What would you expect people to do if a real God sent a real Messenger to earth?

[Vinayaka]

A word, if I may. I have to say, you have to be one of the nicest people I've run across.

No, I am serious, and not trying to be condescending. I find, that in spite of our mutual philosophical differences? I have come to respect you as a person-- you show some incredible patience.

If ever we meet in MeatSpace? I do believe I owe you a beer, at least-- or whichever beverage you like, if beer isn't to your liking.



It's been fun sparring with you-- and indeed, you have force me to think carefully.

Making someone think is never a Bad Thing. AmIRight?

Anyhow, You have a lovely Weekend, ya' hear?

Well said. Separates the views from the person nicely. I too am only disputing the views.

 

[ChristineM]

In Bahaispeak there is only one kind of evidence ... the words of the prophet, his son, his grandson, and then the UHJ. All else fails. It's hard wired, but by no means unique to Baha'i'.

In other words, it's evidence because I said it was evidence. Spotty logic, but that's the way it is.

I know a lot of circles like that.

 

[Vinayaka]

I know a lot of circles like that.

I believe there is a certain psychological security in believing you're right, at any cost. Not for me, but for many. Must be some stage on the evolution of the soul, I suppose.

 

[CG Didymus]

Nothing in the Bible would give anyone that idea because Manifestations of God are an entirely new concept that came along after the Bible was written. If you read The Kitáb-i-Íqán Baha'u'llah explains about the Bible Prophets and their roles in history, how one led to the next one in the progressive chain of divine revelation.

But what about those that one Baha'i called "Great Beings" like Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Jesus and some others, weren't they always considered special as in being Enlightened or even God in the flesh, so just because the word "manifestation" wasn't used, they were still put into a special spiritual category. But, the problem with Abraham and even Moses, they were not perfect and don't fit the definition of a manifestation.

 

[ChristineM]

I believe there is a certain psychological security in believing you're right, at any cost. Not for me, but for many. Must be some stage on the evolution of the soul, I suppose.

I am woman, i am always right even when I'm wrong ;-)

Really, you are right, there have been plenty of studies on the emotional and personal needs but soul ??? A spiritual need to be right, i guess its a form of intense confirmation bias.

 

[CG Didymus]

So much for what you just said: "I'm fairly unbiased, here--"

You are VERY biased because you have your mind made up that God is an immoral monster since He won't communicate with everyone. It won't matter how many times I explain WHY God does not communicate with everyone... You will just keep coming back with the same response.

If it weren't for the Baha'i Faith, is there any religion that you would follow, or would you not join or believe in any of them or even be an atheist?

 

[Vinayaka]

I am woman, i am always right even when I'm wrong ;-)

Really, you are right, there have been plenty of studies on the emotional and personal needs but soul ??? A spiritual need to be right, i guess its a form of intense confirmation bias.

Well, I am a Hindu after all. But 'soul' means something quite different to us than to Abrahamic faiths. (the Hindus who believe in i'soul')

But yes, the amazing thing about confirmation bias and all its implications is that some folks do dig themselves out of it. That may be even more amazing than the fact that it even happens. Ther are plenty of ex- _______ s groups in recovery.

 

[Trailblazer]

1) God may not be human, but the same principle applies if we're going to say that it's all due to human free will coupled with a claim that God does nothing to intervene or interfere. I don't agree with that claim. Obviously, God is doing something here. He's not a disinterested bystander by any means.

2) All they really knew was that God told them not to eat the fruit. They didn't know why, because God didn't tell them. He just put a tree there as a temptation, in addition to allowing a serpent to egg them on. If God didn't want them eating the fruit, then He shouldn't have put the tree in the first place or allowed the serpent into the Garden. He should have known better.
The whole thing was a set up.

I do not believe in the story is a true story as Christians believe. I believe the whole story is symbolic. There was no real Adam and Eve, no real garden that had a tree with fruit, thus there was no original sin from eating fruit. I find it really tragic that an entire religious belief grew up around a fantasy.

In brief, the symbolic meaning of the serpent in the Adam and Eve story is attachment to the human world, or the material world, as opposed to God and the spiritual world. Adam was a Prophet, so His soul was in the spiritual world before Hid body was born into the material world. When Adam was born and entered the human world, He came out from the paradise of freedom (where he was in the spiritual world) and fell into the world of bondage (the material world). From the spiritual world, in the height of purity and absolute goodness, He entered into the world of good and evil (the material world)... This attachment to the material world, which is sin, was inherited by the descendants of Adam, and is the serpent which is always in our midst and continues and endures... It is because of this attachment that men have been deprived of essential spirituality and their exalted position and instead have the propensity to sin.

So, if anything was a setup, it was that God created a material world in which people could choose to live according to their lower material nature, which means and living for self and desire as opposed to living for God and other people. The sin in Adam was relative. Attachment to the material world, in relation to attachment to the spiritual world, is considered a sin. Bodily power is defective in relation to spiritual power and physical life is considered death in comparison with eternal life in the Kingdom.

As far as rules are concerned, I do find value in the Golden Rule and various common sense directives, such as "don't lie," "don't steal," "don't murder," etc. But again, a lot of it seems like a set up due to the way that we were made. Apart from the rules of the game, there are certain realities and limitations to our existence which were presumably designed by God - for reasons only He knows.

I can certainly agree that there are certain realities and limitations to our existence which were designed by God, but there are reasons for those that were explained by the messenger of God. We do not know every little detail, but we know for example that it is a setup in the sense that we have to choose between good and bad actions. That is because we were created with two natures:

“In man there are two natures; his spiritual or higher nature and his material or lower nature. In one he approaches God, in the other he lives for the world alone. Signs of both these natures are to be found in men. In his material aspect he expresses untruth, cruelty and injustice; all these are the outcome of his lower nature. The attributes of his Divine nature are shown forth in love, mercy, kindness, truth and justice, one and all being expressions of his higher nature. Every good habit, every noble quality belongs to man’s spiritual nature, whereas all his imperfections and sinful actions are born of his material nature. If a man’s Divine nature dominates his human nature, we have a saint.” Paris Talks, p. 60

By choosing to live according to our spiritual nature we create our own character, we become who we are and who we will be after we die and our soul ascends to the spiritual world. That is it in a nutshell, the reason God made this material world with all kinds of Booby traps we can step on and get snared. Temptation is everywhere and the unwary choose it because it gives them momentary pleasure.

For example, the need for humans to sleep for 6-8 hours every night. That's not "free will," that's a design flaw that humans have no control over. If humans can't get enough sleep (which may also be outside their control if they have insomnia or other sleep disorders), they can become psychotic or suffer other mental breakdowns which would affect their choices.

Another example is the need for food and what occurs when people don't get enough. Hunger can drive a person to madness, even to the point where they might steal or even kill. Again, is that a reflection of "free will," or is it just the way God designed us? Humans have no control over that.

It is not really a design flaw, but man is forced and compelled to endure certain things such as sleep, death, sickness, decline of power, injuries and misfortunes. These are not subject to the free will of man since we have to endure them. But man is free to make moral choices, to choose between good and bad actions, and he commits them according to his own will. For example, a man can choose to be selfish or rather think about someone else and what they need.

Even our own minds can play tricks on us, and our memories are quite fallible. How can anyone claim we have "free will" when humans can barely control their own minds and thought processes?

We have no control over where we're born, who are parents are, or much of anything else in our lives in the first few years, yet this is the time when humans' characters are formed, setting the basis for choices and decisions they might make in the future. And yet, most people can't even remember this period in their lives.

You are correct. Free will is not entirely free, because it has so many constraints, given we are all affected by our childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances. How free we are varies with the situation. However, we have the ability to make moral choices. For example, I can choose to be nice to a coworker or be mean. This all goes back to those two natures I mentioned above, our lower material nature or our higher spiritual nature.

We have some control over our thoughts, because we can learn new things we might have never thought of before, and if we are open to changing our thoughts our thoughts can change accordingly. We have less control over our feelings, since most reside in the subconscious mind. But in spite of our thoughts and feelings we can choose our actions. If we are self-aware we can override certain thoughts and feelings and do the right thing, even if we do not feel like doing it.

(Continued on next post)

 

[Trailblazer]

People don't need protection from themselves. "Free will" is used as a justification for God's punishment. God sends people to Hell because they sinned, and the implication is that it's their own fault that they sinned, all based on the claim that humans have "free will." God may not be a human parent, but He still presumes to judge and punish people for their sins. This would mean that people need more protection from God's abject injustice and tyranny for holding people accountable for sins that aren't really their fault.

I do not know what you mean by sin. In my definition of sin would be acting according to our lower material nature; lying or being cruel or unjust to other people. There is what is termed the sins of the flesh but those do not normally hurt anyone but ourselves, unless we commit adultery or rape. It is really how we treat others that matters most. People can make moral choices and we are responsible for those choices. As far as how free we are to make the right choices, I think God factors in their constraints (childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances) in how He judges us. To those whom much is given, much is expected. We can only choose within our own capacities.

I do not believe in Hell, or that God does the punishing, but rather we reap what we sow; so the punishment is how we suffer as a result of bad choices, particularly when we realize what we have done to hurt others or ourselves after we die. The biggest punishment is the regret we will feel in realizing what we could have done differently. We can have that regret in both this world and the hereafter.

In a way, yes. Although I would probably mention the sin of "lust," which also carries a stern punishment, according to some religions. If I see apretty girl walking down the street, I might feel a brief tinge of lust that I can't really control. Sure, I can control my actions and not actually do anything, but in my heart, I've already sinned in the eyes of God. I would already be condemned over a brief surge of lust that I couldn't control due to how I was designed and hard-wired.

You are right, religions say that thinking about it is as if you actually committed the act, but in the Baha’i Faith that is simply something we try to shoot for. We are not going to get punished for thinking. The most important thing is not acting on our thoughts, outside the parameters of acceptable sexual behavior. Adultery is not acceptable because it hurts other people and it also hurts the soul of the adulterer. To say that we cannot control ourselves and have to do it is a real cop-out. People do it because they are selfish, period. That is an expression of their lower material nature.

But those who believe in "free will" would claim that it's my fault for having such a feeling.

No, I would not say that because feelings are the most difficult to control. It is what we do with the feelings that matters most. Free will applies to actions, not to thoughts and feelings.

Yes, exactly my point. Or at least, if He'd give us true free will, where we would at least have control over our minds and bodily processes, then He could justifiably hold us responsible for what we do. Without that, then frankly, God is the one to blame (if there even is a God, which there probably isn't).

We do have control over our minds to a certain extent because we can learn. What we learn can be applied to our choices, so we can make good choices, ones that will be beneficial to ourselves and others. We cannot control the bodily processes but we can decide what to do about them; when and how much we will eat, sleep, have sex.

Perhaps. The thing is, it's not really "God" which is being blamed, but more the idea of God and those who propagate that idea. I don't actually know if there is a God or not, but I'm reasonably convinced that no one on Earth (past or present) has the faintest clue as to what they're talking about when they talk about God. How can they?

Religious people have some idea what God is if they are looking at the original scriptures, but we cannot know any more than some of the Attributes of God and God’s Will for every age. We can never know the Essence of God, God’s intrinsic nature. That is forever hidden and will always remain a mystery.

 

[Trailblazer]

You do not have to say that-- but. Your descriptions of your god?

And the consequences of those descriptions? Do, in fact, mean your god is an immoral monster.

Your god-- as you have described repeatedly -- creates these Special Favorite Status Class.

These "messengers" are then automatically elevated to a Superior Class Person-- over and above everyone else.

And that is the opposite of Fair. It's immoral, in fact. Thus? The only fair conclusion is that your god deliberately and with malice (since it is all knowing-- it knows exactly what it is doing) creates a situation that is Immoral.

Immoral Monster-- based on **your** descriptions.

That is what my descriptions mean to you, but they do not mean that to me.

Apparently you think God has a moral obligation to reveal the same message He revealed to Baha’u’llah to everyone in the world. This is patently illogical because not everyone could understand that message let alone write it down. Moreover, there is NO NEED for God to reveal that message to everyone, since it can be revealed to Baha’u’llah who was able to make that information available to everyone in the world.

So, unless you can come up with a REASON why God should do this I have to conclude that it is based upon nothing but feelings of “I want.”

 

[Trailblazer]

Not my problem

I know you can read.

I have explained, not sure i can make it any easier. When s person makes a statement and implies it as fact, it is up to that person to provide evidence. Sloping shoulders and saying i have been told to proselytize but not to explain is simply not a civil way to behave

I did not imply anything as a fact; I said it was a belief.

I already told you I cannot post all the evidence for the Baha’i Faith on a forum, but I can explain anything you ask me about. I consider that very civil.

 

[Trailblazer]

In Bahaispeak there is only one kind of evidence ... the words of the prophet, his son, his grandson, and then the UHJ. All else fails. It's hard wired, but by no means unique to Baha'i'.

In other words, it's evidence because I said it was evidence. Spotty logic, but that's the way it is.

Thanks for explaining that.

If you are talking about evidence that Baha’u’llah was a messenger of God, the words of the prophet, his son, his grandson, and then the UHJ are part of the evidence, but there is other evidence.

Since the subject of evidence keeps coming up on this thread, I feel it is necessary for me to point out that the evidence that Baha’u’llah was who He claimed to be is everything that surrounds the Revelation of Baha’u’llah, including who He was as a Person (His character); His mission on earth; the history of His Cause, from the time He appeared moving forward; the scriptures that He wrote; what His authorized interpreters wrote; what others have written about the Baha’i Faith; the Bible prophecies that He fulfilled, as well as prophecies of other religions that He fulfilled; predictions He made that have come to pass; the religion that He established (followers) all over the world and what they have done and are doing now.

I keep getting asked to post “the evidence” but obviously I cannot post all of the above.

Nothing is evidence because ** I said ** it was evidence.
The list above is evidence to Baha’is because it indicates to them that the claim of Baha’u’llah is true. It is not evidence to those to whom it does not indicate that the claim of Baha’u’llah is true.The same evidence is viewed differently by different people, which is why it is evidence to some people and not others. Also, if people have a bias against religion and messengers of God, or it they have another religion that are attached to, they will not be able to look at the evidence objectively.Those are veils to understanding.

Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid:

The list above is evidence that the claim of Baha’u’llah is true but it is not proof that it is true.

Proof: evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement:

There can never be proof that God communicated with Baha’u’llah or any other messenger. Those are beliefs. They can be true or false, logically speaking.

 

[Trailblazer]

A word, if I may. I have to say, you have to be one of the nicest people I've run across.

No, I am serious, and not trying to be condescending. I find, that in spite of our mutual philosophical differences? I have come to respect you as a person-- you show some incredible patience.

If ever we meet in MeatSpace? I do believe I owe you a beer, at least-- or whichever beverage you like, if beer isn't to your liking.



It's been fun sparring with you-- and indeed, you have force me to think carefully.

Making someone think is never a Bad Thing. AmIRight?

Anyhow, You have a lovely Weekend, ya' hear?

Thanks Bob... I have my character flaws but lack of patience is not one of them. I am also not short on caring about others.

I am glad to hear that you are thinking... thinking is good but I probably think too much. Once my good Buddhist friend said I need to “just be.”

Baha’is do not drink alcohol but I’d love to have a cup of coffee with you. All my best friends online are atheists and I sure would like to meet them someday.

 

[Trailblazer]

But what about those that one Baha'i called "Great Beings" like Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Jesus and some others, weren't they always considered special as in being Enlightened or even God in the flesh, so just because the word "manifestation" wasn't used, they were still put into a special spiritual category. But, the problem with Abraham and even Moses, they were not perfect and don't fit the definition of a manifestation.

Yes, they were put in a special category and there might be more that have not been mentioned in the Baha’i Writings. Krishna, Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, the Bab and Baha’u’llah were just the Major Prophets (Messengers, Manifestations of God).

My friend Duane, who has studied the Qur’an, said that it says that Prophets have come to every nation.

That depends upon how you define “perfect.” Many say that Moses sinned, for example, by killing that man, but Baha’u’llah explains in The Kitab-i-Iqan why that was not considered a sin in God’s eyes.

 

[Trailblazer]

If it weren't for the Baha'i Faith, is there any religion that you would follow, or would you not join or believe in any of them or even be an atheist?

I would be either a deist or an agnostic. I would not be an atheist because there is no proof that God does not exist.

I could never believe that any of the other religions, as standalones, were the only Truth from God. It simply makes no sense that one religion is right and all the others are wrong, which is probably the main reason that I became a Baha’i, that and the teachings and principles of the Baha’i Faith.

What kind of a God would reveal one religion as the Truth for all time?

What kind of a “loving” God would favor the followers of one religion and exclude all the others?

It just does not make any sense.

In my mind, there is no way the Revelation of Baha’u’llah could be false, unless Baha’u’llah was a lying imposter, which is absolutely impossible to fathom... There is just too much evidence that indicates He was who He claimed to be.

But if anyone can prove that Baha’u’llah was a false prophet, I’d be out of here in a heartbeat. I can think of a lot of things to do that are much more fun and I have ample money to do them.

I had NO confirmation bias when I investigated the Baha’i Faith. Both my parents were “fallen away” Christians so I was not raised in any religion and I did not even believe in God. Having NO preconceptions is probably the biggest reason I was able to see the Baha’i Faith for what it is. The other reason is that the teachings and principles aligned with my values.

 

[Stevicus]

I do not believe in the story is a true story as Christians believe. I believe the whole story is symbolic. There was no real Adam and Eve, no real garden that had a tree with fruit, thus there was no original sin from eating fruit. I find it really tragic that an entire religious belief grew up around a fantasy.

Yes, I agree, although some might extend that to all religious beliefs and consider them to be fantasies. How can anyone know otherwise?

In brief, the symbolic meaning of the serpent in the Adam and Eve story is attachment to the human world, or the material world, as opposed to God and the spiritual world. Adam was a Prophet, so His soul was in the spiritual world before Hid body was born into the material world. When Adam was born and entered the human world, He came out from the paradise of freedom (where he was in the spiritual world) and fell into the world of bondage (the material world). From the spiritual world, in the height of purity and absolute goodness, He entered into the world of good and evil (the material world)... This attachment to the material world, which is sin, was inherited by the descendants of Adam, and is the serpent which is always in our midst and continues and endures... It is because of this attachment that men have been deprived of essential spirituality and their exalted position and instead have the propensity to sin.

So, if anything was a setup, it was that God created a material world in which people could choose to live according to their lower material nature, which means and living for self and desire as opposed to living for God and other people. The sin in Adam was relative. Attachment to the material world, in relation to attachment to the spiritual world, is considered a sin. Bodily power is defective in relation to spiritual power and physical life is considered death in comparison with eternal life in the Kingdom.

The one key difference is that (according to the story) God spoke directly with Adam, which most (or all) people don't really get to do. People become attached to the material world because that's all they really know.

Some might also see this as somewhat contradictory. If the material world is a "lower" world than the spiritual world, and if we're supposed to not have any attachments to the material world, then why should the material world even matter at all? Why would murder be considered a sin, if the only real consequence to the murdered victim is that they enter the Kingdom of God and are free from the material world?

I can certainly agree that there are certain realities and limitations to our existence which were designed by God, but there are reasons for those that were explained by the messenger of God. We do not know every little detail, but we know for example that it is a setup in the sense that we have to choose between good and bad actions. That is because we were created with two natures:

“In man there are two natures; his spiritual or higher nature and his material or lower nature. In one he approaches God, in the other he lives for the world alone. Signs of both these natures are to be found in men. In his material aspect he expresses untruth, cruelty and injustice; all these are the outcome of his lower nature. The attributes of his Divine nature are shown forth in love, mercy, kindness, truth and justice, one and all being expressions of his higher nature. Every good habit, every noble quality belongs to man’s spiritual nature, whereas all his imperfections and sinful actions are born of his material nature. If a man’s Divine nature dominates his human nature, we have a saint.” Paris Talks, p. 60

By choosing to live according to our spiritual nature we create our own character, we become who we are and who we will be after we die and our soul ascends to the spiritual world. That is it in a nutshell, the reason God made this material world with all kinds of Booby traps we can step on and get snared. Temptation is everywhere and the unwary choose it because it gives them momentary pleasure.

With all due respect, this makes it sound like God has set everyone up in something analogous to a video game. If our true nature is spiritual, then the material world would be viewed as something false or unreal or essentially meaningless. I've heard some argue that the material life is some kind of "test," or maybe it's something equivalent to school. But schoolchildren want to get out of school; they can't wait until they graduate and move on to their "real" life. There is no real attachment afterwards, other than sentimentality and fond memories.

I would agree that temptation is everywhere, although a lot of sins also originate from fear. People (just like all animals) have a fear of death, among other fears. This seems hard-wired into us - and that's the biggest booby trap of all. Because people know that they will grow old and die, they want to experience as much of life as they can, seeking pleasure and material comfort while waiting for the inevitable.

It is not really a design flaw, but man is forced and compelled to endure certain things such as sleep, death, sickness, decline of power, injuries and misfortunes. These are not subject to the free will of man since we have to endure them. But man is free to make moral choices, to choose between good and bad actions, and he commits them according to his own will. For example, a man can choose to be selfish or rather think about someone else and what they need.

Selfishness is also born of fear, the fear of not having enough to meet one's own needs. In a world where money and resources are in short supply, where there is no such thing as a free lunch, people don't see that they have any other real choice.

This is the main reason why I generally reject religion, since the religious authorities are the ones whose enormous influence set up and established the political and economic systems in this world. There are so many who come across as abject materialists and money-grubbers.

I find it ironic that the most selfless and spiritually correct political/economic systems are those that were officially atheist.

 

[ChristineM]

I did not imply anything as a fact; I said it was a belief.

I already told you I cannot post all the evidence for the Baha’i Faith on a forum, but I can explain anything you ask me about. I consider that very civil.

I am not going back searching through the thread but you clearly stated Baha’u’llah was a messenger of God. And you still stand by that claim

 

[Vinayaka]

I am not going back searching through the thread but you clearly stated Baha’u’llah was a messenger of God. And you still stand by that claim

'Belief' and 'fact' are interchangeable in fundamentalism of any kind. Having doubts would be too emotionally trying. So it takes something far more dramatic than a fun discussion on a forum. Having a gay child, and then having to choose between love for the child, or the faith ... something that real may cause enough doubt to have a bit of healthy agnosticism creep in. Often not though, sadly.

 

[ChristineM]

'Belief' and 'fact' are interchangeable in fundamentalism of any kind. Having doubts would be too emotionally trying. So it takes something far more dramatic than a fun discussion on a forum. Having a gay child, and then having to choose between love for the child, or the faith ... something that real may cause enough doubt to have a bit of healthy agnosticism creep in. Often not thought, sadly.

Unfortunately for funnymentalism, reality gets in their way so they also consider belief and reality to be exchangeable. Makes life so much easier for them until people start quoting definitions which is what i have done here.

He does seem to be backpedaling not though, so if he is happy to retract his implicit claim and instead hold to belief then im happy.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

That is what my descriptions mean to you, but they do not mean that to me.

Conformation bias on your part? I have no dog in this race, so it matters not at all to me either way.

I truly do not care at all. I find the entire concept of a Magical Super-Being who created the near-infinite Universe, but cares what humans do with their respective dangly-bit, quite silly.

Apparently you think God has a moral obligation to reveal the same message He revealed to Baha’u’llah to everyone in the world.

Absolutely! To quote a Comic Book: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.

And your god? Is one of the most irresponsible gods I've ever seen described! And I have studied the Greek gods for comparison!

This is patently illogical because not everyone could understand that message let alone write it down.

So? Under your god's IRRESPONSIBLE system? THEY ARE NEVER GIVEN A CHANCE!

More to the point? WE HAVE YET ANOTHER THING YOUR GOD IS TOO WEAK, OR TOO INEPT, OR TOO DUMB TO ACCOMPLISH: Explain it's ... ahem.... "message".

Moreover, there is NO NEED for God to reveal that message to everyone, since it can be revealed to Baha’u’llah who was able to make that information available to everyone in the world.

ABSOLUTELY FALSE-- see above, and THIS CREATES CLASS AMONG PEOPLE.

Evil.

So, unless you can come up with a REASON why God should do this I have to conclude that it is based upon nothing but feelings of “I want.”

See above-- I've given you literally dozens.