Baha'i Returns Thread: Ask Any of Many Baha'i

[PRmerger]

Hi PR, can you please point out any Words from the Bahai Writings which are not the Truth?

Thanks

FALSE Baha’i words:

“His resurrection from the interior of the earth is also symbolical; it is a spiritual and divine fact, and not material; and likewise His ascension to heaven is a spiritual and not material ascension.”

 

[PRmerger]

FALSE Baha’i words:

“His resurrection from the interior of the earth is also symbolical; it is a spiritual and divine fact, and not material; and likewise His ascension to heaven is a spiritual and not material ascension.”

FALSE Baha’i words:

“Inasmuch as these Birds of the celestial Throne are all sent down from the heaven of the Will of God, and as they all arise to proclaim His irresistible Faith, they, therefore, are regarded as one soul and the same person. For they all drink from the one Cup of the love of God, and all partake of the fruit of the same Tree of Oneness.“

 

[PRmerger]

Steve,

You have made my point. I was not raised in the Catholic church, was not aware of, nor participated in its sacraments, yet I have a real and tangible relationship with God.

Of that I have no doubt. No one is claiming that you can’t have a real and tangible relationship with God.

Only that in embracing the Baha’i faith you have embraced some falsehoods that inhibit you from fully enjoying a true and everlasting relationship with God.

To wit: you are lacking in the most sublime and profound manifestation of a relationship with God: the ONE FLESH UNION.

 

[Servant19]

FALSE Baha’i words:

“His resurrection from the interior of the earth is also symbolical; it is a spiritual and divine fact, and not material; and likewise His ascension to heaven is a spiritual and not material ascension.”

This is confusing, you yourself, have acknowledged that Lord Jesus’ interaction when billions of people gather in His name is a SPIRITUAL interaction. A much more powerful, honourable, impersihable and everlasting interaction than ANY physical body could EVER dream of

It has also been acknowledged on this thread by Christians that His glorified body is not a PHYSICAL entity, for if it was a physical entity, He would attend to all our interactions and gatherings in His name, physically. Plus, how could a truly physical body walk through physical walls?

“Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies;” (1Cor 15)

Was it an earthly body, or a heavenly body, that Jesus was resurrected into?

“42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” (1Cor 15)

Was the body raised as a perishable body? Physical bodies are perishable…
Spiritual bodies are “imperishable”…

Was it raised in dishonour?
Was it raised a natural body?

Clearly, it was raised a spiritual body
How does this differ from the Baha’i texts?

 

[PRmerger]

This is confusing, you yourself, have acknowledged that Lord Jesus’ interaction when billions of people gather in His name is a SPIRITUAL interaction.

Sure.

Just not ONLY a SPIRITUAL interaction.

It’s the Catholic both/and at work here.

That’s what makes Catholicism so formidable to refute–others always try to make it an ONLY, when we usually say: yes, but NOT ONLY.

 

[Reuben_J]

How does this differ from the Baha’i texts?

Hi Servant.

I think this does - “His resurrection from the interior of the earth is also symbolical; …”

 

[Servant19]

Sure.

Just not ONLY a SPIRITUAL interaction.

It’s the Catholic both/and at work here.

That’s what makes Catholicism so formidable to refute–others always try to make it an ONLY, when we usually say: yes, but NOT ONLY.

So when Johnny and Jane get together with Steve and Craig to discuss the helping the homeless in the name of Jesus Christ, how is there a PHYSICAL presence of Jesus in that interaction?

Christ did say that He will be present in that gathering ONLY in a spirit…

 

[PRmerger]

So when Johnny and Jane get together with Steve and Craig to discuss the helping the homeless in the name of Jesus Christ, how is there a PHYSICAL presence of Jesus in that interaction?

He is there only in Spirit.

Christ did say that He will be present in that gathering ONLY in a spirit…

He did? Where?

 

[Servant19]

He is there only in Spirit.

He did? Where?

Well when Johnny and his friends gather, how else is He present? And He did say He is present, so it must be ONLY in spirit

Also, where does He ever say He will be present physically?

 

[PRmerger]

Well when Johnny and his friends gather, how else is He present? And He did say He is present, so it must be ONLY in spirit

Yes. We have already established that Jesus in only spiritually present in non-Catholic gatherings.

Also, where does He ever say He will be present physically?

John 6.

 

[Reuben_J]

Well when Johnny and his friends gather, how else is He present? And He did say He is present, so it must be ONLY in spirit

Also, where does He ever say He will be present physically?

Probably we are talking in circle.

We have to focus perhaps on the nature of Jesus that he is both divine and human. To be human, he was conceived, born, has physical body and dies. That was the Jesus when he walked on the face of the earth.

And then the divine aspect of Jesus, the unseen invisible God.

In the midst of the discussion, it is easy to lead one into a trap and misspeak which seems to look like a contradiction.

Obviously the human nature of Jesus is not lost whenever or wherever he is. We often hear that we cannot see God face to face unless of course when we will meet him in his Kingdom. And yet the apostles were with Jesus on earth. This is a grace of God where he was incarnated as man. We will not see him again in this form until he comes in the second coming where he would be glorified.

So when Jesus is with us (in our gathering and in our lives), he is with us as God, the unseen invisible God until we meet him face to face on the last day.

 

[Reuben_J]

And yes, we meet and communion with Jesus in the Eucharist in his body and blood in the transubstantiation. The substance of the bread and wine are changed to the Body and Blood of Jesus but the appearance of the bread and wine remain.

In here we see the physical appearance of Jesus in the Body and Blood by his grace that he promised us he would be with us until the end of time

 

[Servant19]

Probably we are talking in circle.

We have to focus perhaps on the nature of Jesus that he is both divine and human. To be human, he was conceived, born, has physical body and dies. That was the Jesus when he walked on the face of the earth.

And then the divine aspect of Jesus, the unseen invisible God.

In the midst of the discussion, it is easy to lead one into a trap and misspeak which seems to look like a contradiction.

Obviously the human nature of Jesus is not lost whenever or wherever he is. We often hear that we cannot see God face to face unless of course when we will meet him in his Kingdom. And yet the apostles were with Jesus on earth. This is a grace of God where he was incarnated as man. We will not see him again in this form until he comes in the second coming where he would be glorified.

So when Jesus is with us (in our gathering and in our lives), he is with us as God, the unseen invisible God until we meet him face to face on the last day.

But Reuben He clearly does not interact with us and live amongst us in BOTH aspects.

I acknowledge when He lived on earth, there was a PHYSICAL, visible aspect, AS WELL as a Divine, invisible aspect.

So the question is, are these aspects separable at all?

My answer is yes, because He does not live in our hearts as a PHYSICAL entity, He is not present in our gatherings as a PHYSICAL entity.

In fact, where is He present at all today, where I can touch His flesh, His wounds, and eat with Him like I would with my own mother and father? I am fully aware of the sacrament of the Eucharist, but when Jesus was LITERALLY touched and He ate with His loved ones in a room 2000 years ago, it was not in the form of a piece of bread, and when He was resurrected, it was not in the form of a piece of bread.

Where is His “recognizable” physical aspect to be seen?

Surely, it is His Divine aspect which was resurrected, and influences the hearts and minds of all His loved ones for centuries. Something, no physical aspect can ever DREAM to carry out…

The second question is, is it possible that just as His human body was a symbolic representation of His true DIVINE reality, that His true Divine reality lives amongst us all spiritually forever, and that the Eucharist is also a symbolic representation of His Divine reality which acts as a focus for those who partake in it that Jesus lives within all our hearts in a spiritual union?

Is this even possibly an explanation?

 

[PRmerger]

My answer is yes, because He does not live in our hearts as a PHYSICAL entity, He is not present in our gatherings as a PHYSICAL entity.

Not in your gatherings, but in some Catholic gatherings, He is there, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

 

[daler]

Daler,

-]I think I get the meaning of the prayer. Jesus said it when he said:

“For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” (Matthew 13:15)

There is a step beyond this, the step towards loving all and treating each other with honor, seeing God in everyone we meet or come into contact with, and knowing that, no matter how that person may appear, through looks or deeds, they are a child of God and capable of being redeemed. Beyond this is the step of knowing that God is all around us, that we can immerse ourselves in all that is holy and become truly holy in oneness with God. We come to know and live our Oneness.

Is this correct? If so, thank you so much for you have given me quite the compliment.

You know that Peter preached Christianity to the Jewish people and Paul to the Gentiles. Paul established that the Gentiles did not need to follow the traditions of the Jewish faith in order to follow Jesus. But, Peter taught that the Jewish people too could be saved by Christ’s teachings. They did not have to give up their heritage in order to confirm the love of Jesus in their hearts. So, this is how I see it for me in the Baha’i faith. I am a Christian and I can remain a Christian, but receive additional training of the way of the Lord through the Baha’i teachings. It is about God’s everlasting, never ending faith in humanity and His consistently revealing Himself to us through His messengers. As most Jewish people refused to see the link between Christ and their faith, most Christians may not be able to open their eyes and ears to the teachings of the Baha’i.

Little Star,

You speak with original understanding a lot. One can memorize the Torah, the Gospel, the Quran, or every Holy Book, yet still not be open to the “Living Word” of God, as I think you are attempting to explain.

John 7:38 “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”

It is this belief in Christ that caused these rivers to flow out of Peter and Paul. It flows out of others who open their hearts to Him, and not just their heads.

Back home on the Rez, I met many Indians who were illiterate, old Lakota people, and they had rivers of life-giving water flowing from their own “pre-white”, pre-Christian culture and traditional religion.

God is infinitely bigger than a “white man’s God”, or any other limited group of people, whether they have an “Inc.” behind the name they have chosen for themselves or not.

This is why, for me, the words “Wherever two or more gather in My name and make mention of Me, there I am also in their midst.”

“That” church is a spiritual Reality. It is not an Institution, Inc. with a license to save souls and claim ownership of the Word(s) of God, the Great Spirit.

Amen!

 

[Reuben_J]

But Reuben He clearly does not interact with us and live amongst us in BOTH aspects.

I acknowledge when He lived on earth, there was a PHYSICAL, visible aspect, AS WELL as a Divine, invisible aspect.

So the question is, are these aspects separable at all?

My answer is yes, because He does not live in our hearts as a PHYSICAL entity, He is not present in our gatherings as a PHYSICAL entity.

In fact, where is He present at all today, where I can touch His flesh, His wounds, and eat with Him like I would with my own mother and father? I am fully aware of the sacrament of the Eucharist, but when Jesus was LITERALLY touched and He ate with His loved ones in a room 2000 years ago, it was not in the form of a piece of bread, and when He was resurrected, it was not in the form of a piece of bread.

Where is His “recognizable” physical aspect to be seen?

Surely, it is His Divine aspect which was resurrected, and influences the hearts and minds of all His loved ones for centuries. Something, no physical aspect can ever DREAM to carry out…

I hope you understand (especially the other Baha’i posters in the Forum) that I am not disputing everything in the Bahai’s belief because we agree with many of them except in certain aspect where we differ.

Now I see. You are narrowing it to the physical. As I have explained, Jesus in no way wherever or whenever he may be lose the human aspect of him. Earlier on we discussed that a human can do abnormal thing that an ordinary human can do – example walking on burning charcoal without getting. I am using that to explain the glorified human form of Jesus, a very poor analogy that may be.

You have to get to compromise somewhere. Will Jesus be in his physical form with us as in the physical form of an ordinary human body that we can see? Obviously not. But does Jesus lose his humanity even when we cannot see him? Obviously not too.

So that is my point. Jesus is with us in the fullness of his nature, both divine and human.

The second question is, is it possible that just as His human body was a symbolic representation of His true DIVINE reality, that His true Divine reality lives amongst us all spiritually forever, and that the Eucharist is also a symbolic representation of His Divine reality which acts as a focus for those who partake in it that Jesus lives within all our hearts in a spiritual union?

Is this even possibly an explanation?

We are not taught that his human body is a symbol of his divinity. It is real because human is real. And surely human as a symbol of God is insufficient because God definitely is more than that.

Of course the Eucharist is not a symbol as per the transubstantiation.

 

[daler]

And yes, we meet and communion with Jesus in the Eucharist in his body and blood in the transubstantiation. The substance of the bread and wine are changed to the Body and Blood of Jesus but the appearance of the bread and wine remain.

In here we see the physical appearance of Jesus in the Body and Blood by his grace that he promised us he would be with us until the end of time

Reuben,
. I wish to present something outside of the norm here for a minute. If you will please bare with me and accept what I am attempting to say, not as a Native American, but as one who grew up in the midst of the Lakota Sioux people in South Dakota in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. (I was the grandson of homesteaders there)
. A real and definite similarity exists in the sacrament of the Pipe as what Catholics there in the Dakotas and elsewhere themselves often testify. There is symbolism in both which achieve, and have achieved, the same intended purpose for a couple of thousand years.
. As you are familiar with the eucharist, there is no need to explain it. So I will briefly offer a description of the sacred Pipe ceremony. The Pipe itself is carved out of “pipestone” which comes from a quarry in what is now Minnesota. It represents the blood of the people, whom Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, created as His children.
. The stem is also symbolic, the carvings on it, the feathers, etc, but I won’t go into that. Suffice it to say that it is used in a sacred manner. Tobacco or some herbs, part of creation, are put in the pipe, offered East, West, North, South, towards the Earth, and to the Sky.
. As the smoke rises upwards the prayer is understood to rise with the smoke into the Heavens and goes to the Great Spirit. It is really a symbolic way of enabling people to make that connection, to understand that there is a way for God to “hear” our prayers, and that He is always there for us, loves us, and is caring for us.
. I can tell you, that as one raised in a “white” skin in a "Christian church, no white man, Catholic or Protestant, was a whit closer to God, the Great Spirit, than some of these old, or young, Indian people, who worshipped in their own traditional ways which came to them by “Prophets” from ancient times.
. They were highly civilized, extremely humble, very honest, exceedingly courageous, selflessly generous, noble, dignified, etc, etc, etc, etc long, long, long before boat loads of white people showed up with their Bibles, guns, churches, and treaties. Some of the finest Christians I ever knew were the ones who learned from “them”…

 

[SteveVH]

Yes. We have already established that Jesus in only spiritually present in non-Catholic gatherings.

Where Servant is trying to lead you is to his position that Jesus no longer possesses a body. He refuses to accept that Christ’s glorified body can be physically present if and when Jesus chooses to be physically present,and invisible and purely spiritual when he desires. He cannot accept that Jesus could at the same time eat fish and walk through walls. This goes along with the erroneous Baha’i belief (borrowed from Islam), that Jesus was not physically resurrected from the dead, but only ascended in a spiritual sense.

 

[PRmerger]

Where Servant is trying to lead you is to his position that Jesus no longer possesses a body. He refuses to accept that Christ’s glorified body can be physically present if and when Jesus chooses to be physically present,and invisible and purely spiritual when he desires. He cannot accept that Jesus could at the same time eat fish and walk through walls. This goes along with the erroneous Baha’i belief (borrowed from Islam), that Jesus was not physically resurrected from the dead, but only ascended in a spiritual sense.

Yes. There seems to be some sort of mental roadblock in being unable to understand Jesus being physically with a body yet able to walk through walls.

 

[Servant19]

Where Servant is trying to lead you is to his position that Jesus no longer possesses a body. He refuses to accept that Christ’s glorified body can be physically present if and when Jesus chooses to be physically present,and invisible and purely spiritual when he desires. He cannot accept that Jesus could at the same time eat fish and walk through walls. This goes along with the erroneous Baha’i belief (borrowed from Islam), that Jesus was not physically resurrected from the dead, but only ascended in a spiritual sense.

My friend, I am not trying to “lead” anyone anywhere. I am only exploring the realities presented before us and we are trying to explore what is the Truth based on this exploration of the realities

Are the realities we have glaring us in our faces important to explore or not?