God is in control, what does that mean?

[Trailblazer]

Not according to the biblical scriptures. Thanks for the link, but I don’t consider Baha’i teachings or interpretations of the Bible accurate.

The Day of Judgement and everything else Baha'is believe are according to the biblical scriptures because otherwise they would hold no water, but if you want to try to prove me wrong you are welcome to do so.

FYI. I have been having a lengthy debate on another thread with a Christian so some of the proofs of my beliefs in reply to her beliefs are posted there. #1798 Trailblazer

 

[Trailblazer]

Assuming a God exists. And assuming the messengers are actually directed by an actual God, which they cannot confirm. So, dubious.

The Messengers are not the ones who do the confirming, the believers do the confirming.

 

[F1fan]

The Messengers are not the ones who do the confirming, the believers do the confirming.

What is their objective method that is free of bias and error?

 

[Trailblazer]

They should have called it the Judgment Millennium. Big mistake on their part. Misleading. Deceptive.

It was the Bible that coined the phrase 'Judgment Day' but it never meant one day, it meant a process that unfolds over time. The difference between the Christian view and the Baha'i view are explained in these articles.

The Day of Judgment—from a Baha'i Perspective

The Day of Judgment and Resurrection

 

[Trailblazer]

What is their objective method that is free of bias and error?

There is no objective method that is free of bias and error because humans have biases and humans make mistakes...
There is another method that seekers are enjoined to use, called Independent Investigation of Truth.
This short video explains how it works.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I am not sure what you refer to that God has failed to achieve or who it is that says He has failed. Clarify if you like.

I mean that whatever God set out to do, if he didn't achieve it - if the world isn't precisely as he wants it - then he has failed to some degree.

... if God is the ultimate source of everything, anyhow.

Neither do I see how the existence of sin indicates God has failed to meet His own standard. On the other hand, human sin certainly indicates people fail to meet God’s standards. Just as the scriptures say... “ all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”

Right: so God's creation - and therefore God as a creator - fail to meet God's standards.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Not one of the Messengers of God created strife in the world, it was the religious followers who created the strife.
Not one of the Messengers of God did anything in His own interest or in the interest of His progeny.
All of the Messengers of God suffered and sacrificed for the sake of God.

All of them without any exception. Zoroaster asked king Vistaspa to kill his competitors. Moses got Amalekites and Medianites killed. Jesus' followers killed people all over the world (what difference does it make if the messenger himself engages in killing or his followers? The result is the same). Mohammad killed the Jews and Christians in Arabia, and his followers killed people of other faiths in many places. Because of Bahaollah, his followers suffered in Iran while he was comfortably ensconed in the mansion of Bahji. And because of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, his followers, the Ahmadiyyas, suffer in Pakistan. Messengers only bring misery.

Mansion of Bahji

 

[Aupmanyav]

There is another method that seekers are enjoined to use, called Independent Investigation of Truth.

Independent investigation and its conclusions are for individuals and not for all because they cannot be verified.

 

[InChrist]

I mean that whatever God set out to do, if he didn't achieve it - if the world isn't precisely as he wants it - then he has failed to some degree.

... if God is the ultimate source of everything, anyhow.

Right: so God's creation - and therefore God as a creator - fail to meet God's standards.

I appreciate your clarification. Thanks.
I don’t think you realize that God is not done with the goal He intends to achieve. Neither do I think you grasp the the fact that this world is not IT. God’s plan and intended goal involves the participation and freedom of individuals to choose to be a part of God’s ultimate goal; an eternal new heaven and earth free of all sin, pain and evil. This temporary world is a time to choose. God is calling anyone who desires redemption and eternal freedom out of this world and into eternity.

 

[Trailblazer]

Independent investigation and its conclusions are for individuals and not for all because they cannot be verified.

That's just the way it is, no religion can be proven true like science.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Take science as religion rather than the totally unproven ones. That is what I have done.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I appreciate your clarification. Thanks.
I don’t think you realize that God is not done with the goal He intends to achieve. Neither do I think you grasp the the fact that this world is not IT.

Doesn't matter.

Temporary imperfection is still imperfection, and a creator who build their product right the first time is a better creator than one who has to tinker with it to get it right.

Who would you say is a better cookie baker?

- the baker who lets mice run all around their bakery, but has a 100% effective way of filtering mouse poop out of the batter before it's baked, or

- the baker who doesn't let mice crap in the batter.

God’s plan and intended goal involves the participation and freedom of individuals to choose to be a part of God’s ultimate goal; an eternal new heaven and earth free of all sin, pain and evil. This temporary world is a time to choose. God is calling anyone who desires redemption and eternal freedom out of this world and into eternity.

That's the party line. It's completely nonsensical, but I get that it's a commonly-held view.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Take science as religion rather than the totally unproven ones. That is what I have done.

Great insofar as it goes, but for me it doesn’t go far enough.

I see God in the material universe, in quantum theory, in the laws of thermodynamics, in the miraculous perfection of geometry - all those physical and and abstract wonders which science is gradually unraveling.

But if they are impersonal - if the universe is indifferent- these miracles are cold comfort; and sometimes we need comfort. I do anyway.

Further, I can’t escape the intuitive conviction that something immutable, infinite, perfect and unknowable, exists beyond the material universe. And the belief that the infinite unknowable, which we may choose to call God, is far from indifferent to the fate of it’s creation.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Yeah, I too would like to understand more about 'what exists', but I do not make it into a God. I do not have any evidence to do that.

 

[pearl]

I'm merely pointing out the pathetic logical problems inherent in the notion of God as presented to me by the Abrahamic religions.

You're absolutely right, faith is not logical and the Abrahamic God is an incomprehensible mystery.

It takes "faith" to get around those illogicalities -- and I don't happen to possess that faith. You appear to possess it, and so the illogic doesn't bother you.

“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
― St. Thomas Aquinas

 

[Truthseeker]

All of them without any exception. Zoroaster asked king Vistaspa to kill his competitors. Moses got Amalekites and Medianites killed. Jesus' followers killed people all over the world (what difference does it make if the messenger himself engages in killing or his followers? The result is the same). Mohammad killed the Jews and Christians in Arabia, and his followers killed people of other faiths in many places. Because of Bahaollah, his followers suffered in Iran while he was comfortably ensconed in the mansion of Bahji. And because of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, his followers, the Ahmadiyyas, suffer in Pakistan. Messengers only bring misery.

Mansion of Bahji

From Wikipedia: Vishtaspa (Avestan: ‎ Vištāspa; Old Persian: Vištāspa; modern Persian: گشتاسپ Guštāsp; Ancient Greek" Ὑστάσπης Hystaspes) is the Avestan-language name of a figure of Zoroastrian scripture and tradition, portrayed as an early follower of Zoroaster, and his patron, and instrumental in the diffusion of the prophet's message. Although Vishtaspa is not epigraphically attested, he is – like Zoroaster – traditionally assumed to have been a historical figure, although obscured by accretions from legend and myth.

Vishtaspa - Wikipedia

How do you know that Vistaspa killed competitors for Zoroaster, when they are not even sure he exists, and legends and myths accrued around him?

Likewise the stores of what Moses said about killing Amelikites and Medianites were written down hundreds of years later. Are they accurate? Are they allegorical? Or both?

You never showed that Jesus said anything that would cause His followers to kill people. You didn't address the point.

I only know of one instance where Muhammad was involved in the killing of Jews:

The confederates had gone, but the Banu-Qurayzah were still there and secure in their stronghold. Guilty of betrayal, they could easily have wrecked the work of the Prophet if a subtle stratagem had not paralysed their will to act. The course they might take in future contingencies was highly problematical. What was certain was that they had proved fickle and could not be trusted; the security of Medina demanded their expulsion. Muḥammad turned His attention to them as soon as He was assured by intelligence brought to Him that the confederates had gone for good and that their alliance had dissolved. The Banu-Qurayzah soon became aware of their predicament. It was either Huyy Ibn [p Akhtab, their evil genius, or Ka'b Ibn Asad, their chief, or the two together, who presented the clan with three possible courses of action: to submit to Muḥammad and become converts to His Faith; to defy Muḥammad and fight to the last, first killing their women and children to spare them slavery in case of defeat; or to rush out of their fastness on the morrow, which was a Sabbath, and fall upon the Muslims around them. None of these proved acceptable. They would not profess belief in Muḥammad, they could not put to death their women and children, and they found action on the Sabbath abhorrent. In the old days, the Banu-Qurayzah had been allied to the Aws, and now they asked Muḥammad to send a man of the Aws, named Abu-Lubabah, to visit them. It is related that this Abu-Lubabah indicated to them, by some gesture, that if they came out of their stronghold Muḥammad would exterminate them; then, realizing his disloyalty to the Prophet, he hurried to the mosque and tied himself to a pillar, to do penance. (He was forgiven before long.) However, there is a contradiction here with the facts as they emerged later, because, as we shall see, the extermination of the male members of the Banu-Qurayzah was not decreed by Muḥammad but by the dying Sa'd Ibn Mu'adh.

The Banu-Qurayzah sat behind their walls and the Muslims maintained a siege. Although chroniclers speak of fighting, there do not seem to have been many casualties. Neither side could achieve victory, but the position of the Banu-Qurayzah was much the weaker, because they were hemmed in and lacked the resources which Medina enjoyed. At last, they offered to leave Medina as the Banu'n-Nadir had done. But Muḥammad would have no conditions attached to their surrender. Finally they agreed to come out and abide by the judgement of an arbiter named by Muḥammad. The Prophet appointed Sa'd Ibn Mu'adh, the chief of the Aws, to decide their fate. He had been an ally and a supporter of these Jews. Now a dying man and too feeble to move, as the result of his recent wound, Sa'd was mounted on a donkey and held by two men. Thus he was brought to the mosque. Men of the Aws beseeched him to be gentle in his judgement. But stern and unbending, Sa'd pronounced the sentence of death on the male members of the Banu-Qurayzah. Their women and children were to be sold as slaves, and their property divided among the Muslims. Estimates vary as to the number who perished in that [pg 100] mass execution; it may have been about seven hundred. An old man, Zubayr Ibn Bata, had once saved the life of Thabit Ibn Qays Ibn al-Shammas, a follower of the Prophet. Thabit asked Muḥammad to spare Zubayr for his sake and the Prophet granted his wish, but Zubayr preferred to die. Muḥammad married one of the women of the Banu-Qurayzah, named Rayhanah Bint 'Amr.

Professor Montgomery Watt comments thus on the fate of the Banu-Qurayzah:

'Some European writers have criticized this sentence for what they call its savage and inhuman character...

'In the case of the Muslims involved in the execution what was uppermost in their minds was whether allegiance to the Islamic community was to be set above and before all other alliances and attachments... Those of the Aws who wanted leniency for Qurayzah seem to have regarded them as having been unfaithful only tb Muḥammad and not to the Aws. This attitude implies that these men regarded themselves as being primarily members of the Aws (or of some clan of it) and not of the Islamic community. There is no need to suppose that Muḥammad brought pressure to bear on Sa'd ibn-Mu'adh to punish Qurayzah as he did. A farsighted man like Sa'd must have realized that to allow tribal or clan allegiance to come before Islamic allegiance would lead to a renewal of the fratricidal strife from which they hoped the coming of Muḥammad had delivered Medina. As he was being led into Muḥammad's presence to pronounce his sentence, Sa'd is said to have made a remark to the effect that, with death not far from him, he must consider above all doing his duty to God and the Islamic community, even at the expense of former alliances.': Muḥammad, Prophet and Statesman, pp. 173-4.

Professor Montgomery Watt further remarks:

'After the elimination of the Qurayzah no important clan of Jews was left in Medina, though there were probably several small groups. One Jewish merchant is named who purchased some of the women and children of Qurayzah!...

'The continuing presence of at least a few Jews in Medina is an argument against the view sometimes put forward by European scholars that in the second year after the Hijrah Muḥammad adopted a policy of clearing all Jews out of Medina just because they were Jews, and that he carried out this policy with ever-increasing severity. It was not Muḥammad's way to have policies of this [pg 101] kind. He had a balanced view of the fundamentals of the contemporary situation and of his long-term aims, and in the light of this he moulded his day-to-day plans in accordance with the changing factors in current events. The occasions of his attacks on the first two Jewish clans were no more than occasions; but there were also deep underlying reasons. The Jews in general by their verbal criticisms of the Qur’ánic revelation were trying to undermine the foundation of the whole Islamic community; and they were also giving political support to Muḥammad's enemies and to opponents such as the Hypocrites. In so far as the Jews abandoned these forms of hostile activity Muḥammad allowed them to live in Medina unmolested.'[^1] [1]: ibid., (Muḥammad, Prophet and Statesman) pp. 174-5. [pg 102]

H.M. Balyuzi, "Muḥammad and the Course of Islam"

You would have to tell me of when Muhammad killed Christians.

Baha'u'llah being in Bahji had nothing to do with His followers suffering in Iran. He was exiled ultimately to Akka. There was a decree that he remain there. He was in a prison cell. However, after the behavior of and Presence of Baha'ullah they realized He was not a criminally disposed person. After nine years of being in Akka, the first two being in the prison cell, He was allowed to leave Akka even the decree was still in effect.

As to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, he is not a Messenger of God, and also you have not said they killed anyone, just that they are suffering.

 

[Truthseeker]

Further, I can’t escape the intuitive conviction that something immutable, infinite, perfect and unknowable, exists beyond the material universe. And the belief that the infinite unknowable, which we may choose to call God, is far from indifferent to the fate of it’s creation.

Sounds about right.

 

[InChrist]

Doesn't matter.

Temporary imperfection is still imperfection, and a creator who build their product right the first time is a better creator than one who has to tinker with it to get it right.

Who would you say is a better cookie baker?

- the baker who lets mice run all around their bakery, but has a 100% effective way of filtering mouse poop out of the batter before it's baked, or

- the baker who doesn't let mice crap in the batter.

I think human beings are vastly more complicated than cookies, don’t you? Especially, human beings that have been endowed with volition.
Your analogy is off base because cookie dough has no say in the process of becoming a finished product or baked cookie. The implication you’re trying to make about God being like a baker letting mice run around and contaminate the batter doesn’t apply either.
The scriptures are clear that the contamination comes from within the person who sins. So if you’re interested in helping to eliminate the crap, the way to do so is to start with yourself and seek God’s purity and holiness. All of us need His cleansing.

 

[Windwalker]

Last night I heard about a road rage incident on the TV wherein a six-year old child was shot to death in the car his mother was driving.

I copied down exactly what the school pastor said:

“I try to just lay it out to them in a simple way so that they can understand that bad things happen even to a godly situation…

God’s in control, we try to make them understand what that means.”

What is that supposed to mean? Is that supposed to make people feel better? Are people who say that rather naive, or do they just have strong faith?

I think that is a way for people to try to make sense of the random and impersonal nature of life sometimes when the tragic and unexpected occurs. I never took much solace in that personally, believe that "everything happens for a reason". Like, what? God's trying to teach you a lesson by tragedy happening to you? He let someone get violently torn from your life because he had other plans for you, or something or other? I think thinking that can lead to torturing your own soul. "God's in control", means God's on the hook, is what that gets taken to mean in such a situation.

It was just such a thing that began bringing about a major shift in my ideas about God at that time. Time to jettison that idea I've heard. Like they say, if it doesn't kill you, you can use it to grow from, as much as it sucks. And that saying I can get more behind.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think human beings are vastly more complicated than cookies, don’t you? Especially, human beings that have been endowed with volition.
Your analogy is off base because cookie dough has no say in the process of becoming a finished product or baked cookie. The implication you’re trying to make about God being like a baker letting mice run around and contaminate the batter doesn’t apply either.

If you'd prefer, we could use the Bible's analogy of God as the potter and humans as "pots."

The scriptures are clear that the contamination comes from within the person who sins.

The scriptures are also clear that the person who sins comes from God.

IOW, God is the ultimate source of sin.

So if you’re interested in helping to eliminate the crap, the way to do so is to start with yourself and seek God’s purity and holiness. All of us need His cleansing.

In case it wasn't clear: I don't find your religion believable at all. I've just been pointing out one way that it isn't even internally consistent.