Yes, of course, you have criteria. As does everyone else who believes in "messengers," including the ones you don't accept.
But that does not mean my criteria is wrong or that my Messengers are wrong (or that their criteria is wrong or that their Messengers are wrong.).
It's his problem if he wants to claim to be just while punishing people who don't believe in him when he hides from them.
Again, it is not God’s problem, but God does not have problems, since God is fully self-sufficient and fully self-sustaining, so God has NO need for our belief nor does it matter to God if we think He is unjust.
I never said that God punishes anyone. But God only hides His Essence, His attributes are visible in His Messengers and His will is revealed through Them.
If you actually believe that the best way to communicate with people, or convince them you even exist and aren't just words on a page, is to send intermediaries to talk on your behalf, then I have no clue why you're talking to me right now. You should have an intermediary talk to me and tell me what you think about things, since that's obviously so much more effective.
That is the ONLY WAY God can communicate to humans, because God is not a man so God cannot talk to humans. That is why God sends Intermediaries.
That is why Jesus said: John 14:6
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” I do not have to get an intermediary because I am a human being so I am an intermediary, a messenger for the Messenger so to speak.
Please do not waste your time using that argument on me, as you are grasping at straws.
I wasn't using an argument, I was pointing out how silly it would be for you to use a numbers-based argument. It appears you agree that's silly, so we're square.
Actually I do, I have a degree in it and went to grad school to study it for a couple years. But go ahead, dazzle me with your psychological expertise.
I do not pretend to have psychological expertise, and even though I have an MA in Counseling Psychology, I did not work in the field for various personal reasons, not the least of which is that I had an MA degree in another field and a stable career working in that field. But nevertheless I am very interested in psychology, more so than in religion.
Yeah, just like you. Exactly my point.
I have no reason to give up my religion, since it is hot off the press, not thousands of years old. It never ceases to amaze me how illogical people are, but that is what happens when people are emotionally attached to their religions, usually ones they were brought up in.
Logically speaking, all God needs to do to clarify all this misrepresentation and confusion, right here right now, is show up and explain himself. But your religion has invented an arbitrary reason why he can't do that, and thus we must deal with middle men. Again, God's problem.
God cannot show up on Earth and talk because God is Spirit. That is some kind of fantasy.
God did exactly that when he sent Baha’u’llah, God explained Himself… Baha’u’llah unsealed the Bible and explained what it means (Daniel 12). Daniel 12:4 says
“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” The lack of understanding of the Bible is precisely why there are so many Christians that ran to and fro, which resulted in the many factions of Christianity, and this lack of understanding is also why the church had to hold councils to decide upon the doctrines Christians would follow for the next 2000 years.
The Bible was never intended by God to be fully understood until the time of the end. That is why Daniel 12:9 says
“And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.”Then Daniel 12:12 says
“Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days” which is when the book would be unsealed.
The 2,300 years came in 1844, the exact year the Bab came to announce the coming of Baha’u’llah, and the book was unsealed.
My religion did not invent the middlemen. They have always existed, even though other religions do not refer to them that way, how do you think those religions were founded?
Fascinating. I'm gonna need more than Baha'u'llah's say so, though, if you want me to buy that. Call me crazy.
I would not call you crazy. I had to do a lot of investigation before I believed that Bahaullah was a Manifestation of God. What you or anyone else should need, according to Baha’u’llah, is to investigate His claim to be a Manifestation of God (Messenger).
“Bahá’u’lláh asked no one to accept His statements and His tokens blindly. On the contrary, He put in the very forefront of His teachings emphatic warnings against blind acceptance of authority, and urged all to open their eyes and ears, and use their own judgement, independently and fearlessly, in order to ascertain the truth. He enjoined the fullest investigation and never concealed Himself, offering, as the supreme proofs of His Prophethood, His words and works and their effects in transforming the lives and characters of men.” Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, p. 8
Yes, religions have founders. That's a completely mundane, obvious observation that doesn't actually explain the mechanism by which people adopt the faith they do. To say that Christianity is the largest religion in the world "because Jesus founded it" is one-dimensional and silly.
No, I am not saying that is WHY Christianity is large, a process took place that caused the religion to spread. But Christianity has held its ground because there is something about Jesus that attracted Christians to become Christians and still does to this very day. Just look at what Christians say about Jesus on this forum. The same is true for Baha’is and Baha’u’llah and Muslims and Muhammad. I do not know as much about Jews and Moses.
"Man" is composed of individual men. If individuals can't choose what they believe, then "Man" can't as a generalization, either.
All men or women can’t believe in God, for various and sundry reasons, and I tend to think God understands that because Baha’u’llah wrote that we all have different
capacities and are only responsible for using those capacities.
“From the exalted source, and out of the essence of His favor and bounty He hath entrusted every created thing with a sign of His knowledge, so that none of His creatures may be deprived of its share in expressing, each according to its capacity and rank, this knowledge. This sign is the mirror of His beauty in the world of creation. The greater the effort exerted for the refinement of this sublime and noble mirror, the more faithfully will it be made to reflect the glory of the names and attributes of God, and reveal the wonders of His signs and knowledge.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 262
Bull. ****. I have not. I haven't chosen not to believe in God anymore than I've chosen not to believe in bigfoot. How many more analogies would you like?
I only meant that in the sense that you do not believe in God. How free you were to make that choice is another matter altogether and only God knows that since God is All-Knowing.
I didn't choose to reject the idea of messengers. It occurred to me at a point in time that using messengers is a silly, inefficient way for an omnipotent being to communicate, and is exactly the kind of mechanism theists in a godless universe would claim is necessary to receive the message of their omnipotent God. I can't unthink that line of reasoning. I am compelled to believe it is so, until I am shown evidence or argument that convinces me I've been wrong.
You and all the other atheists.
I have been posting on forums 24/7 almost exclusively to atheists for over five years, so I have been listening to protestations regarding God using Messengers for five years. I have explained why God uses Messengers in many different ways, yet I have yet to hear one atheist give me
a logical argument as to why God should communicate in some other way, how that would work, or why it would work better than Messengers. After all these years the only conclusion I have come to us that atheists do not like the
idea of Messengers because they think God should speak to them directly, and many atheists even tell me this. Yet when I explain why God does not speak to everyone directly, and why God does not speak to anyone other than His chosen Messengers, what I say is not acceptable.
So I have hit a brick wall. However, some of these atheists have become my friends and some of them now say they believe God exists, although they still do not like the
idea of Messengers. I feel good that at least they believe God exists because that is the most important thing, IMO.
Then I don't know what you're arguing about.
I am not arguing that people can choose to believe in God as easy as falling off a log, even if it seems that way. On the other hand I think people have more power to choose than they give themselves credit for, as I discovered with my former atheist friends who once said they could not choose. Eventually the idea that God most likely exists finally took even though they remain suspicious about Baha’u’llah. But we continue to talk about Him anyway.
