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Homosexuality and religious.

TransmutingSoul

One Planet, One People, Please!
Premium Member

This is the most misunderstood aspect of free will, one where people blame God for warning us of the consequences of our rebellious actions.

Like a childs tantrum directed at a parent when they are not getting their own way above the parent's sound advice , yelling back at the parent, I hate you.

Baha'u'llah gave a Message of Unity and for the peace and security of all humanity and gave us a roadmap for the Most Great Peace.

Issue is, it requires a total giving up of self interests to that higher goal, which men trapped in materialistic tendencies, tend more to rebellion than acceptance.

This is the God given challenge, welcome to this matrix of tests and suffering. It is the perfect environment to embrace our spiritual potential.

Isaiah 45:7 "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things"

So that is the choice, as we are made in that image, on the edge of darkness and the beginning of light, with all evil within us or the potential of peace and we get to choose either way. Light or darkness, peace or evil.

The light and peace are born from the spiritual capacities the darkness and evil born from our animal and materialistic tendencies.

That answers the entire quandary humanity faces, the quandary of choice. Otherwise God, with one word, would make us all beleive. (That's not me by the way, that is written in scriptures)

Regards Tony
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
He took this title before he knew or announced he was a manifestation? But he can't take a title and then claim it fulfills a prophecy.

But there's another problem... You keep taking verses out of context. I think verse two is referring to the Jews, and this is not a Messianic prophecy at all.
Isaiah 62 For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.

2 And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name.

3 Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.

4 Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married.

5 For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.

6 I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence, 7 And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

8 The LORD hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast laboured: 9 But they that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the LORD; and they that have brought it together shall drink it in the courts of my holiness.

10 Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people.

11 Behold, the LORD hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.

12 And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.
I did some research, and apparently at that time, people were very fond of bestowing titles upon each other. All a guy had to do was read through the long list and pick a couple of the most endearing ones. This contradicted my previous thoughts, which was that he simple bestowed it upon himself. After all, he is infallible. How could an infallible leader be wrong about a title ne bestowed upon himself? Then he wouldn't be infallible at all.

There is no clear answer.
 

TransmutingSoul

One Planet, One People, Please!
Premium Member

This a nightmare for reason.

I have remapped the diagram to show the concept given by Baha'u'llah

Trinity 1.jpg

Regards Tony
 

TransmutingSoul

One Planet, One People, Please!
Premium Member
I did some research, and apparently at that time, people were very fond of bestowing titles upon each other. All a guy had to do was read through the long list and pick a couple of the most endearing ones. This contradicted my previous thoughts, which was that he simple bestowed it upon himself. After all, he is infallible. How could an infallible leader be wrong about a title ne bestowed upon himself? Then he wouldn't be infallible at all.

There is no clear answer.

Thank you for researching this. Why this prophecy is unique, is that the Bab as a forerunner was also a Manifestation of God and it was the Bab that Named Bahaullah as it was written in the Bayan and thus fulfilled the prophecy, "...and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name."

Baha'u'llah took on that name at the Conference of Badasht and this actual prophecy can fit no other Messenger.

[1 It ought to be noted that the name 'Bahá'u'lláh was first mentioned by the Báb in His Book, the Persian Bayan; and that it was as 'Jinab-i-Baha' that Mirza Husayn-'Aliy-i-Nuri became known in the Bábí community, after the Conference of Badasht.] ~ H.M. Balyuzi, Baha'u'llah - The King of Glory, p. 43

@CG Didymus An American Bahai posted this some time ago in response to the same question. How did Baha'u'llah receive His Name?

Regards Tony
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
You can see how you choose to CG.

Regards Tony
Or you could build your case that verse two is a Messianic prophecy by examining the context and other related Scriptures. Christianity, Islam and the Baha'i Faith quote mine the Bible for a verse they can use. That works for some, but, if yours and their interpretations are correct, you need to show how it is correct.

Like Christians with their one verse "prophecy" about a virgin/young maiden will give birth to a son. Then two gospel writers tell a story of a virgin birth. Those writers weren't there. How do they know what happened? How do they know Mary was a virgin? Then their stories contradict each other. Then the Quran says Mary gave birth to Jesus under a date palm. So, there's three contradictory stories all based on one verse that was taken out of context from Isaiah.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Thank you for researching this. Why this prophecy is unique, is that the Bab as a forerunner was also a Manifestation of God and it was the Bab that Named Bahaullah as it was written in the Bayan and thus fulfilled the prophecy, "...and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name."

Baha'u'llah took on that name at the Conference of Badasht and this actual prophecy can fit no other Messenger.

[1 It ought to be noted that the name 'Bahá'u'lláh was first mentioned by the Báb in His Book, the Persian Bayan; and that it was as 'Jinab-i-Baha' that Mirza Husayn-'Aliy-i-Nuri became known in the Bábí community, after the Conference of Badasht.] ~ H.M. Balyuzi, Baha'u'llah - The King of Glory, p. 43

@CG Didymus An American Bahai posted this some time ago in response to the same question. How did Baha'u'llah receive His Name?

Regards Tony
Here's where it mentions the "new name" in Revelation...
11 I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. 13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. 14 The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. 15 Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:

king of kings and lord of lords.

17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, 18 so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small.”

19 Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army. 20 But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. 21 The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.
How do Baha'is interpret all of that?
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
you hear how it pleases God that people choose to believe in Him by faith, that He doesn't want to be surrounded by robots. Of course He does if he picks only those that submit to His commands and punishes those that exercise their free will.
And then which Christian sect is the right one? If they choose Catholic, are they just as acceptable as a Mormon or a Baptist? But now there's the Baha'i Faith. All those Christians that reject the Baha'is have chosen to follow the wrong religion. Or maybe one of the Christian sects is right and all the others and the Baha'is are wrong. Why would God make things so difficult? Or it just people making all this stuff up.
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
And then which Christian sect is the right one? If they choose Catholic, are they just as acceptable as a Mormon or a Baptist? But now there's the Baha'i Faith. All those Christians that reject the Baha'is have chosen to follow the wrong religion. Or maybe one of the Christian sects is right and all the others and the Baha'is are wrong. Why would God make things so difficult? Or it just people making all this stuff up.

But Sir, there is the one great commonality - "I am right and you are wrong." Isn't that the underlying mantra that demonstrates the hidden unity in it all?
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
This is the problem: F≠S≠HG, since these are separate and unequal entities.

How's that a problem? I'd say the problem is as I delineated it - mutually exclusive claims. F≠S≠HG isn't irrational. Nor is F=S=HG. But F=S=HG and F≠S≠HG is.

it requires a total giving up of self interests to that higher goal, which men trapped in materialistic tendencies, tend more to rebellion than acceptance.

I determine my goals myself. The religions don't have our interests in mind, seem to know little about human nature, and know nothing more about gods or right living than anybody else. Theists run to this trope that they're materialistic whenever dealing with people not into gods and angels. I just saw something analogous regarding sexual behaviors of people not constrained to the options religions offer. It was called "anything goes" sexual morals. Yeah, if one doesn't accept religious commands to confine sex to heterosexual marriages, he has no standards at all - anything goes. Religions don't define how we should think or live unless we let them, and why would we? Sorry, but as a humanist, I have no more respect for your way of living than you do mine. Why would I take life advice from people who believe by faith? I already have better ideas that what they recommend yet cannot give reasons for.

That answers the entire quandary humanity faces, the quandary of choice. Otherwise God, with one word, would make us all beleive.

Well, I have a more coherent idea than that. There are no gods or commandments. You're forced to defend the idea of a tri-omni god in the face of evidence that it doesn't exist, and so you come up with tortured apologetics to explain why a deity that could program sinless behavior into people if it could doesn't do that - yet another of the dozens of enigmas for the believer that evaporate away with agnostic atheism.

This is the most misunderstood aspect of free will, one where people blame God for warning us of the consequences of our rebellious actions.

That is not the most misunderstood aspect of free will. The most misunderstood aspect of free will is the difference between free will and the illusion of free will and the inability to devise any test that distinguish between them. We all experience considering options and then choosing one, but is that chosen freely or is it determined and only feels freely chosen, or, in other words, could we really have chosen otherwise. In the case of free will, if we could reproduce every aspect of reality at the time we made the choice, we could choose otherwise the second time. In other words, would such a person put back into the EXACT same situation sometimes choose one way and at other times another, which is what I mean by free will - undetermined will - or would he always make the same choice and never realize that there was never any possibility he could choose otherwise, because his will is determined, but feels free.

It gets worse. The question is unanswerable, because every time he goes back to the same EXACT circumstance, he goes like he did the first time with no memory of having been there before or even that he is conducting an experiment, since such knowledge would make subsequent tests invalid. He's not in EXACTLY the same situation the second time if his mind has a memory not present the first time.

And it gets worse yet: It doesn't matter what the answer is. Life feels exactly the same either way. What if we discovered for an iron-clad fact that there was no such thing as free will - just the illusion, just the feeling that we could have chosen otherwise, but now know that that is an illusion. Perhaps a device is created that accurately predicts what people will choose before they choose it, and your every choice is known by others before you know what it is. That might be very upsetting and disorienting at first, but what would we do differently if faced with that as reality? Whatever was foreordained. I think I know what that would be for me, since I've already thought about it as if it were the case.

It's analogous to discovering that the outside world doesn't exist. Suppose you somehow could know for an iron-clad fact that you were only a disembodied mind living an illusion. All these years, whenever you stuck what you thought was your finger into what looked like a flame, you felt the pain of fire. Now you know that that was a n illusion - there is no fire or finger, just the illusion of same - so, you do what you used to do as a test, and it burns anyway as it always did before. you were on the way to the kitchen to make a margarita when you discovered this new reality. What do you do differently now that you have that knowledge? Nothing, once done freaking out because you don't have a body. But then you remember - you never did. This is not new. The rules don't change. Let's see - what was I doing? Oh yes, getting ready to mix a margarita. It's just as enjoyable knowing it's an illusion. Have two. The tequila is low, but you know where to get more.

Of course, none of that is thinkable to the theist who is wearing a faith-based confirmation bias. He doesn't permit himself to go there. Most are simply not free to join along in this philosophical journey, this thought experiment. They drop out as soon as the scenario contradicts their faith. Rather than wonder how they would deal with situations, they simply refuse to think about them, which is part of the reason ideas like these are so misunderstood, or more correctly, rejected out of hand before they are understood. The theist is generally fairly skilled at not understanding other points of view
 
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CG Didymus

Veteran Member
My prophecy is that there will be an answer, my friend, there will be an answer. There always is. Second to that, I also prophesize the answer won't satisfy you or me or lots of others, lol.
My prophecy is that Tony will say, "That's for you to decide, CG." Which will be that it doesn't fit. The "new name" is all they've got. But then what does this guy with the new name do and say? Same stuff... Baha'is find one verse that works, and they ignore the rest.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
But Sir, there is the one great commonality - "I am right and you are wrong." Isn't that the underlying mantra that demonstrates the hidden unity in it all?
Yes, there is oneness. All those that believe and chose to follow Baha'u'llah are one with God and one with each other. Those that don't... don't count.
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
My prophecy is that Tony will say, "That's for you to decide, CG." Which will be that it doesn't fit. The "new name" is all they've got. But then what does this guy with the new name do and say? Same stuff... Baha'is find one verse that works, and they ignore the rest.
I can think of a ton of new names, many of them unsuitable, and one involves certain initials.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
How's that a problem? I'd say the problem is as I delineated it - mutually exclusive claims. F≠S≠HG isn't irrational. Nor is F=S=HG. But F=S=HG and F≠S≠HG is.
Yes F=S=HG and F≠S≠HG is irrational because these are contradictory claims.

Baha'is believe that F, S, and HG are three separate entities that work together; like coworkers in an office, they are working as a team but they are separate people.

The HG (Holy Spirit) is the Bounty of God. The HG emanates from God (F); God (F) sent the HG to the Son; and the Son brought the HG to humanity.

Many Bible verses support F≠S≠HG whereas no Bible verses support F=S=HG.
 

TransmutingSoul

One Planet, One People, Please!
Premium Member
Or you could build your case that verse two is a Messianic prophecy by examining the context and other related Scriptures. Christianity, Islam and the Baha'i Faith quote mine the Bible for a verse they can use. That works for some, but, if yours and their interpretations are correct, you need to show how it is correct.

Do I? I see Baha'u'llah is proved by His personal and Message, and I see the prophecies are only a bounty to those that embrace the Messengers.

Regards Tony
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
That is not the most misunderstood aspect of free will. The most misunderstood aspect of free will is the difference between free will and the illusion of free will and the inability to devise any test that distinguish between them. We all experience considering options and then choosing one, but is that chosen freely or is it determined and only feels freely chosen, or, in other words, could we really have chosen otherwise. In the case of free will, if we could reproduce every aspect of reality at the time we made the choice, we could choose otherwise the second time.
No, there is no test that can be devised that proves that we could have chosen otherwise, because we cannot go back in time and recreate the same exact set of circumstances and prove that we could have chosen otherwise under the same circumstances. However, that does not prove we had no ability to choose what we chose, so we do have a will. Whether we were 'free' to choose something different or not does not mean we do not have volition, which is the faculty or power of using one's will.

The most misunderstood aspect of free will among many theists is that we are completely free to choose whatever we want to choose, with no constraints on our choices.

Free will is simply the will/ability to make choices based upon our desires and preferences, which come from a combination of factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances. All of these are the reasons why we choose one thing or another.

How free our choices are varies with the situation. Certainly what we refer to as 'free will' has many constraints such as ability and opportunity, but we have volition as otherwise we could not do anything at all.
 

dybmh

ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
That's another prophecy wonderfully fulfilled CG.

Isaiah 62:2 "And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name."

Both the Bab and Baha'u'llah fulfilled this prophecy, they both became known by their New Name.

Regards Tony
Don't stop there, keep reading. How does verse 4 fit your narrative?

4 No longer shall "forsaken" be said of you, and "desolate" shall no longer be said of your land, for you shall be called "My desire is in her," and your land, "inhabited," for the Lord desires you, and your land shall be inhabited.

So, no, verse 2 isn't talking about Baha'u'llah or the Bab unless they are called "My desire is in her".
 

TransmutingSoul

One Planet, One People, Please!
Premium Member
I have remapped the diagram to show the concept given by Baha'u'llah

View attachment 68423

Regards Tony

Yes F=S=HG and F≠S≠HG is irrational because these are contradictory claims.

Baha'is believe that F, S, and HG are three separate entities that work together; like coworkers in an office, they are working as a team but they are separate people.

The HG (Holy Spirit) is the Bounty of God. The HG emanates from God (F); God (F) sent the HG to the Son; and the Son brought the HG to humanity.

Many Bible verses support F≠S≠HG whereas no Bible verses support F=S=HG.

The way I see it, is that the diagram is explaining the Spiritual reality of the Oneness of God and the Messengers.

The material aspect is explained in the different names and attributes.

The twofold station is shown in the diagram.

Regards Tony
 

TransmutingSoul

One Planet, One People, Please!
Premium Member
Don't stop there, keep reading. How does verse 4 fit your narrative?

4 No longer shall "forsaken" be said of you, and "desolate" shall no longer be said of your land, for you shall be called "My desire is in her," and your land, "inhabited," for the Lord desires you, and your land shall be inhabited.

So, no, verse 2 isn't talking about Baha'u'llah or the Bab unless they are called "My desire is in her".

The law goes out from Zion and Carmel and Sharon have see the Glory of God. The Jews have returned.

Regards Tony
 
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