The implications of God's existence or lack thereof

[Trailblazer]

This was an interesting read; thanks for the illustration! I can see how it'd be challenging to wrestle with seemingly contradictory statements in one's sacred texts.

Yes, seemingly, but if one wants to get to the truth they need to look at the preponderance of evidence, rather than cherry picking and reading what supports what they want to believe.

I don't think what works for me would work for you, but I'll describe anyway. In terms of general philosophy, I reject the common Western notion of substance dualism, which states there are two substances, matter and spirit, that are separate. Theologically, that translates into rejecting that nature/reality and gods are distinct from each other; for me, the gods are the various aspects of nature/reality. That means I see myself as experiencing and relating to the gods on a daily basis because they are everything and all around me. My challenge is to be mindful of the divinity of things around me.

So I guess that is pantheism?

Pantheism is the belief that all reality is identical with divinity,[1] or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent god.[2] Pantheists do not believe in a distinct personal or anthropomorphic god[3] and hold a broad range of doctrines differing with regards to the forms of and relationships between divinity and reality.[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism

And for that, it doesn't have to be big things. Most of the time it's little things. Today so far, being mindful of the gods has been saying hello to Squirrel on the way into the office and giving thanks to Snow for delivering beautiful weather to us this morning.

I do that too… I love animals, especially cats and squirrels… I feed cats indoors and all the outdoor animals, including raccoons and squirrels. Unfortunately, my love for cats has been a source of great suffering, given how many we have had and lost. Right now we have 11 cats, and two older ones with kidney and heart conditions. They are Persian cats and they have this in their bloodlines.

Nah, you've gotten out the door. I think that you might be being a bit too hard on yourself and what you've accomplished so far.

Thanks, I am pretty hard on myself because I think about how far I have to go rather than how far I have come.

My brain translates this to asking "how do people worship their gods?" Worship looks different for various traditions, for sure. I came up with a good list of that somewhere a few years back... I can dig it up to refresh my memory and maybe post some of that up here if it seems relevant.

I am somewhat in the dark as far as worshiping God is concerned so I would appreciate the list if you can find it.

 

[Trailblazer]

So in other words, I need some promotion men to get my name out, get a following, and then have them say I'm from God. That's not too hard to do. Lots of those guys out there.

I really do not understand why people cannot see the difference between a Major Prophet like Jesus and an ordinary man.

No, you have to a whole lot more than that, and no, there are not lots of guys like Jesus out there...
It just so happens a couple of weeks ago an agnostic poster on another forum kept telling me he could be a Prophet. I was not sure if he was joking but he kept insisting he could be a Prophet... I kept telling him it was not that easy and he could not just decide to BE a Prophet... Finally, I decided he was serious so I wrote up the following, explaining what he would have to DO to be a Prophet... I will share that with you now:

I said: >>> No, that does not cut it, you need to have evidence that demonstrates you are a Prophet;<<<

He said: There is as much evidence that I am a prophet as for any of those other guys (except I'm not dead yet).

I said: Oh, lol. If you like history, I suggest you read some of these: God Passes By and The Dawn-Breakers
That is for starters... then we have The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Volumes 1-4, which cover the 40 years of His Mission, from 1853-1892.

Then we have the Tablets of Baha’u’llah:

From Resource Guide, "scripture":
The writings, or tablets, of the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and Shoghi Effendi are stored at various places at the Bahá'í World Center in Haifa, Israel. Soon they will be moved to a building named "The Center for the Study of the Sacred Texts," which is under construction as of this writing. Microfiche copies of the tablets are also preserved for safekeeping at a variety of places around the world. Many texts were lost, stolen, or destroyed, and many others are still held in private hands. The estimated figures for the total number of individual tablets are as follows: Bahá'u'lláh, 7,160 tablets archived, 15,000 total estimated to have been written; 'Abdu'l-Bahá, 15,549 tablets archived, 30,800 total estimated to have been written; Shoghi Effendi, 16,370 letters archived, 30,100 total estimated to have been written ("Bahá'í Archives: Preserving and Safeguarding the Sacred Texts," in 'Andalíb magazine, 12.48 (Fall 1993): insert). William Collins has described the structure of the International Bahá'í Archives and other considerations relevant to preserving the sacred texts in "Library and Archival Resources at the Bahá'í World Centre," in Bahá'í Studies Bulletin, 3.4 (Dec. 1985).
http://bahai-library.com/number_tablets_bahaullah

I said: >>>you need to have completed a mission<<<

He said: Why?

I said: Because that is the entire reason a Prophet comes to earth, to complete a mission.

By Richard Cavendish
Published in History Today Volume 63 Issue 4 April 2013

The founder of the Baha’i religious movement, Mirza Husayn-‘Ali Nuri, was born to a prominent Muslim family in Tehran, the capital of Persia, in 1817. In his late twenties he became a follower of a young man who called himself the Bab (‘The Gate’) and believed it was his task to prepare the world for the Promised One, a greater divine Messenger who was soon to come. He was executed as a heretic in 1850.

Mirza Husayn-‘Ali Nuri came to believe that he was the Messenger predicted by the Bab and called himself Baha’u’lla, meaning ‘The Glory of God’. In 1853 the Persian government exiled him to Baghdad, then part of the Ottoman Empire, and ten years later in the Garden of Ridvan outside Baghdad he proclaimed to a small group of his followers that in a vision a maiden sent by God had revealed to him his mission to bring all the peoples of the world into unity as followers of the one true religion. The Ottoman regime exiled him to Adrianople in northern Turkey in 1863 and in 1868 to Acre in Syria, which is now in Israel. He stayed in that area until his death of fever in 1892, aged 74, and his shrine in gardens just outside Acre is the world’s holiest site for his followers, the Baha’is.

Baha’u’llah called religious fanaticism and hatred ‘a world-devouring fire, whose violence none can quench’. Only ‘the Hand of Divine power’ could convince all human beings that they are ‘the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch’ and treat each other accordingly, in love, friendliness and harmony. Baha’ism has no priests, no mosques and only the simplest rituals. Fiercely persecuted as heretics in Iran and Arab lands, Baha’is emigrated to other countries across the world. By the early 2000s there were more than five million of them in well over 200 countries, with substantial groups in India, the United States, Latin America, Africa and South-East Asia.
http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/Baha’u’lla Declares his Mission

I said: >>>and you need scriptures and you need a religion people follow.<<<

He said: Jesus didn't have a mission or a scripture or a religion..

I said: Jesus sure did have a mission and although he did not write His own scriptures like Baha’u’llah, He had the NT scriptures that attested to Him, who He was, what He did. Christianity is the religion based upon the mission of Jesus and the Gospel of Jesus.

Question: "What was Jesus’ mission? Why did Jesus come?"
Answer: Several times in Jesus’ life, He shows that He was a man on a mission. He had a purpose, which He intentionally fulfilled. Even at a young age, Jesus knew that He “must be about [His] Father’s business” (Luke 2:49, KJV). In the last days of His earthly life, Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem,” where He knew He would be killed (Luke 9:51). It could be said that the fundamental mission of Christ’s time on earth was to fulfill God’s plan of saving the lost.

To continue: What was Jesus' mission? Why did Jesus come?

 

[Trailblazer]

Welcome to the forum. What was your old life that you might get back? I don't believe that you @Trailblazer are alone.

"Trapped in a Broken Century"

No, I am not alone in the sense that the world is changing and we are all in the same boat together. What affects one part affects the whole.

Thanks, that was a great video. It is not just a broken century; it is a broken world, but I am extremely optimistic because I am a Baha’i. I believe that history will never repeat itself again because we are living in a “new age” of mankind, the beginning of the Golden Age promised in the Old Testament (Isaiah 11:6-9). It looks very grim now but that is because we are right on the cusp, going from one historical period into the next.

“God’s purpose is none other than to usher in, in ways He alone can bring about, and the full significance of which He alone can fathom, the Great, the Golden Age of a long-divided, a long-afflicted humanity. Its present state, indeed even its immediate future, is dark, distressingly dark. Its distant future, however, is radiant, gloriously radiant—so radiant that no eye can visualize it......” The Promised Day is Come, p. 116

I often wonder if people even realize we are in a point of transition. People seem to keep going about their business as they always have and they adjust to what is now the “new normal.” The worse it gets, the more they adjust. It is almost as if they step up the materialism to cope with the spiritual bankruptcy, the immorality, the decay of modern civilization. However, the old world order has to fall down before a new world order can rise in its stead and these processes are now going in simultaneously...

My old life that I had prior to January 2013 is now gone... I do not even remember what it was like anymore but I cannot go back even if I want to... Five years ago I made a decision that the condition of the world was so perilous that I could no longer ignore my religion and consider my own selfish concerns as important. I now have no other interest except service to humanity but I also have to work on my own character and my relationship to God to be of much value to others. The forums I have been on for the last five years have been an invaluable resource for my own spiritual growth and learning more about my own religion, other religions and other people. This forum is much more advanced than any of the others I have been on in terms of the number of enlightened people... It is like a whole new world... I guess I had to work my way up the ladder.

 

[Windwalker]

I really do not understand why people cannot see the difference between a Major Prophet like Jesus and an ordinary man.

I am not saying there are not spiritually advanced individuals out there, but they are not god-like creatures set above being human themselves. They were just like you and me, and they took what was within them and went somewhere with it, while others happily just lived out their lives plowing fields and making babies. Not everyone is a great musician either, but that doesn't make great musicians gods from another dimension, singularity called out to save the world.

One of the worst things the church did with Jesus is that they "kicked him upstairs", as Alan Watts termed it. Rather than being an inspiration to others through what he learned on his path to God, that we too can in fact be just like him, they deified him instead and made him unlike us, unreachable, unattainable, exactly in the same way you are doing with your made-up chart which is actually nothing more than a map of a religious mythology made up to fit a religion's theology it made up about oneself.

It's like a model showing Jesus sitting on a throne in heaven, sliding down to earth to become one of us, training some guys with his message he came to earth with fully intact, as opposed to something he developed over time, and then sliding back up into heaven again to sit back down as King Jesus the Eternal Potentate. That's a mythology. The map you presented is likewise a reification of these things into a mythic narrative. I find it too trivial to take seriously, personally.

No, you have to a whole lot more than that, and no, there are not lots of guys like Jesus out there...

They may be a very small percentage of individuals in the overall population, but they are a whole lot more than just "one" for every one thousand years! Think of it in terms of gifted musicians. Most are just average players or composers, but there is a rare percentage who are truly gifted. They inspire other musicians to find their own gifts within themselves.

Some of this rare souls, actually, may never even been known outside their own little village. Some of these "Jesuses" may only touch the lives of ten people in their entire lives. It's not the quantity that counts, but the quality or the essence. A small sliver of infinity, is infinity.

It just so happens a couple of weeks ago an agnostic poster on another forum kept telling me he could be a Prophet.

I'm not an agnostic. I very much believe in the existence of God. I do not however believe all the mythologies about God or those inspired souls, that various religions craft about these things in order for them to teach them to beginning piano students, so to speak. Those object lessons are fine to get some rudimentary images of the divine conveyed to young minds, but they are far from the actual Truth of them. Jesus called himself the Light of the World. He also said of us, "You are the Light of the World". We are too, or at least have the potential to be.

What I dislike about these models you presented is it would instead take Jesus' words and make them say. "I am the Light of the World, but you can never be because I am special and you are not. You'll only ever be a lesser light, like a dim bulb in a tiny pen light, while I'm a solar flare! All worship me!". I find that tragically misguided and misses the point of Jesus' teachings.

I said: >>> No, that does not cut it, you need to have evidence that demonstrates you are a Prophet;<<<

Jesus already gave the criteria here:

Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.​

It's not about how many followers they have. It's not about if they started a major religion. It's not about popularity nor name recognition. It's very simple: fruit. This is how you demonstrate whether or not you are genuinely inspired by the Divine. An old woman with her great grandchildren at her knees can be a prophet of God too. It really depends how one's gifts express themselves in service to others, be they small in following, or large, or even no following at all.

I said: Because that is the entire reason a Prophet comes to earth, to complete a mission.

And this is part of that magical thinking I dislike. "Came to earth"? Every human alive "comes to earth" too, if you want to look at it like that. Did Bach "come to earth" to be one of the most gifted musicians the world's ever seen? No, not exactly. He was born, like you or me, but he had certain innate talents that given the circumstances of his life was allowed to come to fruition. This is true of all of us, each with our own unique gifts waiting to come to fruition. This includes you too.

Baha’u’llah called religious fanaticism and hatred ‘a world-devouring fire, whose violence none can quench’. Only ‘the Hand of Divine power’ could convince all human beings that they are ‘the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch’ and treat each other accordingly, in love, friendliness and harmony.

I have lots of things like this I say as well, and I'm quite sure someone somewhere at some point could choose to mythologize me too, if that mode of thinking suited them. How people believe about these things, does not mean they are as they see them to be. It means only that's how they interpret them.

I said: >>>and you need scriptures and you need a religion people follow.<<<

He said: Jesus didn't have a mission or a scripture or a religion..

I said: Jesus sure did have a mission and although he did not write His own scriptures like Baha’u’llah, He had the NT scriptures that attested to Him, who He was, what He did. Christianity is the religion based upon the mission of Jesus and the Gospel of Jesus.

The "scriptures" of the NT did not come about as is mythologized in imagining these "eyewitnesses" wrote stuff down. There was a proliferation of writings from the various religious communities that formed themselves around this common figure and teachings that were shared between the communities. They varied widely and in contradictory ways.

It was only some later administrative bodies that made executive decisions (we all know how stupid those can be at times) of what they thought they could support to hold organized bodies together under some standardized belief system. None of that was magical. It was admistratitive for "practical" purposes. It was then later mythologized as the grand preordained plan of God executed through them magically. Most early communities were all nothing but word of mouth and storytelling for decades before their myths got written down.

Question: "What was Jesus’ mission? Why did Jesus come?"
Answer: Several times in Jesus’ life, He shows that He was a man on a mission. He had a purpose, which He intentionally fulfilled. Even at a young age, Jesus knew that He “must be about [His] Father’s business” (Luke 2:49, KJV). In the last days of His earthly life, Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem,” where He knew He would be killed (Luke 9:51). It could be said that the fundamental mission of Christ’s time on earth was to fulfill God’s plan of saving the lost.

You do realize that these were later myths about this figure to reflect that community's imaginations of what the history of this person must have looked like, full of magic and miracles because he seemed so special to them? There are other myths of the child-Jesus making a dove out of clay and breathing life into it. But that story didn't find its way into the NT. It did however get picked up and added into the Koran.

To continue: What was Jesus' mission? Why did Jesus come?

What is our purpose for "coming into the world"? The true purpose of any of us, is to be as Jesus was, the Light of the World.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

First definition everyone can agree on - God is a three letter word.

Second definition - The 'Source' of all of existence some call God(s). Most Theists and Deists would agree.

So if we described something that was "the source of all existence" but wasn't intelligent, personal, or any of the other attributes assigned to God by some theists... if it was the source of all existence and nothing but, you think most theists and deists would say "yup - that's God?"

 

[Windwalker]

So if we described something that was "the source of all existence" but wasn't intelligent, personal, or any of the other attributes assigned to God by some theists... if it was the source of all existence and nothing but, you think most theists and deists would say "yup - that's God?"

Yes.

 

[dfnj]

Most people are accepting of people living in poverty because they don’t care, since most people have deep concern only for their immediate family and friends. I am glad I posted that passage above after all because it is related to what you just said. Jesus said we should love our neighbor as ourselves, but in this new day Baha’u’llah upped the ante and said we should prefer our brothers to ourselves. Until that becomes a reality the world will never change.

I have to be honest with you. I do not think the teachings of Jesus are good enough. The World is a complete mess. It's not enough to say "if only people would accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior everything would be better." I doubt that very much. There is nothing stopping the teachings of Jesus from fixing the World right now. I think the teachings are either not effective or incomplete to face the modern challenges of spirituality. For human respect and dignity to rise and for poverty and depression to lesson I think people will have to look either to themselves or to other teachings for guidance and support.

 

[dfnj]

I do not believe that God could be both the Abrahamic and pantheistic. Those are mutually exclusive because the Abrahamic God is separate from His Creation and the pantheistic God is part of creation. It is not a Baha’i belief that God is anthropomorphic.

I don't think people appreciate what it means to be omnipotent. An omnipotent God can be two things at the same time. An omnipotent God is not bounded by the laws of physics or the laws of logic. You may say this is crazy nonsense. I would argue the fact that anything exists at all as opposed to nothingness is crazy. An omnipotent God is full capable of appearing and being both Abrahamic and pantheistic at the same time. An omnipotent can be male, female, and gender indifferent all at the same time. For an omnipotent God, the answer to the question Can God have a thought so complex that even She can't understand it is of course Yes and No at the same time.

Omnipotence is a strange property. It's a kind of gravity well of semantics. If you can imagine something, anything, it is included in omnipotence. Nothing we can imagine is excluded from being omnipotent including nothingness itself.

 

[Trailblazer]

I am not saying there are not spiritually advanced individuals out there, but they are not god-like creatures set above being human themselves. They were just like you and me, and they took what was within them and went somewhere with it, while others happily just lived out their lives plowing fields and making babies. Not everyone is a great musician either, but that doesn't make great musicians gods from another dimension, singularity called out to save the world.

I agree they were just like you and me, they were human, but they were above an ordinary human because they were “Manifestations of God.” Having been chosen, preselected by God to receive communication through the Holy Spirit sets them apart from the rest of us.

One of the worst things the church did with Jesus is that they "kicked him upstairs", as Alan Watts termed it. Rather than being an inspiration to others through what he learned on his path to God, that we too can in fact be just like him, they deified him instead and made him unlike us, unreachable, unattainable, exactly in the same way you are doing with your made-up chart which is actually nothing more than a map of a religious mythology made up to fit a religion's theology it made up about oneself.

I am not a Christian so I do not deify the Messengers/Manifestations of God. True, I believe they are on a level above an ordinary human being, but they were not God. Logically speaking, if they were not above the rest of us why should we even listen to what they have to say? In short, I believe they were “mediators between God and man.” That is what it says in the Bible: 1Timothy 2:5 “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” Jesus never claimed to be God but Christians completely misinterpreted the Bible and made Jesus into God. Not only that, they took that verse and others to mean that the only way to God was Jesus whereas those verses only applied to the dispensation of Jesus. After that other Messengers came to earth and they were “the way.” I could go on and on about what Christianity did to distort what the Bible means, but then I would never finish this post and all the other I have to answer!

They may be a very small percentage of individuals in the overall population, but they are a whole lot more than just "one" for every one thousand years! Think of it in terms of gifted musicians. Most are just average players or composers, but there is a rare percentage who are truly gifted. They inspire other musicians to find their own gifts within themselves.

Some of this rare souls, actually, may never even been known outside their own little village. Some of these "Jesuses" may only touch the lives of ten people in their entire lives. It's not the quantity that counts, but the quality or the essence. A small sliver of infinity, is infinity.

I do not consider rare and gifted souls to be the same as Manifestations of God. God chose them to receive a message or He did not. There are only so many of these individuals. There are more than were listed on that chart; those were just the Major Prophets we know of. In the Qur’an it says that a Prophet has been sent to every nation. I do not know what their names were as they were not mentioned in the Baha’i scriptures.

I'm not an agnostic. I very much believe in the existence of God. I do not however believe all the mythologies about God or those inspired souls, that various religions craft about these things in order for them to teach them to beginning piano students, so to speak. Those object lessons are fine to get some rudimentary images of the divine conveyed to young minds, but they are far from the actual Truth of them. Jesus called himself the Light of the World. He also said of us, "You are the Light of the World". We are too, or at least have the potential to be.

I fully agree with that because we were made in the image and likeness of God, so we can potentially reflect all the attributes of God. “I believe” those Major Prophets such as Jesus and Baha’u’llah reflected all the attributes of God since they were a different order of creation, in between a man and a God, but NOT God incarnate. They perfectly “manifested” God on earth which is why they are called Manifestations of God.

What I dislike about these models you presented is it would instead take Jesus' words and make them say. "I am the Light of the World, but you can never be because I am special and you are not. You'll only ever be a lesser light, like a dim bulb in a tiny pen light, while I'm a solar flare! All worship me!". I find that tragically misguided and misses the point of Jesus' teachings.

The way I look at that, we cannot all be a Jesus or a Baha’u’llah because that is just not the way God intended it to be. They were chosen for their respective missions for a reason, a reason we cannot really know, only God knows that since God chose them. But we can look at their lives and their character and figure out that they were special in some ways, and they also had innate knowledge. It is said in my religion that we can never fully understand a Manifestation of God because we cannot understand what is above us in kind, but we can understand their human nature, and that is precisely why they can act as “mediators” between God and man. It is all pretty logical if you think about it...

Jesus already gave the criteria here:

Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.​

It's not about how many followers they have. It's not about if they started a major religion. It's not about popularity nor name recognition. It's very simple: fruit. This is how you demonstrate whether or not you are genuinely inspired by the Divine. An old woman with her great grandchildren at her knees can be a prophet of God too. It really depends how one's gifts express themselves in service to others, be they small in following, or large, or even no following at all.

I agree that fruit is the way we can know if they were really Messengers from God. But that does not mean that all people who have fruits are Messengers from God. There are other criteria. They have to be able to reveal scriptures that are universally applicable to humanity. A person can be inspired by God but that does not mean they received a message from God. I believe that Joseph Smith was inspired by God for example but I do not believe he was actually a Prophet/Messenger of God. However, he has a large following but it is notable that Mormons really follow Jesus, not Smith. No religion could have 15 million adherents unless they were associated with a Major Prophet.

And this is part of that magical thinking I dislike. "Came to earth"? Every human alive "comes to earth" too, if you want to look at it like that. Did Bach "come to earth" to be one of the most gifted musicians the world's ever seen? No, not exactly. He was born, like you or me, but he had certain innate talents that given the circumstances of his life was allowed to come to fruition. This is true of all of us, each with our own unique gifts waiting to come to fruition. This includes you too.

True, we all come to earth and have a unique mission to fulfill, but not every human was chosen by God to deliver a message.

The "scriptures" of the NT did not come about as is mythologized in imagining these "eyewitnesses" wrote stuff down. There was a proliferation of writings from the various religious communities that formed themselves around this common figure and teachings that were shared between the communities. They varied widely and in contradictory ways.

Yes, I know the problems with the NT and the Christian Church and I do not believe that Christian doctrines represent what Jesus taught. I believe that the Bible is the testimony of God but Christianity is the religion of man; because the Bible was never fully understood, councils such as Nicaea had to settle upon doctrines. As it is stated in Daniel 12, the “book” would not be unsealed until the time of the end, and people would run to and fro until then. I believe that the book was unsealed by Baha’u’llah when He came, meaning He explained much of what was in the Bible and what it was intended by God to mean. His eldest son and center of His Covenant also explained a lot of what is in the Bible, for example in this book: Some Answered Questions, Part Two: SOME CHRISTIAN SUBJECTS

You do realize that these were later myths about this figure to reflect that community's imaginations of what the history of this person must have looked like, full of magic and miracles because he seemed so special to them? There are other myths of the child-Jesus making a dove out of clay and breathing life into it. But that story didn't find its way into the NT. It did however get picked up and added into the Koran.

Yes, I realize that the NT is not an accurate historical record of events that actually took place. To save time, here are a few excerpts that explain the authoritative position of the Baha’i Faith on the Bible:

From Letters Written on Behalf of the Guardian:

...The Bible is not wholly authentic, and in this respect is not to be compared with the Qur'an, and should be wholly subordinated to the authentic writings of Bahá'u'lláh..
(28 July 1936 to a National Spiritual Assembly)

...we cannot be sure how much or how little of the four Gospels are accurate and include the words of Christ and His undiluted teachings, all we can be sure of, as Bahá'ís, is that what has been quoted by Bahá'u'lláh and the Master must be absolutely authentic. As many times passages in the Gospel of St. John are quoted we may assume that it is his Gospel and much of it accurate.
(23 January 1944 to an individual believer)

When 'Abdu'l-Bahá states we believe what is in the Bible, He means in substance. Not that we believe every word of it to be taken literally or that every word is the authentic saying of the Prophet.
(11 February 1944 to an individual believer)
The Bible

What is our purpose for "coming into the world"? The true purpose of any of us, is to be as Jesus was, the Light of the World.

I fully agree. However, if Jesus had never come and had never been a Light to the World, I do not think we would ever have known that. The world was profoundly affected by the teachings of Jesus, even those who do not believe in Him.

 

[Windwalker]

I agree they were just like you and me, they were human, but they were above an ordinary human because they were “Manifestations of God.” Having been chosen, preselected by God to receive communication through the Holy Spirit sets them apart from the rest of us.

You may not realize this, but that's the spin wrapped around them by believers, elevating them to god-like status. Something I do not accept. Gifted yes. "Above us"? No. Jesus very explicitly taught against this elevationism of others. He said, "Let the first of you be last."

I am not a Christian so I do not deify the Messengers/Manifestations of God.

Oh, but you do! You have elevated them as "above" us.

True, I believe they are on a level above an ordinary human being, but they were not God.

So, angelic, supernatural beings? Yes, we call them "gods".

Logically speaking, if they were not above the rest of us why should we even listen to what they have to say?

The greatest teacher desires his students to surpass himself. Such are humble servants, not high-and-lofty supernatural beings for us to build monuments in their names and bow low before them groveling in our inferior worm-like beings before them. They would, or at least should, have no interest in such things.

In short, I believe they were “mediators between God and man.” That is what it says in the Bible: 1Timothy 2:5 “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,”

That actually is not referring to prophets in general, if you read that more closely. It says there is one, not a bunch. But that aside...

After that other Messengers came to earth and they were “the way.”

This is what the Muslims claim. It's what your group claims. It's what Joseph Smith of the Mormon church claimed, it's what every other Tom-Dick-and Harry startup religion of the week claims with their modern day prophet to bring about the restoration of the truth, lost to history by corruption and sin of religion losing its way, only to be saved by the prophet starting up his version of the restored truth. Amen.

It's a song sung again and again when religion sags and limps its way through an evolving and changing society faced with the challenges of modernity at its door. "God has shown me the truth! Follow me! I am the way!"

I could go on and on about what Christianity did to distort what the Bible means, but then I would never finish this post and all the other I have to answer!

That might be an interesting side discussion sometime. In the meantime, we'll keep focused here.

I do not consider rare and gifted souls to be the same as Manifestations of God.

Oh, but I do! Most definitely. The light of truth from the eyes of innocence, is in fact a pure Manifestation of God. "Consider the lilies of the field. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like any one of these!". Solomon authored books that are in the Bible. Yet, a simple flower is more of a manifestation of God than everything that Solomon as prophet of God could hope to begin to rival! We all are manifestations of God. Best we start acting like that.

God chose them to receive a message or He did not.

Oh, but the message of God is written on the hearts of those with ears to hear and eyes to see. You learn to trust those senses, over the stories of supernatural goings on which excite the imagination more that the purity of the setting sun singing eternal music to your soul; a true manifestation of God before your own eyes.

There are only so many of these individuals. There are more than were listed on that chart; those were just the Major Prophets we know of.

There are far more than you think. They are those glistening crystals scattered throughout the grains of sand littering the beaches of the world. There are many, some in wheelchairs, some homeless, some in palaces, some in their living rooms browsing the Internet and having chats with various friends and interests. The reality of God is far more toes in the sands, then all this high and exalted, above all of us, superhuman god-like figures of our imaginations.

In the Qur’an it says that a Prophet has been sent to every nation. I do not know what their names were as they were not mentioned in the Baha’i scriptures.

There is this great quote from the bible which says, "Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it." It's good to think that there are more than you could imagine. Your next door neighbor. The guy at the hotdog stand. Some dude you ran into having coffee and a small talk about things like your dog, or your beliefs, or views on politics. Anyone of those can be these "prophets" of God.

If you have an idea of what God should look like, you'll never see Him when he arrives as He is.


I may pick up some more thoughts later, but I'll break here for my response.

 

[Trailblazer]

I don't think people appreciate what it means to be omnipotent.

That is the gist of it; we cannot understand what that means for God to be omnipotent because God is immensely exalted beyond all that can either be recounted or perceived by humans.

And that is precisely why we cannot know what God can or cannot do simply based upon one word that is used to describe one of God’s attributes.

Omnipotent is just a word that means God is All-Powerful but it does not mean God can do anything we think God can do, anything we imagine God can do.

But what happens is that people say God is omnipotent so God can do anything... What in effect they are saying is that God can do anything I can imagine that God can do ~~ because God is omnipotent. In effect we are creating God in our own image when we say God can do x, y or z.

But humans cannot know what God can or cannot do, unless that was revealed by a Messenger of God who says “God can do X, or God cannot do X.” Then we know.

Imo of course...

 

[Trailblazer]

I have to be honest with you. I do not think the teachings of Jesus are good enough. The World is a complete mess. It's not enough to say "if only people would accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior everything would be better." I doubt that very much. There is nothing stopping the teachings of Jesus from fixing the World right now. I think the teachings are either not effective or incomplete to face the modern challenges of spirituality. For human respect and dignity to rise and for poverty and depression to lesson I think people will have to look either to themselves or to other teachings for guidance and support.

I agree. The teachings of Jesus are not enough. That is why God sent Baha’u’llah to bring new teachings.

The teachings of Jesus are ineffective because they are not even followed since they have long since been forgotten by most people. If anything people simply pay them lip service.

But even if they were followed, the teachings of Jesus are incomplete. Jesus said that in so many words.

John 16:12 “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. 13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.”

John 14:26 “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

Baha’u’llah claimed to be the return of the Christ Spirit, the Spirit of Truth and the Comforter promised in the New Testament and the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. However, He was rejected by most Christians because they are waiting for the same Jesus. They believe that Jesus rose from the grave and ascended to heaven in the same body and will return in the same body.

Christians believe that the Comforter and the Spirit of Truth are the Holy Spirit sent at Pentecost that lives inside their bodies, but they are at a loss when I ask them how a “Spirit” living inside of them could do the following things that were promised by Jesus in John 14, 15 and 16: Teach you all things; Call to remembrance what Jesus said; Testify of Jesus; Glorify Jesus, receive of Jesus, and shew it unto you; Guide you into all truth; Speak what He hears and shew you things to come; Reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.

Only a man could do those things. Baha’u’llah did all these things or they will happen as a result of His Revelation:

The following verses shows that Jesus never planned to return as Christians believe He will do.

John 17:4 “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.”

John 17:11 “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.”

Put those together with this verse:

John 18:36 “Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.”

Christians will concede to the fact that Jesus was not a king in the political sense, but they believe that when Jesus returns Jesus will be the King Messiah and rule the world upon the throne of David. But Jesus said He came into the world to bear witness to the truth:

John 18:37 “Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.”

Jesus surely did bear witness to the truth but after that was done there was no reason for Jesus to return to earth. Nowhere in the New Testament did Jesus ever promise to return, yet an entire religion has been built upon that belief. Sure, Jesus said we would see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, but He was not referring to Himself. Jesus never said “I am going to return” in the first person. If the same man Jesus was planning to return, you would think that He would have said so.

 

[Trailblazer]

You may not realize this, but that's the spin wrapped around them by believers, elevating them to god-like status. Something I do not accept. Gifted yes. "Above us"? No. Jesus very explicitly taught against this elevationism of others. He said, "Let the first of you be last."
Oh, but you do! You have elevated them as "above" us.
So, angelic, supernatural beings? Yes, we call them "gods".

Don’t get me wrong. Messengers/Prophets did not elevate themselves, but by appointing them God elevated them above ordinary men. Jesus considered Himself a Servant of God and so did Baha’u’llah. However when Jesus spoke as a Messenger of God He was speaking from a different station because He was speaking for God. That is the salient difference between Jesus and an ordinary man. No ordinary man speaks for God.

The word above is just a word. It does not mean “better.” In this context it means that they are a “different” order of creation just as a mineral is different from a plant and a plant is different from an animal. This concept of Manifestations of God is a new concept revealed by Baha’u’llah. Christians believe Jesus is God incarnate, but Baha’is believe Baha’u’llah (and the others before Him) were Manifestations of God, meaning they “manifest” God’s attributes and God’s will on earth.

“Know thou of a certainty that the Unseen can in no wise incarnate His Essence and reveal it unto men. He is, and hath ever been, immensely exalted beyond all that can either be recounted or perceived. From His retreat of glory His voice is ever proclaiming: “Verily, I am God; there is none other God besides Me, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. I have manifested Myself unto men, and have sent down Him Who is the Day Spring of the signs of My Revelation. Through Him I have caused all creation to testify that there is none other God except Him, the Incomparable, the All-Informed, the All-Wise.” He Who is everlastingly hidden from the eyes of men can never be known except through His Manifestation, and His Manifestation can adduce no greater proof of the truth of His Mission than the proof of His own Person.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 49

The greatest teacher desires his students to surpass himself. Such are humble servants, not high-and-lofty supernatural beings for us to build monuments in their names and bow low before them groveling in our inferior worm-like beings before them. They would, or at least should, have no interest in such things.

A Manifestation of God is more than just a teacher. He has two stations. In His first station He is the Voice of God, and in that station He perfectly reflects the attributes of God and manifests the will of God. But in the second station He is a just a man, a Servant of God and humbled Himself before God. The last thing Jesus or Baha’u’llah wanted was to be worshipped as a God.

“Viewed in the light of their second station—the station of distinction, differentiation, temporal limitations, characteristics and standards—they manifest absolute servitude, utter destitution, and complete self-effacement. Even as He saith: “I am the servant of God. I am but a man like you.”… Gleanings, pp. 53-54

That actually is not referring to prophets in general, if you read that more closely. It says there is one, not a bunch. But that aside...
This is what the Muslims claim. It's what your group claims. It's what Joseph Smith of the Mormon church claimed, it's what every other Tom-Dick-and Harry startup religion of the week claims with their modern day prophet to bring about the restoration of the truth, lost to history by corruption and sin of religion losing its way, only to be saved by the prophet starting up his version of the restored truth. Amen.

It's a song sung again and again when religion sags and limps its way through an evolving and changing society faced with the challenges of modernity at its door. "God has shown me the truth! Follow me! I am the way!"

That is correct. There is only one in every age that acts as a mediator. When the OT was written it was Moses; when the NT was written it was Jesus; now it is Baha’u’llah.

Muhammad was “the way” after Jesus. Mormons worship Jesus and believe He is “the way.” Why do you think that 22% of the world population is Muslim and 33% of the world population is Christian? Do you see anyone else with such a following? It is much too early in the game for Baha’u’llah to have that kind of following.

The fact that many make claims to be “the way” does not mean that one of them is not actually the way, logically speaking. Clearly, if you do the research it leads to only one man being the way for this time in history. The evidence that shows that is all available for those who want to know. It is not a secret.

Oh, but I do! Most definitely. The light of truth from the eyes of innocence, is in fact a pure Manifestation of God. "Consider the lilies of the field. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like any one of these!". Solomon authored books that are in the Bible. Yet, a simple flower is more of a manifestation of God than everything that Solomon as prophet of God could hope to begin to rival! We all are manifestations of God. Best we start acting like that.

Oh, but the message of God is written on the hearts of those with ears to hear and eyes to see. You learn to trust those senses, over the stories of supernatural goings on which excite the imagination more that the purity of the setting sun singing eternal music to your soul; a true manifestation of God before your own eyes.

We are manifestations of God in that we all have the ability to manifest the attributes if God, but only one man is chosen in every age to carry the message of God to humanity. History demonstrates that.

I guess I have to clarify what I mean by “message.’ I mean teachings and laws that are needed by humanity. In order for humanity to survive and evolve spiritually this message has to be universal and bring people together. It is also necessary for people to have good feelings towards God, but gone are the days of personal salvation... The world is at a critical stage in its evolution wherein it needed intercession from God.

There are far more than you think. They are those glistening crystals scattered throughout the grains of sand littering the beaches of the world. There are many, some in wheelchairs, some homeless, some in palaces, some in their living rooms browsing the Internet and having chats with various friends and interests. The reality of God is far more toes in the sands, then all this high and exalted, above all of us, superhuman god-like figures of our imaginations.

We all have the ability to reflect the Holy Spirit which is really just the Bounty of God. So why can’t there be messengers who reflect the Bounty of God and also Messengers who do the same but also bring a written message that is needed by everyone on earth?

There is this great quote from the bible which says, "Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it." It's good to think that there are more than you could imagine. Your next door neighbor. The guy at the hotdog stand. Some dude you ran into having coffee and a small talk about things like your dog, or your beliefs, or views on politics. Anyone of those can be these "prophets" of God.

If you have an idea of what God should look like, you'll never see Him when he arrives as He is.

I do not have any idea of what God should be like or what God is like and I do not believe God is ever going to arrive in any way other than in the Manifestation of God.

 

[savagewind]

They are defending their settlements instead of maintaining the will of God. They are learning to do their own will best. They are not confirming the existence of God and they are not obeying our father Abraham who didn't have a settlement to defend. And, why not?

 

[LuisDantas]

They did not write themselves into the map... God wrote them onto the map... and there will be more to follow these since there are even bigger and better spiritual destinations that lie ahead for humanity...

Trouble is, in order to reach that conclusion you have to gloss over a lot of what they actually say, do and are. You are attempting to force various doctrines into a very rigid form that does not really suit them, particularly when they are not Abrahamic.

Sorry, but you have to have scriptures and a mission and a history and a religion in order to be like these guys.

You talk like that is outside the reach of most people.

 

[Quintessence]

So I guess that is pantheism?

Theologically, I am foremost a polytheist and animist, which also happens to encompass pantheism kinda by default. Polytheistic theologies and animistic cultures never really put a giant wedge between their gods and the natural world like classical monotheisms did. For better or worse, the theological vocabulary we use in the Western world was invented by classical monotheist scholars and theologians - even the word "polytheism." Now we seem to be stuck with it.

I am somewhat in the dark as far as worshiping God is concerned so I would appreciate the list if you can find it.

I know I can find it, it's more about me remembering to do it when I get home some day... haha.

 

[Windwalker]

No ordinary man speaks for God.

I believe that if anyone claims to be speaking for God as His mouthpiece, they are delusional. However, someone can speak Truth through its many forms that rings truer and clearer than other words, just like that musician who plays that familiar tune with more clarity and substance than other average musicians.

That is an expression of divine inspiration, but that does not mean it was God playing the instrument. It was the soul of that person in tune with the divine. It doesn't mean the tune was "infallible", or some other such mythological device layered on top of for believers to believe in, not being yet able to hear with the ears of their hearts.

I consider such devices as training wheels in order to get people to hear that "voice of God" in everything, from the simple smile of a child, to a flower in the sunlight, to the fading light on the face of the dying elderly. Eventually, these "elevated prophets" fall into the distant background when that "voice" is heard in all of creation.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.​

The word above is just a word. It does not mean “better.” In this context it means that they are a “different” order of creation just as a mineral is different from a plant and a plant is different from an animal.

Don't kid yourself. In the context you used it, in the context of how it is presented in the teachings, it is not just "different", but higher on a ranking scale of value. It's a power-hierarchy, not a growth hierarchy. They make him the Authority, which is a position of power "above" another. This is obvious.

This concept of Manifestations of God is a new concept revealed by Baha’u’llah.

I'm sorry, what? Are you unaware that Hindus have been teaching about the Avatars of God for millennia before Baha'u'llah? An Avatar is a Manifestation of God. Dashavatara - Wikipedia

Christians believe Jesus is God incarnate, but Baha’is believe Baha’u’llah (and the others before Him) were Manifestations of God, meaning they “manifest” God’s attributes and God’s will on earth.

This is something all of us can do. "You are the Light of the World. Let your Light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify God in heaven." How is that, not all of us being a manifestation of God on earth??

“Know thou of a certainty that the Unseen can in no wise incarnate His Essence and reveal it unto men.

But this not in accord with the teachings of many religious traditions, which the Baha'i claim to represent. For instance, in Buddhist nondual teaching, "Form is emptiness; emptiness is form; form is not other than emptiness; emptiness is not other than form." What this means is that the Essence of God cannot be separate from creation, and that both form and emptiness are inextricably linked together. All of creation is the incarnation of Spirit. We are all the body of God.

Are you saying the Baha'i' are agreeing with the Buddhists, or that they are wrong and your prophet has the truth? Niraguna? Where does he fit into your flow-chart of "prophets" who start major movements in religion, such as Mahayana Buddhism?

 

[Windwalker]

He Who is everlastingly hidden from the eyes of men can never be known except through His Manifestation, and His Manifestation can adduce no greater proof of the truth of His Mission than the proof of His own Person.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 49

It doesn't sound to me like he agrees with the teachings of any of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. That's a shame.

Have you ever sat along the shoreline of a lake and watched the sunset? Have you never felt the breeze blow up to your face and you inhaled all of Life in a single breath, breathing God into your soul? I could go on and on, but I can tell you with great confidence, from experience, God speaks through everything, and everyone, including yourself, if you have ears to hear, and eyes to see, as Jesus would say.

That is correct. There is only one in every age that acts as a mediator.

That is not correct. That is not what that verse said. It does not say "one in every age". It's not that I accept that itself as is commonly held in people's beliefs, but only to point out that what you are saying it says, it does not. That's something you added after the fact to support your belief in Baha'u'llah, to make that verse fit your much later flow-chart of Divine Authority. It doesn't say that there.

When the OT was written it was Moses;

First off, the OT was not written when Moses was supposedly alive as a real person. The books of "Moses" were written around 5 BCE, over a thousand years after the supposed events of Exodus. Plus scholarship reveals it was not at all the work of a single author, but up to 5 different ones. So this fact sort of runs a sword through this mythology that Moses ushers in the "age" of the books of the OT. His relationship to it, is that he is a character on the pages of it.

when the NT was written it was Jesus

No. The NT was "compiled" out of a list of many different writings from many different religious communities circulating around since 100 years after Jesus died, and only cut and pasted together into the canon of scripture in 382 CE. That's 350 years after Jesus lived. That's hardly Jesus bringing the NT to us! That's his religious followers. Why don't you call them Manifestations of God then?

; now it is Baha’u’llah.

This is inserting a modern individual into a mythological strain of thought. None of that happened as he or his followers in that day supposed. We know too much know for this "insert into a mythology" approach to work. That mythology doesn't work when you have the light of modern scholarship analyzing the components of it like this.

Muhammad was “the way” after Jesus. Mormons worship Jesus and believe He is “the way.” Why do you think that 22% of the world population is Muslim and 33% of the world population is Christian? Do you see anyone else with such a following?

Why on earth do you imagine numbers of followers validates the truth of the religion? You know Jesus taught the exact opposite? He said, "Many are called, but few are chosen", and again, "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.". I could go on, but to me, the fact that the masses rally behind something, means it should probably be considered suspect. The true spiritual path is a very lone and solitary one, not one filling with the swelling crowds of believers.

It is much too early in the game for Baha’u’llah to have that kind of following.

Personally, 7.3 million followers is no small number. But honestly, I think that number will begin to dwindel as modernity continues to bring the light of modern scholarship to the masses, such as what I shared in a couple minor points so far. I believe the beliefs in prophets will give way to something far more grounded in sensible fact that will allow true spiritual growth to happen alongside and within these more modern contents of modern sciences and scholarships. The need to turn to "oracles" to tell children about God will mature to us being able to find God in everything.

The fact that many make claims to be “the way” does not mean that one of them is not actually the way, logically speaking.

Nor does it mean there has to be one that is.

Clearly, if you do the research it leads to only one man being the way for this time in history.

What research? You mean reading the flow charts someone within the religion pieced together from their personal beliefs about what happened? That's not scholarship, and does not stand up to the light of a critical analysis. A pretty chart does not mean its based in reality. Ken Ham has a pretty chart of how children rode around on velociraptors in the Garden of Eden. That doesn't make it credible. It has to pass the test of actual research.

The evidence that shows that is all available for those who want to know. It is not a secret.

Don't kid yourself that if someone doesn't accept what is being sold, it's because they don't want the truth. On the contrary, it is specifically because they are interested in truth that they are being highly careful, using the best tools available to themselves to make sure if they commit to something, it's based in reality.

We are manifestations of God in that we all have the ability to manifest the attributes if God, but only one man is chosen in every age to carry the message of God to humanity. History demonstrates that.

History does not demonstrate that. The history as written by your organization, which selects what fits and rejects what doesn't does. It doesn't fit the history actual historians would look at. It's the same thing with the myths of the NT. History does not support those internal myths either.

I guess I have to clarify what I mean by “message.’ I mean teachings and laws that are needed by humanity. In order for humanity to survive and evolve spiritually this message has to be universal and bring people together.

You mean like the teachings of the Dharma? They've been around for 2500 years. Is there something wrong with these that we need a prophet from Persia to reinvent the wheel?

It is also necessary for people to have good feelings towards God, but gone are the days of personal salvation... The world is at a critical stage in its evolution wherein it needed intercession from God.

That's an interesting comment! You don't seem to realize that change happens first within the individual? In fact, without the personal awakening, there will be no actual change in society at large. Personal "salvation" or Enlightenment, is what gets the ball rolling.

We all have the ability to reflect the Holy Spirit which is really just the Bounty of God.

But yet, Jesus says "Let your Light so shine", and again, "Christ in you, the hope of glory", "The kingdom of God is inside you". If a sliver of Infinity is inside of me, that that is not a "reflection", but a manifestation of the divine itself, through me.

So why can’t there be messengers who reflect the Bounty of God and also Messengers who do the same but also bring a written message that is needed by everyone on earth?

But what is this fixation on "written"??? Why is that of highest, and utmost importance to you? As we continue our discussion, let's focus on this crucial point with some more depth, if you're willing?

I do not have any idea of what God should be like or what God is like

But yet you are insisting on many things being true about God, such as a prophet from him for each age. If that's not an idea about God, then I'm not sure what you'd call that.

and I do not believe God is ever going to arrive in any way other than in the Manifestation of God.

And that is why you will fail to see him.

 

[Trailblazer]

Trouble is, in order to reach that conclusion you have to gloss over a lot of what they actually say, do and are. You are attempting to force various doctrines into a very rigid form that does not really suit them, particularly when they are not Abrahamic.

What am I glossing over? What doctrines are those that are rigid?

You talk like that is outside the reach of most people.

It is. God chooses whom He chooses.

 

[Trailblazer]

Theologically, I am foremost a polytheist and animist, which also happens to encompass pantheism kinda by default. Polytheistic theologies and animistic cultures never really put a giant wedge between their gods and the natural world like classical monotheisms did. For better or worse, the theological vocabulary we use in the Western world was invented by classical monotheist scholars and theologians - even the word "polytheism." Now we seem to be stuck with it.

Okay thanks for explaining that. I really do not know much about religion as it had never been a big interest of mine... I am just learning.

I know I can find it, it's more about me remembering to do it when I get home some day... haha.

Me too... I know where to find the instructions, I just do not know exactly how to follow them.