The Bah'ai Faith

[Rusty T]

I've been studying the Bah'ai faith, b/c as what happens in my life every few months, I get the religious itch. There are many reasons for this - most of them sociological and psychological- but the Bah'ai faith is very interesting to say the least. Here are some of it's basic tenets:
1. God is one. He is the immutable. That which is far beyond our comprehension.
2. God is revealing himself through progressive revelation.
3. Most of the world's faiths have been founded by "Manifistations of God" (i.e. Buddha, Jesus, etc.).
4. No one of these Manifistations is more significant than the other.
5. Today world is living under the revelation of God in Baha'ullah.
6. There will be no other prophet for 1000 years.
7. The races are one race. Racial strife and tension should end.
8. The genders are equal. Gender inequality should end.
9. Education is obligatory
10. Independent investigation of the truth is encouraged.
11. The unity of Religion
12. No clergy
13. Economic justice
14. Environmental awareness
15. "harnessing of the lower nature" i.e. Spiritiual laws for government of life
16. Daily prayer, choosing from three obligator prayers, the shortest which states, "I bear witness, O my God, that Thou hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee. I testify, at this moment, to my powerlessness and to Thy might, to my poverty and to Thy wealth. There is none other God but Thee, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting."
17. Daily Readings of sacred scriptures from Baha'ullah, and others.
18. Fasting for 19 days from sun up to sun down during March.
19. The nineteen day feast, which is a once a month gathering (i.e. a church service)
20. Life after death.

This list is very simplistic. Anyone else got any thoughts on the Bah'ai faith?

tizzi

[Epoetker]

Some correct observations, some incorrect. Standard pick-and-choose dissociation cult curve.

(Darned scientific language acting up again. Curse you, biochemistry!)

[Rusty T]

From everything I've read, the Bah'ai's are considered a world religion and not a cult. But I'm sure you can explain further.

[Solly]

I think the Bahai were started in a similar fashion to the Sikhs - a desire to end religious conflict, and a return to Puritanism within Islam - though they are now out of Islam. Sadly, they have joined the ranks of persecuted groups. I have not heard anything bad about Bahai's and I think they have the ear of those who believe in world peace/order/religious endeavour. Probably one of those religions one would turn to if seeking one, the other main choice, to my mind, being Buddhism.

[kiwimac]

Yes,

The Baha'i faith has an interesting history. Please note there are several Baha'i groups and they all ignore each other PLUS there are still Babi's [Precursor faith to Baha'i] in the Middle East.

If anyone is interested I will post URLS etc.

Kiwimac

[Rusty T]

I haven't read much about the Splinter groups, especially since Baha'ullah himself set up the order of succession, eventually ending in the Universal House of Justice. Most Bah'ai's consider anyone outside of these institutions not to be a Bah'ai

[Rusty T]

I have found some splinter groups. Mainly they are arguing against succession. But again, from what I read, the succession is in no question if you read the will of Baha'ullah.

[Evangel]

sounds like a copy and paste cult to me. how good a religion sounds doesnt make it any more true.

do they base their "religion" on a specific event or did the author/founder just decide to make it one day?

my main contention with many religions is that they have a single founder that may or may not have been divenly inspired and have little proof that what they wrote actually happened.

[DBoone]

<3. Most of the world's faiths have been founded by "Manifistations of God" (i.e. Buddha, Jesus, etc.).
4. No one of these Manifistations is more significant than the other.
5. Today world is living under the revelation of God in Baha'ullah.>

In other words:

"We believe everything."

"Then you believe in Jesus?"

"Yes."

"Then you believe that Jesus is the only way to God?"

"No."

"Then you don't really believe in Jesus, do you?"

"We believe everything."

Now I'm sure this is a very simplistic examination of the Ba'hai faith, but that's how it sounds to me when one attempts to homogenize faiths that are unique in their claims.

[Rusty T]

In other words:

&quot;We believe everything.&quot;

&quot;Then you believe in Jesus?&quot;

&quot;Yes.&quot;

&quot;Then you believe that Jesus is the only way to God?&quot;

&quot;No.&quot;

&quot;Then you don't really believe in Jesus, do you?&quot;

&quot;We believe everything.&quot;

Now I'm sure this is a very simplistic examination of the Ba'hai faith, but that's how it sounds to me when one attempts to homogenize faiths that are unique in their claims.

Well, I'm sure that they do not believe everything that is written about Jesus. They believe that he was a manifistation of God, but not God's son in the way Christians understand it. They believe he was spiritually resurrected, not physically.

They believe in a progressive revelation, so they would not say that everything that every teacher taught is applicable today.

tizzi

[DBoone]

I would be interested in hearing their criteria for what they pick and choose from among various religions.

[Jin-Roh]

From what I've heard, and from the one Bah'ai guy I spoke too, it's kind of the unitarian, new-age, feel-good, kind of religion.

Basically, all religions are the same and go to the same place --even though they contradict eachother.

I once was in a loooooong debate with a unitarian-type guy on another messageboard. I've often speculated if he swallowed some of the Bah'ai dogma. Wheather he did or didn't, it was a frustrating conversation. He kept trying to explain that contridictions between religions were really just "discrepensies" and that we could just pray on pillow for closeness to YHWH. I asked him what happens if this contridicts the Bible (he used to be a Christian) and he said that he didn't believe that the guys who wrote the Bible heard perfectly from God, but apparently he does.
:shrug:

Sorry, I ramble...

Has anybody else met any of the bah'ai types or folks like that?

[Jin-Roh]

Today @ 02:35 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=82886#post82886)
kiwimac:

Yes,

The Baha'i faith has an interesting history. Please note there are several Baha'i groups and they all ignore each other PLUS there are still Babi's [Precursor faith to Baha'i] in the Middle East.

If anyone is interested I will post URLS etc.

Kiwimac


I'm intrested. Go ahead and post dem URLs.

[Rusty T]

The essence of the Baha'i faith is the revelation of God found in Baha'ullah. They believe that certain religions were founded by Manifistations because they believe in Baha'ullah's testimony. That's about the long and short of it. What are their criteria for judging religions? Baha'ullah's testimony about the Manifistations.

I was a Unitarian for some time and I don't think there is much of a comparison. Bahai's believe in a literal afterlife for instance. You'd be hard pressed to nail a Unitarian down on that one. Also, they do believe in hell - distance away from god in the afterlife, etc. .

[Evangel]

hehe these people are starting to sound like the Jesus Seminar people. choosing to believe only what they want to believe because it fits into their agenda.

[jpholding]

The rest of my family is mostly into Bahai. Much of what Tizzi said in msg. 1 I can confirm.

Interestingly my family considers Joseph Smith a fraud, since he made his own claims to revelation at more or less the same time as Bahaullah. They call Mormons a "cult" with no regrets. :smile:

[spl_cadet]

Sounds like commie unitarianist new age neo-pagans.

[Solly]

Today @ 03:29 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=84107#post84107)
spl_cadet:

Sounds like commie unitarianist new age neo-pagans.

Except they started a while before such terms existed spl! :rofl:

[kiwimac]

But Solly!

You've taken away Spl_cadet's answer to Life, the Universe and Everything!

Kiwimac

[kiwimac]

JR,

Here are those urls

http://www.montana.com/bupc/index.html



http://www.rt66.com/~obfusa/council.htm

[Orthodox Bahai Council]

Now it is true that the Universal House of Justice does describe these other groups as not being "truely" Baha'i [b]BUT I find it very interesting that this is one group of Baha'is deciding that others who self-identify as Baha'is (Baha'u'llah's definition surely) are not really true Baha'is.

:uhoh:

Kiwimac

[Jin-Roh]

"Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity." Bahá u lláh

God sound like fortune cookie.

Of course some of the proverbs might sound like a fortune cookie too. But I would challenge their adherents to give a reasonable defense on why I should believe that these words (http://www.rt66.com/~obfusa/spirit.html) are, in fact, the revelation from God.

Fullfillment of prophecy and continuity between several authors and time periods are reason why I would accept the Bible.

Either way thanks for the links kiwi.

[Evangel]

people are not very quick to admit their shortcomings even using ignorance as an excuse.

[sysedco]

I always find it interesting how people want to call everything other than their belief system a cult. It is a subtle way of admitting they can not defend their faith so they attack another. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in the Bah'ai faith and I believe they are in error, but can't we stick with the actual definition of a cult:

A system of religious belief and worship.

That's it! That's a cult. Christianity is a cult, so is Mormonism, Bah'ai and all the rest. So, let's get off our cult mindset of anti-denfense and begin to actually defend what we believe.

[FirstSunday33ad]

It doesn’t matter if Bah’ai is a cult or not, it matters only if it is true. Based on that list, I would conclude that it isn’t.

Consider what it says:

“Most of the world's faiths have been founded by "Manifestations of God"
No one of these Manifestations is more significant than the other.
Today world is living under the revelation of God in Baha'ullah”

This is impossible. If each manifestation is from God, who is acknowledged as more powerful than man, and He gave equal importance to each manifestation, then it follows that they should agree at least in the core fundamentals. But they do not; they diametrically disagree. So that either means God is confused or that man can affect His manifestation. If it is the former, God is not all-knowing and if it is the latter He is not all-powerful.

The latter scenario also begs the question “how do we know Baha’ullah didn’t affect the manifestation himself and change it to suit his own purpose?”

And if we are living under the manifestation of Baha’ullah, why is it so little known? One would expect it would be more widely known especially in a time of mass media and universal literacy.

This is exactly the type of “revelation from God” I would expect to see during a turbulent time of competing social ideas. It strikes as a synthesis between religion and socialism with the cultural stamp of its place of origin.