Do you think that God should communicate directly to everyone in the world?

[Milton Platt]

Baha'u'llah IS the evidence that God exists. Manifestations of God are what God gives us for evidence.
We cannot GET any evidence other than what God gives us. That is irrational.

Well, we’ll just have to disagree on what constitutes sound evidence. My bar is much higher than yours.

 

[Vinayaka]

Well, we’ll just have to disagree on what constitutes sound evidence. My bar is much higher than yours.

It's evidence because I said it was evidence isn't really evidence. I'm with you.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The fact that the followers of BOTH Hubbard and Baha’u’llah say that their men were wonderful in no way makes them the SAME.

What makes them the same or different is who they actually WERE, not what people SAY about them.

In both cases, the accounts we have about them are so covered in the fingerprints of their followers that it’s very difficult to find unbiased sources.

And the case you - and other Baha’i members here - have made for the character of Bahá’u’lláh is no stronger than cases I’ve heard made by Scientologist. From where I sit, it really is a draw.

Clearly, Baha’u’llah was nothing like Hubbard. For starters, Hubbard was into it for the money, obviously, since he had a net worth of 600 million when he died. By stark contrast, Baha’u’llah came from a wealthy family and He could have been wealthy, had He not given all that up to be a follower of the Bab.

Instead, Bahá’u’lláh traded wealth for fame, glory, and the adulation of a huge number of followers? He certainly wouldn’t be the first person to see that deal as profitable.

That is just for starters. Many other things are different between these two men.

Yes... for instance, the allegations against Scientology only connect to L. Ron Hubbard indirectly, while Bahá’u’lláh owned slaved personally.

It is about BOTH quantity and quality. Quantity is meaningless unless the quantity is of good quality.

If that’s your position, why didn’t you mention it before?

I’ve noticed a trend in the discussions with you: you seem very eager to move goalposts. Any time you list off the qualities a “Messenger” has and someone explains how they’re met by some person you don’t consider a messenger, you pull out a few more requirements for someone to be one.

It’s almost like they aren’t actually your criteria at all, and that your only criteria is whether your religion already considers the person a messenger.

Maybe he did, but claims do not prove anything. One needs evidence to back up his claims, and Hubbard has jack squat whereas Baha’u’llah has a voluminous amount of evidence to back His claim.

It’s odd, though, that you haven’t been able to explain how Bahá’u’lláh’s claims are backed up, despite this “voluminous amount of evidence.” Any time you’ve brought something forward, we’ve found it less than compelling when it’s in the light of day.

 

[Trailblazer]

Well, we’ll just have to disagree on what constitutes sound evidence. My bar is much higher than yours.

Your bar is just different than mine.
What would constitute sound evidence for you?

 

[Trailblazer]

In both cases, the accounts we have about them are so covered in the fingerprints of their followers that it’s very difficult to find unbiased sources.

That is a fair point. It is difficult to find unbiased sources. However, it makes sense to me to look at sources written by those who were closest to Baha’u’llah, although of course those are Bahai sources. But why would they be inaccurate just because of that? They are historical accounts... One of the best sources is The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Volumes 1-4, which cover the 40 years of His Mission, from 1853-1892.

And the case you - and other Baha’i members here - have made for the character of Bahá’u’lláh is no stronger than cases I’ve heard made by Scientologist. From where I sit, it really is a draw.

One really cannot go by what other people say and the cases they make for those they follow, because that will invariably be biased. People have to do their own independent investigation of Baha’u’llah’s character if they want to know about it. This is what we have been enjoined to do.

“Bahá’u’lláh asked no one to accept His statements and His tokens blindly. On the contrary, He put in the very forefront of His teachings emphatic warnings against blind acceptance of authority, and urged all to open their eyes and ears, and use their own judgement, independently and fearlessly, in order to ascertain the truth. He enjoined the fullest investigation and never concealed Himself, offering, as the supreme proofs of His Prophethood, His words and works and their effects in transforming the lives and characters of men.” Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, p. 8​

I think it is the teachings that distinguish them. So if people want to compare the two, they would look at what they taught what they believed in. Maybe the teachings of Hubbard appeal to certain people and the teachings of Baha’u’llah appeal to other people. I go by the teachings and that is what attracted me to the Baha’i Faith in the first place. I did not even know about the character of Baha’u’llah back then.

Instead, Bahá’u’lláh traded wealth for fame, glory, and the adulation of a huge number of followers? He certainly wouldn’t be the first person to see that deal as profitable.

You do not know that Baha’u’llah traded wealth for fame, glory, or the adulation of a huge number of followers. For one thing, during His lifetime and even now, He did not have any of those things. He only had a small number of followers.

If we take Him at His word, He did whatever He did for the sake of God.

“Who can ever believe that this Servant of God hath at any time cherished in His heart a desire for any earthly honor or benefit? The Cause associated with His Name is far above the transitory things of this world. Behold Him, an exile, a victim of tyranny, in this Most Great Prison. His enemies have assailed Him on every side, and will continue to do so till the end of His life. Whatever, therefore, He saith unto you is wholly for the sake of God, that haply the peoples of the earth may cleanse their hearts from the stain of evil desire, may rend its veil asunder, and attain unto the knowledge of the one true God—the most exalted station to which any man can aspire. Their belief or disbelief in My Cause can neither profit nor harm Me. We summon them wholly for the sake of God. He, verily, can afford to dispense with all creatures.” Gleanings, p. 85​

“Know ye that I am afraid of none except God. In none but Him have I placed My trust; to none will I cleave but Him, and wish for naught except the thing He hath wished for Me. This, indeed, is My heart’s desire, did ye but know it. I have offered up My soul and My body as a sacrifice for God, the Lord of all worlds. Whoso hath known God shall know none but Him, and he that feareth God shall be afraid of no one except Him, though the powers of the whole earth rise up and be arrayed against him. I speak naught except at His bidding, and follow not, through the power of God and His might, except His truth. He, verily, shall recompense the truthful.” Gleanings, p. 126

“Incline your ears to the counsels which this Servant giveth you for the sake of God. He, verily, asketh no recompense from you and is resigned to what God hath ordained for Him, and is entirely submissive to God’s Will.”
Gleanings, p. 127​

“Consider the mercy of God and His gifts. He enjoineth upon you that which shall profit you, though He Himself can well dispense with all creatures. Your evil doings can never harm Us, neither can your good works profit Us. We summon you wholly for the sake of God. To this every man of understanding and insight will testify.” Gleanings, p. 140​

“Walk ye in the fear of God, and render not your works vain. Incline your ears to His words, and be not of them that are shut out as by a veil from Him. Say: God is My witness! I have wished nothing whatever for Myself. What I have wished is the victory of God and the triumph of His Cause. He is Himself a sufficient witness between you and Me. Were ye to cleanse your eyes, ye would readily perceive how My deeds testify to the truth of My words, how My words are a guide to My deeds.” Gleanings, pp. 256-257​

Of course, anyone can write anything they want to, and that is why we need to look at His life and what He actually did. If Baha’u’llah’s deeds had not testified to what He wrote, I would have left the Baha’i Faith a long, long time ago.

Yes... for instance, the allegations against Scientology only connect to L. Ron Hubbard indirectly, while Bahá’u’lláh owned slaved personally.

I do not know what you are referring to.

If that’s your position, why didn’t you mention it before?

I considered it a given that quality would have to accompany quantity.

I’ve noticed a trend in the discussions with you: you seem very eager to move goalposts. Any time you list off the qualities a “Messenger” has and someone explains how they’re met by some person you don’t consider a messenger, you pull out a few more requirements for someone to be one.

The requirements are what I have listed on this forum as “categories of evidence” on myriad occasions. Some of those categories of evidence are not met by those who are not a Messenger of God. For example, Hubbard did not fulfill Bible prophecies. That is a deal-breaker right there. Another criterion is that they would have to “claim to be” a Messenger of God, so there is no point even looking at those who make no such claim. One could look at the List of messiah claimants and see if any one of them meets the criteria, but the fact that none of them fulfilled the Bible prophecies for the Messiah/Return of Christ/Promised One of all the religions is a deal-breaker.

It’s almost like they aren’t actually your criteria at all, and that your only criteria is whether your religion already considers the person a messenger.

No, the criteria are the actual evidence that support the claim of Bahaullah to be a Messenger of God. Nobody should ever believe someone is a Messenger without doing their own independent investigation:

• Independent Investigation of Truth
• How to Independently Investigate the Truth

It’s odd, though, that you haven’t been able to explain how Bahá’u’lláh’s claims are backed up, despite this “voluminous amount of evidence.” Any time you’ve brought something forward, we’ve found it less than compelling when it’s in the light of day.

What a Baha’i says about Baha’u’llah on a forum is no criterion for deciding what you are to believe about something this important. That is why I always tell people they have to look at the evidence for themselves, what Baha’is refer to as the independent investigation of truth. This is the first principle Baha’u’llah set forth. We cannot look through the eyes of others; we have to look through our own eyes.

2: O SON OF SPIRIT! The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes. The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 3-4​

 

[Vinayaka]

• Independent Investigation of Truth
• How to Independently Investigate the Truth

How can you possibly be taken seriously about investigating anything when every single source you use is a Baha'i source? That's not independent investigation. Do we investigate Donald Trump only be looking at what he or his supporters say?

 

[Trailblazer]

How can you possibly be taken seriously about investigating anything when every single source you use is a Baha'i source? That's not independent investigation. Do we investigate Donald Trump only be looking at what he or his supporters say?

Show me one Baha’i source that says that those who research the Baha'i Faith are not allowed to look at any and all sources of information about the Baha'i Faith.

There is no list of approved questions...
There is no list of approved sources...

People who make stuff up about the Baha’i Faith with no “evidence” to back up what they make up only make themselves look ridiculous. Then they post lies on the internet and hope their lies will fly.

To say that the Baha’i Faith has what we call “Authoritative Writings” of the Baha’i Faith is no different from a Christian saying that the Bible is the only authoritative source of information about Christianity.

 

[Milton Platt]

Your bar is just different than mine.
What would constitute sound evidence for you?

I was ending the conversation on a friendly note with my last post, because, although I enjoy these discussions, I didn't want to just pound on your for days and days. But since you asked (and thanks for doing so):

My bar for the quality of evidence is not just different, it is higher in terms of rigor, and more dependable.

Baha'u'llah isn't the evidence for anything in regards to a deity.

Objective, empirical evidence that could be repeatedly tested and independently verified and was falsifiable using established scientific methods would be the ultimate. We don't have to necessarily see your god, you can list the ways it interacts with the natural world and we can measure those effects because they should distort what should happen through natural processes and laws of physics or even suspend them.

For instance, if your god answers prayers, then we can measure the effect against a control group. This has been done with the Christian god for instance, and it was demonstrated that prayer had no positive effect. The most notable one was done by the Pew Research Center. You can find kit easily online.

You cannot claim that a god is responsible for a book, or a phenomenon if you cannot demonstrate that the god exists. If you cannot do that, then attributing anything to the god is mere speculation without evidence.

You have to remember that the evidence needed to support a claim varies with the nature of the claim.
This is a tired old example, but I'll give it again, because it is a good way to demonstrate the principle.
If you came up to me out of nowhere and announced that you had a car in your garage, I would simply take you at your word. Why? Because it is common knowledge that people own garages and that they park cars in them. I have seem innumerable examples of cars parked in garages for all of my life.

But what if you came to me and said you had an invisible fire-breathing dragon in your garage? I would require substantial evidence, and if it was not forthcoming, would have to assume you are deluded. You couldn't claim the dragon was a messenger from god, therefore it exists, you couldn't show me some passages from a book that declared it existed. I would have to see the dragon, or you would have to show me the effects in a quantifiable and verifiable way which could only be caused by the dragon and not by a normal, natural occurrence.

I am merely asking you for the same for your currently claim about your god, as to me it seems as unlikely as the dragon.

 

[Trailblazer]

I was ending the conversation on a friendly note with my last post, because, although I enjoy these discussions, I didn't want to just pound on your for days and days. But since you asked (and thanks for doing so):

My bar for the quality of evidence is not just different, it is higher in terms of rigor, and more dependable.

Baha'u'llah isn't the evidence for anything in regards to a deity.

Objective, empirical evidence that could be repeatedly tested and independently verified and was falsifiable using established scientific methods would be the ultimate. We don't have to necessarily see your god, you can list the ways it interacts with the natural world and we can measure those effects because they should distort what should happen through natural processes and laws of physics or even suspend them.

For instance, if your god answers prayers, then we can measure the effect against a control group. This has been done with the Christian god for instance, and it was demonstrated that prayer had no positive effect. The most notable one was done by the Pew Research Center. You can find kit easily online.

You cannot claim that a god is responsible for a book, or a phenomenon if you cannot demonstrate that the god exists. If you cannot do that, then attributing anything to the god is mere speculation without evidence.

You have to remember that the evidence needed to support a claim varies with the nature of the claim.
This is a tired old example, but I'll give it again, because it is a good way to demonstrate the principle.
If you came up to me out of nowhere and announced that you had a car in your garage, I would simply take you at your word. Why? Because it is common knowledge that people own garages and that they park cars in them. I have seem innumerable examples of cars parked in garages for all of my life.

But what if you came to me and said you had an invisible fire-breathing dragon in your garage? I would require substantial evidence, and if it was not forthcoming, would have to assume you are deluded. You couldn't claim the dragon was a messenger from god, therefore it exists, you couldn't show me some passages from a book that declared it existed. I would have to see the dragon, or you would have to show me the effects in a quantifiable and verifiable way which could only be caused by the dragon and not by a normal, natural occurrence.

I am merely asking you for the same for your currently claim about your god, as to me it seems as unlikely as the dragon.

Thanks for explaining all of that. Just to let you know, I never feel pounded on unless people are rude and insulting and you are anything but... I post to atheists all day long on another forum who can be quite expressive and pounding, since there is no moderator on that forum, but they are my friends regardless, and have been for years...

I do understand about the “requirements”, believe me, because I have been posting to atheists day in day out on several forums. But nobody really explained what they would require as well as you did, although one poster I converse with daily for over three years always says he would require direct communication for God.

I do understand what you need, but the problem is that God does not provide that kind of verifiable evidence (proof) of His existence, and from our side we have no way to know what an unknowable God does; so people either settle for what we have or remain atheists. I can explain why according to my religion we cannot have that kind of evidence. I will address your points one by one.

You: Objective, empirical evidence that could be repeatedly tested and independently verified and was falsifiable using established scientific methods would be the ultimate. We don't have to necessarily see your god, you can list the ways it interacts with the natural world and we can measure those effects because they should distort what should happen through natural processes and laws of physics or even suspend them.

Me: There is no way to know how God interacts in the natural world so we cannot measure those effects.

You: For instance, if your god answers prayers, then we can measure the effect against a control group. This has been done with the Christian god for instance, and it was demonstrated that prayer had no positive effect. The most notable one was done by the Pew Research Center. You can find kit easily online.

Me: I do not understand how that can be done but I did not see the studies, although I looked for them. I do not think that lack of response to a prayer proves that there is no God because according to my beliefs God only answers prayers in the affirmative on a case-by-case basis, so that would be the same as someone not saying any prayers and having things go their way some of the time just by chance.

You: You cannot claim that a god is responsible for a book, or a phenomenon if you cannot demonstrate that the god exists. If you cannot do that, then attributing anything to the god is mere speculation without evidence.

Me: It is not proof, I never said it was. However, it is evidence because you have to look at the book and ask yourself how it came to be written, given the actual content. How and why would a Messenger make up things like Baha’u’llah wrote about God? It is beyond the stretch of my imagination; and moreover it all makes sense to be that if there was a God, God would be the way he described God. And here is the other thing; the God described by Baha’u’llah is essentially the same God as we see in the OT and the NT and the Qur’an. How could that be if men were just making stuff up about God? It just boggles the imagination, but that is how I think about things.

The fact that the Revelation of Baha’u’llah is the fulfillment of all the older religions, the most recent link a successive chain of religions that are all connected by One God, is evidence for me because in order to disprove it I would have to disprove all the older religions. It makes no sense to me that all those religions could be made up by men, and one big reason it does not make sense to me is that there would no “motive” for men to make all that up. All the Messengers of God suffered tremendously for who they claimed to be and they obtained no personal benefits but rather sacrificed for their Cause. Why would they do that unless they were doing it for God, as they claimed?

So that is how I reason things out.

You: You have to remember that the evidence needed to support a claim varies with the nature of the claim.
This is a tired old example, but I'll give it again, because it is a good way to demonstrate the principle.
If you came up to me out of nowhere and announced that you had a car in your garage, I would simply take you at your word. Why? Because it is common knowledge that people own garages and that they park cars in them. I have seem innumerable examples of cars parked in garages for all of my life.

But what if you came to me and said you had an invisible fire-breathing dragon in your garage? I would require substantial evidence, and if it was not forthcoming, would have to assume you are deluded. You couldn't claim the dragon was a messenger from god, therefore it exists, you couldn't show me some passages from a book that declared it existed. I would have to see the dragon, or you would have to show me the effects in a quantifiable and verifiable way which could only be caused by the dragon and not by a normal, natural occurrence.

Me: What just came to mind is that it is also it is common knowledge that people have religions and that they find their God in them, since 84 percent of the world population has a faith. The salient difference is that there is no proof that religions reveal God.

You: I am merely asking you for the same for your currently claim about your god, as to me it seems as unlikely as the dragon.

Me: I can tell you one reason why I do not think that God is as unlikely as the fire-breathing dragon; there is no “reason” to think that the fire-breathing dragon would exist because he serves no purpose. By contrast, there is a reason for a God to exist because God serves a purpose. Of course, as an atheist you do not know what that purpose is so you look at the reasons we exist from an entirely different viewpoint, especially with regard to an afterlife.

Regarding the fire-breathing dragon, you said: “you couldn't show me some passages from a book that declared it existed. I would have to see the dragon, or you would have to show me the effects in a quantifiable and verifiable way which could only be caused by the dragon and not by a normal, natural occurrence.”

The problem again is that we cannot know what effects God has on this world, since the actions of God are unknowable. All we can know are the effects that the Messengers of God have in this world... I will leave you with this:

“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​

It is too early to see the effects of Baha’u’llah, but we can certainly look at the effects of the older Prophets such as Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, not to mention Buddha and Krishna. Can anyone find ordinary men who ever had such profound and long-lasting effects upon civilization?

 

[Milton Platt]

Thanks for explaining all of that. Just to let you know, I never feel pounded on unless people are rude and insulting and you are anything but... I post to atheists all day long on another forum who can be quite expressive and pounding, since there is no moderator on that forum, but they are my friends regardless, and have been for years...

I do understand about the “requirements”, believe me, because I have been posting to atheists day in day out on several forums. But nobody really explained what they would require as well as you did, although one poster I converse with daily for over three years always says he would require direct communication for God.

I do understand what you need, but the problem is that God does not provide that kind of verifiable evidence (proof) of His existence, and from our side we have no way to know what an unknowable God does; so people either settle for what we have or remain atheists. I can explain why according to my religion we cannot have that kind of evidence. I will address your points one by one.

You: Objective, empirical evidence that could be repeatedly tested and independently verified and was falsifiable using established scientific methods would be the ultimate. We don't have to necessarily see your god, you can list the ways it interacts with the natural world and we can measure those effects because they should distort what should happen through natural processes and laws of physics or even suspend them.

Me: There is no way to know how God interacts in the natural world so we cannot measure those effects.

You: For instance, if your god answers prayers, then we can measure the effect against a control group. This has been done with the Christian god for instance, and it was demonstrated that prayer had no positive effect. The most notable one was done by the Pew Research Center. You can find kit easily online.

Me: I do not understand how that can be done but I did not see the studies, although I looked for them. I do not think that lack of response to a prayer proves that there is no God because according to my beliefs God only answers prayers in the affirmative on a case-by-case basis, so that would be the same as someone not saying any prayers and having things go their way some of the time just by chance.

You: You cannot claim that a god is responsible for a book, or a phenomenon if you cannot demonstrate that the god exists. If you cannot do that, then attributing anything to the god is mere speculation without evidence.

Me: It is not proof, I never said it was. However, it is evidence because you have to look at the book and ask yourself how it came to be written, given the actual content. How and why would a Messenger make up things like Baha’u’llah wrote about God? It is beyond the stretch of my imagination; and moreover it all makes sense to be that if there was a God, God would be the way he described God. And here is the other thing; the God described by Baha’u’llah is essentially the same God as we see in the OT and the NT and the Qur’an. How could that be if men were just making stuff up about God? It just boggles the imagination, but that is how I think about things.

The fact that the Revelation of Baha’u’llah is the fulfillment of all the older religions, the most recent link a successive chain of religions that are all connected by One God, is evidence for me because in order to disprove it I would have to disprove all the older religions. It makes no sense to me that all those religions could be made up by men, and one big reason it does not make sense to me is that there would no “motive” for men to make all that up. All the Messengers of God suffered tremendously for who they claimed to be and they obtained no personal benefits but rather sacrificed for their Cause. Why would they do that unless they were doing it for God, as they claimed?

So that is how I reason things out.



You: You have to remember that the evidence needed to support a claim varies with the nature of the claim.
This is a tired old example, but I'll give it again, because it is a good way to demonstrate the principle.
If you came up to me out of nowhere and announced that you had a car in your garage, I would simply take you at your word. Why? Because it is common knowledge that people own garages and that they park cars in them. I have seem innumerable examples of cars parked in garages for all of my life.

But what if you came to me and said you had an invisible fire-breathing dragon in your garage? I would require substantial evidence, and if it was not forthcoming, would have to assume you are deluded. You couldn't claim the dragon was a messenger from god, therefore it exists, you couldn't show me some passages from a book that declared it existed. I would have to see the dragon, or you would have to show me the effects in a quantifiable and verifiable way which could only be caused by the dragon and not by a normal, natural occurrence.

Me: What just came to mind is that it is also it is common knowledge that people have religions and that they find their God in them, since 84 percent of the world population has a faith. The salient difference is that there is no proof that religions reveal God.

You: I am merely asking you for the same for your currently claim about your god, as to me it seems as unlikely as the dragon.

Me: I can tell you one reason why I do not think that God is as unlikely as the fire-breathing dragon; there is no “reason” to think that the fire-breathing dragon would exist because he serves no purpose. By contrast, there is a reason for a God to exist because God serves a purpose. Of course, as an atheist you do not know what that purpose is so you look at the reasons we exist from an entirely different viewpoint, especially with regard to an afterlife.

Regarding the fire-breathing dragon, you said: “you couldn't show me some passages from a book that declared it existed. I would have to see the dragon, or you would have to show me the effects in a quantifiable and verifiable way which could only be caused by the dragon and not by a normal, natural occurrence.”

The problem again is that we cannot know what effects God has on this world, since the actions of God are unknowable. All we can know are the effects that the Messengers of God have in this world... I will leave you with this:

“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​

It is too early to see the effects of Baha’u’llah, but we can certainly look at the effects of the older Prophets such as Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, not to mention Buddha and Krishna. Can anyone find ordinary men who ever had such profound and long-lasting effects upon civilization?

Great post, and thanks. I am pressed for time, but want to make one point about what you are saying in your post. You said that your god is unknowable and provides no verifiable evidence for it's existence, and yet you are saying you KNOW it exists. That makes no sense to me. How can you know what is unknowable?

 

[Trailblazer]

Great post, and thanks. I am pressed for time, but want to make one point about what you are saying in your post. You said that your god is unknowable and provides no verifiable evidence for it's existence, and yet you are saying you KNOW it exists. That makes no sense to me. How can you know what is unknowable?

I do not need verifiable evidence nor would I ever expect to obtain it because God cannot be verified in any objective manner. I know that because Baha'u'llah explained it in so many words.

God provides evidence for His existence when He sends a Messenger. That is how I KNOW God exists. Baha'u'llah represented God because He was a perfect mirror image of God, although not God in the flesh, because God cannot become a man.

The Essence (intrinsic nature) of God is unknowable, but we can know God's Attributes and God's Will through what the Messengers of God reflect and reveal.

 

[Milton Platt]

I do not need verifiable evidence nor would I ever expect to obtain it because God cannot be verified in any objective manner. I know that because Baha'u'llah explained it in so many words.

God provides evidence for His existence when He sends a Messenger. That is how I KNOW God exists. Baha'u'llah represented God because He was a perfect mirror image of God, although not God in the flesh, because God cannot become a man.

The Essence (intrinsic nature) of God is unknowable, but we can know God's Attributes and God's Will through what the Messengers of God reflect and reveal.

You cannot verify the source of anything such a supposed messenger is telling you is from a particular god. Even if the messages were absulutely true in every way, you do not know the source, because as you have admitted yourself, the source is unknowable. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. You cannot agree that the source is unknowable and then claim to know the source.

 

[Trailblazer]

You cannot verify the source of anything such a supposed messenger is telling you is from a particular god. Even if the messages were absulutely true in every way, you do not know the source, because as you have admitted yourself, the source is unknowable. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. You cannot agree that the source is unknowable snd then claim to know the source.

I did not mean that the Source is unknowable in the sense that we cannot know that a Source (God) exists. We can know God exists but we cannot know everything about God.

The Attributes of God and the Essence of God are two different and separate aspects of God.

One of these aspects, the Attributes of God, is knowable, but the other aspect, the Essence of God, is unknowable.

To say that God is love or God is just or God is merciful are Attributes of God. The Attributes of God do not tell us anything about God’s Essence (intrinsic nature) such as what God is comprised of, where God dwells, how God functions, etc. We can never know these things about God.

The “Essence” of God is beyond any human comprehension and it transcends our human limitations... Any attempt to know anything about the intrinsic nature of God is a fool’s errand. That is what I mean when I say God is “unknowable.”

We can know the Attributes of God because they are reflected off and revealed by the Messenger, but even the Messenger does not know the Essence (intrinsic nature) of God. Only God knows that.

We know God exists because the Messenger reveals what we are able to know about God, the Attributes of God and the Will of God. We do not NEED to know the Essence of God in order to know that God exists. The Essence of God forever remains hidden because God keeps it hidden; we could never comprehend it anyway because it is beyond human comprehension.

Finally, there is no need to know everything about God. God only allows us to know (a) what we need to know and (b) what we can comprehend. These are what the Messenger of God reveals in every age.

 

[Milton Platt]

I did not mean that the Source is unknowable in the sense that we cannot know that a Source (God) exists. We can know God exists but we cannot know everything about God.

The Attributes of God and the Essence of God are two different and separate aspects of God.

One of these aspects, the Attributes of God, is knowable, but the other aspect, the Essence of God, is unknowable.

To say that God is love or God is just or God is merciful are Attributes of God. The Attributes of God do not tell us anything about God’s Essence (intrinsic nature) such as what God is comprised of, where God dwells, how God functions, etc. We can never know these things about God.

The “Essence” of God is beyond any human comprehension and it transcends our human limitations... Any attempt to know anything about the intrinsic nature of God is a fool’s errand. That is what I mean when I say God is “unknowable.”

We can know the Attributes of God because they are reflected off and revealed by the Messenger, but even the Messenger does not know the Essence (intrinsic nature) of God. Only God knows that.

We know God exists because the Messenger reveals what we are able to know about God, the Attributes of God and the Will of God. We do not NEED to know the Essence of God in order to know that God exists. The Essence of God forever remains hidden because God keeps it hidden; we could never comprehend it anyway because it is beyond human comprehension.

Finally, there is no need to know everything about God. God only allows us to know (a) what we need to know and (b) what we can comprehend. These are what the Messenger of God reveals in every age.

Again, you are not making sense. You can’t demonstrate that anything at all said or done by a supposed messenger has anything to do with the actual existence of a god. If you cannot examine the god and determine that said god and attributes exist, then you cannot claim that anything do do with a messenger represents those supposed attributes. You are making a claim for which you have no evidence. You are merely defining your god into existence by claimimg certain attributes and then saying they originate in a god, without showing that the god exists to have them. The only way to know if a given god has given attributes is to be able to examine the god.

I did not say or even imply one needs to know everything about a god to know it exists, so that is a red herring. We do not know everything about anything, really, but we know things exist because we have objective ways to test their existence.

So let’s forget about what you call “essence” and focus on attributes, then. How can we examine the god to establish it has said attributes? A messenger is useless for this purpose, since that would be hearsay.

And again, if your god interferes with natural cause and effect, the interference should be measurable. If he does not interfere with the natural world in any way, then the god is irrelavant.

 

[Trailblazer]

In my faith, God provides evidence for His existence when He sends a message. We learn what to look for.

What have you learned that you should look for?

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Thanks for explaining all of that. Just to let you know, I never feel pounded on unless people are rude and insulting and you are anything but... I post to atheists all day long on another forum who can be quite expressive and pounding, since there is no moderator on that forum, but they are my friends regardless, and have been for years...

I do understand about the “requirements”, believe me, because I have been posting to atheists day in day out on several forums. But nobody really explained what they would require as well as you did, although one poster I converse with daily for over three years always says he would require direct communication for God.

I do understand what you need, but the problem is that God does not provide that kind of verifiable evidence (proof) of His existence, and from our side we have no way to know what an unknowable God does; so people either settle for what we have or remain atheists. I can explain why according to my religion we cannot have that kind of evidence. I will address your points one by one.

You: Objective, empirical evidence that could be repeatedly tested and independently verified and was falsifiable using established scientific methods would be the ultimate. We don't have to necessarily see your god, you can list the ways it interacts with the natural world and we can measure those effects because they should distort what should happen through natural processes and laws of physics or even suspend them.

Me: There is no way to know how God interacts in the natural world so we cannot measure those effects.

You: For instance, if your god answers prayers, then we can measure the effect against a control group. This has been done with the Christian god for instance, and it was demonstrated that prayer had no positive effect. The most notable one was done by the Pew Research Center. You can find kit easily online.

Me: I do not understand how that can be done but I did not see the studies, although I looked for them. I do not think that lack of response to a prayer proves that there is no God because according to my beliefs God only answers prayers in the affirmative on a case-by-case basis, so that would be the same as someone not saying any prayers and having things go their way some of the time just by chance.

You: You cannot claim that a god is responsible for a book, or a phenomenon if you cannot demonstrate that the god exists. If you cannot do that, then attributing anything to the god is mere speculation without evidence.

Me: It is not proof, I never said it was. However, it is evidence because you have to look at the book and ask yourself how it came to be written, given the actual content. How and why would a Messenger make up things like Baha’u’llah wrote about God? It is beyond the stretch of my imagination; and moreover it all makes sense to be that if there was a God, God would be the way he described God. And here is the other thing; the God described by Baha’u’llah is essentially the same God as we see in the OT and the NT and the Qur’an. How could that be if men were just making stuff up about God? It just boggles the imagination, but that is how I think about things.

The fact that the Revelation of Baha’u’llah is the fulfillment of all the older religions, the most recent link a successive chain of religions that are all connected by One God, is evidence for me because in order to disprove it I would have to disprove all the older religions. It makes no sense to me that all those religions could be made up by men, and one big reason it does not make sense to me is that there would no “motive” for men to make all that up. All the Messengers of God suffered tremendously for who they claimed to be and they obtained no personal benefits but rather sacrificed for their Cause. Why would they do that unless they were doing it for God, as they claimed?

So that is how I reason things out.

You: You have to remember that the evidence needed to support a claim varies with the nature of the claim.
This is a tired old example, but I'll give it again, because it is a good way to demonstrate the principle.
If you came up to me out of nowhere and announced that you had a car in your garage, I would simply take you at your word. Why? Because it is common knowledge that people own garages and that they park cars in them. I have seem innumerable examples of cars parked in garages for all of my life.

But what if you came to me and said you had an invisible fire-breathing dragon in your garage? I would require substantial evidence, and if it was not forthcoming, would have to assume you are deluded. You couldn't claim the dragon was a messenger from god, therefore it exists, you couldn't show me some passages from a book that declared it existed. I would have to see the dragon, or you would have to show me the effects in a quantifiable and verifiable way which could only be caused by the dragon and not by a normal, natural occurrence.

Me: What just came to mind is that it is also it is common knowledge that people have religions and that they find their God in them, since 84 percent of the world population has a faith. The salient difference is that there is no proof that religions reveal God.

You: I am merely asking you for the same for your currently claim about your god, as to me it seems as unlikely as the dragon.

Me: I can tell you one reason why I do not think that God is as unlikely as the fire-breathing dragon; there is no “reason” to think that the fire-breathing dragon would exist because he serves no purpose. By contrast, there is a reason for a God to exist because God serves a purpose. Of course, as an atheist you do not know what that purpose is so you look at the reasons we exist from an entirely different viewpoint, especially with regard to an afterlife.

Regarding the fire-breathing dragon, you said: “you couldn't show me some passages from a book that declared it existed. I would have to see the dragon, or you would have to show me the effects in a quantifiable and verifiable way which could only be caused by the dragon and not by a normal, natural occurrence.”

The problem again is that we cannot know what effects God has on this world, since the actions of God are unknowable. All we can know are the effects that the Messengers of God have in this world... I will leave you with this:

“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​

It is too early to see the effects of Baha’u’llah, but we can certainly look at the effects of the older Prophets such as Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, not to mention Buddha and Krishna. Can anyone find ordinary men who ever had such profound and long-lasting effects upon civilization?

Beautiful

 

[Trailblazer]

Many little things. Yesterday was more than normal, as many things happened. Skeptics would call it all coincidence. Hindus who know Ganesha will say it's Him. A simple example was that I had to show photo ID at a store, and the clerk happened to notice that my driving license expired yesterday. So we went over to the licensing office 10 minutes later. Five minutes before that we bumped into a friend who we do a religious ceremony every September (visarjana festival) Hadn't seen her in 11 months. Then 5 minutes after that we saw a new South Indian restaurant so naturally started chatting it up. Found out we shared a common acquaintance ... his cousin owns the hotel we stayed in in Madurai, a city of a million people. So yeah ... stuff like that.

One of Ganesha's names is 'Remover of Obstacles'. We will be going for a very long drive across North America in just over a month, and if I hadn't noticed the license thing, well... who knows?

This morning I'll make a huge marigold garland for Ganesha to thank him, and buy a 'thank you' archana.

So yeah, this is normal life for any mystic Hindu. I don't generally share, but you asked.

Thanks for sharing, those stories help my faith in God... More about that later and maybe some stories, I am off to work now and running late.
I don't think there are coincidences either but I have certain issues with God so I second guess Him a lot.

 

[Milton Platt]

In my faith, God provides evidence for His existence when He sends a message. We learn what to look for.

How do you verify the message is from your god? The fact that it is your “faith” is an indication that there actually is no evicence, otherwise, faith would not be necessary.

 

[Milton Platt]

I don't. You're right, it's just faith. I don't need intellectual logical evidence to enjoy life.

We weren’t discussing whether you enjoy life or not. We were discussing whether you had sufficient evidence to believe your god exists. If you had simply said you didn’t have such evidence, we would have been done right there and not have spent so much time on this. Instead, you kept insisting you did have such evidence. I enjoy life as well. No god is needed for that.

 

[viole]

Baha’u’llah is not a bad communicator just because “some people” cannot understand what He wrote. For those who find it difficult to understand the Writings of Baha’u’llah, they can read the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi, who were the appointed interpreters of Baha’u’llah’s Writings.

Baha’u’llah never said that humans should be divided into castes.

People who blame Baha’u’llah because they cannot understand what He wrote are unjust and arrogant. They think they are smarter than He was, that they could do a better job. Why then would they accept Him as a Messenger of God? This is psych 101 stuff.

Baha’u’llah “clearly” explained the requirements for the True Seeker in the Tablet of the True Seeker.In seeking God one must put aside all acquired knowledge and all attachments to what one wants; one must put aside both love and hate; one must wash away both pride and vain-glory; and one must cling to patience.These are “some” of the requirements of the True Seeker.

“O My brother! When a true seeker determineth to take the step of search in the path leading unto the knowledge of the Ancient of Days, he must, before all else, cleanse his heart, which is the seat of the revelation of the inner mysteries of God, from the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge, and the allusions of the embodiments of satanic fancy. He must purge his breast, which is the sanctuary of the abiding love of the Beloved, of every defilement, and sanctify his soul from all that pertaineth to water and clay, from all shadowy and ephemeral attachments. He must so cleanse his heart that no remnant of either love or hate may linger therein, lest that love blindly incline him to error, or that hate repel him away from the truth…..

That seeker must, at all times, put his trust in God, must renounce the peoples of the earth, must detach himself from the world of dust, and cleave unto Him Who is the Lord of Lords. He must never seek to exalt himself above any one, must wash away from the tablet of his heart every trace of pride and vain-glory, must cling unto patience and resignation, observe silence and refrain from idle talk.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 264-265​

The entire Tablet an be read on this link: Tablet of the True Seeker

I hope you see that I can say the same thing about any God. Even the ones I can make up one right now.

It is not difficult. I can always fall back on humans failures and weaknesses when something is not understood.

I could make an argument for Mickey Mouse having created the Universe with a (misunderstood) message inspired to His prophet Walt. Don’t you see it? You just need to watch a cartoon with Mickey and Minnie to clearly see that He created the Universe for us and He developed a plan for each of us. Don’t you understand how? Your fault. You think to be better than Mickey Mouse.

And that is why God or Gods should stop using middle men and take leadership at last. And speak directly to each one of us, so that we tomorrow we wake up believing in the same thing.

But all He does is producing a defeaning silence. And He is so silent for reasons that are so obvious that it is mind boggling that people do not see them. Their fault again, I guess.

Ciao

- viole