How do Baha’is see atheists?

[Kfox]

I am a Baha’i, and I have posted to a lot of atheists over the last 10 years on various forums so I am well aware of their position about God’s existence.

As I see it, regarding God’s existence there are three mutually exclusive logical possibilities, given the evidence we have.

1. God exists and sends Messengers to communicate to humans (theist), or​

2. God exists and doesn’t communicate to humans (deist), or​

3. God does not exist (atheist)​

Atheists hold the third logical position, that God doesn’t exist. I consider that to be a logical position since there is no proof that God exists.[/MEDIA]

I've got a 4th one; Whatever it is you call God may exist, but we just don't call it God; we call it something else.

 

[Trailblazer]

You're begging the question.

Until you establish that God is real and that the purported messenger really is delivering God's message, it isn't a matter of questioning God; it's a matter of questioning some guy who claims to speak for God.

I cannot prove that God exists and that the Messenger is delivering God's message to anyone except myself, which I have done.

I did question whether Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God before I became a Baha'i in 1970. All the years since that time I continued to research the claims of Baha'u'llah and the evidence that supports His claims. The more I uncovered, the more certain I was that He was who He claimed to be.

I would personally step back a moment, ditch all the assumptions and ask yourself that question: "why even bother to believe in his existence?"

Believing in God is not a choice for me, not any more than disbelieving is a choice for you. I see evidence for God so I believe God exists. You see no evidence for God so you don't believe God exists.

 

[Trailblazer]

I've got a 4th one; Whatever it is you call God may exist, but we just don't call it God; we call it something else.

You can call God whatever you want to. What's in a name?

 

[Trailblazer]

But anyone can claim to be a messenger of God. There are hundreds of religions along with thousands of variations thereof, all claiming to represent God's word and will. How can you be sure that you've accepted the right ones and rejected the wrong ones? Keep in mind most belong to their religion because they were born into it.

Of course anyone can claim to be a Messenger of God and most of the claimants are false messengers.

The way I know that I have accepted the right one was by doing the necessary research and investigation into the claims of Baha'u'llah, looking at His life, His mission and His Writings.

Once I accepted that Baha'u'llah was a genuine Messenger, I believed what He wrote regarding who the other Messengers of God were.

I was not born into any religion. I had no religion or belief in God until I became an adult and did my own research and investigation.

 

[PureX]

This would be the most plausible way a God would hint us as to God's existence. Although there are tragic circumstances in life for many that afford little opportunity to discover anything of a grande meaning from God. It would still be a privileged position as there are babies and children who die without such time and opportunity.

Messengers can be easily misinterpreted, misunderstood, or considered to be empty fluffy claims that have no evidence.

I suppose God could be far less than omnipotent. Life is a teacher for sure though. Existence has much to teach us about how senseless catastrophies happen that don't give much time and opportunity for much of the living population.

Some of us have the luxury to ponder such ultimate questions with rose colored glasses, messengers or privileged position.

I tend to the conviction that life on Earth is grossly unfair to a vast many of people. Now how any God fits into this reality is beyond me.

We are not the reason existence, exists. So the rest of existence does not serve our existence. Sometimes, it serves itself at our expense. We think this is unfair because we want existence to serve us, exclusively. But that aside, most human suffering happens by our own actions and by the actions of other humans. And this is neither God's nor existence' fault. It is entirely our own.

We could end the majority of human suffering, today. We have all the tools and knowhow to do it. But we lack the wisdom and the will. We have been given the ability in life to choose who we are and how we will live. There are no big secret messages from God. The choice is ours and it comes from within each of us. That is the message: you all decide, and you all suffer or enjoy the consequences.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I cannot prove that God exists and that the Messenger is delivering God's message to anyone except myself, which I have done.

So then you ought to understand that many people will not have accepted the conclusions you have.

Questioning the validity of a purported "messenger" and what they preach isn't "questioning God" until such time as:

- the person doing the questioning accepts that God exists at all,
- the person accepts that the purported "messenger" is genuine,
- the person accepts that the preaching being attributed to the purported "messenger" is something they actually said, and
- the person accepts that the preaching really did come from God.

I did question whether Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God before I became a Baha'i in 1970. All the years since that time I continued to research the claims of Baha'u'llah and the evidence that supports His claims. The more I uncovered, the more certain I was that He was who He claimed to be.

I don't care. This isn't about you; it's about the frame of mind of the people you're talking to.

You do understand that there are plenty of people who don't accept that any particular message from Baha'u'llah - or whoever - didn't actually come from God, right?

Believing in God is not a choice for me, not any more than disbelieving is a choice for you. I see evidence for God so I believe God exists. You see no evidence for God so you don't believe God exists.

And so you should understand why, when someone like me says that sending "messengers" is an absurd and ineffectively way to spread God's message, we aren't questioning God, we're questioning you and the inconsistencies we see in your arguments.

 

[PureX]

Messengers of God are human but they are also divine. They have a twofold nature.

We are all both human and divine. That's the essential point of Christianity.

Because Messengers of God have a divine nature they can understand God and receive His communication through the Holy Spirit.

So can we all. Again, this is a fundamental teaching of Christianity.

No ordinary human has a divine nature and that is why no ordinary human can understand God communicating to them directly.

We all have both that divine spirit of love, forgiveness, kindness and generosity within us, as well as the all too human spirit of fear, confusion, and selfishness. And it's up to us to choose which spirit we will embody at any given moment. There are no divine secrets to be revealed, only that ongoing choice. And as we choose, we determine and create who we are.

There are people that can verbalize this truth for others is a way that helps them to recognize and understand it. But they have received no special message. They simply saw what was obvious and spoke out about it eruditely.

 

[Trailblazer]

There are no big secret messages from God.

Everything you just said in your post is in the message of Baha'u'llah. Obviously, you do not need a Messenger to tell you these things because you are already enlightened, but most people are not like you, and that is why God sends Messengers, to guide the bulk of humanity who need guidance.

 

[osgart]

We are not the reason existence, exists. So the rest of existence does not serve our existence. Sometimes, it serves itself at our expense. We think this is unfair because we want existence to serve us, exclusively. But that aside, most human suffering happens by our own actions and by the actions of other humans. And this is neither God's nor existence' fault. It is entirely our own.

We could end the majority of human suffering, today. We have all the tools and knowhow to do it. But we lack the wisdom and the will. We have been given the ability in life to choose who we are and how we will live. There are no big secret messages from God. The choice is ours and it comes from within each of us. That is the message: you all decide, and you all suffer or enjoy the consequences.

I never think anymore that life is the reason for existence; there's too much senseless catastrophies that happen outside of human hands.

At some point the reason for existence is that its properties are a brute fact which may entail no reason at all. Perhaps purposes and reasons exist inside this brute fact which I believe they do.

Not everyone is given the ability to choose how they live, nor the skills and abilities to do better.

If life isn't a primary reason for existence then I do not owe my attention or submission to any God. However the point of my statement before and here was to evidence that there is no God.

I totally agree that humanity as a whole has the means and know how to care for all of humanity if that ever becomes a objective.

 

[Trailblazer]

We are all both human and divine. That's the essential point of Christianity.

Christians do not believe that they are divine. They believe that only Jesus was divine.
Christians believe that man only has one nature, a lower sinful nature and that is why Christians believe they needed Jesus to die on the cross for them.

Baha'is believe that humans have both a material or lower nature and a spiritual or higher nature and our spiritual nature is our Divine nature.

“In man there are two natures; his spiritual or higher nature and his material or lower nature. In one he approaches God, in the other he lives for the world alone. Signs of both these natures are to be found in men. In his material aspect he expresses untruth, cruelty and injustice; all these are the outcome of his lower nature. The attributes of his Divine nature are shown forth in love, mercy, kindness, truth and justice, one and all being expressions of his higher nature. Every good habit, every noble quality belongs to man’s spiritual nature, whereas all his imperfections and sinful actions are born of his material nature. If a man’s Divine nature dominates his human nature, we have a saint.”​

Paris Talks, p. 60​

​

THE TWO NATURES IN MAN​

So can we all. Again, this is a fundamental teaching of Christianity.

I do not believe that we can understand God without a mediator between ourselves and God and that is what Christianity teaches.

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;​

I do not believe we can receive 'communication' from God through the Holy Spirit, but I believe we can be guided by the Holy Spirit.

We all have both that divine spirit of love, forgiveness, kindness and generosity within us, as well as the all too human spirit of fear, confusion, and selfishness. And it's up to us to choose which spirit we will embody at any given moment. There are no divine secrets to be revealed, only that ongoing choice. And as we choose, we determine and create who we are.

All humans have a divine nature as I said above, but no ordinary human has the same kind of a divine nature that the Messengers of God have.
That is what I believe. I think that is what Christians also believe about Jesus, as the passage below says.

“Man, the noblest and most perfect of all created things, excelleth them all in the intensity of this revelation, and is a fuller expression of its glory. And of all men, the most accomplished, the most distinguished, and the most excellent are the Manifestations of the Sun of Truth. Nay, all else besides these Manifestations, live by the operation of Their Will, and move and have their being through the outpourings of Their grace.”​

Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 177​

There are people that can verbalize this truth for others is a way that helps them to recognize and understand it. But they have received no special message. They simply saw what was obvious and spoke out about it eruditely.

So you don't believe that Jesus received a special message from God? You believe he was just an ordinary human being?

 

[Trailblazer]

I never think anymore that life is the reason for existence; there's too much senseless catastrophies that happen outside of human hands.

At some point the reason for existence is that its properties are a brute fact which may entail no reason at all. Perhaps purposes and reasons exist inside this brute fact which I believe they do.

If life isn't a primary reason for existence then I do not owe my attention or submission to any God. However the point of my statement before and here was to evidence that there is no God.

I am kind of confused. Life is existence, so the reason we exist is because we are alive.
Do you mean that human life is not the reason for all of existence?

 

[osgart]

I am kind of confused. Life is existence, so the reason we exist is because we are alive.
Do you mean that human life is not the reason for all of existence?

I mean all life is not the reason for existence. Life is not existing in any privileged way whatsoever. To the contrary life exists against the grain of nature. Nature itself promotes hunter/prey survival. The civil harmony that anyone experiences is imposed upon nature by humans and human knowledge.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

That is all true, but my question still stands: Who are we to question God and how He operates?

If God is All-Knowing and All-Wise then we have to assume that God knows what He is doing.
If God is not All-Knowing and All-Wise then why even bother to believe in His existence?

Until there is no denying the existence of a God in the way that you described, it’s not really questioning the actions of an unquestionable entity, it’s questioning the actions of a supposed entity.

We know that God is supposedly all-knowing and all-powerful as you’ve described here, and we know God’s intention is to get the most people to hear and understand His message as possible.

I think it’s a fair question why God would choose to go the route of messenger instead of talking directly to the individual. It’s also a fair question why “God seems so clutsy”. It isn’t about what us wanting or expecting God to do more, nobody here that doesn’t believe in this God could care to hear from Him anymore than they would care to hear from Santa. It’s a question of why does God “want everyone to know what he wants them to know” but simultaneously “most people don’t hear God’s message”?

 

[Trailblazer]

So then you ought to understand that many people will not have accepted the conclusions you have.

I understand that most people will not accept my conclusions.

Questioning the validity of a purported "messenger" and what they preach isn't "questioning God" until such time as:

- the person doing the questioning accepts that God exists at all,
- the person accepts that the purported "messenger" is genuine,
- the person accepts that the preaching being attributed to the purported "messenger" is something they actually said, and
- the person accepts that the preaching really did come from God.

Fair enough.

I don't care. This isn't about you; it's about the frame of mind of the people you're talking to.

Fair enough. I was speaking from my own experience. I can only speak for myself, not for other people.

You do understand that there are plenty of people who don't accept that any particular message from Baha'u'llah - or whoever - didn't actually come from God, right?

Of course I understand that most people do not accept that the message from Baha'u'llah came from God. Only a tiny fraction of the population accepts it. The same was true when Jesus first walked the earth.

And so you should understand why, when someone like me says that sending "messengers" is an absurd and ineffectively way to spread God's message, we aren't questioning God, we're questioning you and the inconsistencies we see in your arguments.

I can only tell you how 'I believe' God communicates, by sending Messengers, and why I believe God communicates that way.
I have asked repeatedly on this forum what people think would be a *better method* for God to communicate to humans and thus far nobody has come up with a better method.

Please bear in mind that the method must work to make the message 'available' to everyone in order to qualify. I am not saying the message will be believed by everyone, but that is completely irrelevant, because onece the message is delivered the ball is in the human court and they alone are responsible for accepting or rejecting it.

Also please bear in mind that if God exists there is no evidence that God has communicated to humans in any other way except Messengers. You can call them what you like, holy men. prophets, etc., but the point is that they are men who act as intermediaries between God and humans.

Logic alone should tell you that if God has never communicated to humans in any other way, the method God has used had to be the *best way* for God to communicate to humans. Moreover, only God would know the best way since only God is omniscient.

 

[Trailblazer]

Until there is no denying the existence of a God in the way that you described, it’s not really questioning the actions of an unquestionable entity, it’s questioning the actions of a supposed entity.

Correct.

We know that God is supposedly all-knowing and all-powerful as you’ve described here, and we know God’s intention is to get the most people to hear and understand His message as possible.

We don't know that God’s intention is to get the most people to hear and understand His message as possible. Nobody knows what God's intention is, people only 'assume' they know. We also don't know what God's timeline is.

I think it’s a fair question why God would choose to go the route of messenger instead of talking directly to the individual. It’s also a fair question why “God seems so clutsy”. It isn’t about what us wanting or expecting God to do more, nobody here that doesn’t believe in this God could care to hear from Him anymore than they would care to hear from Santa. It’s a question of why does God “want everyone to know what he wants them to know” but simultaneously “most people don’t hear God’s message”?

If God delivered a message via Baha'u'llah and most people don't hear that message whose fault is that? We could lay part of the blame on the Baha'is not doing their job of getting the message out, but even after we get the message out it is usually rejected. That is not God's fault, Baha'u'llah's fault, or the Baha'is fault. It may be nobody's fault but it is just the reality of the situation, at least in the present day. It has been promised by Baha'u'llah that in the future everyone will know of Him and His message, but the future is not here yet.

I think it is a fair question to ask why God would reveal the same exact message to 7.9 billion individuals as He revealed to a Messenger, when God can instead deliver it to one Messenger who can disseminate that message to all of the 7.9 billion people in the world.

It is also a fair question to ask why you think all of the 7.9 billion people in the world could understand what Baha'u'llah understood and write it all down, the 15,000 Tablets that He wrote over the course of 40 years.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

How do Baha’is see atheists?​

I assume with eyes or some other ocular organ.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Correct.

We don't know that God’s intention is to get the most people to hear and understand His message as possible. Nobody knows what God's intention is, people only 'assume' they know. We also don't know what God's timeline is.

That's a fair point, and I agree we do not know what God's intention is. But I would take it that if God sends messenger's the purpose of that is to send a message for mankind to know.

If God delivered a message via Baha'u'llah and most people don't hear that message whose fault is that? We could lay part of the blame on the Baha'is not doing their job of getting the message out, but even after we get the message out it is usually rejected. That is not God's fault, Baha'u'llah's fault, or the Baha'is fault. It may be nobody's fault but it is just the reality of the situation, at least in the present day. It has been promised by Baha'u'llah that in the future everyone will know of Him and His message, but the future is not here yet.

I would say that if no human is to blame for it, then God is. God is the one who performed the action (sending the messenger), and if most people don't hear that message or accept it who is to blame except God? Atheists cannot be blamed, because they simply do not believe the man. Baha'is cannot be blamed, because they are actively spreading the message. The messenger is not at fault, because he did his part. I would say the fault lies in the means (sending the messenger).

I think it is a fair question to ask why God would reveal the same exact message to 7.9 billion individuals as He revealed to a Messenger, when God can instead deliver it to one Messenger who can disseminate that message to all of the 7.9 billion people in the world.

Have you heard of a little game called "Telephone"? I used to play that when I was young, sitting around a campfire with a circle of people. One person would whisper something into the 2nd person's ear, and the 2nd person would whisper it into the 3rd person's, etc. Along the way this message could get distorted for various reasons: Someone misheard the other, someone misspoken, someone along the way just wanted to say something completely different to mess with everyone...

My point is, this is how it always goes when you deliver messages through a middle man. When someone is not direct about what they want to say, even God, then there is bound to be misunderstanding or people who do not believe the middle man.

In fact, the same issues that would come from sending the exact message to 7.9 billion individuals are faced when the Messenger sends the message to these 7.9 billion individuals, except with the added on issues of having a middle man send the messages.

It is also a fair question to ask why you think all of the 7.9 billion people in the world could understand what Baha'u'llah understood and write it all down, the 15,000 Tablets that He wrote over the course of 40 years.

Why would they need to write it all down when they have the revelation? I suppose if there was a need to, there'd be more people to write these revelations. We could perhaps produce 1 billion tablets!

 

[Trailblazer]

That's a fair point, and I agree we do not know what God's intention is. But I would take it that if God sends messenger's the purpose of that is to send a message for mankind to know.

That is the purpose, but that does not mean everyone is going to recognize the messenger and know the message within any given time frame.

I would say that if no human is to blame for it, then God is. God is the one who performed the action (sending the messenger), and if most people don't hear that message or accept it who is to blame except God? Atheists cannot be blamed, because they simply do not believe the man. Baha'is cannot be blamed, because they are actively spreading the message. The messenger is not at fault, because he did his part. I would say the fault lies in the means (sending the messenger).

To say that God is to blame is completely illogical because God is infallible so God cannot make any mistakes. Moreover, God is All-Knowing and All-Wise so God knows the best way to deliver a message to humans. By contrast, humans are fallible so humans can and do make mistakes. So if Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God and atheists, or those of other religions, do not recognize Him as such then they have made a mistake. We all make mistakes since nobody is perfect.

The fault cannot lie in the means (sending the messenger) since God cannot be at fault because God is inerrant. The expectation that more people would have recognized Baha'u'llah by now is a false expectation since there is no reason to think they would, given all the impediments in their way.

Below are the seven reasons why more people have not recognized Baha’u’llah yet.
None of them have anything to do with God or Baha'u'llah. All of them are related to human behavior.

1. Many people have never heard of Baha’u’llah, so they do not know there is something to look for. It is the responsibility of the Baha’is to get the message out, so if that is not happening, the Baha’is are to blame. However, once the message has been delivered the Baha’is are not to blame if people reject the message.​

​

2. But even after people know about Baha’u’llah, most people are not even willing to look the evidence in order to determine if He was a Messenger of God or not.​

​

3. Even if they are willing to look at the evidence, there is a lot of prejudice before even getting out the door to look at the evidence.​

​

4. 84% of people in the world already have a religion and they are happy with their religion so they have no interest in a “new religion” or a new Messenger of God.​

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5. The rest of the world’s population is agnostics or atheists or believers who are prejudiced against all religion.​

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6. Agnostics or atheists and atheists and believers who have no religion either do not believe that God communicates via Messengers or they find fault with the Messenger, Baha’u’llah.​

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7. Baha’u’llah brought new teachings and laws that are very different from the older religions so many people are suspicious of those teachings and/or don’t like the laws because some laws require them to give things up that they like doing.​

Have you heard of a little game called "Telephone"? I used to play that when I was young, sitting around a campfire with a circle of people. One person would whisper something into the 2nd person's ear, and the 2nd person would whisper it into the 3rd person's, etc. Along the way this message could get distorted for various reasons: Someone misheard the other, someone misspoken, someone along the way just wanted to say something completely different to mess with everyone...

My point is, this is how it always goes when you deliver messages through a middle man. When someone is not direct about what they want to say, even God, then there is bound to be misunderstanding or people who do not believe the middle man.

God was direct in what He wanted to say to Baha'u'llah so there need not be any misunderstandings regarding the messages that came from God through Baha'u'llah. Moreover, the Tablets were written in His own pen as the revelation was received from God, unlike any of the older religions whose scriptures were written by men many decades later, often by unnamed men.

Obviously there are going to be people who don't believe the messenger, that is unavoidable, but if God spoke to people directly there would be no way for anyone to know it was actually God speaking. Some people would not believe it was God and some people might think they were having auditory hallucinations.

In fact, the same issues that would come from sending the exact message to 7.9 billion individuals are faced when the Messenger sends the message to these 7.9 billion individuals, except with the added on issues of having a middle man send the messages.

If God spoke to everyone directly people would interpret what God said with different minds so they would not all understand the message the same way. It is no different with the messenger. People interpret what He wrote using their own minds so there are some slight differences in understanding what He wrote. However, there are no 'added issues' of using a middleman except that people have to recognize that middleman as a Messenger of God. That is the biggest issue that I see.

Why would they need to write it all down when they have the revelation? I suppose if there was a need to, there'd be more people to write these revelations. We could perhaps produce 1 billion tablets!

If they did not write it down, how would they remember it next week, next year, 10 years from now? There is a reason why Baha'u'llah wrote scriptures, since they will be needed for generations to come for at least the next 1,000 years, until another Messenger appears.

 

[F1fan]

Messengers of God are human but they are also divine. They have a twofold nature.

“Unto this subtle, this mysterious and ethereal Being He hath assigned a twofold nature; the physical, pertaining to the world of matter, and the spiritual, which is born of the substance of God Himself. He hath, moreover, conferred upon Him a double station. The first station, which is related to His innermost reality, representeth Him as One Whose voice is the voice of God Himself. To this testifieth the tradition: “Manifold and mysterious is My relationship with God. I am He, Himself, and He is I, Myself, except that I am that I am, and He is that He is.” …. The second station is the human station, exemplified by the following verses: “I am but a man like you.” “Say, praise be to my Lord! Am I more than a man, an apostle?”​

Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 66-67​

Because Messengers of God have a divine nature they can understand God and receive His communication through the Holy Spirit.

I just don't see your messenger being good enough. If a God exists I can't see it being a bigot, meaning anti-gay. That is a huge disappointment, and my morals require me to reject anyone whose morals are that low.

 

[F1fan]

That is the purpose, but that does not mean everyone is going to recognize the messenger and know the message within any given time frame.

To say that God is to blame is completely illogical because God is infallible so God cannot make any mistakes. Moreover, God is All-Knowing and All-Wise so God knows the best way to deliver a message to humans. By contrast, humans are fallible so humans can and do make mistakes. So if Baha'u'llah was a Messenger of God and atheists, or those of other religions, do not recognize Him as such then they have made a mistake. We all make mistakes since nobody is perfect.

So could it be that Baha'u'llah was the bigot, not God? If so, why would God pick a bigot for a messenger? None of this makes sense.