Again, as far as I can see there is no such thing as a soul, there are vastly different ideas of what it is suppose to be, depending on who you talk to. Yet no one have be able to demonstrate it in the first place.
You will not SEE a soul or be able to demonstrate it is because it is immaterial. The reason there are vastly different ideas about the soul is because there are many different scriptures as well as different interpretations of the same scriptures.
So running off with the idea that a soul must exists, could lead to there needing to be a final judgment and an afterlife. Which add two new claims, based on another claim which have not been proven to be true to begin with.
To me, when having to address the original question you asked, this is not really going to work well. As you remember I started by saying that I would throw out all religious ideas that I know of, to start with.
To even begin to talk about a final judgement at this point, is far too early, compared to simply looking at there being a place to go to begin with, and whether that makes sense.
Okay fair enough.
It would have to make sense to you before you could ever believe it. I do not know that there will be a final judgment; that is a Christian belief, not a Baha’i belief.
Again I think you jump the fence here, because obviously the first question one would ask. Is why would we have to need a motivation to lead a good life to begin with?
You would not need a motivation, if you are a good person, which obviously you are. Please note that I said “gives one more motivation” and it would give one more motivation if they knew that the soul was eternal which means that what you do in this life affects your afterlife experience.
Assuming God is good, an also embrasses what is good. Then it would make no sense to create something which is not good to begin with. And therefore it makes little sense to start us off with having to be motivated to lead good lives, it would be the normal and only way to do things.
Why should it be the only choice we have? If it was the only choice we had (i.e., normal) we would never have to struggle to be good and even better. God wants us to struggle and develop our character.
Again it would be like you loving cats and rather than create them the way you love them, you would choose to make them in a less complete state, where you don't really love them, but rather give them the chance of becoming what you love. From a logical point of view it makes no sense to do something like that.
But God created us in His own image, in a complete sense, the way He would love us to be, to give us a chance of becoming all we can be, a reflection is all that is good, because God is good..
Why would you need a heaven for the cats to go, when you could put them there to begin with? Which then leads to why would you need to judge them when they died, if they had to die in the first place?
There is a heaven because our soul has to have an eternal destination. God does not want us to go there before it is time for us to die.
If you demanded from the cats, that they would have to worship you so you could save them, what does that say about you as a God? Having ultimate power over everything and then demanding, that something you love have to earn your love in return? Seriously what madness would that be?
God does not make any demands on us, since worshiping God is a free choice we make. God loves us even if we do not worship Him, so we do not have to earn God’s love.
"How ignorant therefore the thought that God who created man, educated and nurtured him, surrounded him with all blessings, made the sun and all phenomenal existence for his benefit, bestowed upon him tenderness and kindness, and then did not love him. This is palpable ignorance, for no matter to what religion a man belongs even though he be an atheist or materialist nevertheless God nurtures him, bestows His kindness and sheds upon him His light." ('Abdu'l-Baha, Star of the West, Vol. 8, issue 7, p. 78)
God wants us to worship Him only because that is in OUR best interest, not for His sake.
Why not, if you loved them so much, not go and live with them and take care of them, so they show you love because they love you for who you are, rather than demanding and threaten them to do it, and if they don't you will punish them. One can simply not argue that we are talking about love or being good in such case. It is the exact opposite.
God cannot come and live with us on Earth because God is exalted above all that is and remains forever in His own high place. God takes care of us by sending Messengers. God shows His love for us by sending Messengers. God does not demand that we believe in Him or His Messengers or threaten us or punish us if we don’t. Apparently you have a misunderstanding of God from what you believe the Bible says.
Therefore throwing in the example of Jesus being sacrificed for our sins, as it being an expression of love for us, is madness. For the very same reasons as above. Lets try to apply that to the cats, so you create cats, which are capable of behaviours that you disagree with, so much in fact that you are willing to kill them for it, which makes no sense to begin with, but lets go with it.
But your hope/desire is that they or at least some of them will behave in a way you like, so you will reward those who does. That is pretty much that same as you giving food to the cats that like to be cuddled by you and those that choose to be a bit more private you punish by not feeding. Now at some point you are fed up by the cats that won't be cuddled, so to fix this behaviour, you come up with a clever plan. You want to send down your number one cat, most loving one, to be killed by the private cats, because that will remove their bad behaviour or proof to them, that you love them, if they just changes their behaviour and prefer to be cuddled instead.
Furthermore you make them aware that if they follow the example of this special cat, that they will be rewarded in something called Heaven, where they get a lot of food and are happy all the time. But if they don't you will punish them even more severely than you already have done up until now.
So having gone from simply making cats that you love to begin with and that would love to be with you due to who you are, you have now turned into something that punish, sacrifice and tries to manipulate cats, through either rewarding them or hurting them.
And at no point during all this, you think to yourself that maybe you screwed up here and maybe the cats doesn't really deserve to be treated like this. This is no longer about love or being good to cats, its simply about you and how you want to be worshipped, because you demand it and you want it, one way or another.
With all due respect, I think you have so many misconceptions of who God is because apparently you bought off on the Christian doctrines that God sent Jesus to sacrifice Himself for our original sin. Baha’is do not believe in original sin so we do not believe the cross sacrifice was not to atone for our sins but rather it served as an example we should follow, denying self for other people.
God hopes we will behave in a way that is in our best interest and so God sends Messengers hoping we will follow their teachings and become what we have the potential to be, reflecting the attributes of God such as benevolence, compassion, loving, gracious, merciful, just, forgiving, and patient.
If we follow the example of Jesus or the other Messengers we will be rewarded because we will become what we were created for, what God hopes we will be, not for His sake, but for our sakes.
And honestly I don't think a normal cat or animal today know what free will is. Humans does, because of our brains and intelligence. Yet that is no excuse, for why God would desire us to have it. And as you said, the brain is not what makes us special, its our soul. Which again we can't demonstrate to exist.
It is very simple, God wants us to have free will so we can make choices, especially choices between good and evil. By choosing good over evil we thereby better our character.
But regardless of that, if our intelligence is not important in all this, then free will is neither. Because even understanding the idea or concept of free will, requires intelligence.
Our intelligence is very important because we cannot make intelligent choices without it. We can understand free will if we look to the sources that explain what it is:
70: FREE WILL
Yes but he could do that, while still making us behave exactly as he wanted us to. Again you have a lot of cats and you would probably agree that each of them have their own personality. So even though they don't know what free will is, what the idea of good and evil is, they behave in their own way. The idea of free will, good and evil is an illusion and a concept, which have little meaning unless you are intelligent enough to understand what it is.
Read the link I provided above.
So putting someone above us, which is so much more powerful than we can ever be, no one is free or can hide from him. And therefore despite how much power a human have, it will never even come close to that of a God. And therefore judgement is equal for everyone. Heaven and hell as a concept make sense, because again its a way to encourage people to behave in certain ways, if they want to be rewarded or fear the punishment.
All of that is pretty much true.
But from a God's perspective, none of it makes any sense.
I do not know why you said that.
