be able to sacrifice on the altar, or offer incense.
God is holy and will not be defiled by contemptuous offerings.
Outside of that, everyone's welcome.
And slave's back then, at least within Israel, were not treated in the manner that we understand slave's to be treated today.

 

[Soandso]

I find the different cultural interpretations of gods and what they represent interesting; I think it gives a little insight into what's important to people. Some interpretations are beautiful, some are ugly, and others are any combination of the two

 

[Trailblazer]

You said yourself that you don't think that He's good?

Where did I ever say that?

 

[Ajax]

Representing God, and presenting offerings to Him are entirely different issues than being accepted into His people - which the cripple and lame were.
One could not offer an oblation that had a blemish, and it was required that the priest be consecrated and ceremonially clean to be able to sacrifice on the altar, or offer incense.
God is holy and will not be defiled by contemptuous offerings.
Outside of that, everyone's welcome.
And slave's back then, at least within Israel, were not treated in the manner that we understand slave's to be treated today.

With all due respect, I find your answer completely illogical. Offers/oblations can not have blemishes, people may have (given by God as thought at that time). But the writings in the OT do not represent an omniscient God who knows the future and His instructions should have been timeless. If they are not timeless, we don't have to use any of them now. They (instructions) represent the thinking of the goat-herders at that time, which was wrong and prove the book wrong too. Also no omniscient God would support any kind of slavery, especially if people could buy slaves as property and pass them on to their children (Lev 25:44-46). Furthermore, no omniscient God would instruct people to kill those who work on Saturdays as well as disobedient children.

 

[Trailblazer]

But the writings in the OT do not represent an omniscient God who knows the future and His instructions should have been timeless. If they are not timeless, we don't have to use any of them now.

The writings in the OT represent an omniscient God who knows the future but there is NO REASON to think that His instructions were timeless. Why would God's instructions be timeless? Are an omnipotent God's hands tied such that God can never speak again in the future and abrogate what He formerly revealed or add onto it?

No, God's instructions in the OT are not timeless. They are time/date stamped so they only apply to the dispensation for which they were revealed.

Dispensation

1. the divine ordering of the affairs of the world.
2. an appointment, arrangement, or favor, as by God.
3. a divinely appointed order or age:

e.g. the old Mosaic, or Jewish, dispensation; the new gospel, or Christian, dispensation.

Definition of dispensation | Dictionary.com

They (instructions) represent the thinking of the goat-herders at that time, which was wrong and prove the book wrong too. Also no omniscient God would support any kind of slavery, especially if people could buy slaves as property and pass them on to their children (Lev 25:44-46). Furthermore, no omniscient God would instruct people to kill those who work on Saturdays as well as disobedient children.

You are correct in saying that those instructions represent the thinking of the goat-herders at that time. Some of those instructions 'might' have been useful and necessary many thousands of years ago, but if we look at them now any rational person would consider them foolish, and that is because the OT was never intended to apply to the modern-day world! Christians are trying to take a book that doesn't apply to the modern-day world and make it apply, because they don't have anything else, and they cannot face the fact that God has spoken again with an update because they believe that Christianity is the only true religion for all of time.

 

[Ajax]

The writings in the OT represent an omniscient God who knows the future but there is NO REASON to think that His instructions were timeless. Why would God's instructions be timeless? Are an omnipotent God's hands tied such that God can never speak again in the future and abrogate what He formerly revealed or add onto it?

No, God's instructions in the OT are not timeless. They are time/date stamped so they only apply to the dispensation for which they were revealed.

According to the Bible God does not change his mind (Isaiah 40:8, Malachi 3:6, Numbers 23:19, Matthew 24:35)!!

He can not approve slavery, killing men, children and babies, committing genocide, lying, giving ridiculous instructions and then as you said, abrogate what he formerly revealed. The book of OT becomes then a joke and a laughing stock.

Exodus 7:3-4 “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you."

 

[osgart]

I love my perception of God. The God of virtues is perfect. However nothing in nature and existence indicates the existence of God. It's all in my imagination.

If you read the Bible objectively there's nothing virtuous going on there. Just ultimatums, and destruction from a God that is vengeful, unrevealing of his professed good character, and demands worship from his words, and to never question his motives and actions. This God demands belief in the vacuum of a book as a requirement for salvation from eternal doom. Nothing more cruel then that.

It's a mind trick to believe in a personal God that actually does something in the world. Especially things of any value.

 

[JPGYAN]

I love God very much

Do you love God?

Yes, I love God so much.

 

[Kenny]

Baha'is believe that Jesus was a Manifestation of God in the flesh and most Christians believe that Jesus was God incarnated in the flesh.

1 Timothy 3-16 KJV
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

The following excerpt from a longer article explains the difference between an incarnation of God and a manifestation of God:

Being manifested in the flesh is not the same as being incarnated in the flesh. The excerpt below from a longer article explains the difference between a Manifestation of God and an incarnation of God.

“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)…..

Very interesting… thanks for sharing.

I’m not sure we differ here — perhaps it isn’t what we say but how we are saying.

We follow the understanding of Paul and John in this sense:

PHILLIPS
Let Christ himself be your example as to what your attitude should be. For he, who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his prerogatives as God’s equal, but stripped himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as mortal man.

So… in essence, He wasn’t “ was ever perfectly and completely contained in a single human body” since he “stripped himself of all privilege” or in other words “

Philippians 2:6-7Amplified Bible, Classic Edition6 Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained,
7 But stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity], so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being.

The Word did become flesh but was manifested as a man.

The New Testament, similarly, contains statements where Jesus describes Himself as God, and others where He makes a distinction between Himself and God. For example, 'I and the Father are One (John 10:30); and 'the Father is in me, and I am in the Father (John 1038); but on the other hand, 'the Father is greater than I (John 14:28); and 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19). These statements do not contradict, but are complementary if one assumes they assert an epistemological oneness with God, but an ontological separateness from the Unknowable Essence.”

Jesus Christ in the Bahá'í Writings

Nor can we fully understand Jesus since He is far too great for the human mind to comprehend.

Amen!

Yes, I know what you mean, although Baha'is have a different way of understanding how the Holy Spirit is joined to our spirit. We would say it has a direct connection to our soul through the instrumentality of our body rather that it "lives inside" our body. That is explained in the last sentence of the paragraph below.

Question.—What is the Holy Spirit?

Of course, I believe that man is a trinity manifested as one as Thessalonians tells me (and other areas).

We know that God the Father is on the throne and yet He is in everywhere. We know that Jesus is seated at the right hand and het lives in our hearts. The Holy Spirit is the “other Comforter” that is God’s presence in us as believers and God’s abiding presence in this world. He leads us, teaches us, corrects us, instructs us among other things.

Remembering that "Nor can we fully understand Jesus since He is far too great for the human mind to comprehend.” - likewise we can only scratch the surface of who God is and how He works in and through all

Answer.—The Holy Spirit is the Bounty of God and the luminous rays which emanate from the Manifestations; for the focus of the rays of the Sun of Reality was Christ, and from this glorious focus, which is the Reality of Christ, the Bounty of God reflected upon the other mirrors which were the reality of the Apostles. The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles signifies that the glorious divine bounties reflected and appeared in their reality. Moreover, entrance and exit, descent and ascent, are characteristics of bodies and not of spirits—that is to say, sensible realities enter and come forth, but intellectual subtleties and mental realities, such as intelligence, love, knowledge, imagination and thought, do not enter, nor come forth, nor descend, but rather they have direct connection.
Some Answered Questions, p. 108

25: THE HOLY SPIRIT

Certainly He does have the Bounty of God since, as we view it, is God’s Spirit also known as “The Spirit of Christ” - the anointing

Thanks for sharing that experience. Indeed, love is not just something that can be understood by reading about it in scriptures. It means a lot more when it is experienced.

I like to watch TV programs like Highway to Heaven and Touched by an Angel which remind me of God's love.

Love it!

Thanks. It is just something I have to endure day by day. Just like the loss of child, the loss of a spouse remains with us always.

Speaking of the void, it is a Baha'i belief that God created us out of His love for us, but if we close off the channel through which God's love flows to us then God cannot fill the void. In other words, if we don't love God then it makes it hard to feel God's love for us.

4: O SON OF MAN! I loved thy creation, hence I created thee. Wherefore, do thou love Me, that I may name thy name and fill thy soul with the spirit of life.

5: O SON OF BEING! Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee. Know this, O servant.

The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 4

I do need all the help I can get, that's for sure!

Yes and AMEN! I like saying “What is love if you can’t share it? So God created mankind so He could pour His love on us”.

I agree.

I think I addressed the completely human part above, but to add to that I don't believe that God can become completely human since God us spirit, according to the Bible. God can manifest Himself as a human but the essence of God still remains in it's own high place.

How Bahai's believe that Jesus Christ restored man's relationship to God after the fall of Adam is explained in this chapter.

Question.—In verse 22 of chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians it is written: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” What is the meaning of these words?

Answer.—Know that there are two natures in man: the physical nature and the spiritual nature. The physical nature is inherited from Adam, and the spiritual nature is inherited from the Reality of the Word of God, which is the spirituality of Christ. The physical nature is born of Adam, but the spiritual nature is born from the bounty of the Holy Spirit. The first is the source of all imperfection; the second is the source of all perfection.

The Christ sacrificed Himself so that men might be freed from the imperfections of the physical nature and might become possessed of the virtues of the spiritual nature. This spiritual nature, which came into existence through the bounty of the Divine Reality, is the union of all perfections and appears through the breath of the Holy Spirit. It is the divine perfections; it is light, spirituality, guidance, exaltation, high aspiration, justice, love, grace, kindness to all, philanthropy, the essence of life. It is the reflection of the splendor of the Sun of Reality.

All sin comes from the demands of nature, and these demands, which arise from the physical qualities, are not sins with respect to the animals, while for man they are sin. The animal is the source of imperfections, such as anger, sensuality, jealousy, avarice, cruelty, pride: all these defects are found in animals but do not constitute sins. But in man they are sins.

Adam is the cause of man’s physical life; but the Reality of Christ—that is to say, the Word of God—is the cause of spiritual life. It is “a quickening spirit,” meaning that all the imperfections which come from the requirements of the physical life of man are transformed into human perfections by the teachings and education of that spirit. Therefore, Christ was a quickening spirit, and the cause of life in all mankind.

Adam was the cause of physical life, and as the physical world of man is the world of imperfections, and imperfections are the equivalent of death, Paul compared the physical imperfections to death.

Some Answered Questions, pp. 118-120

Didn’t have time to address this

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

But I somehow never thought of you as a non-believer.

That's interesting. I believe that I've favorably referenced Barbara Forrest's

Methodological Naturalism and Philosophical Naturalism: Clarifying the Connection (2000)​

a number of times over close to two decades. See, for example, here, dated 22 May 2004:

The known world expands, and the world of impenetrable mystery shrinks. With every expanse, something is explained which at an earlier point in history had been permanently consigned to supernatural mystery or metaphysical speculation. And the expansion of scientific knowledge has been and remains an epistemological threat to any claims which have been fashioned independently (or in defiance) of such knowledge. We are confronted with an asymptotic decrease in the existential possibility of the supernatural to the point at which it is wholly negligible. ...
-- Methodological Naturalism and Philosophical Naturalism by Doctor Barbara Forrest