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.).
Nor does it mean your criteria are right, obviously. If your criteria and their criteria are contradictory, clearly
someone is wrong, if not all of you.
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.
If God doesn't care if we believe in him, and he imposes no negative afterlife repercussions on non-believers, okay fine. Then this whole conversation is sorta irrelevant.
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.
Trail:
that's a self-imposed limitation on God's part, is it not? Is he not all powerful? Did he not create us/the universe? If so, he
chose to create a situation to prevent himself from directly communicating with us.
Which for the 8th time, is...absurd, friend. And is 100% his choice and his fault.
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.
So you actually have better communication skills than your own deity. And yet you think your deity created this whole situation by design. Again, that's...say it with me now...
I have no reason to give up my religion, since it is hot off the press, not thousands of years old.
What does the age of a religion have to do with whether you should give it up? It's irrelevant if your religion started 5 minutes ago or 5 millennia ago. You should give up your religion if you dont have rational reasons/strong evidence to believe it's true.
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.
And your religion is no different in that regard.
God cannot show up on Earth and talk because God is Spirit. That is some kind of fantasy.
Then God is not all-powerful, and yet he chose to create this silly situation where his ability to communicate would be limited to middle men.
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?
Again there's no evidence they've "always" existed. Yes, obviously, religions have founders. As I said before, men claiming they are needed to be mediators of the divine is exactly what one would expect in a godless universe.
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).
Before that, you would need to demonstrate your God exists in the first place.
“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
You just got through telling me you believe there have "always" been divine messengers, even before we have written evidence for them, because Baha'u'llah told you so. How is that not blind faith?
No, I am not saying that is WHY Christianity is large, a process took place that caused the religion to spread.
Yes. The process is called theocracy.
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.
I've already done so, right here. We both have a lifetime of experience seeing that directly communicating with others is the most effective way to do so. As small children we play the game telephone to learn exactly that.
There. Your search is over, Trail! Congrats!
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.
Of course not, because all you've said is, "well he's spirit, he just can't." Lol, that's not an argument or a rationale, it's just a declaration. And again,
God invented the game, which means he's responsible for the rules.
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.
Believe it or not, this isn't my first rodeo, either. I used to be a theist myself. I've
also spent years listening to and talking to people of different faith backgrounds re: their reasons for believing. The more widely and deeply I allowed myself to read and study, the more liberal and nuanced my theological views became, till I realized I had no good reason to believe any of it other than as a kind of metaphor. So, the blinders are off. I can't put them back on again.
But I continue to be fascinated by religion and continue considering what religious people have to say and encouraging them to think critically. Which is why I'm here.