Bahai Faith

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(PART THREE)

Suggested further reading
The Baha’i Faith leaflet published by the Baha’i publishing
Trust, 2 South Street, Oakham, Leicestershire.
The Baha’i Faith booklet Ibid.
Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah by Baha’u’llah.
Paris Talks by 'Abdu’l-Baha.
Guidelines for Today and Tomorrow by Shoghi Effendi.
Baha’u’llah and the New Era by Dr. J. E. Esslemont.

A complete catalogue of Baha’i literature can be obtained by writing to: The Baha’i Publishing Trust, 2 South Street, Oakham,
Leicerstershire LE15 6HY. [In the US, call the Baha’i
Faith toll-free at 1-800-22-UNITE for free literature.]
- * -

This is part of the series of leaflets prepared for the Catholic
community by the Committee for Other Faiths. Understanding and friendly relations with those who believe in God and live their
lives with religious principles and purpose contribute to the
harmony of society and the happiness of all. The series offers
useful information to those who wnat to overcome the obstacles of
ignorance and promote through dialogue, prayer and action the
Catholic Church’s teaching of respect and love for all peoples.

The Committee is grateful to its member Sr. Elizabeth West rscj
for this contribution.
Code: 
                                    +Charles Henderson
                                              Chairman
Also available:

Neighbours and Neighbourhood–a Catholic introduction to living
with neighbours of other Faiths What is Islam? What is
Buddhism? Who was the Buddha? What is Hinduism? The
Mosque–the Muslim House of Prayer Our Sikh Neighbours.

Orders for this leaflet may be obtained from: C.F.O.F., 6a
Cresswell Park, London SE3 9RD. We regret because of inflation
and increased postage that for orders up to 25 leaflets charges
must be 10p per leaflet plus 50p post and packing. Orders in
bundles of 50 of the same leaflet 3.00 [pounds] post free. Please
make cheques payable to: N.C.F. (Other Faiths).

Further information and copies of these leaflets can be obtained
from: The Multi-Faith Centre, Harborne Hall, Old Church road,
Harborne, Birmingham B170BE and The Westminster Interfaith
Programme, 2 Church Avenue, Southall, Middlesex UB24DH.

– Committee for Other Faiths –
Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales
 
Oat Soda wrote:

these are good points. bahai is another mani. they are exactly the same. it’s just another gnostic religion that came out of persia. they are a dime a dozen. and what makes this one any more true then manicheism which disapeared over 1,000 years ago? another example are the shiks or the guys with the turbans. what’s the difference? why not be a harni christna?

My comment:

I hope the thrust here is one primarily of information… so that you have accurate information about Baha’i Faith.

One of the problems Manichaeism had was that it was too unworldly and according to what we know believed the creation was not good. It also had regulations against farming as it was believed it would injure small creatures in the process. There was a strong dualist aspect in Manichaeism.

The Baha’i Faith is none of the above.
  • Art
 
You know Flameburn,

While there are some Baha’is that believe Joseph Smith made prophecies that were fulfilled by Baha’i Faith, the site “Prophecies fulfilled” is not an offical Baha’i site. We believe Joseph Smith was a “seer” and not a Prophet.
  • Art
 
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lehket:
One of the things that has always struck me as odd about Christian orthodoxy (and this is not meant to be derogatory; I grew up in a conservative Protestant family and my wife grew up in a fairly conservative Catholic family, so I have a lot of respect for both of those traditions) is its tendency to impose a sort of legalism on God. Sin appears to impose itself upon the creation from outside, as though God had not planned for it from the get-go, and then once it’s on the scene, an elaborate scheme has to be concocted so God can, in His mercy, get around His self-imposed sense of justice.
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God being God, He is just by His Nature: His ‘sense of justice’ is not 'self-imposed. Nor is it quite fair to Christian theology to suggest that God was somehow caught unawares by sin. Christ is, after all known as 'the Lamb slain before the foundation of the World:

I Peter 1:19-20:

19But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you

Revelation 13:8

8And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
*
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lehket:
But God is God. Sin did not impose itself from the outside upon His plan. Surely He had fully accounted for it “before” the creation (in a causal sense, not a temporal sense). God can forgive whoever He desires to forgive. He doesn’t need to construct elaborate mechanisms to counterbalance mercy and justice.
Click to expand...
Again–God was not caught by surprise. The plan of redemption He established was something He foreknew from before the foundation of the world. It is how He chose to create, according to His own good purposes:

Matthew 25: 34:

34Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world

John 17:24

24Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

Acts 2:23

23Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain

Ephesian 1: 4

4According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

So it is within the plan of God that human beings would fall and need a Redeemer, and God foreknew this from the outset of His creation.

A quick primer on the tools in this forum: at the top of the panel above where one posts, one will see the letters “B”, “I” and “U”. You can also see things such as tools to align text or create ‘bulleted’ text, a tiny little caption box (at extreme right above the panel for posting), images which are for inserting links or images, etcetera. Above that are options for size, color, ‘smilie’ icons, cutting text, pasting text, etcetera. By highlighting text and then ‘clicking’ on the tool you want you can do all kinds of things with your posts. I notice that a lot of you from the DelphiForums seem unfamiliar with these. Feel free to experiment with the tools; I’ve only blown up my computer a couple of times (just joking!!!😉 )
 
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arthra:
You know Flameburn,

While there are some Baha’is that believe Joseph Smith made prophecies that were fulfilled by Baha’i Faith, the site “Prophecies fulfilled” is not an offical Baha’i site. We believe Joseph Smith was a “seer” and not a Prophet.
  • Art
Click to expand...
Wish someone had told me that sooner. Oh well, the poll can still be fun. Just post any relevant observations in the thread.
 
Hi, Flame.

Having been burned once when trying to use bulleted lists here, I’m now very careful exactly which tools I employ in this neighborhood.

Regards,

Bruce
 
Hi, gang! 🙂

One more note of possible interest:

Anyone who’d like a free online concordance and reference tool for the various religious scriptures is invited to check out this site:
Code: 
 [www.bahai-education.org/ocean](http://www.bahai-education.org/ocean)
where you can get Ocean, a free download that will allow you to search the Bible and do keyword searches on it as well as many other scriptural works from the great religions!

The price is right.

Good hunting! 🙂

Bruce
 
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BruceDLimber:
Hi, Flame.

Having been burned once when trying to use bulleted lists here, I’m now very careful exactly which tools I employ in this neighborhood.

Regards,

Bruce
Click to expand...
Hi Bruce:

I wasn’t singling you out in particular but just so that you know:

  1. *]I
    *]can
    *]post
    *]bulleted
    *]text
    *]just
    *]fine!!!
    *]😛

    :tiphat: Have a great day!👋
 
I have read that the bahai faith is extremely authoritarian with cult-like tendencies. Also, that there is a historical leadership crisis and sectarian split over the issue of Guadianship.
 
Perhaps some of the bahai’s on this forum could address these two statements I found on the internet:


  1. *]Jesus was able to perform supernatural miracles including healing people of terrible diseases, reviving a dead man, and himself rising from the dead in the resurrection and appearing to his disciples in a literal, visible way. These things were recorded by reliable eyewitnesses in the Gospels and were always understood by the Christian church to be real, not merely metaphorical as Baha’is believe. Baha’u’llah never was able to do the amazing things Jesus did, yet he claimed to be the return of Christ. This doesn’t make any sense, because Jesus said he would return with even greater power than before. Jesus warned about false christs coming in the future, and it seems that Baha’u’llah was one of them.
    *]The moral philosophy of Jesus is fundamentally different than the principles taught by Muhammad. For example, Jesus said we should love and forgive our enemies and remain peaceful despite persecution, whereas Muhammad instructed his followers to forcibly convert, subjugate, or kill the unbelievers by the power of the sword. The Baha’i Faith teaches that both Jesus and Muhammad were infallibly inspired by God in all their teachings, but their teachings are contradictory on the most basic issues. Therefore, the Baha’i Faith is wrong, and cannot be the truth revealed by God.
 
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Mickey:
I have read that the bahai faith is extremely authoritarian with cult-like tendencies. Also, that there is a historical leadership crisis and sectarian split over the issue of Guadianship.
Click to expand...
I would say that this is a misrepresentation. There have been persons in the distant past (over 60 years ago) who attempted to “divide the faith” but their efforts ended in naught. Today there are a very few who trace themselves loosely back to one person who tried to take over leadership of the faith in the late 1950s, early 1960s, but they have never collected much of a following and the divisions regarding “guardianship” have all happened within this splinter group. For the Baha’is (all 6+ million of them) there has only been one and will only be one Guardian, and he died in 1957. Beyond that, the institutions of the faith and the Universal House of Justice are the only administrative bodies. That there are a hand full (and it is no more) of persons who claim association with the Bahá’í Faith but are not, and in the majority of cases, never have been associated with it is true, but that doesn’t make for leadership crisis or sectarian split.

I gave an example once – if there was a group that called itself Christian and advocated white supremacy and the extermination of all peoples of non-European descent, would they be considered a sect of Christianity? I think that, to even the casual observer, it would be clear that their beliefs and actions were so at variance from the teachings of Christ that they could not be considered Christian or a sect of Christianity. The situation is similar here. The group to which you refer is in no way connected with the Faith, nor are their beliefs and practices based on the teachings of Baha’u’llah.
 
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kernk:
For the Baha’is (all 6+ million of them)
Click to expand...
The Baha’i Faith claims approximately six million members scattered throughout the world, but it is unclear how many of these people actually hold all the beliefs necessary to qualify as a committed member. Based on known patterns and methods of conversion in different countries and demographic groups, independent scholars have estimated that the published Baha’i membership statistics are wildly inflated. The Baha’i Faith is dominated by a small group of hard-core believers concentrated in wealthy countries, primarily America; a large indigenous population in Iran that is suppressed by the fundamentalist Muslim government, many of whom have already emigrated to escape persecution; a significant number of new Baha’is in India; and some inroads being made in other parts of the developing world, reinforced by Baha’i missionaries (called “pioneers” or “travel teachers”) from the West and Iran.
 
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Mickey:
Perhaps some of the bahai’s on this forum could address these two statements I found on the internet:


  1. *]Jesus was able to perform supernatural miracles including healing people of terrible diseases, reviving a dead man, and himself rising from the dead in the resurrection and appearing to his disciples in a literal, visible way. These things were recorded by reliable eyewitnesses in the Gospels and were always understood by the Christian church to be real, not merely metaphorical as Baha’is believe. Baha’u’llah never was able to do the amazing things Jesus did, yet he claimed to be the return of Christ. This doesn’t make any sense, because Jesus said he would return with even greater power than before. Jesus warned about false christs coming in the future, and it seems that Baha’u’llah was one of them.
    *]The moral philosophy of Jesus is fundamentally different than the principles taught by Muhammad. For example, Jesus said we should love and forgive our enemies and remain peaceful despite persecution, whereas Muhammad instructed his followers to forcibly convert, subjugate, or kill the unbelievers by the power of the sword. The Baha’i Faith teaches that both Jesus and Muhammad were infallibly inspired by God in all their teachings, but their teachings are contradictory on the most basic issues. Therefore, the Baha’i Faith is wrong, and cannot be the truth revealed by God.
Click to expand...

  1. With regard to miracles, I will let someone else answer that one. If no one does, I will offer something later.

    With regard to your discussion of Muhammad, I would suggest that your conclusions regarding the teachings of Muhammad are mistaken. Muhammad taught forgiveness, charity, love, and peacefulness in the face of persecution. We in the west have a very incorrectly twisted understanding of the teachings of Islam and of the life and actions of the Prophet Muhammad. As a for instance, here are but a few quotes from the Qur’an and Hadith to illustrate my point:

    Allah has sent me as an apostle so that I may demonstrate perfection of character, refinement of manners and loftiness of deportment.

    (Hadith - Malik, Mawatta; Ahmed, Musnad; Mishkat)

    Not one of you is a believer unless he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.

    (Forty Hadith of an-Nawawi)

    Do you love your Creator? Then love your fellow beings first.

    Allah loves kindness and rewards it in such a way that He does not reward for harshness or for anything else.

    (Hadith Reported by Muslim, Kitaab al-Birr wa’l-Sillah wa’l-Aadaab, no.2592 )

    Tell those who believe, to forgive those who do not look forward to the Days of Allah: it is for Him to recompense (for good or ill) each People according to what they have earned.

    If anyone does a righteous deed, it (applies) to the benefit of his own soul; if he does evil, it works against (His own soul). In the end will ye (all) be brought back to your Lord.

    (The Qur’an (Yusuf Ali tr), Surah 45:14 - 15)

    Take not life, which God has made sacred, except by way of justice and law. Thus does He command you, that you may learn wisdom.

    (Qur’an 6:151)

    Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors.

    (The Qur’an (Pickthall tr), Sura 2)

    Even if thou stretch out thy hand against me to kill me, I shall not stretch out my hand against thee to kill thee, lo! I fear Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.

    (The Qur’an (Pickthall tr), Sura 5)

    Say: “This is the truth from your Lord. Let him who will, believe in it, and him who will deny it.”

    (The Koran (N. J. Daywood tr), Surah 18)

    There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And he who rejecteth false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower.

    (The Qur’an (Pickthall tr), Sura 2 )

    Some believe in it (the Koran), while others do not . . . If they disbelieve you say, “my deeds are mine and your deeds are yours. You are not accountable for my actions, nor am I for yours.”

    (The Koran (N. J. Daywood tr), Surah 10)

    There is more where that came from. Islam is not the religion that we have been lead to believe in the west!

    kernk
 
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Mickey:
The Baha’i Faith claims approximately six million members scattered throughout the world, but it is unclear how many of these people actually hold all the beliefs necessary to qualify as a committed member. Based on known patterns and methods of conversion in different countries and demographic groups, independent scholars have estimated that the published Baha’i membership statistics are wildly inflated. The Baha’i Faith is dominated by a small group of hard-core believers concentrated in wealthy countries, primarily America; a large indigenous population in Iran that is suppressed by the fundamentalist Muslim government, many of whom have already emigrated to escape persecution; a significant number of new Baha’is in India; and some inroads being made in other parts of the developing world, reinforced by Baha’i missionaries (called “pioneers” or “travel teachers”) from the West and Iran.
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The estimate of 6+ million is actually lower – in some cases much lower, by about half – of the numbers given by independent (non Bahá’í) sources. However, beyond that, and my personal experience of having been a Bahá’í over 20 years, during which time I have become familiar with the world wide nature of the faith which has not to me suggest that there is any exaggeration, I will not dispute with you. I see little point. The number of Bahá’ís doesn’t seem all that relevant – after all, there weren’t many Christians 160 years after the time of Christ.
 
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kernk:
The estimate of 6+ million is actually lower – in some cases much lower, by about half – of the numbers given by independent (non Bahá’í) sources. However, beyond that, and my personal experience of having been a Bahá’í over 20 years, during which time I have become familiar with the world wide nature of the faith which has not to me suggest that there is any exaggeration, I will not dispute with you. I see little point. The number of Bahá’ís doesn’t seem all that relevant – after all, there weren’t many Christians 160 years after the time of Christ.
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No. I am not here to dispute with you. I am Catholic and I will always be Catholic. I have never heard of the baha’i faith, so I find it rather interesting–but I must admit–rather odd.

Peace,
Mickey
 
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Mickey:
I have read that the bahai faith is extremely authoritarian with cult-like tendencies. Also, that there is a historical leadership crisis and sectarian split over the issue of Guadianship.
Click to expand...
In all fairness–I’ve known very few Baha’i’s personally and none of them long or very well and so am basing this on my impressions from the Internet–they do not seem like a particularly authoritarian group. I’ve dealt with some clearly authoritarian groups online. You can tell the difference.

‘Cult-like’ is simply inflamatory and unfair in the vast majority of cases, and you will note that someone has addressed the issue to some degree in this thread. The term serves no clear purpose. It smears those who are so labelled as somehow akin to the Jim Jones group, the Branch Davidians, or the Heaven’s Gate group. Unless you are prepared to make such a charge, and to defend it, it is easier to call the Baha’i Faith simply a false religious belief system, assuming this is what you believe.

There is some sort of split over Guardianship or Baha’i Faith leadership and I don’t fully understand what it is. I was able to discuss this some years ago with the folks at PlanetBaha’i and remember being not fully contented with the answers I got. I settled for agreeing to disagree with them.

If I could make a very obscure, rough, and imprecise analogy: it is rather like the split between the Old Catholics and the Roman Catholic Church. Since few folks (Catholic or Baha’i) know much about the Old Catholics here are the basics: some centuries ago, whilst the Reformation was raging in Germany, the Archbishop of Ultrecht was accused of being a Jansenist heretic, (a sort of Calvinist). The Archbishop denied the charge of Jansenism, but the label stuck. The Pope sacked the Archbishop and the Archbishop declined to step down for several years. Upon the Archbishop’s resignation, the Archdiocese refused to accept the new leadership appointed by Rome and brought in their own leaders instead. The Old Catholic Church is not Protestant but Catholic; it resembles the Roman Catholic Church but is not identical to it. Each side claims the other has overstepped it’s authority.

In the same way, the Baha’i Faith has dissident groups which are very similar to itself but are not identical to it. (I think I’ve got that much right). Of course neither side recognizes the other’s authority. Hope that’s at least as clear as a nice puddle of mud:p .
 
Greetings, Mickey!

I’ll split this answer into parts.

First off, I agree fully with Kernk’s comments about the so-called “split” and the tiny, tiny band of individuals who promote this! You’re referring to maybe a hundred people who’ve chosen to ignore expliclt statements in the Baha’i scriptures as contrasted with nearly seven million Baha’is who are totally UNIFIED about this. End of story.

And as to the “cult” accusation, please see my post #75 above where I already refuted this, too.

(CONTINUES)
 
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flameburns623:
So it is within the plan of God that human beings would fall and need a Redeemer, and God foreknew this from the outset of His creation.
Click to expand...
My comment wasn’t directed at Scripture, but at how it had been interpreted. The “system” that results from orthodox Christian theology seems to have the character that I previously described, in spite of the obvious fact that it must have all been in God’s plan from the start.

Let’s put it this way: God’s plan (according to this theology) is that billions of human beings would be born into a fallen condition and need to be saved from this condition, but the necessary mechanism for saving them would not be sent for tens or hundreds of thousands of years, and even then it would be nearly two thousand years more before all the people living at a particular time would have access to it. And by then, it would be so far in the past that many people would have trouble even crediting the idea that Jesus was a real figure in history, much less that He was what the Bible claims He is. God, therefore, set in motion a plan whereby the overwhelming majority of His precious human creatures would be consigned to an eternity of torment . . .

. . . and this is called “justice”? Now I agree that God’s Will is often inscrutable to human beings, but for me this is just too far off the map to be creditable. I also realize that people are quite ingenious at devising explanations why the way I just characterized it is wrong. But to date, none of those explanations has ever satisfied me.

Meanwhile, Baha’u’llah has personally proven to me that His interpretations are spot-on. Which makes it an even harder sell for anyone who wants to convince me otherwise. The commitment you feel to Jesus is precisely the same commitment I feel to Baha’u’llah, and for very much the same reasons, no doubt.

I’m not saying any of this to provoke arguments. I’m just explaining where I’m coming from, with full awareness that other people feel they have equally compelling reasons for placing their faith where they do. I don’t expect to “convert” anyone, nor do I expect anyone is able to “convert” me. The Holy Spirit does the work of conversion, if and when it is to be done.

Meanwhile, I think it’s helpful if we can drop the “my religion is better than your religion” garbage and just try to get along as members of one human family, the way Jesus and Baha’u’llah and Krishna and the Buddha and Muhammad and Zoroaster and all of those other great religious teachers actually wanted us to. 😉
 
(PART TWO)

Now, to your latest comments:
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Mickey:
Perhaps some of the bahai’s on this forum could address these two statements I found on the internet:

Jesus was able to perform supernatural miracles including healing people of terrible diseases, reviving a dead man, and himself rising from the dead in the resurrection and appearing to his disciples in a literal, visible way. These things were recorded by reliable eyewitnesses in the Gospels and were always understood by the Christian church to be real, not merely metaphorical as Baha’is believe. Baha’u’llah never was able to do the amazing things Jesus did, yet he claimed to be the return of Christ. This doesn’t make any sense, because Jesus said he would return with even greater power than before. Jesus warned about false christs coming in the future, and it seems that Baha’u’llah was one of them.
Click to expand...
I would simply warn you that just as there are untrustworthy anti-Catholic sites out there, so too are there similar anti-Baha’i sites.

As to miracles, there are miracles in the history of the Babi and Baha’i Faiths, too.

HOWEVER: the Baha’i scriptures specifically instruct us NOT to teach with miracles, and go on to point out that they’re proofs only for eyewitnesses. For everyone else, they’re mere hearsay! And it’s further pointed out that MANY religious traditions claim miracles, so if this is going to be your basis for choice, which one(s) are you going to pick?! Finally, our scriptures point out that even for an eyewitness a miracle isn’t necessarily reliable evidence becuase the viewer may be either 1) imagining what he thinks he’s seen or 2) witnessing some sort of conjuring trick.

A RELIABLE test, in contrast, is Jesus’ “fruits test” (along with the list of fruits in Galatians), and the other scriptural proofs such as the one in First John 4:2, which (if you believe the Bible) conclusively PROVES that because He did indeed stipulate Jesus, Baha’u’llah is therefore definitely of God!

And further, Jesus said “a bad tree cannot bear good fruit,” and vice versa! So you’re going to be hard put to explain how the Baha’i Faith exhibits the fruits of godliness, love, unity, peace, concord, etc.–not to mention bringing literally millions of non-Christians to the recognition and love of Christ–if it’s, as you accuse, a “bad tree.”

So with your kind permission we’ll stick to the Bible and its proofs of Baha’u’llah and the Baha’i Faith.

(CONTINUES)
 
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