Why do atheists talk to believers so much?

[Holdasown]

It's the internet. In "real life" I rarely discuss religion or atheism.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

How do you know they are not "correct" by any definition of that word with the specifics of their stories/beliefs/etc.?

If anyone could agree on anything within even the religions themselves, maybe there would be less doubt. But when nearly every single topic and point the sacred texts, or holy figures address is up for interpretation, or can be picked up and run with in another direction, creating yet another denomination/sect of said religion... well... I think you see where I am going with this. There isn't even much internal consistency in the accounts made throughout religions. How in the world can you expect an external party to consider any of it "correct?"

So if it is true that saying you've got any part of it figured out is pipe dream, then that also applies to atheists. It is also a pipe dream to say you know that God does not exist and you know that all these religions are wrong.

I have to agree - to definitively state that "God does not exist" falls in the same "pipe dream" category as what I was condemning. True. But I will insist that it is more probable that anyone making a claim that something outlandish exists (but that can't, at all, be demonstrated to exist) is automatically more wrong than the person who feels that that something simply does not exist given the complete lack of evidence or demonstrability of that "something." And this simply because there is an inherent bias toward knowledge of specific characteristics of said "something' (i.e. "God"). But I contend that the specific characteristics of God are unknowable, even if He exists. Which is why there is such wide and varied dissension in the beliefs of what constitutes "God" in the first place.

I do not know what you would be afraid of any one religion taking over and obtaining power. I see no danger of that lurking on the horizon.

Yeah - because people like me slap religion down every chance we get. That's why.

How do you know the true characterization of the situation? How do you know all religions do not have some truth? Do you define what truth is? How do you know what truth is? These are fair questions.

Again, not even their adherents can agree on what a religion entails or teaches - therefore you end up with differing "truths" even from the mouths of believers in the same source religion. The truth is so obviously malleable within religion that it can scarcely be called "truth." It's sort of an insult to the word and its ideals to even use it when discussing religion.

I believe that anything Baha’u’llah wrote is absolutely true because I believe whatever He wrote is identical to the will of God, and God is infallible. It can be challenged but it will still be the truth because no mere human being is infallible.

And I, and many others, believe this to be absolutely incorrect. To juxtapose your "truth" with something I believe to be "true": I believe that, by our measurement standards on Earth, the gravitational acceleration of an object toward the Earth is well approximated by the value 9.8 meters per second, per second. If you were to deny this idea of mine, I could very very easily take you to task, and absolutely, without room for doubt, PROVE to you that it is so. it would be a fairly straightforward and simple exercise. You have no way of demonstrating your truth. None whatsoever. These two truths are on completely opposite sides of the spectrum with respect to demonstrability. Without a way for you to demonstrate your "truth" in any way at all, I feel I have no choice but to place your idea all the way on the opposite side of the "correct" spectrum as well. Or maybe it is more like ideas like yours are placed in a pile in the middle - a pile labeled "pending further review/experience/revelation." And without any input to my senses to make me understand your "truth", it will never make it to the side that includes things like the value of the gravitational pull of the Earth.

Truth is probably the wrong word to use because that sets up a true/false dichotomy.

And this was more my point all along.

That’s fine if you want to believe that way; that you must be able to SEE something physically in order to believe it exists. This is the only reality we can SEE but that does not mean there is not a reality we cannot yet see.

I don't have to SEE it... but it MUST be demonstrated. And it simply hasn't been, and won't be.

God does wish for us to know of His existence and God does have the ability to make Himself known to any of us. God does not abstain from making Himself known. God makes Himself known by sending Messengers. They are the signs of God, proof that God exists.

Messengers are not good enough for me. End of story on this point. And God would know this, I believe, and so He should completely understand.

You are correct about everything you said about God. God makes His own rules, and if God does not WANT TO do something for whatever reason He does not do it. God does not want to MAKE anyone believe in Him. That is one reason He sends Messengers, so people can CHOOSE to believe in them or not, by virtue of their own free will. God would LIKE all of us to be aware of Him, but God is not going to FORCE them to recognize His Messenger.

It is my opinion that God is making a mistake. Just as I would be making a mistake if I only spoke to my own children through some intercessor... but insisted that I "loved" them. I would be a liar and a fool.

God DOES want to prove His existence to humans, and that is precisely why God sends Messengers. The Messengers ARE the proof. How can you not understand that?

Again - it ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH. Not by a long shot. God is a failure at His own game.

There is no limitation on God’s power, there is just not better way for God to communicate to humanity.

Then He has resolved to failure in His goals. Simple as that.

The fact that some people cannot trust the Messengers is a moot point. That is their problem to work out.

I'll introduce you to that guy I knew who thought he was the second coming of Christ. He called himself "Fate" - who knows what his given name was. If you don't believe him after you have met him, then "THAT IS YOUR PROBLEM TO WORK OUT." Hahaha... what a joke.

It is true that the world is full of men who claim to be Messengers of God, but logically speaking that does not mean that there were not one or more Messengers who did speak for God. The only reason anyone should believe that anyone was a true Messenger of God is because of the evidence that indicates that.

What evidence?

Of course I know when to trust a Messenger and when not to. It is drop dead obvious who is and is not a Messenger of God by looking at their character, their life, their mission, their scriptures, and the religion they established... A Messenger of God has to meet stiff criteria. Not many people meet those criteria; actually only one meets them in every age of history. I would not trust anyone in this day and age claiming to be God’s Messenger because I know from what Baha’u’llah wrote that there can be no more Messengers until at least 2852 A.D.

This is folly.

 

[BilliardsBall]

I started this dialogue with @ wandering peacefully on another thread but it was brought to my attention that we were getting off topic for that thread so I am starting a new thread.

@Trailblazer said:
"Mostly what I was wondering about is why “some atheists” spend as much time as they do talking about god and religion, if they have no interest in it. I am sure there are as many reasons as there are atheists. From talking to as many atheists as I have as long as I have I know that some atheists would like to believe in God if they had “what they consider” to be sufficient evidence that God exists, but most atheists are not really that concerned about whether god exists or not, or so it seems. Maybe they have given up that there will ever be sufficient evidence and maybe some do not care."

That is probably true. There are only a limited amount of reasons atheists talk about religion and gods compared to the number of reasons religious people talk about religions.

I can understand why atheists would not want these things as I would not want these things either, but I do not understand how talking to people with religious beliefs would change these things if they were imminent. It would seem as if political involvement would be more likely to change these things.

Maybe you meant to say that theirs is not the only "truth" because other religions also have truth? I can agree with that because I believe that all religions have “some truth” to offer. However, it is logically impossible that everything that all religions teach is “the truth” because religions contradict each another.

If you mean more beneficial uses than just talking about beliefs I can agree with that. I believe that faith without works is dead. What would these actions be that would benefit the believer and the rest of humanity?

That is rather vague. What part of reality do you think that believers are not seeing? Admittedly, one reason I talk to atheists is that I want them to see more of reality than the material world reality they see now because I do not believe this is the most important reality. I believe the spiritual reality is our true reality but that is a big subject, and it is based upon the premise that God exists and there is an afterlife (spiritual world).

Yes, I know this is the motive for some atheists because they have told me so. I think these stories you refer to are from the Bible. Why is it that atheists cannot understand that there are “other religions” that are not Bible-based? Why is it that atheists cannot understand that perhaps the Bible has some truth in it and that the Bible has been misinterpreted by those who believe in it, namely Christians? It is unjust to blame God for the doctrines of the Church that arose out of councils who decided what the Bible means. What about all the other religions? I suppose that atheists have to say they are all stories made up by man if there is no god.

For over five years now, I have been posting to atheists 24/7 on several forums and asking them what they would expect for evidence of God, but so far I have received no answer that makes any sense. God is not a material being so what kind of “hard evidence” could we ever have that proves that God exists? This expectation of objective evidence of God is completely illogical, and atheists don’t even realize how illogical it is.

If an omnipotent God exists, that God is the one who decides what kind of evidence it will provide to prove its existence to humans. This is logic 101 stuff. To expect any evidence other than what God provides is unreasonable. The only evidence that God has ever provided is the Messengers (Prophets) God sends who establish religions.

I do understand that some people cannot believe in God based upon the claims of a Messenger but I really do not understand why not, because there really is no other way that God could communicate messages to humanity, if that was what God wanted to do. I have asked atheists repeatedly how God could communicate messages to humanity in any way other than using Messengers. The only answer I have received is that God could communicate directly to everyone. But how is that any different from God communicating to a Messenger? Why should God communicate the same message to everyone, when God can instead communicate to one man who can write that message down and make it available to everyone?

I can understand why this would be problematic if the Messenger was just an ordinary man but the premise upon which my religion is based is that the Messengers of God are more than human. They have a divine mind and that is why they can receive and convey messages from God to man.

You can only speak for yourself and other atheists you know personally. I know for a fact that many atheists are interested in knowing if there is a god because they told me so. Some are also interested in my religion and they researched it for themselves. I am not saying that they are going to believe it, but at least they are giving it a fair shot.

I can tell you for a fact that the reason they do not believe in it is because they do not like the “idea” of Messengers of God, but not one atheist has ever given me a good reason why God cannot and would not use a Messenger to represent Him and reveal a message to humanity. That is what I am still waiting for, a logical reason. To say that they cannot trust that a Messenger is from God is not a logical reason. That is just an emotional reason born out of fear of being wrong about the Messenger. But what if they are wrong and God does use Messengers to communicate?

Yes, as matter of fact, many atheists I have spoken with said that they are looking for God and asked me to show them the way. What do you think we discuss 24/7, the weather? Most of the atheists I talk to are not concerned about social or political issues, only about god.

Fairly simple:

1) Atheists love attention, born agains often waste time talking to them

2) Atheists love arguing, see above

3) Satan loves wasting the time of Christians, see above

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

God does not have to communicate to each and every human being on earth in order to show He values human life. That is ludicrous. What, is God going to reveal the same 15,000 Tablets that He revealed to Baha’u’llah to every human being on earth, just so they won’t have to trust that Baha’u’llah is a legitimate Messenger?

If He loves them and cares for them equally I would argue that He does. If He has no other way to communicate but to hand out tablets, then He'd better get to work. Your argument is senseless. It's like saying that I really only need to choose one of my children to communicate directly to, and the rest should just trust that I exist and love them and the words of their sister/brother that come from me should be enough to get them through life. How obvious would it be that I didn't have enough love for my kids to give them all the same treatment, time and care from myself? And don't say something ridiculous like "you're not God", because, with infinite power, God should have no problems overcoming communication with massive numbers of people even more easily than I find time to communicate directly to my 3 children.

What makes them the only candidates to receive messages from God is their divine mind. No ordinary human has a divine mind.

And WHO gave them that divine mind? As you can see, logically ideas like this fall on their faces very easily.

I am not trying to convince others. That is not my job. I just respond to posts, explain things, and answer questions. For me personally, the Writings of Baha’u’llah ALONE are sufficient proof that He was a Messenger of God. There is a lot more evidence than that, what He did His Mission, and how He fulfilled prophecies in the Bible and predicted future events.

Sufficient for you then. Fine. Just don't be hurt when challenged. If you are so very steadfast in your beliefs then no words of mine should sway you. I can promise you that I am of that steadfastness in my chosen path. You can challenge me day in, day out, and not see one iota of shaking in my resolve. Of this I am so confident it sometimes amazes even me.

Did the guy on the church pulpit suffer and sacrifice his entire life for 40 years? Did the guy on the church pulpit write 15,000 Tablets in His Own Pen? Did the guy on the church pulpit have a “new” message from God or his own religion? Did the guy on the church pulpit fulfill Bible prophecies for the return of Jesus?

Maybe He did - how would I know? I wasn't about to listen to a single word he had to say on the topic. It would have been even more fruitless than the time I found myself spending in church in the first place. And had he done all those things he would have met the requirements of being a messenger from God, is that what you're saying? So if I started writing right now, sacrificed 40 years of my time doing so, write a "new" message that I claimed was from God and made sure I read up on and executed the bare minimum requirements to interpret my actions as having fulfilled prophecy after a fashion, then you would consider me a messenger of God? Is that really how it works?

I would not believe it either if it had not been proven to me beyond the shadow of a doubt. This has been a process. I have always believed that God existed ever since I became a Baha’i, but belief is different from certitude. Owing to further research and experiences I have had, I now have absolute certitude.

Then don't worry about what atheists are doing.

Do you think that someone else can prove TO YOU that God exists? How then would that be proof to you, if it came from someone else? No, we care each charged with the duty to determine if God exists all by ourselves. We can get help from other people but the faith of no man can be conditioned by anyone except himself.

I don't believe anyone has the tools to sufficiently prove God exists, and we have already established that God is unwilling to grant them. And here you are somewhat contradicting yourself. Before you said that messengers from God should be sufficient to prove God's existence - you were insistent on the point. And now you say they merely "help", but that conditioning in faith must be affected by the individual alone. This is exactly the kind of flip-flopping and slip-ups that I have come to expect from those of theistic persuasion... exactly the kinds of things that blur the meaning and leave the descriptions all but ineffectual.

I have heard stories of many people who went from atheism to belief, but they all had one thing in common; they searched diligently for God, some for many years. God guides those who make the effort. The evidence is that these people find God.

You can acknowledge such transformations all you wish - but there are just as many that happen in the opposite direction. Meaning hearty believers, sincere seekers who ultimately aren't satisfied until they accept that they are atheist. And why is it, do you think, that I am willing to acknowledge BOTH types of anecdotal conversions, and yet your philosophy profits ONLY by the conversion of atheists to theists? It is because conversion of ANY type works in the atheist's favor. Why? Because it shows that belief is a protean thing... capable of being anything, and nothing. It demonstrates that it is extremely easy to be wrong about it all... because the acceptance and praise of such varying ideas is as easy as drinking water from one source or another.

I KNOW that is the reason, but it is not a good reason, because we have to trust people every day, some who we do not even know. It is not easy to trust people we do not know personally without some evidence that indicates that they are trustworthy. I got nine bids for a roof job before deciding who to hire and I did not hire the one I picked without five references, all of whom concurred on the jobs he had done. I went through a lot more than most people go through in order to be sure and it took a long time, but I was very happy with my choice and knew I had made the right choice because I did my homework. There were many indicators that he was trustworthy; he was humble, honest, courteous and straightforward, and he charged me less than half what most of the others were bidding.

I had a portion of my roof done by a man who, for all intents and purposes, was very untrustworthy. But he was my neighbor's son, and he was in need, and we had known one another a long while, and I knew, even as he could not be trusted by his employers, or his alcoholic father, or his girlfriend, or the police - I had an extremely strong feeling that his knowledge of my wholesome outlook, my moralistic traversal of life, that my trustworthiness in all things BOUND him to do well by me. And I was right. He did a job that even other's who knew roof work commented on as looking like good, solid work. Trust is a funny thing. I would trust this "untrustworthy" individual with my children's lives a thousand times over any man claiming to be a messenger from God. He had open arrest warrants in multiple states, threatened his father with a gun on his own front porch, which he discharged into the floor boards, went running through the neighborhood after the sixteen-year-old son of his girlfriend with serious intent to beat him... and still, still I would trust him with my children over anyone claiming to be a messenger from God, and for the same reasons as I knew he would do well on the roofing job. My uprightness inspired him into a state of being unable to disappoint me. If only his father had been able to affect the same for him.

You should never trust me. I never said you should trust me. People ask me to prove to them that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God; just read on this forum at all the people asking me to prove that to them. I will tell you what I have told them. Nobody should EVER believe something because someone else told them it was true. Everyone has to independently investigate the truth. This is the first principle of the Baha’i Faith.

Unfortunately for your position (and you have admitted this much) it ALL depends upon people telling other people what they believe is true. You've got nothing else to go on, really. Especially if (again, as you have stated) God has no other way to interact with the vast majority of people. So your saying this is yet another contradiction too bold to be ignored.

I propose a simple thought experiment. Let's say with the coming generation of children/babies we lose ALL religious texts, and anyone who knows anything about any religion loses their memories of any facet of that religion completely. Such that there is essentially zero knowledge of any religion or belief systems left in the world. How many of the children of this new generation do you feel would come to "the truth" as you know it? Now... consider how many would be atheists.

This has nothing to do with ME. You have decided -- based upon nothing but your personal opinion -- that claims of God ARE OUTLANDISH no matter what they are, and no matter who is doing the telling.

Far more than just my own opinion, believe me. You wish it were only opinion, for obvious reasons. I have basically been laying out a ton of the reasons that there is no reason to believe as we have been talking... but just as you accuse me of, you have overlooked them. it seems we are both guilty.

I hope you realize that you have SO MUCH bias that it would be impossible for you to even look objectively at anyone who claimed to be a Messenger of God.

Objectively? I can only hope you are not being serious here.

You have decided before you even looked, so why should I bother to explain any more to you? You – like all the other atheists – have made up your mind that a Messenger CANNOT speak for God. There is nowhere to go with this. They peoples’ minds are closed, they are closed. Nobody can blame God for that. We all have free will.

My truest opinion and belief is that God cannot be blamed for anything. I hope you understand that.

I do not base my beliefs upon feelings; I base them on evidence.

I'll give you that it is "evidence"... but I still insist that the caliber of that evidence is so low as to render it inconsequential.

 

[Trailblazer]

We are asking you to explain it in a way that we understand it not just you.

It shouldn't be a mystery for others not to get how you describe your belief to yourself.

Not convince. Not pull off as if we won't understand because we try not to. We don't understand it like you do.

Don't convince just converse. Make it simple to where we understand the logic behind it.

Don't explain what you believe, explain the evidence you listed correlate to reality.

Reality isnt defined by the individual. Unless your religion is an illusion and you just dont see it, there got to be a way to explain How bahaullah is divine without our needing to be bahai nor you to understand it.

How is bahaullah divine?

Explain it in steps in a way we will understand it not just you and bahai

All I can do is explain how I became a Baha'i and what happened after that...
I became a Bahai two weeks after I discovered it because I knew it was the Truth. I read many books and it was mostly the "teachings" that attracted me to the Faith. At that time, I did not think much about Baha'u'llah or the significance of who He actually was, because I was only 17 years old. I just saw Truth and recognized it as Truth.

I am very spontaneous and I am very intuitive. Just like I knew the Baha'i Faith was the Truth, I got married three weeks after I met my husband and we are still married over 33 years later. I bought three houses the same way and we still own all of them. I would not say I am impulsive as much as that I am intuitive.

I am an INFJ personality type, so I am very different from most people, so the way I became a Baha'i is not like the way most Baha'is became one:

The INFJ personality type is very rare, making up less than one percent of the population, but they nonetheless leave their mark on the world. As Diplomats, they have an inborn sense of idealism and morality, but what sets them apart is the accompanying Judging (J) trait – INFJs are not idle dreamers, but people capable of taking concrete steps to realize their goals and make a lasting positive impact.

INFJs tend to see helping others as their purpose in life, but while people with this personality type can be found engaging rescue efforts and doing charity work, their real passion is to get to the heart of the issue so that people need not be rescued at all.

INFJs indeed share a unique combination of traits: though soft-spoken, they have very strong opinions and will fight tirelessly for an idea they believe in. They are decisive and strong-willed, but will rarely use that energy for personal gain – INFJs will act with creativity, imagination, conviction and sensitivity not to create advantage, but to create balance. Egalitarianism and karma are very attractive ideas to INFJs, and they tend to believe that nothing would help the world so much as using love and compassion to soften the hearts of tyrants.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. -- Martin Luther King
INFJ Personality (“The Advocate”) | 16Personalities
​

The Baha'i Faith is very idealistic and very moral and it gets to the heart of the matter, it is what humanity needs, so it "fit" my personality type to a tee. My husband is the same way as I am and so we feel the same way about it, although he is more interested in social and political issues and I am more interested in the individual. I am fascinated by people and how they think and feel and why they do what they do. Psychology is my other hat and one I wore a lot longer than I wore a religion hat. I was a Bahai for 42 years in name only, and only during the last six years have I tried to be a "real Baha'i."

So what is the evidence that the Baha'i Faith is the Truth from God? For me, it is the teachings and principles it espouses that are what humanity needs to build the Kingdom of God upon earth. It is a very pragmatic religion but it is also very mystical so it meets the practical needs of society and the individual needs for spiritual growth.

To make a long story short, I fell away from the Baha'i Faith as far as participating in the Baha'i community for many, many years, but my heart was always with the Faith and I never lost my belief that Baha'u'llah was a Manifestation of God, although I really did not understand the "implications" of that to humanity until the last six years, since I started coming to forums and conversing with other Baha'is and reading about the Faith, doing a lot of research. What precipitated all this research was the people I spoke with on forums, mostly atheists, but also a few Christians, who asked me questions. I am not a person who is going to do anything just for myself, and I already knew what I believed and why, so most of my reading was not for my own benefit, although it has benefited me because i now know so much about the Baha'i Faith that I never knew before that.

You asked how Baha'u'llah is divine. That is not something that can be proven like a math formula. It is something that comes from the process of deductive reasoning as well as intuition. One looks at His Writings, the 15,000 Tablets that He wrote, and asks how an ordinary man could write those or why He would want to. Yes, there is an analysis going on, and I am very analytical. When one wants to know who committed a crime the first thing they look for is motive. What would have been Baha'u'llah's motive for sacrificing 40 years of His Life and suffering for 40 years in prison, exile and banishment? Why would He do that? He did not get anything for Himself except undue suffering. This is what I call deductive reasoning.

A list of evidence is just a list. Some things on that list are going to be more important to some people than to others. For example, that Baha'u'llah fulfilled the prophecies for the return of Christ would be important evidence for a Christian but it is not that important to me since I was never a Christian. That Baha'u'llah predicted many things that later came to pass just as He said they would is going to be important to people who need that kind of evidence, that would indicate that He was more than just a man. But I do not need that because I know, by the process of deductive reasoning. All I have to do is look at the Life of Baha'u'llah and His Writings to know who He was. The Bible prophecies that He fulfilled by His coming and all the predictions He made that came to pass are just more proof, icing on the cake.

All the predictions Baha'u'llah made are coming to pass right now all over the world. The old world order is crumbling and a new world order is rising in its stead. Is it just a coincidence that Baha'u'llah wrote the following over 150 years ago, long before these changes started to take place? I think not.

“This is the Day in which God’s most excellent favors have been poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all created things. It is incumbent upon all the peoples of the world to reconcile their differences, and, with perfect unity and peace, abide beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and loving-kindness. It behoveth them to cleave to whatsoever will, in this Day, be conducive to the exaltation of their stations, and to the promotion of their best interests. Happy are those whom the all-glorious Pen was moved to remember, and blessed are those men whose names, by virtue of Our inscrutable decree, We have preferred to conceal.​

Beseech ye the one true God to grant that all men may be graciously assisted to fulfil that which is acceptable in Our sight. Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead. Verily, thy Lord speaketh the truth, and is the Knower of things unseen.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 6-7​

 

[Unveiled Artist]

All I can do is explain how I became a Baha'i and what happened after that...
I became a Bahai two weeks after I discovered it because I knew it was the Truth. I read many books and it was mostly the "teachings" that attracted me to the Faith. At that time, I did not think much about Baha'u'llah or the significance of who He actually was, because I was only 17 years old. I just saw Truth and recognized it as Truth.

I am very spontaneous and I am very intuitive. Just like I knew the Baha'i Faith was the Truth, I got married three weeks after I met my husband and we are still married over 33 years later. I bought three houses the same way and we still own all of them. I would not say I am impulsive as much as that I am intuitive.

I am an INFJ personality type, so I am very different from most people, so the way I became a Baha'i is not like the way most Baha'is became one:

The INFJ personality type is very rare, making up less than one percent of the population, but they nonetheless leave their mark on the world. As Diplomats, they have an inborn sense of idealism and morality, but what sets them apart is the accompanying Judging (J) trait – INFJs are not idle dreamers, but people capable of taking concrete steps to realize their goals and make a lasting positive impact.

INFJs tend to see helping others as their purpose in life, but while people with this personality type can be found engaging rescue efforts and doing charity work, their real passion is to get to the heart of the issue so that people need not be rescued at all.

INFJs indeed share a unique combination of traits: though soft-spoken, they have very strong opinions and will fight tirelessly for an idea they believe in. They are decisive and strong-willed, but will rarely use that energy for personal gain – INFJs will act with creativity, imagination, conviction and sensitivity not to create advantage, but to create balance. Egalitarianism and karma are very attractive ideas to INFJs, and they tend to believe that nothing would help the world so much as using love and compassion to soften the hearts of tyrants.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. -- Martin Luther King
INFJ Personality (“The Advocate”) | 16Personalities
​

The Baha'i Faith is very idealistic and very moral and it gets to the heart of the matter, it is what humanity needs, so it "fit" my personality type to a tee. My husband is the same way as I am and so we feel the same way about it, although he is more interested in social and political issues and I am more interested in the individual. I am fascinated by people and how they think and feel and why they do what they do. Psychology is my other hat and one I wore a lot longer than I wore a religion hat. I was a Bahai for 42 years in name only, and only during the last six years have I tried to be a "real Baha'i."

So what is the evidence that the Baha'i Faith is the Truth from God? For me, it is the teachings and principles it espouses that are what humanity needs to build the Kingdom of God upon earth. It is a very pragmatic religion but it is also very mystical so it meets the practical needs of society and the individual needs for spiritual growth.

To make a long story short, I fell away from the Baha'i Faith as far as participating in the Baha'i community for many, many years, but my heart was always with the Faith and I never lost my belief that Baha'u'llah was a Manifestation of God, although I really did not understand the "implications" of that to humanity until the last six years, since I started coming to forums and conversing with other Baha'is and reading about the Faith, doing a lot of research. What precipitated all this research was the people I spoke with on forums, mostly atheists, but also a few Christians, who asked me questions. I am not a person who is going to do anything just for myself, and I already knew what I believed and why, so most of my reading was not for my own benefit, although it has benefited me because i now know so much about the Baha'i Faith that I never knew before that.

You asked how Baha'u'llah is divine. That is not something that can be proven like a math formula. It is something that comes from the process of deductive reasoning as well as intuition. One looks at His Writings, the 15,000 Tablets that He wrote, and asks how an ordinary man could write those or why He would want to. Yes, there is an analysis going on, and I am very analytical. When one wants to know who committed a crime the first thing they look for is motive. What would have been Baha'u'llah's motive for sacrificing 40 years of His Life and suffering for 40 years in prison, exile and banishment? Why would He do that? He did not get anything for Himself except undue suffering. This is what I call deductive reasoning.

A list of evidence is just a list. Some things on that list are going to be more important to some people than to others. For example, that Baha'u'llah fulfilled the prophecies for the return of Christ would be important evidence for a Christian but it is not that important to me since I was never a Christian. That Baha'u'llah predicted many things that later came to pass just as He said they would is going to be important to people who need that kind of evidence, that would indicate that He was more than just a man. But I do not need that because I know, by the process of deductive reasoning. All I have to do is look at the Life of Baha'u'llah and His Writings to know who He was. The Bible prophecies that He fulfilled by His coming and all the predictions He made that came to pass are just more proof, icing on the cake.

All the predictions Baha'u'llah made are coming to pass right now all over the world. The old world order is crumbling and a new world order is rising in its stead. Is it just a coincidence that Baha'u'llah wrote the following over 150 years ago, long before these changes started to take place? I think not.

“This is the Day in which God’s most excellent favors have been poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all created things. It is incumbent upon all the peoples of the world to reconcile their differences, and, with perfect unity and peace, abide beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and loving-kindness. It behoveth them to cleave to whatsoever will, in this Day, be conducive to the exaltation of their stations, and to the promotion of their best interests. Happy are those whom the all-glorious Pen was moved to remember, and blessed are those men whose names, by virtue of Our inscrutable decree, We have preferred to conceal.​

Beseech ye the one true God to grant that all men may be graciously assisted to fulfil that which is acceptable in Our sight. Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead. Verily, thy Lord speaketh the truth, and is the Knower of things unseen.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 6-7​

Funny, I took that personality test night before last. I got Adventurer. I think everything is to the T.

Thanks for the long answer. Personally, when I figured The Dharma is true, I had to see it from a reality perspective not just personal. If there is suffering, I not only know there is suffering for myself but I see it in others. Things like rebirth I can varify it for myself but I never had interest in knowing anything about the afterlife (hence why my personality says "present moment" person). Actually, Im not really a past person either so having that inherit feeling there is a creator just isnt there.

So, I wont understand it. Im not really for step by step logic. If it is a fact, it should be observed by all regardless if we chose to believe it. I dont like math but that doesnt mean two and two doesnt equal four. I dont believe in god, but if god exists, he would apart from me-he would exist as reality. It wouldnt be your-belief nor Joe Smoe-belief. It would be common knowledge.

Since you cant explain it, it is very hard to educate other people about it. Testimonies are appropriate for some conversations and others they are not.

What exactly can you educate us or discuss with us about bahai beliefs, god, and messengers when you cant describe how these beliefs make sense apart from personal interpretations?

Since you dont come to debate (swap differing opinions with supporting evidence), how do you expect someone ot understand what you say when you say you cant describe the nature and foundation of what you are talking about?

Analogy: If you cant explain arithmetic how can we understand when you talk about your love for algebra?

 

[Trailblazer]

I dont believe in god, but if god exists, he would apart from me-he would exist as reality. It wouldnt be your-belief nor Joe Smoe-belief. It would be common knowledge.

There is absolutely NO reason to think that if God existed that would be common knowledge....
It would only be common knowledge if God wanted it to be common knowledge, but there is NO reason to think that God would want it to be common knowledge.

It is not common knowledge so we know that if God exists God does not WANT it to be common knowledge; because God is omnipotent so God could make it common knowledge if God wanted it to be common knowledge.

So there are only two logical possibilities:

1. God exists but God does not want it to be common knowledge, or
2. God does not exist

 

[Unveiled Artist]

What exactly can you educate us or discuss with us about bahai beliefs, god, and messengers when you cant describe how these beliefs make sense apart from personal interpretations?

• God exists but God does not want it to be common knowledge, or

• God does not exist

God doesnt exist. If he did objectively (which is how you phrased it), it would be common knowledge without need for messengers. Since you feel gods existence is only understood and accepted by you and others dont need to accept it, how can you claim there is an either or when you cant (rather) describe what god you are refer to nor the nature of it.

What exactly exists to which its attributes describe. (No ?) Since you cant describe it, your question makes no sense to us. Only you.

Either god exists to you or it does not. Its not objective in your point of view. If it is, the question makes sense only if you can tell us what should exist in the first place before you give us an either or statement.

 

[Trailblazer]

God doesnt exist. If he did objectively (which is how you phrased it), it would be common knowledge without need for messengers.

How do you know that it would be common knowledge?
How do you know God does not need Messengers?

 

[Unveiled Artist]

How do you know that it would be common knowledge?
How do you know God does not need Messengers?

It goes back to your other thread about god cant talk to people directly.

Many people experience god directly. It is more personal and there is no middle man. Ive seen it. Ive experienced what people call god (god isnt a mystery just not all people see life the same). Its just much more profound.

Would it devalue god if people actually knew him personally?

 

[Trailblazer]

It goes back to your other thread about god cant talk to people directly.

Many people experience god directly. It is more personal and there is no middle man. Ive seen it. Ive experienced what people call god (god isnt a mystery just not all people see life the same). Its just much more profound.

People might be experiencing God but not directly. Nobody experiences God directly.
That is my belief.

Would it devalue god if people actually knew him personally?

No, God cannot be devalued, but God does not want to be known personally.
That is my belief.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

People might be experiencing God but not directly. Nobody experiences God directly.
That is my belief.

No, God cannot be devalued, but God does not want to be known personally.
That is my belief.

Yes. I know. How do you educate us about your belief when you cannot describe the nature of god and you only describe evidence in the way you and other bahais understand it?

Wouldnt you need to build a foundation before educating us on the details?

 

[Trailblazer]

Yes. I know. How do you educate us about your belief when you cannot describe the nature of god and you only describe evidence in the way you and other bahais understand it?

Wouldnt you need to build a foundation before educating us on the details?

Nobody can describe the nature of God because nobody knows the nature of God.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Nobody can describe the nature of God because nobody knows the nature of God.

Yes. You mentioned you didnt come to debate (I think it was you?) but you wanted to converse and tell people about your belief. Since you cant tell us the nature of god and only you believe there is evidence to bahaullahs divinity what is left to talk about?

You cant answer questions about god nor give us a way to understand bahaullahs divinity without our needing to accept it (we cant know two and two is four unless we are interested in math?) so what exactly are you educating us about bahaullah?

Im more interested in the nature of god since I dont know what it is. I can read about bahaullah online and in books; its not the same.

 

[Trailblazer]

Yes. You mentioned you didnt come to debate (I think it was you?) but you wanted to converse and tell people about your belief. Since you cant tell us the nature of god and only you believe there is evidence to bahaullahs divinity what is left to talk about?

Whatever people want to talk about.

You cant answer questions about god nor give us a way to understand bahaullahs divinity without our needing to accept it (we cant know two and two is four unless we are interested in math?) so what exactly are you educating us about bahaullah?

Nobody can understand Baha'u'llah's nature as a Manifestation of God. It is beyond human understanding. We can only understand His human nature.

Im more interested in the nature of god since I dont know what it is. I can read about bahaullah online and in books; its not the same.

Nobody knows the Essence of God, God's intrinsic nature. God's Essence is immeasurably exalted above anything humans can either understand or describe. No man can ever hope to know anything about God's unknowable Essence. Every attempt to attain to an understanding of God's Essence has resulted in complete bewilderment, in hopelessness and failure.

 

[Trailblazer]

If anyone could agree on anything within even the religions themselves, maybe there would be less doubt. But when nearly every single topic and point the sacred texts, or holy figures address is up for interpretation, or can be picked up and run with in another direction, creating yet another denomination/sect of said religion... well... I think you see where I am going with this. There isn't even much internal consistency in the accounts made throughout religions. How in the world can you expect an external party to consider any of it "correct?"

That is a point well taken, but then one might ask why the believers in these religions do not agree among themselves? There is a good reason why people disagree as to their meanings but that in no way proves that the scriptures are not correct. How is it the fault of those who wrote the scriptures that people misinterpreted them after they were written?

There are myriad problems with the Bible and older scriptures. First, they were not written by a Messenger of God, but rather by men who spoke for and about the Messenger of God. The New Testament came to us by way of oral tradition so there is no way to know if Jesus actually uttered those words.

Second, the Bible has been translated and re-translated and re-translated so they have lost a lot of their original meanings. These scriptures do not represent what any God inspired with any degree of specificity, so every word in the Bible cannot be taken literally as the authentic saying of the Prophet.

Given what I said above, I do not expect an external party to consider these scriptures correct, but that does not mean there is nothing in them that is correct. The Baha’i view is that God's Revelation is under His care and protection, so we can be confident that the essence, or essential elements, of what the Bible intended to convey has been recorded and preserved. It does not have to be 100% accurate in order to convey spiritual truth.

I have to agree - to definitively state that "God does not exist" falls in the same "pipe dream" category as what I was condemning. True. But I will insist that it is more probable that anyone making a claim that something outlandish exists (but that can't, at all, be demonstrated to exist) is automatically more wrong than the person who feels that that something simply does not exist given the complete lack of evidence or demonstrability of that "something." And this simply because there is an inherent bias toward knowledge of specific characteristics of said "something' (i.e. "God"). But I contend that the specific characteristics of God are unknowable, even if He exists. Which is why there is such wide and varied dissension in the beliefs of what constitutes "God" in the first place.

What you and other atheists consider outlandish is just what you consider outlandish. That does not define it as outlandish. It is just your personal opinion that it is outlandish. The same applies to the complete lack of evidence for God’s existence. What you and other atheists consider a complete lack of evidence is just what you consider a complete lack of evidence. That does not mean that there is a complete lack of evidence. It is just your personal opinion that there is a complete lack of evidence because you do not SEE the evidence that exists as evidence at all.

What I and other believers see is a lot of evidence for God’s existence; you and other atheists just do not see what we see. That does not mean that it is not there.

The Essence (intrinsic nature) of God (what God is comprised of, where God dwells, how God functions) is unknowable to anyone, including the Messengers. However, we can know “some” of the Attributes of God because they are revealed in scriptures. The Abrahamic religions are in agreement as to these Attributes of God.

Here are some of God’s Attributes that are unique to God’s nature: Eternal, Holy, Unchanging, Impassable, Infinite, All-powerful, Omnipresent, All-Wise, All-Knowing, Self-Existent, Self-Sufficient, Sovereign, and Immaterial.

Here are “some” of God’s Attributes that are manifested by the Messengers of God and which can also be manifested by ordinary humans: Good, Loving, Gracious, Merciful, Just, Forgiving, Patient.

Yeah - because people like me slap religion down every chance we get. That's why.

Do you really think the small number of atheists in the world (7% of the world population) have that much power?

Again, not even their adherents can agree on what a religion entails or teaches - therefore you end up with differing "truths" even from the mouths of believers in the same source religion. The truth is so obviously malleable within religion that it can scarcely be called "truth." It's sort of an insult to the word and its ideals to even use it when discussing religion.

Again, how can are the scriptures to be blamed for the fact that people cannot agree on what they mean? That does not prove anything about the scriptures themselves; it only says something about the people who are reading them. Truth is truth. What people do to misconstrue what was written has nothing to do with what was actually written on the page.

And I, and many others, believe this to be absolutely incorrect.

Why would it matter what you believe anymore than it matters what I believe. Logically speaking, Baha’u’llah was (a) a Manifestation of God, making what He wrote identical to the will of God, or (b) Baha’u’llah was not a Manifestation of God and what He wrote is gibberish.

What you and other atheists consider believe is just what you believe. That does not define it as truth. It is just your personal opinion. Likewise, what I and other Baha’is believe does not define it as truth. It is just what we believe is the truth. The truth just is and it is independent of what we believe about it.

To juxtapose your "truth" with something I believe to be "true": I believe that, by our measurement standards on Earth, the gravitational acceleration of an object toward the Earth is well approximated by the value 9.8 meters per second, per second. If you were to deny this idea of mine, I could very very easily take you to task, and absolutely, without room for doubt, PROVE to you that it is so. it would be a fairly straightforward and simple exercise. You have no way of demonstrating your truth. None whatsoever. These two truths are on completely opposite sides of the spectrum with respect to demonstrability.

They are different kinds of truths. Scientific truths can be proven but religious truths cannot be proven. All we have is the evidence that indicates that they are true. The salient point is that just because they cannot be demonstrated to be true does not mean they are not true. They might be true or not.

Without a way for you to demonstrate your "truth" in any way at all, I feel I have no choice but to place your idea all the way on the opposite side of the "correct" spectrum as well. Or maybe it is more like ideas like yours are placed in a pile in the middle - a pile labeled "pending further review/experience/revelation." And without any input to my senses to make me understand your "truth", it will never make it to the side that includes things like the value of the gravitational pull of the Earth.

Of course it will never make it to the side that includes things like the value of the gravitational pull of the Earth. Religion is not science. People all have to determine its truth value for themselves, and not everyone looking at the same evidence will come to the same conclusions because we are all very different in how we view the evidence, given variations in our childhood upbringing, heredity, education, and adult experiences. However, if people do not even look at the evidence but rather just assume that there is nothing worth looking at then there is no way they will ever know anything about it.

“If a man were to declare, ‘There is a lamp in the next room which gives no light’, one hearer might be satisfied with his report, but a wiser man goes into the room to judge for himself, and behold, when he finds the light shining brilliantly in the lamp, he knows the truth!” Paris Talks, p. 103​

(CONTINUED ON NEXT POST...)

 

[Trailblazer]

I don't have to SEE it... but it MUST be demonstrated. And it simply hasn't been, and won't be.

Nobody can demonstrate it to you as someone would demonstrate a scientific fact. That is not how we come to know religious truth. It has to be recognized by each individual, so every person has to demonstrate it to themselves by the process of independent investigation.

“The first principle Baha’u’llah urged was the independent investigation of truth. “Each individual,” He said, “is following the faith of his ancestors who themselves are lost in the maze of tradition. Reality is steeped in dogmas and doctrines. If each investigate for himself, he will find that Reality is one; does not admit of multiplicity; is not divisible. All will find the same foundation and all will be at peace.” – Abdu’l-Baha, Star of the West, Volume 3, p. 5.

“Bahá’u’lláh asked no one to accept His statements and His tokens blindly. On the contrary, He put in the very forefront of His teachings emphatic warnings against blind acceptance of authority, and urged all to open their eyes and ears, and use their own judgement, independently and fearlessly, in order to ascertain the truth. He enjoined the fullest investigation and never concealed Himself, offering, as the supreme proofs of His Prophethood, His words and works and their effects in transforming the lives and characters of men.” Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, p. 8

“What does it mean to investigate reality? It means that man must forget all hearsay and examine truth himself, for he does not know whether statements he hears are in accordance with reality or not. Wherever he finds truth or reality, he must hold to it, forsaking, discarding all else; for outside of reality there is naught but superstition and imagination.” – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 62.​

Messengers are not good enough for me. End of story on this point. And God would know this, I believe, and so He should completely understand.

God does know this because God knows everything. God understands but God does not barter with humans. We get whatever God provides as evidence and if we do not like it we are free to reject it and not believe in God. It has always been this way.

It is my opinion that God is making a mistake. Just as I would be making a mistake if I only spoke to my own children through some intercessor... but insisted that I "loved" them. I would be a liar and a fool.

God is infallible so God cannot make a mistake. God is All-Knowing and All-Wise and no human is either one of these, so logically speaking no human can know more than God knows or be wiser than God. You cannot compare talking to your children to God speaking to humans. That analogy does not hold because God is not a human being. There are good reasons why God does not speak to everyone directly. I have discussed this at length with atheists on other forums so I have so many Word documents on this subject I would not even know what to post first.

Again - it ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH. Not by a long shot. God is a failure at His own game.

I am sorry to say that God is not a failure at all. 93% of people in the world believe in God and most of them have a religion that as revealed by a Messenger. The fact that 7% of people in the world do not accept Messengers as evidence shows that they are the ones who failed because they cannot accept the clear evidence that God provides. Everyone else can see it but a few atheists. That does not make them smart and the rest of us gullible.

Any God that kowtowed to human desires to have some kind of evidence other than what God provides would not be God anymore. An Omnipotent God only does what it wants to do. Anyone who thinks that they can control God is just spitting in the wind.

“God witnesseth that there is no God but Him, the Gracious, the Best-Beloved. All grace and bounty are His. To whomsoever He will He giveth whatsoever is His wish. He, verily, is the All-Powerful, the Almighty, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.” Gleanings, p. 73​

“Say: O people! Let not this life and its deceits deceive you, for the world and all that is therein is held firmly in the grasp of His Will. He bestoweth His favor on whom He willeth, and from whom He willeth He taketh it away. He doth whatsoever He chooseth.” Gleanings, p. 209​

“Say: He ordaineth as He pleaseth, by virtue of His sovereignty, and doeth whatsoever He willeth at His own behest. He shall not be asked of the things it pleaseth Him to ordain. He, in truth, is the Unrestrained, the All-Powerful, the All-Wise.” Gleanings, p, 284​

Then He has resolved to failure in His goals. Simple as that.

No, God has not failed but it is not God’s goal that everyone believes in Him. Only those who accept the evidence God provides will believe in God. God might care about the others, but God will never kowtow to their desires for some other kind of evidence. It is as simple as the following passage:

“He who shall accept and believe, shall receive his reward; and he who shall turn away, shall receive none other than his own punishment.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 339​

I'll introduce you to that guy I knew who thought he was the second coming of Christ. He called himself "Fate" - who knows what his given name was. If you don't believe him after you have met him, then "THAT IS YOUR PROBLEM TO WORK OUT." Hahaha... what a joke.

If atheists think they are so smart I often wonder why they think they could not tell the difference between a true Messenger of God and an obvious fake. I know that atheists on the whole are more educated than believers but even believers with no education at all were able to recognize Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and Baha’u’llah. Why is that? By the process of deductive reasoning, it has to be something else aside from intelligence. From all I have gathered in posting to atheists 24/7 for about five years, it is about their own refusal to look at anything other than what they want as evidence for God’s existence

But God does not care what you want. God does whatever He wants to do. This is the logic 101 stuff that completely eludes atheists. They say that God is omnipotent so God can do anything which translates to them “God can do anything I want Him to do.” What completely eludes atheists is that an omnipotent God does not have to do anything it does not want to do and that an omnipotent God does not take orders from humans. What also eludes atheists is that God does not do everything God can do. Omnipotent means can do, not will do.

What evidence?

The evidence that Baha’u’llah was who He claimed to be is His character; the history of His life; what He did during His mission on earth; the scriptures that He wrote; what others have written about Him; the Bible prophecies that He fulfilled and the prophecies of other religions that He fulfilled; the predictions He made that have come to pass; the religion that was established as the result of His Revelation, what His followers all over the world have done and are doing now.

All this constitutes evidence that is verifiable.

This is folly.

Why is it folly? How do you know that? The evidence indicates that Major Prophets (Messengers of God) come to earth at intervals of 500-1000 years so it seems about right to me.

 

[Trailblazer]

If He loves them and cares for them equally I would argue that He does. If He has no other way to communicate but to hand out tablets, then He'd better get to work. Your argument is senseless. It's like saying that I really only need to choose one of my children to communicate directly to, and the rest should just trust that I exist and love them and the words of their sister/brother that come from me should be enough to get them through life. How obvious would it be that I didn't have enough love for my kids to give them all the same treatment, time and care from myself?

You cannot compare communication between you and your children (human to human) to communication between God and humans because God is not a human.

To be concise, no human other than a Messenger (who has a divine mind making Him more than human) can understand communication from God, period, end of story. That is why God uses Messengers, who are in effect Mediators between God and man. They have the nature of both God and man in them, so they can receive and relay information from God to man in a way that man can understand them... This is logic 101 stuff.

Your argument is completely unrealistic because it is not possible for all of the 7.44 billion people in the world to understand any let alone all of the 15,000 Tablets that God communicated to Baha’u’llah. So what you are proposing is impossible, unless all the human brains were reconstructed to be like the brain of Baha’u’llah, divine by nature.

And don't say something ridiculous like "you're not God", because, with infinite power, God should have no problems overcoming communication with massive numbers of people even more easily than I find time to communicate directly to my 3 children.

God has no problem overcoming communication with massive numbers of people. You just don’t LIKE how God does it, Messengers. But that’s too bad for you and others like you. God is not going to CHANGE His time honored method of communication to humanity that has worked for everyone in the world except a few atheists just because you do not LIKE IT. That is really all it boils down to.

Why should God communicate directly to everyone? Why do you think you are so special that God owes you a personal message when God can reveal a message to one Messenger whose messages everyone can access? These are the questions that no atheist can answer because there is no logical answer. The excuse that you cannot trust the Messenger will not fly because it is emotion-based, not reason-based. You CAN trust the Messenger, but you won’t even try. Obviously people can trust God’s Messengers because most people in the world believe in one those Messengers.

And WHO gave them that divine mind? As you can see, logically ideas like this fall on their faces very easily.

All human souls come into being at the moment of conception, but the souls of the Messengers of God existed in the spiritual world before their birth into this world. Their souls became divine in the spiritual world because God bestowed divinity upon them. This is what differentiates the Messengers of God from ordinary human beings. It was in the spiritual world that their souls were given the “capacity” to receive God’s revelation on earth and to communicate it to humanity in a way in which we can comprehend it.

Sufficient for you then. Fine. Just don't be hurt when challenged. If you are so very steadfast in your beliefs then no words of mine should sway you. I can promise you that I am of that steadfastness in my chosen path. You can challenge me day in, day out, and not see one iota of shaking in my resolve. Of this I am so confident it sometimes amazes even me.

So we are on the same page, just on opposite sides of the page. I am not hurt in any way when I am challenged because nothing you can say will sway me. The more I am challenged the more confident I have become. That is one value in posting to so many different people.

Like I said, I have been posting to atheists 24/7 for about five years, mostly on other forums. I have heard all their arguments and they are all the same... “God is omnipotent so God CAN do anything. If God is omnipotent God SHOULD do x because I THINK God should do x. If God does not do x I am not going to believe in God. God SHOULD do x because I WANT God to do x.” There is no reasoning involved... It is all about what they want. If atheists used their reasoning they realize why they will never get want they want unless that is aligned with what God wants.

All I have ever hoped for is for them to understand how illogical it is for them to say what an omnipotent God should do. That is akin to ordering an omnipotent God around as if He was a short order cook. I do not understand why intelligent people cannot understand this. God has ALL POWER and ALL KNOWLEDGE so God has more power and more knowledge than any human. So how can we know more than God about how God should communicate and how can anyone think they can order God around? This is completely illogical.

Maybe He did - how would I know? I wasn't about to listen to a single word he had to say on the topic. It would have been even more fruitless than the time I found myself spending in church in the first place. And had he done all those things he would have met the requirements of being a messenger from God, is that what you're saying? So if I started writing right now, sacrificed 40 years of my time doing so, write a "new" message that I claimed was from God and made sure I read up on and executed the bare minimum requirements to interpret my actions as having fulfilled prophecy after a fashion, then you would consider me a messenger of God? Is that really how it works?

You cannot DO what a Messenger of God can DO, so you cannot BE a Messenger. Are you going to put aside all your personal desires, including your children and start writing right now and write 15,000 Tablets, sacrifice 40 years of your time doing so, write a "new" message that you claim is from God? Don’t forget, you have to get God to communicate with you and you also have to garner a following.

Baha’u’llah either fulfilled the Bible prophecies for the return of Christ and the Messiah or not. He could not make it look like He did... He could not control where He was born, when He came and where He was exiled and banished to, all of which fulfilled the prophecies. That is just the tip of the iceberg. The fact that the World Centre of the Baha’i Faith is on Mt. Carmel and all the gardens exist there are a fulfillment of prophecies. Spare me the pain of saying the Baha’is built all that to fool people. That is too ludicrous to even address. Baha’u’llah fulfilled all the prophecies for the return of Christ and the Messiah of the Old Testament. That is irrefutable. It is all in this book and there are other books like it: Thief in the Night

So why don’t people recognize Baha’u’llah as the return of Christ and the Messiah? In short, they don’t even bother to look at the evidence and if they do they deny it because they are either waiting for the same Jesus to float down from the sky on the cloud or if they are Jews they are waiting for their own version of a Messiah that will do what they think He should do to redeem then and restore the Torah, making them the chosen people. They cannot look at the evidence objectively because they want what they want and Baha’u’llah is not it. This is so obvious.

(CONTINUED ON NEXT POST...)

 

[Revoltingest]

The fact that 7% of people in the world do not accept Messengers as evidence shows that they are the ones who failed because they cannot accept the clear evidence that God provides. Everyone else can see it but a few atheists. That does not make them smart and the rest of us gullible. That makes them arrogant and the rest of us humble.....

Regarding the portion I underlined....
Yes, I can feel the blinding radiance of your humility.

 

[Trailblazer]

Then don't worry about what atheists are doing.

Why do you think I am worried?

I don't believe anyone has the tools to sufficiently prove God exists, and we have already established that God is unwilling to grant them.

God gave us the tools when God gave us a brain and free will.

And here you are somewhat contradicting yourself. Before you said that messengers from God should be sufficient to prove God's existence - you were insistent on the point. And now you say they merely "help", but that conditioning in faith must be affected by the individual alone. This is exactly the kind of flip-flopping and slip-ups that I have come to expect from those of theistic persuasion... exactly the kinds of things that blur the meaning and leave the descriptions all but ineffectual.

Just because you do not understand what I meant does not mean I flip-flopped. The Messengers are sufficient proof but we have to use our brains to look at WHY they are proof.... We have to look at what they did and wrote in order to determine if we are going to believe their claim. This has to be done by the individual alone. Nobody else can do it for us.

You can acknowledge such transformations all you wish - but there are just as many that happen in the opposite direction. Meaning hearty believers, sincere seekers who ultimately aren't satisfied until they accept that they are atheist. And why is it, do you think, that I am willing to acknowledge BOTH types of anecdotal conversions, and yet your philosophy profits ONLY by the conversion of atheists to theists? It is because conversion of ANY type works in the atheist's favor. Why? Because it shows that belief is a protean thing... capable of being anything, and nothing. It demonstrates that it is extremely easy to be wrong about it all... because the acceptance and praise of such varying ideas is as easy as drinking water from one source or another.

I am not trying to promulgate theism over atheism. It cuts both ways... I know all about those who have gone from theism to atheism and remained atheists. Accept that they are atheists? You make it sound as if they do not have a choice. Sure, it is easy to be wrong about a particular religious belief but one thing that believers have in common is that we believe there is a God. It never even occurs to atheists that it is extremely easy to be wrong about it all and the repercussions are eternal.

I had a portion of my roof done by a man who, for all intents and purposes, was very untrustworthy. But he was my neighbor's son, and he was in need, and we had known one another a long while, and I knew, even as he could not be trusted by his employers, or his alcoholic father, or his girlfriend, or the police - I had an extremely strong feeling that his knowledge of my wholesome outlook, my moralistic traversal of life, that my trustworthiness in all things BOUND him to do well by me. And I was right. He did a job that even other's who knew roof work commented on as looking like good, solid work. Trust is a funny thing. I would trust this "untrustworthy" individual with my children's lives a thousand times over any man claiming to be a messenger from God. He had open arrest warrants in multiple states, threatened his father with a gun on his own front porch, which he discharged into the floor boards, went running through the neighborhood after the sixteen-year-old son of his girlfriend with serious intent to beat him... and still, still I would trust him with my children over anyone claiming to be a messenger from God, and for the same reasons as I knew he would do well on the roofing job. My uprightness inspired him into a state of being unable to disappoint me. If only his father had been able to affect the same for him.

I was just trying to make a point about trusting people in general. I do not think it makes sense to compare trusting a roofer to trusting someone who claims to be Messenger of God. For one thing, we can meet the roofer, but not the Messenger. For another thing, the claim they make is not similar. Anyone can do a roof if they have skills but one can acquire skills to BE a Messenger of God. For whatever reason, you have decided that NOBODY claiming to be a Messenger of God can be trusted. I am fine with that so I guess we can stop talking about it.

Unfortunately for your position (and you have admitted this much) it ALL depends upon people telling other people what they believe is true. You've got nothing else to go on, really. Especially if (again, as you have stated) God has no other way to interact with the vast majority of people. So your saying this is yet another contradiction too bold to be ignored.

You are wrong about that. I do not believe that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God because somebody told me or because He said He was a Messenger of God. That would be completely foolish. I verified the evidence that indicates that He was telling the truth, and that is all we can do because we cannot prove that He got a message from God since only He and God could know that.

I propose a simple thought experiment. Let's say with the coming generation of children/babies we lose ALL religious texts, and anyone who knows anything about any religion loses their memories of any facet of that religion completely. Such that there is essentially zero knowledge of any religion or belief systems left in the world. How many of the children of this new generation do you feel would come to "the truth" as you know it? Now... consider how many would be atheists.

That is how I came to be a Baha’i. You might not believe me, but I never saw a Bible or any religious text growing up, and I never thought about religion or God one day of my life, and then in my first year of college I stumbled upon the Baha’i Faith and I almost immediately recognized it as the truth. I did not think much about God back then, I just saw truth.

Think -- If there was essentially zero knowledge of any religion or belief systems left in the world, how could the children of this new generation come to believe in God or a religion? Of course they would be atheists because there would be NO WAY to know anything about a God. You see, I do not believe that most people believe in God because it makes sense that creation had to come from somewhere, etc. Most people believe in God because of one of the Messengers of God. God set it up this way. God sent Messengers because God wants people to believe He exists.

Far more than just my own opinion, believe me. You wish it were only opinion, for obvious reasons. I have basically been laying out a ton of the reasons that there is no reason to believe as we have been talking... but just as you accuse me of, you have overlooked them. it seems we are both guilty.

You can make a case for no God existing just as I can make a case for God existing and these will constitute the reasons you do not believe and the reasons I do believe. But you cannot prove there is no God anymore than I can prove that there is a God.

Objectively? I can only hope you are not being serious here.

I am absolutely serious. You are anything but objective. You are completely biased. You said that you would NEVER believe anyone who claimed to speak for God. That means that you would never look at any evidence. Objective people do not completely disregard something that could be evidence based upon their own personal feelings or opinions.

Objective: (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts. https://www.google.com/search

My truest opinion and belief is that God cannot be blamed for anything. I hope you understand that.

So I guess that means that God cannot be blamed for not communicating directly to everyone.

I'll give you that it is "evidence"... but I still insist that the caliber of that evidence is so low as to render it inconsequential.

Inconsequential to you, but it is very consequential to me.