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The Exclusivity of Christianity
- Thread starter Trailblazer
- Start date
So God could create humans capable of communication but decided not to, and won't change his mind. That's on God. And since Messengers are not effective, that is on God too.
Why? It's not working. Messengers are middlemen.
I'll bet the messengers claim this.
Baseless claim. The word "soul" is not clear, nor something anyone can refer to as a real thing. It's better as a metaphor.
Your choices make your idea of God weak. You chose to believe that God can't communicate with people except messengers, and the only reason is that it is what God intended. Why? It's not workling. God made a foolish decision. That he's not fixing it is more bad decison-making.
Of course you have few potions but to form and believe a God that has to be consistent with reality, and that is that people don't hear from gods. Still, your fellow believers claim they do. So are you wrong, or are they, or both of you? It's more likley that all theists are wrong because if a God exists as believers say it would have an interest is fixing this mess.
Don't feel left out, the Baha'i have plenty of drama too.
You have a lot of opinions. I understand the Bible as a book written by many humans, and is significant in history. All the theists who have an axe to grind because they have a claim on the Bible are involved in massive drama that sees no way out.
If it is effective for messengers, why not all humans? The "messenger as middleman" is weak, and opens the door for doubt. You admit that God, but choses not to, for reasons you don't reveal. The reason is likley that in your choice of religion offers you no choice.
LOL. This is the same dilemma your messenger has. At least a sign in the sky could be done in a way that science couldn't explain, that would impress atheists. But, messenger (who we can't discern isn't a fraud)
Well not knowning a God exists means all that follows is nothing more than guessing. That's religion.
Yet you never know. That's gambling.
CG Didymus
Veteran Member
Not all of those people that Baha'is claim were manifestations/messengers made that claim of themselves. It's a Baha'i thing. Lots of things are Baha'i things, which shows the inconsistency between the messages between these supposed messengers. They all said different things. And some of those that Baha'is claim are manifestation didn't claim that of themselves, and they weren't claimed to be by the religion from where they came from. It is completely a Baha'i doctrine about progressive revelation that makes them necessarily, to the Baha'is, to be manifestations.
Adam is probably the worst one that Baha'is say was a manifestation. As if he was even a real person and not just a mythical character. But if he was real, the Bible story doesn't make him to be pre-existent. He is made of clay and God breathed into him and he became a living soul.
But like other religions that believe they have the absolute truth direct from God through their prophet, Baha'is naturally believe they can't be wrong. It must be all of us and all those people in the other religions that disagree with them. Which makes them, to me, claiming to be just as exclusive as the most fundamentalist and literalist Christian.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
As I have already demonstrated Messengers have been effective in garnering the belief of almost everyone in the world.
84 percent of the world population has a faith and because most faiths have a religious Founder or what I call a Messenger that means most people believe in God because of a Messenger. It does not matter if you call them a Messenger; they are holy men who founded the religions, so they are intermediaries between God and man. Sure, there are a few believers who believe in God but not a Messenger but that is not the norm.
The point is that with no men who act as "intermediaries" (middlemen) between God and man very few people would believe in God.
Atheists choose not to believe in the Messengers that is on them, not on God.
As noted above it is working, and it is working because Messengers are middlemen.
With no middlemen, very few people in the world would believe in God.
Maybe they do, but how else would we know, given they are the only ones who speak for God?
The soul is real but we cannot know the nature of the soul, as it is a mystery. We can only know the function of the soul.
I did not say that God cannot communicate with people except by Messengers, I said that nobody except Messengers could understand communication from God.
It IS working for all but a small percentage of the population who reject the Messengers, so it is good decision-making.
According to sociologists Ariela Keysar and Juhem Navarro-Rivera's review of numerous global studies on atheism, there are 450 to 500 million positive atheists and agnostics worldwide (7% of the world's population), with China having the most atheists in the world (200 million convinced atheists). Demographics of atheism - Wikipedia
God has no interest in fixing the mess that humans created because it is not His job.
I am not involved in the Bible drama, I only watch from the sidelines. It is not much more than entertainment for me.
This drama will never end till people accept Baha'u'llah. It is only then that people will put the Bible on the shelf where it belongs, since it no longer applies to the age we are living in.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I already explained why God does not communicate to all humans. One reason is because God chooses not to, the other reason is because it would accomplish nothing since only Messengers can understand communication from God.
The "messenger as middleman" requires faith and that is another reason God uses Messengers, God wants our faith.
Once we have faith and it is strong enough we have no doubts.
Even if science could not explain it that would not prove it came from God. There are lots of things science cannot explain.
So, what would the sign say besides "I'm God and I exist?" What good would it to know that God exists, if that is all you know?
A better sign would say ""I'm God and Baha'u'llah is my Messenger." At least then you would then be able to read what Baha'u'llah wrote and know it came from God.
What follows from religion is that God exists so there is no guessing.
You are gambling and the stakes are very high if you are wrong.
If I am wrong, I have on only lost the time I put into the forum, but if I am right.....
Ella S.
Well-Known Member
Are you saying that God has intentionally chosen not to reveal sufficient evidence for his existence or for the veracity of his messengers because he wants people to believe on faith? How would you define faith?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, that is not what I am saying.
God has not intentionally chosen not to reveal sufficient evidence for His existence, since the messengers are sufficient evidence for the existence of God.
God has not intentionally chosen not to reveal sufficient evidence for the veracity of his messengers, since there is sufficient evidence for the veracity of his messengers.
I define faith as believing what cannot be proven. Although we have sufficient evidence to believe in God and the messengers, it can never be proven that God exists or that God sent messengers.
Ella S.
Well-Known Member
What is the sufficient evidence for the veracity of His messengers? If there is such evidence, then I have either not seen it or I am misinformed regarding its reliability.
PureX
Veteran Member
It doesn't really matter, since we connot experience or understand reality "objectively". It's not possible as we are the subjects experiencing and understanding everything according to ourselves.
Of course it is. Were we not consciously aware of it as an idea in our mind it becomes an objective nothingness. The essence of 'moot'.
Not one of them thinks that. All theist know that God is an ideal that is being expressed through what we commonly call 'objective reality'.
The experience of deity is an incredibly common human experience. Every culture in every time has this ideological experience. As do the huge majority of humans alive today.
I have posted more effective methods as have others, including writing in the sky before that was technically feasible. And your objection fails, since it applies to the method you extol as well. I have no reason to believe that the words that you accept as coming from a god actually do. They look like words that any of us could right, verily I sayeth.
Something that has still never been established that this deity presumably wants known. The argument is that what you call knowledge of God is not believed to be that by the overwhelming majority of people that live or have ever lived, and that that defines the medium of messenger to have been ineffective again, and argues against the involvement of a tri-omni deity.
It doesn't matter what it is claimed a god says if we don't know that this god exists.
There is no due diligence that establishes what you accept as true. Writing the phrase isn't convincing. Besides, I know what you call critical thinking. It's however you think.
And since it isn't the most effective method (it may be the least effective, but your prophets didn't have a lot of options), a god didn't choose it.
No, the prejudice is the process. The critical thinker won't deviate from the rules of reason applied to evidence, and he won't accept claims that aren't soundly supported. What he expects to see if he is true to the process is a sound conclusion, whatever that might be.
Most atheists are agnostic atheists, and say that they don't believe a god exists, which is different. Regarding gods, some believe yes and some believe no, but enlightened people believe neither, since the claim that undetectable gods exist is metaphysical (unfalsifiable), and therefore neither right nor wrong, but rather, "not even wrong"
This is defending ego from being absorbed by a religious belief that considers subverting the self to the will of an alleged god a virtue. When the religious complain about ego in others, it's generally in the context of them being unwilling to believe by faith.
It's been done by several. You are uninterested in the answers, just in asking the question, so it must be a rhetorical question for you, which is a statement in question form and not a request for information.
I had suggested, " just infusing knowledge directly into memory like a cosmic download? Or better yet, have that message installed at the factory (in the womb)" as one of a few better methods for a tri-omni deity to deliver a message, and now you ask the above. You really don't want an answer. For those who do, it would be because it wants to be known and believed, and apparently the brain and free will aren't enough. Also, so that it can distinguish itself from a fictitious god if it actually exists.
They could if they could infuse the education that diploma represents into them immediately before.
Yes, I know. That's the problem with using them as messengers. They sound like they're deluded or lying.
Yes, but your conclusion shows that you didn't apply the laws of reasoning without fallacy. It's simply a fact that no sound argument concludes, "therefore God," meaning that if one holds such a belief, he must have come to it by faith, not reason (critical analysis). You frequently say such things about your methods, as when you referred to due diligence, but the proof is in the pudding. Others looking at the same evidence as you say it doesn't add up the way you think. You're in the same position as somebody who misadded a column of numbers complaining that their method was sound. If he came up with a wrong sum, he did it wrong, whatever he says about dilligence or critical analysis.
This is pretty weak apologetics. You say that God communicates to man repeatedly and uses the best method available to him, but that he "never intended to communicate to all humans."
That's a superfluous concept that explains nothing and lacks evidentiary support. The brain is the source of human drives and ambitions.
"God" has no job. There is nothing we need a god to account for, and insufficient reason to believe that one exists or does anything. It's been pointed out to you repeatedly that this god is like Sagan's dragon in the garage, which also does nothing and is also undetectable even in principle. When something is indistinguishable from the nonexistent, it should be treated as nonexistent. If it ever manifests in some way, then the matter can be revisited.
This isn't a reason. You need to explain WHY God chooses not to. Watever the reason him using only a few messengers isn't effective or reliable. This is a choice an incompetent God would do, or one that wanted chaos.
Seriously? God communicataing directly with people instead of middlement would accomplish nothing?
Faith is unreliable and rational minds know not to rely on it as it is flawed. Look at your posts here, your reasons are terrible and unjustified. We know you are not posting your beliefs via facts, rather what you accept on faith from dubious religious sources. I know you think more highy of your ability than critical thinkers do, but you do not offer good explanations, and faith is notoriously unreliable as a fact.
Where science and reason come nto play a God is irrelevant. Why? Because there is not credible evidence for any Gods, which even you admit sometimes.
Why not? As long as the message is something that science cannot explain and defies the laws of phsyics. That would be massively more credible than middlemen claiming they talked to a God.
That's self-serving. And that would violate that version of God's rules of only using a messenger, so why suggest it? And what if the message said he wasn't authentic? Oooops. Don't want to even consider that, do you?
Religions are not fact based, so the guessing is inevitable. That;s why you need faith instead of reasoning.
No I'm not, as I opt out of the whole religion game. Why should I feel anxiety because religious traditions claim things that they can't show are true in reality? They can't even demonstrate any Gods exist, so what basis do they have to claim anything?
Of course many don't have the freedom to opt out due to the biological impulse to believe, and being conditioned to believe in one type of religion and not the others.
Yeah, you have wasted a lot of time and mental devotion to implausible ideas that you think is truth. If you find belief and devotion meaningful, then knock yourself out. To my way of thinking it is a category of hobby. The difference of religion as an activity humans do is that there is not much that is tangible, like collecting stamps has.
How does that indicate that messengers have the truth versus humans seeking meaning can be gullible?
You should know this is a fallacy. And science explains how the human brian evolved to believe as an advantage to survival. And also how the impulse to conform to social norms is a strong formitive pattern of human behavior. Most humans believe in their tradition of religious belief because that is how they learn to behave.
To use your fallacy above, the vast majority of religious believers choose not to believe in your messenger. What does that tell you?
The same result as if there is no actual Gods.
Because I defer to th logical default which is to not accept claims UNTIL they are shown to be true, or at least likely true. Religious claims are notoriously weak in the the evidence department. You believers insist it is good enough, but if that is the case why are there so many different religions and beliefs? It appears to be a lot of bias on the part of any given believer.
If it is real why hasn't science described it? Until they do your claim above is untrue.
And you also said that God chose not to communicate with all humans. You have yet to explain why. What you claim is exactly what a fraudulent middleman would say. Humans are by default left to either accept the middleman or demand a very high level of evidence. You admit that you use faith, not reason. Of course you will respond to this by claiming you do use reason, but you will fail to prove this in any way. You are proud and stubborn. Mr. Hyde cometh.
More claims without evidence. Believers all over the world have their own beliefs based on faith, and you offer them nothing more credible. Why should they switch one implausible framework for another implausible framework?
And there are what, 5 million Baha'i globally? So there are vastly more atheists than Baha'i, yet you will cite how some 84% of the world are believers as if that majority means something? You can't have it both ways.
If God is the creator, then God is responsible for what it created. It's in your interest to hold your idea of God blameless. This is the only way what we observe can go one without intervention from any God. Notice there being no God at all would have the same result.
You have decided to align with a fringe religion, but it has its own type of drama that you are caught up in. You play Jeckl and Hyde when it suits your mood. Sometimes you are exceptionally rational and correct, and other times you go full on faith-based believer making one irrational claim after another. It's obvious you get more defensive and theistic when your beliefs are discussed, but when the discussion is more broad you are more objective.
Then we had better get used to the drama. Why? Because theists tend to believe due to tradition of belief and confomrity to their social norms. And baha'i offers very little for anyone to convert. In my assessment the Baha'i on RF are rebels looking for a fringe theological home, and this is not a common trait among most believers. I suggest more people accept Humanism, because it is objective and non-religious, so won't compete with what theists already believe. Baha'i doesn't offer anything better than Humanism does.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
You have posted what you believe would be more effective, but you have never explained why people would have ever believed that writing in the sky was from God, since it could never be verified to have come from God, not any more than Messengers can be verified to have come from God.
And of course all of what was in scriptures could have ever been written in the sky and studied and read, which is your major problem.
It is a moot point since it could never be verified that any writing in the sky came from God. Some people might believe it did, but some people would not believe it did, so it is no different than Messenger communication!
If the deity wanted to be known by everyone the deity could accomplish that. Baha'u'llah wrote that, and then He explained why the deity does not operate that way.
God does want to be known, and the evidence that God provides, Messengers, are how we can know God.
Since God doesn't prove that He exists, but rather provides evidence that He exists, then all doubts about God's existence are on the people who reject the evidence that God provided.
The reason that God does not prove He exists is noted below.
“He Who is the Day Spring of Truth is, no doubt, fully capable of rescuing from such remoteness wayward souls and of causing them to draw nigh unto His court and attain His Presence. “If God had pleased He had surely made all men one people.” His purpose, however, is to enable the pure in spirit and the detached in heart to ascend, by virtue of their own innate powers, unto the shores of the Most Great Ocean, that thereby they who seek the Beauty of the All-Glorious may be distinguished and separated from the wayward and perverse. Thus hath it been ordained by the all-glorious and resplendent Pen…” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 71
In the context of the passage above, If God had pleased He had surely made all men one people means that God could have made all people believers, but if God has pleased implies that God did not please to make all people into believers, which is why all men are not believers.
The passage goes on to say why God didn’t please to make all men believers... In short, God wants all men to make a sincere effort and become believers by their own efforts (by virtue of their own innate powers). God wants to separate those people from the others who are unwilling to put forth any effort.
The fact that most people either don't know about or have thus far rejected the Messenger that God sent doesn't mean that God was ineffective.
God has provided the updated information so now the ball is in humanity's court.
The primary reason that Baha'u'llah has been rejected is because most people already have a religion that they adhere to and cling to. Not God's fault.
That's true, but the only way you are going to know that God exists is via the Messenger God sent.
It is the most effective method, because by this method most people believe in God.
84 percent of the world population has a faith.
Because most faiths have a religious Founder or what I call a Messenger that means most people believe in God because of a Messenger.
You have not come up with a more effective method yet, nobody has. I have posted more than one thread on this forum asking what would be a more effective method for God to communicate and so far nobody has come up with one.
No, it has not been done and defended with any kind of reasoning. You just say God could do x or y.
It cannot be defended on an logical basis because if God exists we know that God did not use any of these methods you and others have suggested, so logically, that means that if God exists God would not use any of those methods.
There are only three logical possibilities given the evidence of God that we have.
1. God exists and uses Messengers to communicate, or
2. God exists and does not communicate with humans, or
3. God does not exist
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I cannot explain why God chooses to do anything since I do not know the mind of God.
I can only use my logical reasoning to figure out why God uses Messengers.
It would accomplish absolutely nothing since nobody could ever understand direct communication from God.
Any rational mind would deduce that faith is necessary when proof is impossible. God does not prove He exists so proof is impossible.
Thus God is either believed on faith - coupled with evidence that God provides - or God is not believed at all. You can choose either.
It might be more credible to you and some others, but the middlemen are credible to most people, and that is one reason God uses them.
I was only joking, but if there was going to be writing in the sky and all it said was "I am God and I exist" that would not accomplish anything.
It was someone else who once suggested that if there was going to be a sign in the sky it should say "I am God and Baha'u'llah is my Messenger."
And you and some other atheists have wasted a lot of your time telling believers that we are wrong and why. If I was an athesist I would be out enjoying the one life you believe we have, not on a religious forum talking to believers. It is different for me since I have something I actually believe is the truth, and even if people don't believe me it is my job to share it, although I'd much rather be doing something else with my time.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I never said that the fact that most people believe in messengers means they have the truth.
I know it only too well. I never said that the fact that most people believe in messengers means they have the truth because that would be fallacious.
But when people tell me that messenger communication has failed to garner belief I have to point out that it has not failed as a method of communication to garner belief in God.
I am not using that fallacy to say that God exists or that a religion is true just because many or most people believe it.
In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so." Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia
The converse of this is that if many or most people do not believe it, it cannot be so, and that is fallacious.
Matthew 7:13-14 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
There are reasons why few people find it.
If you use logic and reason you would realize that few people find the narrow gate and even fewer people enter through it because it is narrow, so it is difficult to get through...
It is difficult to get through because one has to be willing to give up all their preconceived ideas, have an open mind, and think for themselves. Most people do not embark upon such a journey. They go through the wide gate, the easy one to get through – their own religious tradition or their own preconceived ideas about God or no god. They follow that broad road that is easiest for them to travel.... and that is why the NEW religion is always rejected by most people for a very long time after it has been revealed.
I need no messenger to tell me that God chooses not to communicate with all humans, all I need is empirical observation.
If God chose to communicate with all humans all humans would say that God communicated to them, but all humans don't say that.
I have explained why God does not communicate with all humans, it is becaue no humans except the messengers, who are both divine and human, can understand God communicating to them.
No, I never said I believe on faith, I always say I believe on evidence and faith. I have to have faith in what can never be proven to exist, and God can never be proven to exist. That means that Messengers can never be proven to have received messages from God, so I have to believe in them on the evidence and faith.
Indeed, why should they switch religions when they already have a religion. Most people have a religion and that is why the Baha'i Faith is not believed by most people who know about it.
I already explained above that the number of people who believe something has nothing to do with whether it is true or not.
Atheism could be true in spite of the small numbers of atheists, just as the Baha'i Faith can be true despite the small numbers of Baha'is.
However, if you look at the whole picture, all the religions in the world, it is highly unlikely that thye were all made up by men and that there is no God behind them. That does not comport with logic and reason.
Truthseeker
Non-debating member when I can help myself
He could if He wanted to, but God chooses for us to become spiritually enlightened partly on our own efforts. If He communicated with us directly too much of that would be taken away from us. There has to be the risk that we will be "evil", so to speak, for us to earn our place in Paradise, which is nearness to the Holy Spirit. I suppose if He communicaed directly with us, we could turn from Him, but it would be much less, in my opinion. Let us let God determine what the level of risk of being "evil" would be.
Truthseeker
Non-debating member when I can help myself
See #317 above for my answer to this, which differs. I believe that God could "whisper in our ear" or something like that. I recall I story now where Thomas Breakwell heard a voice say "Christ has returned. Christ has returned".
I described a more effective way of communicating than what was used. People might listen to a prophet if he could tell them in advance that his source would be writing something in the sky to validate his claim.
Why do you keep posting this kind of thing to unbelievers? I asked you before about your not seeming to be able to assimilate that I am an atheist. You say you know that, but then you present me with words that only another Baha'i would find meaningful. I don't read these passages, and I doubt that any other skeptics do, either, since they also don't consider it authentic (I'm referring to the deity now and not the messenger, who I don't doubt is the author of the words).
Trivia - there is a difference between authentic and genuine which is reflected in their roots. Authentic, which is related to author. means originating from the source claimed, and genuine, which is related to genus, means that the thing is what it appears to be or is claimed to be. A forged painting is inauthentic, since it didn't come from the source claimed. A zirconia sold as a diamond is ingenuine because its not made of the substance claimed. For completeness sake, both are real as opposed to imagined. It's a real painting and a real stone.
You'll find people straying from this dichotomy and using the words synonymously, and there are no doubt dictionary entries already that blur the distinction, but this is a useful way at looking at and using those words, and was once considered the only proper usage.
Yes it does. Since I'm on an etymology roll, effective is related to efficient. The more of the intended audience reached, the more effective the means of communicating, and vice versa.
That doesn't work.
But that's the question being decided - whether this god exists. If it doesn't, then logically, it didn't use any method.
Incidentally, a fellow Baha'i recently wrote, "If the omnipotent God wanted to show a sign that convinces everyone, He can. How could He not be able?" What would you say to him? What you wrote to me above? I'd link you to it, but that might be a forum infraction.
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PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
What has the Messenger method achieved? Only half of the believers are monotheist. And only half of the the monotheists have the same concept of God, his will, salvation...
Yes, believers have faith but they don't know God personally. 99,99 % don't have a personal experience. Is this good communication?