Why Does God Allow Suffering?

[CG Didymus]

But not the same faith in the same God. Many people of faith think the others are totally wrong, some people of faith want to kill other people of different faiths. It's a total failure to communicate (if there is a real God). An utterly pathetic attempt.

Yes, and if most of those Christians believe in the Trinity, then they are all wrong. I'd imagine in ancient times all people believed in a God... and maybe several Gods. Then the God of Israel told his people that all those other people believed in false Gods.

Oh, and those Christians that Baha'is believe are wrong about the Trinity, those Christians believe the Baha'is are wrong about their God and their prophet.

I know Baha'is believe there has been consistency in the messages given by the various people Baha'is believe to be manifestations of God. I just don't see it. Between Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Jesus and all the rest, the messages have all been different.

 

[Trailblazer]

I know Baha'is believe their has been consistency in the messages given by the various people Baha'is believe to be manifestations of God. I just don't see it. Between Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Jesus and all the rest, the messages have all been different.

You do not see it because it isn't there.

“The Prophets of God should be regarded as physicians whose task is to foster the well-being of the world and its peoples, that, through the spirit of oneness, they may heal the sickness of a divided humanity. To none is given the right to question their words or disparage their conduct, for they are the only ones who can claim to have understood the patient and to have correctly diagnosed its ailments. No man, however acute his perception, can ever hope to reach the heights which the wisdom and understanding of the Divine Physician have attained. Little wonder, then, if the treatment prescribed by the physician in this day should not be found to be identical with that which he prescribed before. How could it be otherwise when the ills affecting the sufferer necessitate at every stage of his sickness a special remedy? In like manner, every time the Prophets of God have illumined the world with the resplendent radiance of the Day Star of Divine knowledge, they have invariably summoned its peoples to embrace the light of God through such means as best befitted the exigencies of the age in which they appeared.”

Bahá'í Reference Library - Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, Pages 77-82

reference.bahai.org

 

[ratiocinator]

If God spoke to everyone directly, how would anyone know it was really God speaking to them?

To be fair, you could ask the same question about the messengers, how did they know it was really God speaking to them?

Exactly.

There is no way to prove that God spoke to any messengers so that has to be believed on faith and the evidence that they present.

But these people are just not evidence. In fact some of the supposed messengers are probably entirely fictional. The ones we have reason to believe were real were just people who claimed to have a revelation from God and managed to convince enough other people to believe them.

That really can't be evidence that the messages or the god is real.

 

[ratiocinator]

You will have to present a BASIS for that assertion. Otherwise it is nothing more than a bald assertion.

I already did, several times and in more than one way. All you've done is flatly contradict them, rather than address them and say why you think they don't work.

These different religious were revealed by the same God but the message from that God changed over time.

Baseless assertion. Funny how you end up using the fallacy you just accused me of using.

God did not fail to communicate. God simply communicated differently at different times throughout history.
The only failure is on the part of humans in not realizing what I just said above!

Which would be entirely predictable to a god. Not communicating in an appropriate for your audience and therefore getting misunderstood, is a failure to communicate.

You are completely illogical. You keep blaming God for what is the fault of humans.
Again, the state of religion in the world is a mess, but that mess was created by humans, NOT by God.

If God created humans, human failures are God's failures. Your God appears to have botched both the design of humans and attempting to communicate with them. It's comedy gold.

It is precisely because God is omnipotent that He cannot project His presence into the world without killing people.

ROTFLMAO!

Yes, if the Essence of God 'showed up' on earth all created things would be reduced to utter nothingness....

So incapable of just projecting enough of itself into the world without going that far. So, again, not omnipotent. Even humans can communicate indirectly. We are doing it now.

There is nothing funny about this, you just don't like it but it is perfectly logical.

Circular argument is a fallacy.

Circular reasoning - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You are wrong again. Messengers are evidence if God sent them as evidence.
It would not matter if not one person in the world believed them. If God sent them as evidence they would be evidence.

So you have no idea what 'evidence' actually means. Okay, I guess that explains a lot.

 

[CG Didymus]

But these people are just not evidence. In fact some of the supposed messengers are probably entirely fictional.

She says there is no way to prove it, yet it's the proof? Just with the Bible people that the Baha'i Faith claims are manifestations/messengers, there are some that could very well be fictional. But Baha'u'llah never said anything about Krishna. It was his son, Abdul Baha', that added Krishna in as a manifestation of God. But there were several other people prior to Krishna that were said to be incarnations of Vishnu. Baha'is don't include them. So, Baha'is are very selective on who they pretend were manifestations of God.

The ones we have reason to believe were real were just people who claimed to have a revelation from God and managed to convince enough other people to believe them.

An angel spoke to Joseph Smith, or so says Joseph Smith. But Baha'is don't make him a manifestation of God. An angel spoke to Muhammad, The Baha'is make him a manifestation.

That really can't be evidence that the messages or the god is real.

And TB says that it must be taken on faith. Just like other religions must take things on faith, yet Baha'is reject some of the beliefs those other religions take on faith. Why? Because they aren't real and aren't true. Like a Christian takes the Adam and Eve story or the flood as true, Baha'is say that those stories aren't true and shouldn't be believed.

Baseless assertion. Funny how you end up using the fallacy you just accused me of using.

That's only a Baha'i belief that there is only one God that revealed all things different things to different manifestations. Krishna is an example of someone that his followers was not a "manifestation" of God, but was a God, an incarnation of the God Vishnu. One of the main Gods of the many Gods believed by Hindus.

But TB is only pushing her Baha'i beliefs. And acting as if they are the absolute truth. But to do that she has to make the "absolute" truths of other religions only a temporary, changeable truth... or not a truth at all, but misunderstood, misinterpreted thing that was believed to be true. Like with Hindus and reincarnation. Baha'is believe they misunderstood. Or like with Christians and the resurrection of Jesus. Baha'is say it was a "spiritual" resurrection, that the early Christians misunderstood it to be a physical resurrection.

So, Baha'is reject beliefs that were taken by faith from other religions, but they believe their "stuff" is true, but they can't prove it. So, they take it on faith. Like that there is one God, and that God sent his messenger, Baha'u'llah, to teach us the way.

 

[Trailblazer]

She says there is no way to prove it, yet it's the proof?

No, I never said that. I said that Messengers of God are the evidence for God's existence.
Evidence is not proof. There is no proof of God's existence, only evidence.

 

[Trailblazer]

An angel spoke to Joseph Smith, or so says Joseph Smith. But Baha'is don't make him a manifestation of God. An angel spoke to Muhammad, The Baha'is make him a manifestation.

The Baha'is do not make anyone a manifestation of God. God makes them manifestations of God.
God made Muhammad a manifestation but God did not make Joseph Smith a manifestation.
I hope you can figure out what I mean.

 

[Trailblazer]

So, Baha'is reject beliefs that were taken by faith from other religions, but they believe their "stuff" is true, but they can't prove it. So, they take it on faith. Like that there is one God, and that God sent his messenger, Baha'u'llah, to teach us the way.

Baha'is believe what we do on faith and evidence.
The evidence for the Bahai Faith far exceeds the evidence of any other religion both in quantity and quality.

For starters, only the Baha'i Faith has original writings from its founder. There is no other religion that has that.
Secondly, the Baha'i Faith has a verifiable history that can be traced back to the central figures of the Faith. There is no other religion that has that.

 

[Trailblazer]

But these people are just not evidence. In fact some of the supposed messengers are probably entirely fictional. The ones we have reason to believe were real were just people who claimed to have a revelation from God and managed to convince enough other people to believe them.

You do not know if they are evidence or not. That can never be proven, it can only be believed, or not believed.

That really can't be evidence that the messages or the god is real.

If God sent them as evidence, then they are evidence of God and their messages are from God.

 

[Trailblazer]

I already did, several times and in more than one way.

No you did not.
You never explained WHY, if an omnipotent omniscient creator created the world, then it created the entire history of the world and everything in, right up until it ends.

All you've done is flatly contradict them, rather than address them and say why you think they don't work.

There was nothing to contradict except a baseless assertion.

Which would be entirely predictable to a god. Not communicating in an appropriate for your audience and therefore getting misunderstood, is a failure to communicate.

There was no failure to communicate on the part of God. The ONLY failure was on the part of humans to accept and understand the communication.

If God created humans, human failures are God's failures.

That is so pathetic it is hardly worth answering.
That is completely illogical. Humans were created with the capacity to recognize the messengers and believe in God but if humans don't use that capacity it is their own failure.

Your God appears to have botched both the design of humans and attempting to communicate with them. It's comedy gold.

God has done a perfectly good job at communicating with humans as is evidenced by the FACT that 93% of people in the world believe in God.

According to sociologists Ariela Keysar and Juhem Navarro-Rivera's review of numerous global studies on atheism, there are 450 to 500 million positive atheists and agnostics worldwide (7% of the world's population), with China having the most atheists in the world (200 million convinced atheists).

Demographics of atheism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

ROTFLMAO!

I see that you did not understand my logical explanation as to why God cannot just show up on earth.

So incapable of just projecting enough of itself into the world without going that far. So, again, not omnipotent. Even humans can communicate indirectly. We are doing it now.

God has already projected enough of Himself into the world without showing up.
God did that at various times throughout history, whenever He sent a messenger.

So you have no idea what 'evidence' actually means. Okay, I guess that explains a lot.

I know exactly what it means.

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

Google

Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

www.google.com

Evidence is anything that you see, experience, read, or are told that causes you to believe that something is true or has really happened.

Loading…

www.collinsdictionary.com

Messengers of God are evidence for God according to the definitions above.

 

[CG Didymus]

So incapable of just projecting enough of itself into the world without going that far. So, again, not omnipotent.

But that's only Baha'i beliefs. Hindu Gods were able to incarnate as humans. The God in the Bible spoke from heaven, sent fire from heaven, wrote on a wall, flooded the whole world, and did several other things to prove he existed. But TB and other Baha'is don't believe those stories are literally true. Yet, they believe the God in those Bible stories is real.

But, if those stories are fictional, why not the main character in those stories? Why wouldn't the God in those stories also be fictional? Considering that everybody in those days had their gods. And in the stories about those gods, they did things to prove themselves real. But the stories were fictional, and the gods in those stories were fictional.

But, of course, since their prophet says that God is real... he is real. And we know that to be true, because how could their prophet be sent from God if there is no God? It wouldn't make sense. Therefore... there must be a God. Hold on. I was going a round and round in circles so much I got dizzy.

 

[ratiocinator]

You never explained WHY, if an omnipotent omniscient creator created the world, then it created the entire history of the world and everything in, right up until it ends.

Yet again: Such a God would see all the ways it could create the world, and all of the details of every single option, including exactly how it will play out from start to end. That's what being omniscient would mean. Making a choice for one option is making a choice for the whole package, including its entire history.

Of course, there are theists who argue that God quite literally created all of history because it exists outside of any notion of time and therefore created the entire 'block universe' of space-time in one action.

There was no failure to communicate on the part of God. The ONLY failure was on the part of humans to accept and understand the communication.

This is just silly. Even in human terms, if your message isn't getting through, and people aren't accepting it or understanding it, then it's time to think again about how you are delivering it. Ask any advertising agency. A God should do far better, because it would already know that it's message would get distorted, misunderstood, and rejected, before it started. Apparently, it was stupid enough to do it that way anyway.

You're making a great case for no God, or an idiot God here.

God has done a perfectly good job at communicating with humans as is evidenced by the FACT that 93% of people in the world believe in God.

Why do you keep repeating this? They don't believe in one God, they believe in very different Gods, or multiple gods. Whichever religion you belong to most people in the world think you are wrong. If there is a real God that's trying to get its message across, it's failed.

I see that you did not understand my logical explanation as to why God cannot just show up on earth.

There wasn't any. An omnipotent God could communicate directly without killing everyone. Saying it couldn't is a denial of its omnipotence.

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

Which means the messangers are not evidence of God, since they could have been deluded, mistaken, lying, or, in some cases, not have said or done what was attributed to them, or not existed at all. They also seem to have contradicted each other (I know you claim that they didn't, but you have no evidence of that, either).

 

[Trailblazer]

Yet again: Such a God would see all the ways it could create the world, and all of the details of every single option, including exactly how it will play out from start to end. That's what being omniscient would mean. Making a choice for one option is making a choice for the whole package, including its entire history.

You have not explained WHY God making a choice for one option is making a choice for the whole package, including its entire history.

God does not cause anything to happen in this world. Humans cause the things that happen by choosing to do them, so humans make history.
Ever heard of human history?

Of course, there are theists who argue that God quite literally created all of history because it exists outside of any notion of time and therefore created the entire 'block universe' of space-time in one action.

I would never argue that since it is not logical. God gave man dominion over the earth and free will to make choices, so humans create all history.

This is just silly. Even in human terms, if your message isn't getting through, and people aren't accepting it or understanding it, then it's time to think again about how you are delivering it. Ask any advertising agency. A God should do far better, because it would already know that it's message would get distorted, misunderstood, and rejected, before it started. Apparently, it was stupid enough to do it that way anyway.

You're making a great case for no God, or an idiot God here.

Why do you think it makes any difference to God if His messengers and messages from them are accepted or not? It does not affect God in any way.
God is all-knowing so God knew that His message would get distorted, misunderstood, and rejected by humans, but God also knows that humans are responsible for that, and none of this affects God in any way. God is not selling a product.

Why do you keep repeating this? They don't believe in one God, they believe in very different Gods, or multiple gods. Whichever religion you belong to most people in the world think you are wrong. If there is a real God that's trying to get its message across, it's failed.

God did not fail. Humans got the messages by the means that it was delivered in every age, but that message was different in every age, which is WHY people believe differently about God. Because religious people cling tenaciously to their own religions, and they are emotionally attached to their religions, they FAIL to look at and recognize the messengers of God who came later with a new message. That's why Christians believe that the Bible is the ONLY Word of God.

There wasn't any. An omnipotent God could communicate directly without killing everyone. Saying it couldn't is a denial of its omnipotence.

Omnipotence means all-powerful. It has nothing to do with whether God could communicate directly without killing everyone.

You do not KNOW what an omnipotent God could do, but that is really a moot point. The point is that:

- There is no need for God to communicate directly to everyone, when God can communicate to one messenger who can communicate the message to everyone, and
- Nobody could understand what God communicated unless they were a messenger of God

Which means the messengers are not evidence of God, since they could have been deluded, mistaken, lying, or, in some cases, not have said or done what was attributed to them, or not existed at all. They also seem to have contradicted each other (I know you claim that they didn't, but you have no evidence of that, either).

Men who claimed to be messengers of God could have been deluded, mistaken, lying, or, in some cases, not have said or done what was attributed to them, but the existence of false messengers does not mean that there have never been any true messengers from God.

There have been many false messengers, but that does not mean that there were no true messengers.

If you assume that a messenger claimant is false based upon insufficient evidence you are committing the Fallacy of Hasty Generalization.

Hasty generalization is an informal fallacy of faulty generalization by reaching an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence—essentially making a hasty conclusion without considering all of the variables.

Faulty generalization - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hasty generalization usually shows this pattern:

messenger a was a false messenger
messenger b was a false messenger
messenger c was a false messenger
messenger d was a false messenger
messenger e was a false messenger

Therefore, messenger f is a false messenger

 

[ratiocinator]

You have not explained WHY God making a choice for one option is making a choice for the whole package, including its entire history.

When you make an important choice, do you not consider all that you know about each option? Do you not try to think through the possible consequences of each option? Think how much easier it would be if you knew all the consequences of each option. Would you just ignore said consequences, if you did know them?

God does not cause anything to happen in this world. Humans cause the things that happen by choosing to do them, so humans make history.

God chooses all the factors that determine each human's choices. That's choosing the choices.

God gave man dominion over the earth and free will to make choices, so humans create all history.

Humans cannot have free will with respect to an omnipotent and omniscient creator. It's utter nonsense to claim they do. We've already been through all that.

Why do you think it makes any difference to God if His messengers and messages from them are accepted or not? It does not affect God in any way.
God is all-knowing so God knew that His message would get distorted, misunderstood, and rejected by humans, but God also knows that humans are responsible for that, and none of this affects God in any way. God is not selling a product.

Why bother at all, then? Either God wants to communicate, and has failed, or it doesn't, and all this is nonsense with the messengers is pointless.

- There is no need for God to communicate directly to everyone, when God can communicate to one messenger who can communicate the message to everyone, and

Which manifestly doesn't work.

- Nobody could understand what God communicated unless they were a messenger of God

Which, if it were true, would just be more evidence of incompetent idiocy from your God.

Men who claimed to be messengers of God could have been deluded, mistaken, lying, or, in some cases, not have said or done what was attributed to them, but the existence of false messengers does not mean that there have never been any true messengers from God.

I didn't say it did. I didn't even say that there were false messengers. The point is that we can't tell whether any or all of them are true or false, so they are not evidence of a God.

It would help if you addressed the points I actually made before rushing off to quote a lot of stuff about irrelevant fallacies.

 

[Trailblazer]

When you make an important choice, do you not consider all that you know about each option? Do you not try to think through the possible consequences of each option?

When I make an important choice, I consider all that I know about each option and I try to think through the possible consequences of each option.

Think how much easier it would be if you knew all the consequences of each option. Would you just ignore said consequences, if you did know them?

If I knew all the consequences of each option I would not ignore said consequences.

God chooses all the factors that determine each human's choices. That's choosing the choices.

You are wrong about that. God does not choose any factors that determine each human's choices.

God created the world in a certain way but after that God was completely out of the game.
God is not a player in this world, humans are the players that determine how the game is played.

I decided to come back and edit this post after further thought. God is not a player in this world but God can affect our thoughts and decisions and certain outcomes if we pray for help or guidance. God might even help people who do not pray, but there is a better chance for guidance if we pray, which is why so many believers pray.

Humans cannot have free will with respect to an omnipotent and omniscient creator. It's utter nonsense to claim they do. We've already been through all that.

Humans can and do have free will because God gave humans free will. It's utter nonsense to claim they don't have free will since God gave them free will.

You take the words omnipotent and omniscient and apply them to God and you think you know all about God just with the two words, but you don't know jack squat, because the ONLY way to know anything about God is through the messengers of God.

Why bother at all, then? Either God wants to communicate, and has failed, or it doesn't, and all this is nonsense with the messengers is pointless.

God wants to communicate, and God has not failed, for reasons I have already explained.
God only wants to communicate for the benefit and needs of humans, not for His own benefit or needs, because God has no needs.

Which manifestly doesn't work.

It has worked fine.

Which, if it were true, would just be more evidence of incompetent idiocy from your God.

The reason that nobody could understand what God communicated unless they were a messenger of God has nothing to do with God.
It is by design. God never intended to communicate to everyone so everyone was not created with a divine mind. God only intended to communicate to messengers because they have a divine mind.

You have not presented one good reason why God should communicate directly to everyone, aside from the fact that you do not like the idea of messengers. By contrast, I can give you a lot of good reasons why direct communication to everyone would never work.

I didn't say it did. I didn't even say that there were false messengers. The point is that we can't tell whether any or all of them are true or false, so they are not evidence of a God.

It would help if you addressed the points I actually made before rushing off to quote a lot of stuff about irrelevant fallacies.

We can tell whether any or all of them are true or false, so they are evidence of a God.
It requires some research and investigation, but it can be done.

 

[ratiocinator]

When I make an important choice, I consider all that I know about each option and I try to think through the possible consequences of each option.

If I knew all the consequences of each option I would not ignore said consequences.

Yet apparently your God can't be bother to do these things and just washes its hands of any consequences, that it absolutely knows will happen.

You're not painting your God in a good light at all.

You are wrong about that. God does not choose any factors that determine each human's choices.

How can it possibly avoid it? You are not making any sense at all.

Humans can and do have free will because God gave humans free will. It's utter nonsense to claim they don't have free will since God gave them free will.

Free will is as impossible as a square circle. I've been through this argument with you and you just pointed me at compatibilism, which isn't free will when there is an omnipotent omniscient creator.

God wants to communicate, and God has not failed, for reasons I have already explained.

You haven't supplied anything remotely like an explanation.

God only wants to communicate for the benefit and needs of humans, not for His own benefit or needs, because God has no needs.

Then why doesn't it do a better job than using a method that gets distorted, misunderstood and rejected?

The reason that nobody could understand what God communicated unless they were a messenger of God has nothing to do with God.
It is by design. God never intended to communicate to everyone so everyone was not created with a divine mind. God only intended to communicate to messengers because they have a divine mind.

You just contradicted yourself. If it's by design, it has everything to do with God.

You have not presented one good reason why God should communicate directly to everyone, aside from the fact that you do not like the idea of messengers.

Are you even reading my posts? My objection to it is that it doesn't work.

By contrast, I can give you a lot of good reasons why direct communication to everyone would never work.

You haven't so far. Just some silly foot-stamping and nonsense about God not being able to do something that even humans can do. Don't let me stop you trying again, though.

We can tell whether any or all of them are true or false, so they are evidence of a God.
It requires some research and investigation, but it can be done.

How? Every time I ask you about this, you lapse into circular reasoning.

 

[Trailblazer]

Yet apparently your God can't be bother to do these things and just washes its hands of any consequences, that it absolutely knows will happen.

You're not painting your God in a good light at all.

Just because God knows what will happen that does not mean that God is responsible for what happens. There is no logical connection between the two.

How can it possibly avoid it? You are not making any sense at all.

You said that God chooses all the factors that determine each human's choices, but God does not choose any factors that determine each human's choices.

Humans choose some things and other things that happen to us are because of choices that people make that affect us.

Humans make choices based upon their desires and preferences, which come from a combination of factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances. All of these factors are the reasons why we choose one thing or another at any point in time. God did not choose those factors. They are simply due to how our lives unfolded.

Free will is as impossible as a square circle. I've been through this argument with you and you just pointed me at compatibilism, which isn't free will when there is an omnipotent omniscient creator.

Free will exists because the omnipotent omniscient creator gave humans free will.

Justices systems all over the world are predicated on the the assumption that humans have free will. If humans did not have free will humans could not be held accountable for crimes in courts of law.

You haven't supplied anything remotely like an explanation.

God wants to communicate, and God has not failed, for reasons I have already explained.

Then why doesn't it do a better job than using a method that gets distorted, misunderstood and rejected?

Because there is no better method. The reason the message gets distorted, misunderstood and rejected is because humans distort, misunderstand and reject the message. That has happened in the religions of the past because the message was not clear, but it is not happening with the Baha'i Faith since the message is clear.

You just contradicted yourself. If it's by design, it has everything to do with God.

I did not contradict myself because I never said that it did not have anything to do with God.
I said It is by design. God designed it that way because God never intended to communicate to everyone.
God only intended to communicate to messengers.

Are you even reading my posts? My objection to it is that it doesn't work.

Work for what? Work for what you want or work for what God wants?
It has worked for what God wanted to accomplish.

But you were deflecting. I am still waiting for one good reason why God should communicate directly to everyone, aside from the fact that you do not like the idea of messengers.

How do you think direct communication of the same message to everyone in the world would work?

You haven't so far. Just some silly foot-stamping and nonsense about God not being able to do something that even humans can do. Don't let me stop you trying again, though.

I have told you. It could never work because ordinary humans were not designed to receive direct communication from God.
It could never work because ordinary humans could not write the 15,000 tablets that Baha'u'llah wrote.
Ordinary people have to make a living and raise families so they would not have time to write all those scriptures.

How? Every time I ask you about this, you lapse into circular reasoning.

The circular reasoning accusation is just a smokescreen you hide behind, an excuse to write them off.
If they were messengers from God, they were messengers from God. God does not care if it seems circular to people like you.

 

[CG Didymus]

Which means the messangers are not evidence of God, since they could have been deluded, mistaken, lying, or, in some cases, not have said or done what was attributed to them, or not existed at all. They also seem to have contradicted each other (I know you claim that they didn't, but you have no evidence of that, either).

TB just started a thread about their not being any eyewitnesses to what Jesus said. So, what kind of "evidence" was he?

 

[Trailblazer]

TB just started a thread about their not being any eyewitnesses to what Jesus said. So, what kind of "evidence" was he?

It does not matter if there were any eyewitnesses to what Jesus said in the NT.
Baha'is do not believe in Jesus based upon what it says in the NT. We believe based upon what it says the Baha'i Writings.

We believe that Jesus was a messenger/manifestation of God based upon the Baha'i Writings, so Jesus was evidence for God.

 

[ratiocinator]

Just because God knows what will happen that does not mean that God is responsible for what happens. There is no logical connection between the two.

*sigh* If (say) an electrician wires something up that leaves an exposed live wire and somebody comes along, inadvertently touches it and dies, then we would rightly hold the electrician responsible, even though they didn't make the person touch the wire, let alone know that somebody would.

How much more responsible would an omniscient God be for all the consequences of its action of creation?

Humans make choices based upon their desires and preferences, which come from a combination of factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances. All of these factors are the reasons why we choose one thing or another at any point in time. God did not choose those factors. They are simply due to how our lives unfolded.

Either reality is entirely deterministic or it contains some genuine randomness. In the former case, everything it set in stone from the moment of creation and a God would be responsible for it all. In the latter, it would also be responsible for introducing the randomness. It would certainly not be people, who would have no control over it.

Work for what? Work for what you want or work for what God wants?
It has worked for what God wanted to accomplish.

So your God wanted a world full of misunderstanding of its messages, different religions that often hate each other, conflict, uncertainty and not one shred of actual evidence that it exists at all? Okay, but I'd rather spit in such a God's eye, than worship it.

But you were deflecting. I am still waiting for one good reason why God should communicate directly to everyone, aside from the fact that you do not like the idea of messengers.

It would avoid lots of problems, evil, and confusion in the world. But, hey, you don't think your God cares about that, so whatever.

I have told you. It could never work because ordinary humans were not designed to receive direct communication from God.

Better design would have solved that.

It could never work because ordinary humans could not write the 15,000 tablets that Baha'u'llah wrote.
Ordinary people have to make a living and raise families so they would not have time to write all those scriptures.

They wouldn't have to if everybody was getting the message directly, would they?

The circular reasoning accusation is just a smokescreen you hide behind, an excuse to write them off.

Circular reasoning is a fallacy (that's a mistake in basic reasoning).

Circular reasoning - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If they were messengers from God, they were messengers from God. God does not care if it seems circular to people like you.

Nasty, evil, and bad a reasoning, then.