Will Mankind Survive?

[Trailblazer]

So this guy at the end of having gone through the promises reach this conclusion:

I found that all three of Christ’s prophecies to His disciples had been fulfilled exactly as He promised.
1. The Gospel had been preached in all the world for a witness.
2. The times of the Gentiles had been fulfilled.
3. The prophecy of Daniel given by Christ as the time to stand in the holy place had come to pass.

Each of these prophecies had been fulfilled in the year 1844!

It makes little sense I think. If the verses he used in promise 3 is not taken out of context, then the text from the very same passage that he reference must be true as well. Meaning that what Jesus talk about in Matthew 24 29-35 is how it will occur. Reading 34 and 35, Jesus say that all of these things will happen, so:

“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’[b]

I do not have time to address this all right now, but regarding the abomination and desolation Abdu’l-Baha addresses that in Some Answered Questions.

10: TRADITIONAL PROOFS EXEMPLIFIED FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL

Ill give Jesus a pass on the nonsense description of what will happen, as it seems to be the ancient people understanding of how the universe works. But also no angels with loud trumpets calls or Son of Man have descended from heaven as Jesus say will happen. Yet the person examining these promises have simply ignored this part and cherry picked some of the verse to then jump straight to Daniels and then draw up his conclusion that all of it is fulfilled exactly as he promised.

The title Son of man does not apply exclusively to Jesus. It also applies to Baha’u’llah.

To explain in brief, Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven means that the return of the Christ Spirit promised in the Bible (who was Baha’u’llah) will be made manifest from the heaven of the will of God, and will appear in the form of a human being. The term “heaven” means loftiness and exaltation. Although Jesus was delivered from the womb of His mother, in reality He descended from the heaven of the will of God. Though dwelling on this earth, His true habitation was the realms above. While walking among mortals on earth, Jesus soared in the heaven of the divine presence.

Baha’u’llah explained the meaning of clouds in The Kitáb-i-Íqán. He devoted quite a bit of text to explaining what clouds means. To paraphrase Baha’u’llah, Son of man coming on the clouds means that the return of the Christ Spirit will appear in the form of another human being. The term “clouds” as used in the Bible means those things that are contrary to the ways and desires of men. Just like the physical clouds prevent the eyes of men from beholding the sun, the desires of men hindered men from recognizing the return of Christ. Thus the meaning of clouds is symbolic, not literal. Their judgment was clouded.

The reason Christians missed recognizing Baha’u’llah in the mid-19th century (and still do not recognize Him) is because they are waiting for the “literal fulfillment” of those Son of man in the clouds of heaven prophecies. They expect the same physical body of Jesus to come floating down on a physical cloud from heaven.... but I am sure you already know this since it is a basic Christian belief you must have held once upon a time.

You are in luck, because I also posted on my forum what Baha’u’llah said it means that the Son of man will come in the clouds.

Son of Man Coming in the Clouds

63.1 63.2

To me this is basically what I would expect from a religious study into the validity of such claims. Its biased, because it have an agenda which is decided before hand and stuff that doesn't fit into the conclusion that need to be reached is either left out or manipulated to fit.

It is not a bit biased, those things either happened or they did not happen. Sears could not make all those prophecies fit Baha’u’llah if they did not fit. So even if I had no other evidence that Baha’u’llah was a Manifestation of God and the return of Christ and the Messiah, the fulfilment of all these prophecies would be enough evidence, IF I believed in the Bible.

I have a very hard time taking stuff like this serious, because it reminds me of when JWs used to come up with date for the end times, its "research" done by people without any rational or objective approach to these topics. So when it all comes down to it, promise 1 and 2 we can't validate as being true or false, because we have no clue what exactly the criteria is for them to be so. Promise 3 is cherry picked verses to reach a specific conclusion. Yet this guy have no issue accepting all of them as if they were absolute truth. Which makes me highly doubt that anything he have written in this book is to be trusted and therefore would have to double check everything in it, meaning all his sources etc. Because I really don't trust that this person is capable of critical and rational thinking to adresse issues as these.

I do not want to argue about this but you are employing the Fallacy of Hasty Generalization and the Fallacy of Jumping to conclusions. You ask me why there are not more people do not recognize Baha’u’llah and you are a case in point. You just assume he was trying to reach a certain conclusion but that is the exact opposite of what he was trying to do. He researched these prophecies and went to the holy land to verify the places he was researching for seven years. He was trying to discover the truth about Baha'u'llah, whether he was the return of Christ or not.

But lets put some more light on this, now that we are looking at it. So this book you linked is the first edition published in 1961 by William Sears. So went to look him up and not very surprising he have been a devoted follower of Bahai since 1940. So how surprising is it that he reach the conclusion that he does? Imagine if he had reach the conclusion that none of the stuff were actually fitting, now that would have surprised me greatly .

There you go, jumping to conclusions. Clearly it is you who is biased and you accuse him of that. That is called projection in psychology.

William Sears was a devoted Christian all his early life. He researched the prophecies and compared them to everything that transpired around the Revelations of the Bab and Baha’u’llah and what happened afterwards in order to prove to himself that Baha'u'llah was really the return of Christ.

 

[Nimos]

The Guardian Shoghi Effendi said that homosexuality is “against nature.”

This is not against nature, homosexuality is not only found in humans it happens in animals as well. So why would he say that it is against nature, clearly that is wrong. Besides that its the absurdity of making such claim that annoys me, because its based on absolutely nonsense. Now I my self is not homosexual, in fact I don't even have any friends that are, but my parents know a couple which I have met several times and they are friendly etc. To call people like that "against nature" is an insult towards them and other homosexual people, for no good reason. Because some, sorry for my language, incompetent idiot due to their religious belief claim that this is the case, people with such sexuality have to suffer around the world. And im not only talking about Bahai faith, but all religions that does it.

Its absurd, how these religious people or organisations can get away with it and people that follow them just accepting that these things are done to these people, which makes them equally guilty in supporting such behavior and causing harm to other people. Yet they have no issue claiming themselves as being followers of a good God.

It makes no sense, when you look at it.

Homosexual marriage is disallowed because it does not produce children which is the primary purpose of marriage.

This I can understand, because its a religious tradition and to me personally, I think and would encourage all homosexual people to just throw these religions away. Its not worth fighting for something that does not accept them for who they are and which clearly have no understanding of nature and reality when it comes to these things. It based on ignorant information and religious people own fear or misunderstanding of something that they don't understand. And don't get me wrong, I do actually my self find it slightly weird whenever two men are kissing etc. Because im not used to it, but thinking about it for just two seconds to allow rational thoughts to take hold, I know that this causes me no harm and that these people should be allowed to share their feeling for each other if they want to. It is none of my business and it shouldn't be anyone else either.

But regardless of how you twist and turn it, when a religion openly go out and tell believers how to behave towards certain groups of people, then that is no longer up for rational thinking. Do you agree with that being wrong, its like pointing at black people saying that because their skin is dark they can't do certain things? Its rules made by and based on idiotic ideas.

I do not know the answer to that either. Probably these three promises were significant for a reason. Sears had been a Christian his entire life so I am sure he knew the Bible.

I wouldn't make that assumption, lots of believers have never read what they believe in, its very obvious when you read some of the things people believe is true. Not saying that he doesn't know the bible, I have no clue about that.

I just happen to have the 3 promises posted on my forum because I discussed prophecies with a Christian there for a very long time. There are also many other prophecies there in the Christian Subjects folder.

I can't read any of the things on the forum, it ask me to login.

The title Son of man does not apply exclusively to Jesus. It also applies to Baha’u’llah.

Im sorry, but that is a claim made purely by Baha'u'llah or whoever claim that to be the case. There is nothing in the bible to suggest that this refer to him. It is used primarily about Jesus and Ezekiels and is from what I can see a way to address someone, like you could say "Son of Adam". That Baha'u'llah seem to have spend so much time on what "cloud" means, I think might be explained by him trying to fit things together when they don't. I can't read what you linked and is not going to search through 257 pages to figure out what he means. Reading the passage from Matthews that I linked in the last reply, is written in clear language and none of the verses appears as if cloud should mean anything other than an actual cloud. And how can we validate that this is the most likely explanation?

First of all lets look at the passage:

30 “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth[c] will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.[d] 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

Genesis 1 8-9
8 God called the [i]expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
9 Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.

(In some translations heaven is replaced by sky. So it seems to appear as if heaven is in the sky.)

Psalms 36
5 Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies.

Psalm 68:34
34 Ascribe strength to God; His majesty is over Israel And His strength is in the skies.

Psalm 78:23
23 Yet he commanded the skies above, And opened the doors of heaven;

And the connections go on, its fairly obvious I think that the common understanding by the ancient Jews were that the sky is somehow connected to heaven. Especially the last verse.

Since we know that clouds exists in the sky and seem to be connected to heaven in some way, maybe as a passage before actually entering heaven or that heaven exists above or in the skies. It suddenly makes rather good sense when in Matthew above it says that "They see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven..." clouds simply refer to clouds in the sky which is close to heaven, so isn't it most likely that what is actually meant is that the Son of Man is actually descending on a cloud with angels playing as well, also noticed that winds are mentions, so it appears to be something that physically happens according to the bible and not some spirit or something related to Baha'u'llah. Because what happened to the angels in his explanation? and how does he explain the connection between the sky and heaven?

It is not a bit biased, those things either happened or they did not happen. Sears could not make all those prophecies fit Baha’u’llah if they did not fit. So even if I had no other evidence that Baha’u’llah was a Manifestation of God and the return of Christ and the Messiah, the fulfilment of all these prophecies would be enough evidence, IF I believed in the Bible.

It is biased in the sense that since these claims can't be validated as being true from a rational point of view. Would you agree that the first two promises that he looks at, can't be validated as being fulfilled? There is no way for us to determine whether they are or are not, because we do not know the criteria for them.

So when he end up with a conclusion that all of them are met to absolute perfection, that is biased, because that is what he want it to be. But from a neutral standing point, such conclusion is not possible to reach, when we don't even know how they are met in the first place. We have some very weak and loose criteria for when they are met and depending on how he approach these he can reach whatever conclusion he needs. So if the criteria for promise 1 about the Jews returning, is met by simply 20% of the Jews returning then that promise is fulfilled. But if 100% of them have to return then it is not. And my point is that we have no clue what that criteria is suppose to be.

There you go, jumping to conclusions. Clearly it is you who is biased and you accuse him of that. That is called projection in psychology.

William Sears was a devoted Christian all his early life. He researched the prophecies and compared them to everything that transpired around the Revelations of the Bab and Baha’u’llah and what happened afterwards in order to prove to himself that Baha'u'llah was really the return of Christ.

Its about examining the sources. Imagine that we have to examine the ancient history of some fictional group of people called the Umulans, so we find an ancient text written by some people called the Oligmans, which is known to have been at wars with the Umulans on a regular basis when they lived. Imagine that this text claims that the Umulans eat children and rape each other as they see fit. That these are monsters and ought to be killed. Would you find such source especially reliable?

The reason you wont is because its obviously that if these two people have been at war with each other, there is most likely a hate between them, which means that the source could be biased at describing what the Umulans were truly like. That is why checking sources is important. So knowing that he is a firm believer of the Bahai faith and have been for approximately 21 years before releasing his book, makes it necessary for us to question whether he approach this from a neutral or biased angle. It have nothing especially to do with him, but merely that one have to take it into account, before jumping to the conclusion that this guy have approached it in a way we can trust. And to me, him reaching a conclusion that is impossible to reach, makes me believe that he is not.

Again to me this is about truth, so if I don't trust his conclusions why wouldn't I be skeptic about what he write? Im certain that you would agree with my example about the Umulans and Oligmans above, because its rational to not believe such text, because we know their background and have no bias towards one people over the other. But I doubt you agree with the conclusion about what this guy wrote, because you agree with what he is writing about it being true. Therefore you do not think that there is a bias issue that is worth questioning.

 

[Trailblazer]

This is not against nature, homosexuality is not only found in humans it happens in animals as well. So why would he say that it is against nature, clearly that is wrong. Besides that its the absurdity of making such claim that annoys me, because its based on absolutely nonsense. Now I my self is not homosexual, in fact I don't even have any friends that are, but my parents know a couple which I have met several times and they are friendly etc. To call people like that "against nature" is an insult towards them and other homosexual people, for no good reason. Because some, sorry for my language, incompetent idiot due to their religious belief claim that this is the case, people with such sexuality have to suffer around the world. And im not only talking about Bahai faith, but all religions that does it.

You cannot compare humans to animals because we are much more than animals since we have a rational soul and we can make free will choices. Animals just operate on instinct.

If you ever had to believe in God you would have to accept the fact that God does not approve of homosexuality, He never did. Just look at the OT. Baha’i Laws are much more moderate than that and they do not apply to anyone unless they are Baha’is.

Its absurd, how these religious people or organisations can get away with it and people that follow them just accepting that these things are done to these people, which makes them equally guilty in supporting such behavior and causing harm to other people. Yet they have no issue claiming themselves as being followers of a good God.

It makes no sense, when you look at it.

So all human behaviors should be allowed even if they are not good for those people or for society? Where does that end?

This I can understand, because its a religious tradition and to me personally, I think and would encourage all homosexual people to just throw these religions away. Its not worth fighting for something that does not accept them for who they are and which clearly have no understanding of nature and reality when it comes to these things. It based on ignorant information and religious people own fear or misunderstanding of something that they don't understand.

I would not speak so quickly about that. The assumption that people are born homosexual and homosexuality is not a choice has become very popular in modern society but it does not have scientific backing.

Are gays ‘born that way’? Most Americans now say yes, but science says no

And don't get me wrong, I do actually my self find it slightly weird whenever two men are kissing etc. Because im not used to it, but thinking about it for just two seconds to allow rational thoughts to take hold, I know that this causes me no harm and that these people should be allowed to share their feeling for each other if they want to. It is none of my business and it shouldn't be anyone else either.

Don’t get me wrong. I think sexual preference is a private thing and I do not judge anyone over it. Like I said, I respect married homosexuals more than heterosexuals who have sex out of wedlock.

But regardless of how you twist and turn it, when a religion openly go out and tell believers how to behave towards certain groups of people, then that is no longer up for rational thinking. Do you agree with that being wrong, its like pointing at black people saying that because their skin is dark they can't do certain things? Its rules made by and based on idiotic ideas.

Baha’is do not impose our values on other groups of people.

January 3, 2011

To the American Bahá'í community

Dearest Bahá'í Friends,

The National Spiritual Assembly understands that homosexuality is a subject of particular interest and concern to many in this country and is, therefore, moved to share with you a letter dated October 27, 2010, written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice on this topic. A copy of the letter-addressed to an American Bahá'í-was received by our Assembly, and the Supreme Body has kindly granted us permission to share it with you:

"...With respect to your question concerning the position Bahá'ís are to take regarding homosexuality and civil rights, we have been asked to convey the following.

"The purpose of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh is the realization of the organic unity of the entire human race, and Bahá'ís are enjoined to eliminate from their lives all forms of prejudice and to manifest respect towards all. Therefore, to regard those with a homosexual orientation with prejudice or disdain would be against the spirit of the Faith. Furthermore, a Bahá'í is exhorted to be "an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression", and it would be entirely appropriate for a believer to come to the defense of those whose fundamental rights are being denied or violated.

"At the same time, you are no doubt aware of the relevant teachings of the Faith that govern the personal conduct of Bahá'ís. The Bahá'í Writings state that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and that sexual relations are restricted to a couple who are married to each other. Other passages from the Writings state that the practice of homosexuality is not permitted. The teachings of Bahá'u'lláh on personal morality are binding on Bahá'ís, who strive, as best they can, to live up to the high standards He has established.

"In attempting to reconcile what may appear to be conflicting obligations, it is important to understand that the Bahá'í community does not seek to impose its values on others, nor does it pass judgment on others on the basis of its own moral standards. It does not see itself as one among competing social groups and organizations, each vying to establish its particular social agenda. In working for social justice, Bahá'ís must inevitably distinguish between those dimensions of public issues that are in keeping with the Bahá'í Teachings, which they can actively support, and those that are not, which they would neither promote nor necessarily oppose. In connection with issues of concern to homosexuals, the former would be freedom from discrimination and the latter the opportunity for civil marriage. Such distinctions are unavoidable when addressing any social issue. For example, Bahá'ís actively work for the establishment of world peace but, in the process, do not engage in partisan political activities directed against particular governments."

We felt it important that the friends have access to this guidance from the House of Justice, and trust that you will find it helpful.

With loving Bahá'í greetings,

Kenneth E. Bowers
Secretary
National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States

Homosexuality and Civil Rights

(CONTINUED ON NEXT POST)

 

[Trailblazer]

I can't read any of the things on the forum, it ask me to login in.

I think you can get there by going to this link:

Delphi Forums Login

Im sorry, but that is a claim made purely by Baha'u'llah or whoever claim that to be the case. There is nothing in the bible to suggest that this refer to him. It is used primarily about Jesus and Ezekiels and is from what I can see a way to address someone, like you could say "Son of Adam". That Baha'u'llah seem to have spend so much time on what "cloud" means, I think might be explained by him trying to fit things together when they don't. I can't read what you linked and is not going to search through 257 pages to figure out what he means. Reading the passage from Matthews that I linked in the last reply, is written in clear language and none of the verses appears as if cloud should mean anything other than an actual cloud. And how can we validate that this is the most likely explanation?

Why does everything have to be in the Bible? You believe it is an actual cloud because you cannot understand the allegorical meaning of cloud.

First of all lets look at the passage:

30 “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth[c] will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.[d] 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

Genesis 1 8-9
8 God called the [i]expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
9 Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.

(In some translations heaven is replaced by sky. So it seems to appear as if heaven is in the sky.)

Psalms 36
5 Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies.

Psalm 68:34
34 Ascribe strength to God; His majesty is over Israel And His strength is in the skies.

Psalm 78:23
23 Yet he commanded the skies above, And opened the doors of heaven;

And the connections go on, its fairly obvious I think that the common understanding by the ancient Jews were that the sky is somehow connected to heaven. Especially the last verse.

Since we know that clouds exists in the sky and seem to be connected to heaven in some way, maybe as a passage before actually entering heaven or that heaven exists above or in the skies. It suddenly makes rather good sense when in Matthew above it says that "They see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven..." clouds simply refer to clouds in the sky which is close to heaven, so isn't it most likely that what is actually meant is that the Son of Man is actually descending on a cloud with angels playing as well, also noticed that winds are mentions, so it appears to be something that physically happens according to the bible and not some spirit or related to Baha'u'llah. Because what happened to the angels in his explanation? and how does he explain the connection between the sky and heaven?

If you want to believe in the literal interpretation of clouds and something physical I won’t try to talk you out of it.

Because Christians interpret the Bible literally, they think the same Jesus is coming down on a physical cloud. When that did not happen they rejected Baha’u’llah when the Bible prophecies were fulfilled and He came in the mid-19th century. Son of man coming on the clouds means that the return of the Christ Spirit will appear in the form of another human being, which Baha’is call a Manifestation of God. The term “clouds” as used in the Bible means those things that are contrary to the ways and desires of men. Just like the physical clouds prevent the eyes of men from beholding the sun, these things hindered men from recognizing the return of Christ.

Mark 14: 62 “And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”

Matthew 24:30 “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”

Matthew 26:64 “Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”

Mark 13:26 “And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.”

Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven means that the return of the Christ Spirit promised in the Bible will be made manifest from the heaven of the will of God, and will appear in the form of a human being. The term “heaven” means loftiness and exaltation. Although they were delivered from the womb of their mother, Manifestations of God have in reality descended from the heaven of the will of God. Though dwelling on this earth, their true habitations are the realms above. While walking among mortals on earth, they soar in the heaven of the divine presence.

The FIRST thing to note about all the verses above is that none of them say “you will see ME coming.” Rather they refer to the Son of man in the third person. Why do you think that is? If Jesus planned to return and wanted people to recognize Him as Jesus, why didn’t Jesus say: Mark 13:26 “And then shall they see me coming in the clouds with great power and glory.”

I will tell you why... It is because the Son of man refers to Baha’u’llah. Jesus was the Son of God. Baha’u’llah was the Son of man. Jesus never planned to return (John 17:4, 11). Jesus said that He would send the Comforter/Spirit of truth to complete the work He started (John 14:17-18, 26; John 15:26; John 16:12-14).

Baha’is believe that the term “clouds” as used in the Bible means those things that are contrary to the ways and desires of men. They signify, in one sense, the annulment of laws, the abrogation of former Dispensations, the repeal of rituals and customs current among men. In another sense, they mean the appearance of a Manifestation of God in the image of mortal man, with such human limitations as eating and drinking, poverty and riches, sleeping and waking, and such other things as cast doubt in the minds of men, and cause them to turn away. These “veils” to recognition of a Manifestation of God are symbolically referred to as “clouds.” Just like the physical clouds prevent the eyes of men from beholding the sun, these things hinder the souls of men from recognizing the light of the Manifestation of God.

Thus when Jesus said “ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” we believe that means that His Return, the next Manifestation of God, would reside in the loftiness and exaltation of the divine presence (heaven), and would come down to earth by the will of God in the clouds (veiled from the sight of most people), like a thief in the night.

2 Peter 3:10 “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”

1 Thessalonians 5:2 “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.”

That is it in a nutshell. Baha’is believe that the Son of God refers to Jesus and only to Jesus, but the Son of man refers to the return of the Christ Spirit in another Manifestation of God whom was called by another name, Baha’u’llah. He came veiled from the sight of most people but there was a great noise.

It is biased in the sense that since these claims can't be validated as being true from a rational point of view. Would you agree that the first two promises that he looks at, can't be validated as being fulfilled? There is no way for us to determine whether they are or are not, because we do not know the criteria for them.

No, I do not agree. If you read the chapters in Thief in the Night that refer to those promises you will understand how they were fulfilled. He explains how they were fulfilled, the criteria for fulfillment.

So when he end up with a conclusion that all of them are met to absolute perfection, that is biased, because that is what he want it to be. But from a neutral standing point, such conclusion is not possible to reach, when we don't even know how they are met in the first place. We have some very weak and loose criteria for when they are met and depending on how he approach these he can reach whatever conclusion he needs. So if the criteria for promise 1 about the Jews returning, is met by simply 20% of the Jews returning then that criteria is met. But if its that 100% of them have to return then it is not met. And my point is that we have no clue what that criteria is.

That is explained in the book Thief in the Night.

So knowing that he is a firm believer of the Bahai faith and have been for approximately 21 years before releasing his book, makes it necessary for us to question whether he approach this from a neutral or biased angle. It have nothing especially to do with him, but merely that one have to take it into account, before jumping to the conclusion that this guy have approached it in a way we can trust. And to me, him reaching a conclusion that is impossible to reach, makes me believe that he is not.

I understand the need to question whether he approach this from a neutral or biased angle, but the purpose of the book is so people can read it and draw their own conclusions, based upon what he discovered. To just assume we cannot trust his research because he is biased is not any way to do research, because then you are biased.

Why do you think that the conclusion that Christ has returned is impossible to reach?

Again to me this is about truth, so if I don't trust his conclusions why wouldn't I be skeptic about what he write?

You do not trust his conclusions because you think he was biased but you are also biased by your conclusion that he must be biased. These things he researched either happened or not and Baha’u’llah either did what fulfilled the prophecies or not. History is history and geography is geography.

 

[Nimos]

You cannot compare humans to animals because we are much more than animals since we have a rational soul and we can make free will choices. Animals just operate on instinct.

If you ever had to believe in God you would have to accept the fact that God does not approve of homosexuality, He never did. Just look at the OT. Baha’i Laws are much more moderate than that and they do not apply to anyone unless they are Baha’is.

Humans are animals, our brains allows us to think more complex thoughts than other animals, but this is a physical construct, that we can both see, observe, test and make prediction for how will react in different situations. To think animals purely act on instinct is not correct, I believe I already linked some videos about animals and behavior before, with the pingvin helping and defending some other species of pingvin for no logical reason and about the orangutang that save the bird from drowning using a leaf, if animals were purely driven by instinct, they wouldn't do any of that, because no logical instinct would tell them to do this. Here are some more videos. These are all examples of animal behavior which to me clearly shows that for them to do these things requires more than purely instincts.

I do agree that according to the Bible God do not approve of homosexuals, which leads to one of the following explanations as I see it:

1. God is man made, because if a God existed and had created everything, there is no good reason to why such would hate such sexuality and let alone why he would make it possible in the first place.

2. God is not all good and created certain humans with such sexual tendencies to have other humans and himself someone to mock and ridicule and punish, because he might enjoy such thing. As I see no other reason why anyone with the ability to create, would create something that they don't like.

That Bahai laws does not suggest that these people should be killed, is definitely a step forward. But is against the will of God and if God is all good, why would you change the law?

So all human behaviors should be allowed even if they are not good for those people or for society? Where does that end?

Not sure what you mean by this? Obviously behaviors or rules designed to ridicule/hurt a particular group of people based on ignorant is not allowed. When religions point at people with a certain sexuality and apply specific rules for them that is to ridicule them. No different than Bahai not allowing females in the House of Justice or when black people weren't allow to sit certain places in a bus or use the same toilets as white people. These are all rules created based on ignorance and stupidity, as they encourage hate towards certain groups of people. Remember that it weren't all that long ago when women weren't allowed to vote either. To me there is no way to defend it, there is nothing that suggest that females are less competent at leading things than males are, so when Bahai apply rules that no female can have a seat in the house of justice, without giving a rational explanation for it, it is wrong, its encourage others to think of females as less worthy or capable of doing these things. I know you don't agree with it. But as I mentioned in an earlier post, it would be the same as someone saying that it doesn't hurt anyone that black people can't sit certain places on the bus, they still get from A to B. Its reasoning based on hate, stupidity and ignorance.

I would not speak so quickly about that. The assumption that people are born homosexual and homosexuality is not a choice has become very popular in modern society but it does not have scientific backing.

Are gays ‘born that way’? Most Americans now say yes, but science says no

There is no consensus to what exactly causes people to have certain sexual tendencies. Its doesn't mean that there is no scientific backing for it, but merely that this is not as straight forward as we might think. For me personally I think this is a mixture between nature and nurture. But even if it turns out that homosexuality is a choice, it doesn't change that God expresses hate towards these groups of people, making him capable of ridiculing certain types of people due to this, which again would make him express hate which is not something we relate with something that is supposedly all good.

Don’t get me wrong. I think sexual preference is a private thing and I do not judge anyone over it. Like I said, I respect married homosexuals more than heterosexuals who have sex out of wedlock.

But you don't find it strange that you personally think its fine, but why the creator of the Universe do not?

Baha’is do not impose our values on other groups of people.

When you apply rules and laws for certain groups of people based on sexuality and gender and there is no logic reason or explanation for it, I would say that you are. You may find them unimportant, but that doesn't really change anything. There are certain rules and restrictions that apply to you, because of your gender.

Why does everything have to be in the Bible? You believe it is an actual cloud because you cannot understand the allegorical meaning of cloud.

If we have no source for God, meaning no scriptures, there is no way for us to even discuss the concept of God in the first place, because he/she could be anything. Furthermore you have to realize that its not very logic to assume that all descriptions of God found in the different religion are talking about the same one. As I mentioned earlier, the Bahai faith is the only one I have ever heard of, that seem to accept all of them to be true, with the exception of those that you for whatever reason know is not true. Yet I have no clue how one can determine that. Besides that your comment referred to a verse in the bible, so where else should I go?

So you make a claim that cloud in the bible means something, because Baha'u'llah say it does, because that is how he understand it. That is why, I go to the bible to try to figure out whether that is likely or not. And based on the verses I quoted and there are lots of others as well. It just doesn't seem very likely to me, that cloud refer to the spirit of God or to Baha'u'llah and therefore not meant to be understood as an allegory for anything other than a cloud

I will tell you why... It is because the Son of man refers to Baha’u’llah. Jesus was the Son of God. Baha’u’llah was the Son of man.

Im sorry but I think you are wrong about this.

Acts 7 54:56
54 When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

To me this is pretty clear that its referring to Jesus, at least in this case.

No, I do not agree. If you read the chapters in Thief in the Night that refer to those promises you will understand how they were fulfilled. He explains how they were fulfilled, the criteria for fulfillment.

He made up those criteria and what was required for them to be fulfilled, didn't he?

I understand the need to question whether he approach this from a neutral or biased angle, but the purpose of the book is so people can read it and draw their own conclusions, based upon what he discovered. To just assume we cannot trust his research because he is biased is not any way to do research, because then you are biased.

Why do you think that the conclusion that Christ has returned is impossible to reach?

But if the book is meant for people to draw their own conclusions, then why include his own, where he say that they are met to absolute perfection, that is not required if people are to merely read his research and then draw their own conclusions. Obviously he believe in his findings and that they are true, so he want to present them as such and there is nothing wrong with that. My problem is that I think he reach the wrong conclusions, based on what he is working with. Which simply is that he can't reach absolute certainty as he does, but yet that does not prevent him from doing it anyway.

In regards to the return of Christ, I think it is because people make no distinction between the historical Jesus and the Jesus of faith. Almost nothing is known about the historical Jesus and to me personally, I think all the stuff about him returning etc, is made to glorify him. You have to remember at the time when Jesus lived there were lots of people calling themselves Messiahs, which according to the bible would be one that would free the Jews and sit on the throne of David etc. These people were the ones that got crucified just as Jesus did. So putting it into context of the time period, we have to remember that Rome was in control and people that opposed their rules were the ones that were crucified and done so under the name of bandits, also why Jesus were crucified next to bandits and not thieves as some think they are. These people were like Jesus, some that have done something against the rule of Rome. If you recall from the bible, Jesus had a sign saying "Jesus, King of the Jews", this was common when people got crucified. The sign most likely tell other Jews that Jesus claimed to be the King of the Jews, which opposed the rule of Rome, therefore it was a crime. So to me one have to make a distinction between the historical Jesus, which I do think lived and got crucified etc. and the one of faith which is the son of God. But that he was basically a rebel fighting to improve the lives of the Jews and to fight the religious system in Israel, and to bring back the rules of God, also why he shows such hate towards the Pharisees etc. because they were abusing their power, which eventually led to them wanting him dead. So to me to reach the conclusion that Christ have returned is impossible, is because he was a normal man, fighting for what he believed in and to help the Jews and all the stuff with him returning etc. Is made up later to glorify him as a divine being or son of God etc. So I do think that the historical Jesus were a good person trying to help and fight for the poor, for God and what he believed in. But hardly anything we read about him in the bible describe what the historical Jesus really were like.

 

[Trailblazer]

Humans are animals, our brains allows us to think more complex thoughts than other animals, but this is a physical construct, that we can both see, observe, test and make prediction for how will react in different situations. To think animals purely act on instinct is not correct, I believe I already linked some videos about animals and behavior before, with the pingvin helping and defending some other species of pingvin for no logical reason and about the orangutang that save the bird from drowning using a leaf, if animals were purely driven by instinct, they wouldn't do any of that, because no logical instinct would tell them to do this. Here are some more videos. These are all examples of animal behavior which to me clearly shows that for them to do these things requires more than purely instincts.

I should have said that animals act mostly on instinct because clearly there is more to animal behavior than instinct. There are many behaviors scientists do not yet understand but we know that animals can have empathy for animals that are not even if their own species and some even take care of the young of another species, such as a cat allowing a puppy to nurse. Animals are amazing creatures. I am an animal over myself and my life revolves around my many cats indoors and all the animals outdoors that I feed and water, including many birds.

I do agree that according to the Bible God do not approve of homosexuals, which leads to one of the following explanations as I see it:

1. God is man made, because if a God existed and had created everything, there is no good reason to why such would hate such sexuality and let alone why he would make it possible in the first place.

There is no reason to think God hates such sexuality, just because he disapproves of it. God did not design the human body to make this kind of sex possible, God designed it so men and women could have sexual intercourse. Of course humans can find ways around what God designed, they always do.

2. God is not all good and created certain humans with such sexual tendencies to have other humans and himself someone to mock and ridicule and punish, because he might enjoy such thing. As I see no other reason why anyone with the ability to create, would create something that they don't like.

God did not create humans to have these tendencies. For whatever reason, a minority of humans have these tendencies. God does not want them to be mocked or ridiculed or punished. Humans do this to each other.

That Bahai laws does not suggest that these people should be killed, is definitely a step forward. But is against the will of God and if God is all good, why would you change the law?

God can and does change the laws every time He sends a new Messenger, because people change and the world we live in changes over time. Nobody knows what the next Messenger will have in the law regarding sexuality.

Not sure what you mean by this? Obviously behaviors or rules designed to ridicule/hurt a particular group of people based on ignorant is not allowed. When religions point at people with a certain sexuality and apply specific rules for them that is to ridicule them.

It does not follow that the reason for the laws is to ridicule people. It could just be that these laws are good for the individuals and society. Can’t you imagine that an All-Knowing and All-Wise God knows more than humans know about what is best for humans?

No different than Bahai not allowing females in the House of Justice or when black people weren't allow to sit certain places in a bus or use the same toilets as white people. These are all rules created based on ignorance and stupidity, as they encourage hate towards certain groups of people.

You have no idea why women are not allowed on the UHJ and it is not the same as not allowing blacks in certain places. That is the fallacy of false equivalence. Discrimination against blacks does encourage hate, but not allowing women on the UHJ does not encourage hate OR discrimination. To say it is based upon ignorance and stupidity is as much as calling Baha’u’llah ignorant and stupid. There is a reason for not allowing women on the UHJ and it will be revealed in full later, as Abdu’l-Baha promised. Till then, Baha’is simply accept that Baha’u’llah knew more than we can ever know. It’s called humility.

Furthermore, if you understood the functions of the UHJ you might understand why women cannot serve in that capacity. I can only guess, but being pregnant and giving birth and having to be there for a child could be one reason. The UHJ is VITAL to the functioning of the entire Baha’i world, and it has to have nine members to function. It cannot wait for a woman to give birth.

Remember that it weren't all that long ago when women weren't allowed to vote either.

Again, you are employing that fallacy of false equivalency if you are comparing women being allowed ot vote to women serving on the UHJ.

To me there is no way to defend it, there is nothing that suggest that females are less competent at leading things than males are, so when Bahai apply rules that no female can have a seat in the house of justice, without giving a rational explanation for it, it is wrong, its encourage others to think of females as less worthy or capable of doing these things. I know you don't agree with it. But as I mentioned in an earlier post, it would be the same as someone saying that it doesn't hurt anyone that black people can't sit certain places on the bus, they still get from A to B. Its reasoning based on hate, stupidity and ignorance.

You are just wrong and you won’t admit it. Not serving on the UHJ has a reason but it is not saying that women are less competent or less worthy and capable than men. If that was true, women would be excluded from serving on the NSA and they are not. There is something about the UHJ that precludes women serving and we will be told what it is later.

Not allowing women on the UHJ is not based on hate, stupidity and ignorance and since you are ignorant as to the reason you are speaking from ignorance and that is logically fallacious, called argument from ignorance. You don’t know what is true so you assert that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false. This excludes the possibility that there may have been an insufficient investigation to prove that the proposition is either true. It also does not allow for the possibility that the answer is unknowable.

There is no consensus to what exactly causes people to have certain sexual tendencies. Its doesn't mean that there is no scientific backing for it, but merely that this is not as straight forward as we might think. For me personally I think this is a mixture between nature and nurture. But even if it turns out that homosexuality is a choice, it doesn't change that God expresses hate towards these groups of people, making him capable of ridiculing certain types of people due to this, which again would make him express hate which is not something we relate with something that is supposedly all good.

The Baha’i Faith does not encourage hate towards homosexuals, quite the contrary. Baha’is are even allowed to be homosexual and there are homosexual Baha’is. Unless they are flagrant about it in public it is not an issue and even then the worst that can happen is that their voting rights can be taken away. They are never ousted from membership in the Faith. Yes, it is a Baha’i Law, but how we follow laws is only between us and God unless it brings shame or disrepute upon the Faith.

But you don't find it strange that you personally think its fine, but why the creator of the Universe do not?

Why would what I think personally align with what the Creator of the universe thinks? Can’t you even understand that humans are fallible whereas God is infallible? So if I disagree with any law of God I simply accept that God knows more than I do. This is logic 101 stuff.

When you apply rules and laws for certain groups of people based on sexuality and gender and there is no logic reason or explanation for it, I would say that you are. You may find them unimportant, but that doesn't really change anything. There are certain rules and restrictions that apply to you, because of your gender.

Baha’i laws only apply to Baha’is. They are not imposed on other groups of people. I do not judge atheists if they have sex out of wedlock because they are not required to follow Baha’i laws. Ask any Baha’i women if it bothers them that they cannot serve on the UHJ. Because they understand the dictate came from Baha’u’llah they accept it. Baha’is believe that Baha’u’llah was infallible so we do not question Him.

If we have no source for God, meaning no scriptures, there is no way for us to even discuss the concept of God in the first place, because he/she could be anything. Furthermore you have to realize that its not very logic to assume that all descriptions of God found in the different religion are talking about the same one. As I mentioned earlier, the Bahai faith is the only one I have ever heard of, that seem to accept all of them to be true, with the exception of those that you for whatever reason know is not true. Yet I have no clue how one can determine that. Besides that your comment referred to a verse in the bible, so where else should I go?

It is true that if we have no scriptures, there is no way for us to even discuss the concept of God in the first place, because God could be anything. How much sense does it make that there is more than one God, if God is omnipotent and omniscient? It makes more sense that the religious scriptures are all referring to the same God, the one true God that Baha’u’llah referred to. The way we determine if the major religions are all true is to first determine if Baha’u’llah was a Manifestation of God who spoke for God, in which case everything He wrote would be the truth.

(CONTINUED ON NEXT POST)

 

[Trailblazer]

So you make a claim that cloud in the bible means something, because Baha'u'llah say it does, because that is how he understand it. That is why, I go to the bible to try to figure out whether that is likely or not. And based on the verses I quoted and there are lots of others as well. It just doesn't seem very likely to me, that cloud refer to the spirit of God or to Baha'u'llah and therefore not meant to be understood as an allegory for anything other than a cloud.

Cloud does not refer to the spirit of God or to Baha'u'llah. Clouds are thiongs that cloud peoples’ judgment. Just like the physical clouds prevent the eyes of men from beholding the sun, the desires of men hindered men from recognizing the return of Christ. Thus the meaning of clouds is symbolic, not literal. Their judgment was clouded.

Again, you have to use your rational mind and ask yourself how much sense it makes that the same man Jesus who died over 2000 years ago would come down from the sky on a cloud. There is no oxygen up above the clouds so a man cannot live there. Heaven is a spiritual world that is connected to this world in a way we cannot presently understand, but that is where jesus ascended to and that is where Jesus is now, in a spiritual body, not in a physical body.

This information if not clearly expressed in the Bible and that is why Christians have been so confused from the very beginning and why they are divided in what they believe. No two interpretations of the Bible are the same and different sects of Christianity differ in what they believe about heaven. It makes sense that if Baha’u’llah was as Manifestation of God, He knew what the Bible meant because He had the knowledge of God, who was responsible for revealing the Bible through the Holy Spirit.

The Bible can mean many different things and more than one meaning can correctly be attributed to any verse, but as the Representative of God among men, Baha’u’llah had authority to interpret it. Nobody in Christianity had ever been given that authority by Jesus or Moses so it was just pot luck.

“Know assuredly that just as thou firmly believest that the Word of God, exalted be His glory, endureth for ever, thou must, likewise, believe with undoubting faith that its meaning can never be exhausted. They who are its appointed interpreters, they whose hearts are the repositories of its secrets, are, however, the only ones who can comprehend its manifold wisdom. Whoso, while reading the Sacred Scriptures, is tempted to choose therefrom whatever may suit him with which to challenge the authority of the Representative of God among men, is, indeed, as one dead, though to outward seeming he may walk and converse with his neighbors, and share with them their food and their drink.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 175-176

Im sorry but I think you are wrong about this.

Acts 7 54:56
54 When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

To me this is pretty clear that its referring to Jesus, at least in this case.

Of course Jesus was the Son of Man. Baha’u’llah even said so, but Son of Man is just a title given to represent the perfect man so there can be more than one Son of Man. What I meant to say is that Jesus held the title Son of God exclusively because He had no human father so He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. But also Jesus was the Son of God because he has the relationship that a father would have to a son.

He made up those criteria and what was required for them to be fulfilled, didn't he?

No, not at all. The prophecies were taken right out of the Bible, and Sears compared what was in the prophecies with what actually happened before during and after Baha’u’llah walked the Earth. Those things either happened or not.

But if the book is meant for people to draw their own conclusions, then why include his own, where he say that they are met to absolute perfection, that is not required if people are to merely read his research and then draw their own conclusions. Obviously he believe in his findings and that they are true, so he want to present them as such and there is nothing wrong with that. My problem is that I think he reach the wrong conclusions, based on what he is working with. Which simply is that he can't reach absolute certainty as he does, but yet that does not prevent him from doing it anyway.

If you read the preface it explains how the book was written. He was writing it as a detective trying to track down evidence. Note that Sears says it is written “in such a way that you can solve it for yourself.” He did reach absolute certainty for himself, but he leaves other people to decide what to believe.

From the introduction to the book:

The Problem.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, there was world-wide and fervent expectation that during the 1840’s the return of Christ would take place. The story made the headlines and even reached the Congress of the United States. From China and the Middle East to Europe and America, men of conflicting ideas shared in the expectancy. Scoffers were many but the enthusiasm was tremendous, and all agreed on the time. Why? And what became of the story? Did anything happen or was it all a dream?

The Solution.

Patiently, and with exemplary thoroughness, William Sears set out to solve this mystery. In Thief in the Night he presents his fully detailed “conduct of the case” in an easy style which enthuses the reader with the excitement of the chase. The solution to which all the clues lead comes as a tremendous challenge.

This is a mystery story with a difference: the mystery is a real one, and of vital importance to every human being. The author presents the evidence in The case of the missing millennium in such a way that you can solve it for yourself.

Christ returns

In fact, our press has been scooped by over a century. You will find here considerable evidence to show that when the newspapers and publications of the 1840s printed their stories headed, Return of Christ expected, they were printing not fancy, but fact, even though they were unaware of the nature of the story at the time, and were totally unable to substantiate its truth in that hour.

If what I have uncovered is the truth, then (according to the testimony of the hard-boiled newspaper editors of the West) it is the most shocking and dramatic story that anyone could possibly tell in print.

But will anyone believe me?

You are now starting where I started a few years ago on The strange case of the missing millennium.

William Sears.

In regards to the return of Christ, I think it is because people make no distinction between the historical Jesus and the Jesus of faith. Almost nothing is known about the historical Jesus and to me personally, I think all the stuff about him returning etc, is made to glorify him……..So I do think that the historical Jesus were a good person trying to help and fight for the poor, for God and what he believed in. But hardly anything we read about him in the bible describe what the historical Jesus really were like.

There is only one Jesus, although the Bible Jesus of faith did not focus on the real Jesus, the historical Jesus. It focuses on the resurrected Jesus, Jesus the Savior, and the Jesus who is supposed to return and create a Kingdom on Earth, none of which was important to the historical Jesus. Early Christianity was nothing like what it became later.

From the OT and the NT then we know that a Messiah was foretold and we know that Jesus did not fulfill all those prophecies in the OT, so we know that another one would come later to fulfill them. That fits with being the return of Christ; not the same man Jesus, but the return of the Christ Spirit in another man with another name. All throughout John 14, 15 and 16, Jesus talked about the Comforter and the Spirit of Truth he would send and that was Baha’u’llah.

John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

John 14:17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for hedwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes forth from with the Father, he shall bear witness concerning me;

John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

John 16:12-13 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

John 16:14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

He would have a new name.

Revelation 2:17 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.

Revelation 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

 

[Nimos]

There is no reason to think God hates such sexuality, just because he disapproves of it. God did not design the human body to make this kind of sex possible, God designed it so men and women could have sexual intercourse. Of course humans can find ways around what God designed, they always do.

If he just disapproves of it, then why would he want them dead, if they act on their sexuality and specifically say that it is their own fault. I disapprove of a lot of things people does, it doesn't mean that I think they ought to be killed for it. You have to remember that God is the ultimate judge, the Jews believed that and even today people believe it, in the end its before God that we are judged. So looking at it from an ancient Jewish point of view, do you really think they understood it as God merely disapproving of it, when the law told them to kill them?

But that God designed humans like that is not really an excuse, he could have made it so it weren't possible. Look at all the varies animals around the world, God could easily have design humans differently which have had no impact on us and our relationship to God.

God did not create humans to have these tendencies. For whatever reason, a minority of humans have these tendencies. God does not want them to be mocked or ridiculed or punished. Humans do this to each other.

I don't know how you reach these conclusions? Are they solely based on the word of Baha'u'llah and then you just disregard anything supposedly said by God, which can't lie as you might know and is all good? It seems to me like you just ignore everything for which you disagree with even if it is said by God, but the moment its something you agree with, you have no issues quoting the bible and God and saying that its absolutely true, its very strange and quite difficult to figure out how you manage to keep track of what you believe and don't believe in and what is true or not true.

Im going to quote the bible and you tell me how you understand it or if you even believe it to be true, just try to share your thoughts when you read it?

Leviticus 18 1:23
1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘I am the Lord your God. 3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. 4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God. 5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.

6 “‘No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord.

7 “‘Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her.

8 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonor your father.

9 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere.

10 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter; that would dishonor you.

11 “‘Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father’s wife, born to your father; she is your sister.

12 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your father’s sister; she is your father’s close relative.

13 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your mother’s sister, because she is your mother’s close relative.

14 “‘Do not dishonor your father’s brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations; she is your aunt.

15 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son’s wife; do not have relations with her.

16 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife; that would dishonor your brother.

17 “‘Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.

18 “‘Do not take your wife’s sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living.

19 “‘Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period.

20 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor’s wife and defile yourself with her.

21 “‘Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

22 “‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.

23 “‘Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.


Leviticus 19 11-37
11 “‘Do not steal.

“‘Do not lie.

“‘Do not deceive one another.


37 “‘Keep all my decrees and all my laws and follow them. I am the Lord.’”

Leviticus 20 13-15
13 “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

15 “‘If a man has sexual relations with

an animal, he is to be put to death, and you must kill the animal.


Do you believe this to be true and that God said this? or which of the verses do you think might not be from God if any?

God can and does change the laws every time He sends a new Messenger, because people change and the world we live in changes over time. Nobody knows what the next Messenger will have in the law regarding sexuality.

But we have already as far as I know, agreed that we can not know for sure whether Baha'u'llah is send from God or not, this is just a claim. Making the assumption that he is, would give him and his followers or those in power to decide the meaning of his words full control for no good or rational reason. The only people that would think this is a good idea are those following this religion without questioning anything. Which you have said several times even in the last reply that you do not question what Baha'u'llah said. That is tremendous dangerous and to follow something completely blind without any rationality, you must be able to see that such approach is wrong?

It does not follow that the reason for the laws is to ridicule people. It could just be that these laws are good for the individuals and society. Can’t you imagine that an All-Knowing and All-Wise God knows more than humans know about what is best for humans?

If this is what he is capable of, then no. And to me purely serves as two things. 1. Evidence that God is man made or 2. God is incompetent.

Can you give me one example of how Gods view on homosexuality is beneficial for the individual or society? Also keep in mind that this happens in other animals as well and also we are not talking about a 100% portion of humans that are homosexuals.

You have no idea why women are not allowed on the UHJ and it is not the same as not allowing blacks in certain places. That is the fallacy of false equivalence.

I have no clue and apparently no one else does, since you have said that this would be revealed later. Which is perfect, because then those that made the rules don't have to explain themselves.

If that was true, women would be excluded from serving on the NSA and they are not.

Why would they be excluded from serving at NSA?

Not allowing women on the UHJ is not based on hate, stupidity and ignorance and since you are ignorant as to the reason you are speaking from ignorance and that is logically fallacious, called argument from ignorance.

To not demand an explanation or to be unable to give one is to keep women ignorant. Because there is no reason, you said it yourself it will be explained later, which means that currently there is none and you and all other women just have to accept it. It could take 10 years or 1000 years you have no clue. How you can defend this is beyond me. If a law was put forward that women should no longer be able to hold office in the US, and the reason for why this were needed would be given later at an unspecific time, would you vote yes to such law, of course you wouldn't. Because it makes no sense and because it point out women as being incapable of doing certain jobs, because they are women and not even getting an explanation for it. If you or anyone else would vote yes for such law, I would be really surprised.

Continue..

 

[Nimos]

Why would what I think personally align with what the Creator of the universe thinks? Can’t you even understand that humans are fallible whereas God is infallible? So if I disagree with any law of God I simply accept that God knows more than I do. This is logic 101 stuff.

Do you believe God is good and do you believe he can be wrong?

Baha’is believe that Baha’u’llah was infallible so we do not question Him.

To me this sound very fanatic, so when those people that was trusted with the ability to decide what Baha'u'llah meant, say something, then that is just perceived as being the truth, no question asked?

I have to say, Im impressed and slightly worried whenever I hear people say something like this. Don't get me wrong, but to me this sort of statement is something I would expect from a Islamic fanatic, where all rational thinking is gone and is purely driven by what they are told by their religious leaders. But also having seen a lot of documentaries about cults and how people that got out of them share their experience about how it was to be part of one. And they pretty much all say the same thing as you are here. That they were so convinced that these cult leaders were divine and good that they never thought to question anything they said.

Don't get me wrong I don't say that Bahai faith is of that nature, but simply from reading your replies to certain things. Like not able to see anything wrong with women and the House of Justice, that you don't question anything that comes out of the mouth of Baha'u'llah and supposedly those with the power to interpret what he was saying either. To me such approach to faith seems extremely dangerous. Sort of like when religions like JW wont accept blod, because they believe its in the bible or the Catholic church encourage people to not use condoms etc. Obviously this is because im an atheist and I wish you could see it from my/our perspective for just 5 minutes. The madness of some of these religious beliefs and how easy they manipulate people to do things which makes no sense. I don't think, I will ever truly understand religious faith as it seems so disconnected from reality in some places. To me I can only imagine that, its must be to live in a world, where half the stuff you live by is purely based on guessing and what people tell you to do, without ever getting a satisfying answer for why you ought to do something. Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that you won't agree with this.

Again, you have to use your rational mind and ask yourself how much sense it makes that the same man Jesus who died over 2000 years ago would come down from the sky on a cloud. There is no oxygen up above the clouds so a man cannot live there. Heaven is a spiritual world that is connected to this world in a way we cannot presently understand, but that is where jesus ascended to and that is where Jesus is now, in a spiritual body, not in a physical body.

Jesus is not a normal man according to the bible he is described and glorified as the Son of God and for some God himself. Depending on what you believe in. So obviously we are not talking about a normal breathing human here, when we look at him from the angle of faith, so I agree with you on that.

There is only one Jesus, although the Bible Jesus of faith did not focus on the real Jesus, the historical Jesus. It focuses on the resurrected Jesus, Jesus the Savior, and the Jesus who is supposed to return and create a Kingdom on Earth, none of which was important to the historical Jesus. Early Christianity was nothing like what it became later.

Yes but there is a distinction between when you talk about the historical Jesus which is the physical man walking around. And then the glorified version that we read about in the bible. And no the bible is mainly about the Jesus of faith, which is basically Jesus being whatever you want him to be. For instance this is Jesus from Africa.

Here you have an Asian Jesus

And im pretty sure that none of them look like you would imagine Jesus to look like, right?
As you probably see him how we in the west look at Jesus as a white stereotype figure, so that is the Jesus of faith, whatever people want him to be. The bible concern it self with both the living and resurrected Jesus, primarily as far as I know the texts after the 4 Canonical gospels are about Jesus after he is resurrected and the apostles take over.

It makes sense that if Baha’u’llah was as Manifestation of God, He knew what the Bible meant because He had the knowledge of God, who was responsible for revealing the Bible through the Holy Spirit.

Yes and if he is not, he is guessing as everyone before him. And since we can't demonstrate that he is what he claim, the most rational explanation is that he is guessing like everyone else before him. As I have already mentioned, I see very little comparison between Baha'u'llah and what is described in the bible. This is obviously just my personal opinion, but simply that I fully understand why people of other religions are skeptic of what he is claiming. And I don't think its because they are stuck in old times as you have mentioned, but because his claim doesn't seem to fit.

Baha’u’llah had authority to interpret it. Nobody in Christianity had ever been given that authority by Jesus or Moses so it was just pot luck.

This is a nonsense statement and you must know this. There is no mentioning of Baha'u'llah in the bible, the only people that believe that is those of Bahai faith.

From the OT and the NT then we know that a Messiah was foretold and we know that Jesus did not fulfill all those prophecies in the OT, so we know that another one would come later to fulfill them.

No, because the Messiah that was talked about in the OT, would be one that would rebuild the temple and free Israel and sit on the thrown of David. The OT prophecies was not about Jesus, that is simply what some Christians believe they were, but if one examine the ancient Jews and what they believed, its pretty obvious that they wouldn't imagine or expect anything like Jesus. You have to be aware that these texts in the bible is not all written at the same time and by people sharing the same idea of what Christianity is about. There were lots of different views on this back in the days and also why there is such huge differences between the gospels and how they were written. Especially John is very different from the others. If you just read the end of each of the gospels these are telling different stories with different facts, some Jesus meet them in Galilee and others Jerusalem, some there are angels etc. The reason for this as far as I understand it, is because each of the writers have their own agendas with their writings and Christianity. Another example is in Matthews where Jesus is much more concerned with holding the law of God than in the others. So obviously one have to be careful in what is taken from each of them to draw ones conclusions.

John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

John 14:17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for hedwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

I think you take this out of context:

15 “If you love me, keep my commands.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—

So Jesus will send them another to guide them.

17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

Which is the Spirit of truth, that lives inside them, its not another person, but the holy spirit. Which is why "he" can't be seen.

26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

The advocate again is the holy spirit.

26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. 27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

Again its a spirit not a person.

So what is the holy spirit?

Acts 8:17
Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

If the holy spirit is a person how can Peter and John receive it?

From what I can understand Bahai do not believe that one need to be baptized as Christians do? However according to Peter in Acts:

Acts 2:38
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So how did Baha'u'llah receive the holy spirit? Do you understand why Christians and probably Muslims as well don't really buy the teachings of Baha'u'llah. a person or someone else claiming that he is a messenger from God and then starts to change stuff as he pleases without any evidence for why anyone should believe him?

 

[Trailblazer]

If he just disapproves of it, then why would he want them dead, if they act on their sexuality and specifically say that it is their own fault. I disapprove of a lot of things people does, it doesn't mean that I think they ought to be killed for it. You have to remember that God is the ultimate judge, the Jews believed that and even today people believe it, in the end its before God that we are judged. So looking at it from an ancient Jewish point of view, do you really think they understood it as God merely disapproving of it, when the law told them to kill them?

I cannot look at it from an ancient Jewish point of view because I am not an ancient Jew. I do not know what God thought or how much God was even involved the writing of the Old Testament. Men wrote it, not God. I do not know how or why it got written that way but it is a moot point now because the laws of the OT do not apply to the modern age we live in. Maybe there was a reason for such laws 4000 years ago but there is no reason for them now.

But that God designed humans like that is not really an excuse, he could have made it so it weren't possible. Look at all the varies animals around the world, God could easily have design humans differently which have had no impact on us and our relationship to God.

No, God did not design humans for homosexual sex. I cannot say how God could have made it impossible but why should God create a completely different human body just so people would not be able to have any more than one kind of sex? If humans followed the laws of God that would not be necessary.

I don't know how you reach these conclusions? Are they solely based on the word of Baha'u'llah and then you just disregard anything supposedly said by God, which can't lie as you might know and is all good? It seems to me like you just ignore everything for which you disagree with even if it is said by God, but the moment its something you agree with, you have no issues quoting the bible and God and saying that its absolutely true, its very strange and quite difficult to figure out how you manage to keep track of what you believe and don't believe in and what is true or not true.

Simply put, I do not know how much of the Bible is true, or how much God had a hand in its writing. I cannot say I believe all of it or none of it, all I can say is that it is not pertinent to the age we live in so it is a moot point. Why are we still discussing scriptures that were written 4000 years ago, which have been superseded by four newer Revelations from God? If you were Jewish I could understand it, because they are mired in their religious traditions, but you are the first atheist who seems to be so caught up in the OT.

Im going to quote the bible and you tell me how you understand it or if you even believe it to be true, just try to share your thoughts when you read it?

Leviticus 18 1:23
1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘I am the Lord your God. 3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. 4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God. 5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.

6 “‘No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord.

7 “‘Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her.

8 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonor your father.

9 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere.

10 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter; that would dishonor you.

11 “‘Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father’s wife, born to your father; she is your sister.

12 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your father’s sister; she is your father’s close relative.

13 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your mother’s sister, because she is your mother’s close relative.

14 “‘Do not dishonor your father’s brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations; she is your aunt.

15 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son’s wife; do not have relations with her.

16 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife; that would dishonor your brother.

17 “‘Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.

18 “‘Do not take your wife’s sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living.

19 “‘Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period.

20 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor’s wife and defile yourself with her.

21 “‘Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

22 “‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.

23 “‘Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.

Leviticus 19 11-37
11 “‘Do not steal.

“‘Do not lie.

“‘Do not deceive one another.

37 “‘Keep all my decrees and all my laws and follow them. I am the Lord.’”

Leviticus 20 13-15
13 “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

15 “‘If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he is to be put to death, and you must kill the animal.

Do you believe this to be true and that God said this? or which of the verses do you think might not be from God if any?

Like I said, I do not know how much of a hand God had in the writing of the OT. Leviticus 18 1:23 and Leviticus 19 11-37 make sense to me but Leviticus 20 13-15 is too extreme.

But we have already as far as I know, agreed that we can not know for sure whether Baha'u'llah is send from God or not, this is just a claim. Making the assumption that he is, would give him and his followers or those in power to decide the meaning of his words full control for no good or rational reason. The only people that would think this is a good idea are those following this religion without questioning anything. Which you have said several times even in the last reply that you do not question what Baha'u'llah said. That is tremendous dangerous and to follow something completely blind without any rationality, you must be able to see that such approach is wrong?

WE have not decided that we cannot know for sure whether Baha'u'llah is send from God or not, that this is just a claim. YOU have decided that. I do not question Baha’u’llah because I have come to believe that He was a Manifestation of God (Messenger). I did not come to that conclusion blindly or without rationality. I did the necessary research and investigation of His claim. That is all I can do because nobody can prove that He got messages from God.

If this is what he is capable of, then no. And to me purely serves as two things. 1. Evidence that God is man made or 2. God is incompetent.

In other words, if you see laws you disagree with that is evidence there is no God or God is incompetent. Do you even realize how that is arrogant? How can you know more about what is best for humans than an All-Knowing God? Do you understand how illogical that is?

Can you give me one example of how Gods view on homosexuality is beneficial for the individual or society? Also keep in mind that this happens in other animals as well and also we are not talking about a 100% portion of humans that are homosexuals.

Because it supports heterosexual marriage and the family which is the basic unit upon which society is built. It does not matter if it happens in other animals because humans are more than animals, we have a rational soul. Now tell me why you think homosexuality is beneficial for individuals and society. Or does it only matter what people enjoy and want to do? This is the essential problem with modern day society, all most people care about is what they enjoy and they are selfish.

I have no clue and apparently no one else does, since you have said that this would be revealed later. Which is perfect, because then those that made the rules don't have to explain themselves.

Baha’u’llah made the rule and He is not here to explain it.

Why would they be excluded from serving at NSA?

Women aren’t excluded from serving on the NSA.

To not demand an explanation or to be unable to give one is to keep women ignorant. Because there is no reason, you said it yourself it will be explained later, which means that currently there is none and you and all other women just have to accept it.

Baha’i women are not complaining because we know it is the Will of God, something you as an atheist cannot understand. We also trust Abdu’l-Baha because He was the Centre of the Covenant of Baha’u’llah, so when he says it will be made very clear in due time why women cannot serve on the UHJ, we believe him.

It could take 10 years or 1000 years you have no clue. How you can defend this is beyond me. If a law was put forward that women should no longer be able to hold office in the US, and the reason for why this were needed would be given later at an unspecific time, would you vote yes to such law, of course you wouldn't. Because it makes no sense and because it point out women as being incapable of doing certain jobs, because they are women and not even getting an explanation for it. If you or anyone else would vote yes for such law, I would be really surprised.

It is ONLY the UHJ, it is not any other office in the Baha’i administration. You do not KNOW what the jobs are. I am sure women could do them but there is a REASON why Baha’u’llah made it all men. It could very well be that it is more important for women to be available to educate the young children, and they do better than men at this, but I am just guessing.

 

[Trailblazer]

Do you believe God is good and do you believe he can be wrong?

I believe God is good and that God cannot be wrong, because God is infallible. So if I do not understand something I just try to accept it because I know I am fallible.

To me this sound very fanatic, so when those people that was trusted with the ability to decide what Baha'u'llah meant, say something, then that is just perceived as being the truth, no question asked?

I do not know why people think it is fanatical. Logically speaking, if Baha’u’llah represented the Will of God He would have to be infallible because God is infallible.

“The essence of belief in Divine unity consisteth in regarding Him Who is the Manifestation of God and Him Who is the invisible, the inaccessible, the unknowable Essence as one and the same. By this is meant that whatever pertaineth to the former, all His acts and doings, whatever He ordaineth or forbiddeth, should be considered, in all their aspects, and under all circumstances, and without any reservation, as identical with the Will of God Himself. This is the loftiest station to which a true believer in the unity of God can ever hope to attain. Blessed is the man that reacheth this station, and is of them that are steadfast in their belief.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 167

I have to say, Im impressed and slightly worried whenever I hear people say something like this. Don't get me wrong, but to me this sort of statement is something I would expect from a Islamic fanatic, where all rational thinking is gone and is purely driven by what they are told by their religious leaders

The Baha’i Faith is a far cry from Islam because we are not told anything by religious leaders, since we do not have any. Rather, we go by what Baha’u’llah wrote. If Baha’u’llah was infallible, he was infallible. If not, there is no reason to follow Him anymore than we would follow some ordinary man. The whole precept upon which the Baha’i Faith is based is that Manifestations of God are more than ordinary men, they are divine and human.

The LSA, NSA and the UHJ are not religious leaders, they are simply Baha’is that serve the other Baha’is in an organizational capacity. They do not tell Baha’is what to believe, so they are not like Christian or Muslim clerics. They are just elected bodies that serve the Baha’i Faith in order to accomplish goals we set out to do.

But also having seen a lot of documentaries about cults and how people that got out of them share their experience about how it was to be part of one. And they pretty much all say the same thing as you are here. That they were so convinced that these cult leaders were divine and good that they never thought to question anything they said.

It is the Fallacy of Hasty Generalization and the Fallacy of Jumping to conclusions to say that because Baha’is are so convinced we are like a cult. You could just as easily say that about Jews, Christians, or Muslims who are convinced about their Prophets.

Don't get me wrong I don't say that Bahai faith is of that nature, but simply from reading your replies to certain things. Like not able to see anything wrong with women and the House of Justice, that you don't question anything that comes out of the mouth of Baha'u'llah and supposedly those with the power to interpret what he was saying either. To me such approach to faith seems extremely dangerous. Sort of like when religions like JW wont accept blood, because they believe its in the bible or the Catholic church encourage people to not use condoms etc.

Again, we do not question Baha’u’llah because we believe He was infallible. I might question Him if He had unjust or unfair teachings or laws, but I do not see any of those. All I see are teachings and laws that are good for individuals and society and that was the primary reason I became a Baha’i in the first place, NOT because I was looking to believe in God. God was always on the sidelines until about six years ago.

Obviously this is because im an atheist and I wish you could see it from my/our perspective for just 5 minutes. The madness of some of these religious beliefs and how easy they manipulate people to do things which makes no sense.

I do understand how atheists think because I have been posting to them 24/7 for over five years. But they are wrong about a lot of things that are related to religion and particularly the Baha’i Faith because they generalize from Christianity, and that is fallacious. The Baha’i Faith IS different from all the older religions in that we are enjoined to investigate the religion ourselves, and not to listen to what others tell us.

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

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

I don't think, I will ever truly understand religious faith as it seems so disconnected from reality in some places. To me I can only imagine that, its must be to live in a world, where half the stuff you live by is purely based on guessing and what people tell you to do, without ever getting a satisfying answer for why you ought to do something. Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that you won't agree with this.

Again, you are wrong about that if you are referring to the Baha’i Faith because all the answers as to why we should do what we do are in the Baha’i Writings for us to find. Sure, there are mysteries too, as there will always be mysteries when it comes to God. But Baha’is do not do what people tell us to do, we make our own choices. I do not need an answer to what women cannot serve in the UHJ because I do not consider it important in the overall scheme of things. Holy moly! Do you even watch the news and see that the world is falling apart?

Jesus is not a normal man according to the bible he is described and glorified as the Son of God and for some God himself. Depending on what you believe in. So obviously we are not talking about a normal breathing human here, when we look at him from the angle of faith, so I agree with you on that.

But Jesus was a man just like Baha'u'llah, a divine human, and humans do not float up into the sky where there is no atmosphere, live there for 2000 years, and then float down from the sky. All this was based upon misinterpretation of scriptures, and it stuck with Christians for 2000 years because that is the way with religious tradition.

Yes but there is a distinction between when you talk about the historical Jesus which is the physical man walking around. And then the glorified version that we read about in the bible. And no the bible is mainly about the Jesus of faith, which is basically Jesus being whatever you want him to be. For instance this is Jesus from Africa.

And im pretty sure that none of them look like you would imagine Jesus to look like, right?
As you probably see him how we in the west look at Jesus as a white stereotype figure, so that is the Jesus of faith, whatever people want him to be. The bible concern it self with both the living and resurrected Jesus, primarily as far as I know the texts after the 4 Canonical gospels are about Jesus after he is resurrected and the apostles take over.

Why would it really matter what Jesus looked like? The body is not who we are, it is just a vehicle that houses our soul, which is our real self. That is a made up Jesus we have in the Bible. It is all based upon stories of the resurrection and the ascension and it is not real.

Yes and if he is not, he is guessing as everyone before him. And since we can't demonstrate that he is what he claim, the most rational explanation is that he is guessing like everyone else before him. As I have already mentioned, I see very little comparison between Baha'u'llah and what is described in the bible. This is obviously just my personal opinion, but simply that I fully understand why people of other religions are skeptic of what he is claiming. And I don't think its because they are stuck in old times as you have mentioned, but because his claim doesn't seem to fit.

But if Baha’u’llah is who He claimed to be He knew what the Bible meant because He unsealed the Bible, as it says in Daniel 12.

There is no reason to think that Baha’u’llah would be similar to what we see in the Bible as this is not only a new religious dispensation, but it is an entirely new religious cycle that was ushered in by the Bab and Baha’u’llah. It is a whole new ball game.

Speaking of claims fitting, Jesus explained why the Baha’i Faith won’t FIT into the older religions:

Of course, this is not about wine, the wine and the bottles are simply metaphors.

Luke 5:37-38 And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.”

Matthew 9:17 Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.

One cannot fit a newer religion (Baha’i) into an older religion such as Judaism or Christianity because it is too big and has many new ingredients the older religions did not have; so Baha’i would burst the bottles. However, if we put the Baha’i Faith in new bottles, we can still keep the older bottles of wine and both are thereby preserved. In other words, there is no reason the older bottles have to be thrown out, because the wine in all the bottles is the Word of God; the Baha’i wine is just newer and of a different flavor.

I also find this verse very significant:

Luke 5:39 No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.”

Jesus was right, as that is what actually happens... Christians or Jews or any older religious believers who have drunk the old wine do not desire the new Baha’i wine; they say the old is better.

(CONTINUED ON NEXT POST)

 

[Trailblazer]

This is a nonsense statement and you must know this. There is no mentioning of Baha'u'llah in the bible, the only people that believe that is those of Bahai faith.

Baha’u’llah is the fulfillment of all the Bible prophecies for the Messiah and the return of Christ; so yes, He was mentioned in the Bible. The name Baha’u’llah means the Glory of God in Persian and that is all throughout the Bible.

No, because the Messiah that was talked about in the OT, would be one that would rebuild the temple and free Israel and sit on the thrown of David. The OT prophecies was not about Jesus, that is simply what some Christians believe they were, but if one examine the ancient Jews and what they believed, its pretty obvious that they wouldn't imagine or expect anything like Jesus.

And Baha’u’llah did all of that if you interpret the verses correctly. Baha’u’llah was not like Jesus. Jesus came to bring love but Baha’u’llah came to bring justice and set up a world government.

I think you take this out of context:

15 “If you love me, keep my commands.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—

So Jesus will send them another to guide them.

17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

Which is the Spirit of truth, that lives inside them, its not another person, but the holy spirit. Which is why "he" can't be seen.

You have been brainwashed. The Holy Spirit is not living inside of anyone; that is a false teaching of the church. It makes no sense that a Holy Spirit living inside of people could do the following things that are in John 14, 15 and 16; only a man could do those things:

• Teach you all things
• Call to remembrance what Jesus said
• Testify of Jesus
• Glorify Jesus, receive of Jesus, and shew it unto you
• Guide you into all truth
• Speak what He hears and shew you things to come
• Reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment

26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

The advocate again is the holy spirit.

No, the advocate was Baha’u’llah who brought the Holy Spirit, which is the Bounty of God, who the Father sent in Jesus’ name. Baha’u’llah taught all things and reminded everyone of what Jesus said.

26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. 27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

Again its a spirit not a person

No, the Spirit of truth and the Comforter refer to the person of Baha’u’llah, and Baha’u’llah testified of Jesus and glorified Jesus.

John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

John 16:13-14 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

Referring to Jesus as the Son of Man, Baha'u'llah wrote:

“Know thou that when the Son of Man yielded up His breath to God, the whole creation wept with a great weeping. By sacrificing Himself, however, a fresh capacity was infused into all created things. Its evidences, as witnessed in all the peoples of the earth, are now manifest before thee. The deepest wisdom which the sages have uttered, the profoundest learning which any mind hath unfolded, the arts which the ablest hands have produced, the influence exerted by the most potent of rulers, are but manifestations of the quickening power released by His transcendent, His all-pervasive, and resplendent Spirit.

We testify that when He came into the world, He shed the splendor of His glory upon all created things. Through Him the leper recovered from the leprosy of perversity and ignorance. Through Him, the unchaste and wayward were healed. Through His power, born of Almighty God, the eyes of the blind were opened, and the soul of the sinner sanctified.

Leprosy may be interpreted as any veil that interveneth between man and the recognition of the Lord, his God. Whoso alloweth himself to be shut out from Him is indeed a leper, who shall not be remembered in the Kingdom of God, the Mighty, the All-Praised. We bear witness that through the power of the Word of God every leper was cleansed, every sickness was healed, every human infirmity was banished. He it is Who purified the world. Blessed is the man who, with a face beaming with light, hath turned towards Him.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 85-86

So what is the holy spirit?

The Holy Spirit is the Bounty of God.

From what I can understand Bahai do not believe that one need to be baptized as Christians do? However according to Peter in Acts:

Acts 2:38
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So how did Baha'u'llah receive the holy spirit? Do you understand why Christians and probably Muslims as well don't really buy the teachings of Baha'u'llah. a person or someone else claiming that he is a messenger from God and then starts to change stuff as he pleases without any evidence for why anyone should believe him?

God sends the Holy Spirit to Manifestations of God. It came to Moses at the Burning Bush, to Jesus as a Dove, and to Muhammad as the Angel Gabriel, and to Baha’u’llah as the Maid of Heaven.

Baha’u’llah did not change anything in the Bible. He just unlocked its true meaning. Christians went off track early on and it only got worse from there.

Baha’u’llah offered plenty of evidence to back up His claim, much more than any other Messenger from past religions. It is just hard for most people to see it because they are veiled by the clouds of their misunderstanding and prejudice from their older religions.

 

[Nimos]

(I think i might have missed some of your points, as I kind of lost track while writing )

I cannot look at it from an ancient Jewish point of view because I am not an ancient Jew. I do not know what God thought or how much God was even involved the writing of the Old Testament. Men wrote it, not God.

No one can for certain know what the ancient Jews were like, that is a general issue with history, we can't go back in time and observe or ask them. So what we do instead is look at old texts, archaeological findings etc. and compare them with other texts. And based on that we can draw some conclusions. The bible is a collection of such documents. For instance, we can make the assumption based on the content of the bible that the Jews believed in God, even though we ain't able to directly confirm it. The same goes when looking at the varies other verses in the bible, like when they wrote a law regarding having sex with animals. If this were not happening in ancient times, we would not expect to find a law against it, just as we don't expect to find laws against drunk driving. So we can look at these texts to try to create an image of what an ancient Jew might have believed and not believed in, also we can look at how these texts evolved over time, all of which historians can use to give us an idea of how their lives were, when certain new religious ideas might have seen the light of day etc. Therefore I think its very unlikely to assume that what we find in the bible does not reflect what they believed, obviously there are differences in the texts, which give us an idea that they probably didn't agree on everything.

I do not know how or why it got written that way but it is a moot point now because the laws of the OT do not apply to the modern age we live in. Maybe there was a reason for such laws 4000 years ago but there is no reason for them now.

I would agree with that, because im an atheist. But for a person that truly believe in God of the bible and that these tell us about God, im not sure they would agree with you. They probably would agree that laws of slavery is not needed etc. Remember that pretty much all Christians at least, believe that Jesus removed the law and therefore they are more interested in Jesus and him being good, God and the afterlife and living a life according to what they believe is true about the bible. Its have very little to do with the actually writing in the bible though.

No, God did not design humans for homosexual sex. I cannot say how God could have made it impossible but why should God create a completely different human body just so people would not be able to have any more than one kind of sex? If humans followed the laws of God that would not be necessary.

You present this as if sex between homosexuals is wrong, why is that? What does it matter to you or how can it ever be of your concern, how other people decide to express their love for each other? And why is it of any concern to God, you still have homosexuals that believe and love God, why is that not enough for him? And we know for a fact that a certain procent of people are homosexuals, so if God didn't design the body for it then why are anyone homosexuals, what would be the reason for it in the first place? Is it to defy God? An act of Satan or how would you explain it? You know it could be considered quite offending to homosexuals when you write the following right "If humans followed the laws of God that would not be necessary."?

Why are we still discussing scriptures that were written 4000 years ago, which have been superseded by four newer Revelations from God? If you were Jewish I could understand it, because they are mired in their religious traditions, but you are the first atheist who seems to be so caught up in the OT.

The reason, I get caught up in it is because I think you are handling the scripture without any care. That you twist and turn them to mean whatever you want them to, without any regards to history or who they originally were written for. But you have no issue cherry picking from them whenever you think they backup the claim that its about Baha'u'llah, despite that they is obviously not. His name is not mentioned anywhere in the bible. Reading the text in context and in relation to history clearly tell us another story and what you are claiming is completely against what is written in the bible.

Whenever you read a verse for which you disagree you throw it away with an excuse that it probably not true, yet the very next verse apparently is. You can't approach texts like these in such way, without being able to present some sort of evidence for why verse X is wrong while verse Y is correct. So to me it doesn't really have that much to do with the OT it self as much as it have something to do with how one handles ancients text and history. What we are talking about here is a text written to people thousands of years ago, this is what they believed were true in one way or another, if we can't even get close to understanding how they believed in these things, there is no way on Earth that anyone can claim that they know God, because no one would have any clue what to believe in or what this God really is. For some reason you seem to have no issue with this, because to me it seems as if God to you, is just all loving and a mixture of all the stuff you like, taken from whatever scripture you/Baha'u'llah agreed with or he talked about, but it is completely out of context with actual history and what we know about the ancient Jews based on what historians have examine about these cultures and writing from back then. That is why I react to people claiming stuff about these text when they are clearly not in them. Its like people claiming that slavery is not to be found in the OT and that God didn't approve of it. When he commanded the damn laws according to the OT. Its not be truthful to these texts, whether you believe in God or not. So when people deny those things, because they simply refuse to believe it or whatever reason there might be, then I react to it. Because if everyone that believe in God of the bible just freely can make up things about him based on whatever they believe, then God is dead.

Like I said, I do not know how much of a hand God had in the writing of the OT. Leviticus 18 1:23 and Leviticus 19 11-37 make sense to me but Leviticus 20 13-15 is too extreme.

So when things gets to extreme they are not by God but man made? So whoever wrote down what they believed were the laws of God may have thought to them self "Oops, I think God forgot a law, let me just add it here in the middle of the others.." that would be a reasonable explanation assuming that God made any of these laws in the first place, right?

You don't see anything problems about this way of approaching old texts? Imagine I made the claim that Jesus is in fact Satan, which is clearly demonstrated by his temptation in the desert, which you probably know? What is actually going on in these verses is Jesus talking with himself and trying to drive out Satan from within, but he never manage to do it, because he won't take the leap of faith. Therefore Jesus is still consumed by Satan and all verses where Jesus appear to say something good, is because he is trying to deceive people, which perfectly explain why people, even today never can agree on what Jesus and God is all about and why things in the world seems so bad. Now any verse in the bible that counters my argument, is just written by people that was deceived so we can't trust them. If all people approached the bible like in this example, you would not be able to trust anything in the scriptures at all, because they would be based on complete guessed and wishful thinking, which have nothing to do with the context of the rest of the text? So when you just throw out verses in the middle of the bible, because you find them to extreme, what prevent anyone else from doing the exact same thing? Also you have to remember that this was an issue for the early Christians as well, where you had lots of different groups claiming different things about what it all meant, which also led Constantine the Great trying to force the different Christians to come to terms, so they would stop fighting and causing problems as he was trying to build or rebuild an empire.

I did not come to that conclusion blindly or without rationality. I did the necessary research and investigation of His claim. That is all I can do because nobody can prove that He got messages from God.

But then you must have not done it correctly, im sorry. But to reach an absolute conclusion that Baha'u'llah is what he claims is not possible. You might reach the conclusion that it to you seem to be the most likely. But you will always have the question in the back of your head, whether he were telling the truth, because you can not verify it to absolute certainty. Therefore you must admit that a large part of your believe in him is purely based on faith, which is no problem, but it is simply not based on rationality then?

In other words, if you see laws you disagree with that is evidence there is no God or God is incompetent. Do you even realize how that is arrogant? How can you know more about what is best for humans than an All-Knowing God? Do you understand how illogical that is?

Its not arrogant, because I do not believe God exists, I think all these laws were made by humans and done so, because they were relevant for the society and culture in which they lived. So yes Im claiming that im more competent than those humans, based on the knowledge of the twenty-first century. That is why I do not believe God is all knowing, because I don't even think he exists in the first place. Therefore as with all other atheist, we have to work with the assumption that God exists when we talk about religion and from the scriptures about the God from which a religious person choose it from. So if you decide to pick the God of the bible, then that is the God I will pick as well. However Bahai seem to choose a lot of variations of the same God from all over the place, but since this God is from what I know, based on that of the Bible, that is the one I work with. And IF that god exists, then according to what I have read and the laws he have made, I claim, that it to ME shows one of two things, 1. God is man made or 2. God is incompetent. That is not based on me simply wanting to have a go at God, but as I said, based on the knowledge we have today in our societies. We know slavery is wrong, we know that homosexuality is not dangerous for anyone and that there is nothing unnatural about it, because it happens in nature all the time. Do you see the difference here?

When these laws were made, they were relevant for the culture and life these people lived. Some were based on how things were back then, like slavery. Which were not uncommon, it doesn't make the ancient Jews worse than anyone else living at that time, because to them this were how things were done. Other were based on ignorance like homosexuality, because they most likely found it weird or a way to put men in a none dominating position, because that might have been the way they looked at it.

Continue..

 

[Nimos]

Because it supports heterosexual marriage and the family which is the basic unit upon which society is built. It does not matter if it happens in other animals because humans are more than animals, we have a rational soul. Now tell me why you think homosexuality is beneficial for individuals and society. Or does it only matter what people enjoy and want to do? This is the essential problem with modern day society, all most people care about is what they enjoy and they are selfish.

First of all, it have never been proven that we have a soul, in fact no one have any idea how to even define what a soul is. So to say that we have one is just guessing and even more so to claim that animals doesn't have one either, remember that some ancient cultures believed in spirit animals etc. There might actually still be some cultures that still believe it. Its a claim based on your religious belief, for which there is no evidence. Secondly, you seem to imply that homosexuals couples/families are of no value to society, which might be to slightly stretch what you mean, but you say that heterosexual marriage and family is what society is built on, which seems to suggest that since homosexuals can't have children they merely fill up society for no good reason? Can you try to explain exactly what you mean by that, or put in another way, in regards to family, society and God, how does homosexuals contribute to this?

In regards to how I view homosexuality benefiting the individual and society? I think its of no importance whatsoever, it makes no difference at all when it comes to society, just as being marriage is of no importance. In regards to the individual, I think its a valid enough reason, that if it makes them happy then they should be allowed to do it as it doesn't causes harm to anyone else. And basically that might be the only thing that benefit society, that if these are happy, their attitude will reflect on their behavior and ultimately on people around them. But again, them having one or the other sexuality, is in general of no importance at all to society.

Baha’i women are not complaining because we know it is the Will of God, something you as an atheist cannot understand. We also trust Abdu’l-Baha because He was the Centre of the Covenant of Baha’u’llah, so when he says it will be made very clear in due time why women cannot serve on the UHJ, we believe him.

You would never accept this explanation regarding anything else would you, so lets say what women could and couldn't do on a daily basis, lets say that you couldn't drive cars anymore, no explanation given, just that you weren't allowed? And if I understood you correct, the reason you wouldn't is because you have no faith or trust in the person making such rule. Yet when these people say you can't do something, you just accept it, because you trust what they say is true? How is that not blind faith?

I believe God is good and that God cannot be wrong, because God is infallible. So if I do not understand something I just try to accept it because I know I am fallible.

But since you don't trust what is in the bible, you have to put all your trust into Baha'u'llah or Abdu'l-Baha or whoever can tell you what God is, right? But where did they get their information from? Baha'u'llah or someone claimed he got them from God, but he seems to talk about the God of bible, but you have already demonstrated that you don't trust the bible, even though Baha'u'llah refer to it.

Baha’u’llah is the fulfillment of all the Bible prophecies for the Messiah and the return of Christ; so yes, He was mentioned in the Bible. The name Baha’u’llah means the Glory of God in Persian and that is all throughout the Bible.

That is a bold claim, so Baha'u'llah rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, You are aware that is where
the Al-Aqsa Mosque is currently build, which weren't build by Baha'u'llah and according to some Jews this is where the temple should be build? So what about that prophecy or do you mean that the Jews got it wrong and it was never meant to be build there?

And Baha’u’llah did all of that if you interpret the verses correctly. Baha’u’llah was not like Jesus. Jesus came to bring love but Baha’u’llah came to bring justice and set up a world government.

What do you mean Jesus came to bring love, what is that based on? Jesus was a Jew and wanted to bring back the Kingdom of God, which is most likely a term he got from John the baptist, it had nothing to do with love, it was about saving the Jews from the Romans and get rid of the corruption of the Pharisees, that would changed the law according to what benefited them and ultimately Jesus got crucified because of his opposition to the rule of Rome, which were pretty much the only reason why people would be crucified according to history. Jesus would never have seen himself as a Christian, in fact none of the people in the bible would have, they all wanted to expand Judaism and saw themselves as Jews according to that of the OT.
So im not sure how that relate to Baha'u'llah bringing justice to the world? Its first after Jesus death and Pauls conversion that we see any real attempts to bring gentiles into Judaism and the spread of the word of God start to take place. But even Paul wouldn't have seen himself as a Christian, that is something that came later after his death. I mean Jesus probably would have no idea what Baha'u'llah was about had he been living today, because their ideas of what each other were doing, would have been completely different as far as I see it.

The Baha’i Faith is a far cry from Islam because we are not told anything by religious leaders, since we do not have any.

That seems weird, you said earlier that everything Baha'u'llah said is correct and that you don't question what him and Abdu'l-Baha says. So wouldn't they count as your religious leaders, whether they are alive or not. You wouldn't go change some of what they have said if you didn't agree, right? In fact its not even a solution that what they said were wrong if I understood you correct? What is the difference between that and when Muslims claim that the Quran is the final book and can't be changed, Muslims also interpret this differently depending on what they believe.

The LSA, NSA and the UHJ are not religious leaders, they are simply Baha’is that serve the other Baha’is in an organizational capacity. They do not tell Baha’is what to believe, so they are not like Christian or Muslim clerics. They are just elected bodies that serve the Baha’i Faith in order to accomplish goals we set out to do.

So you all come together and vote for what goals you have or how do you come up with them?

Also if you go here:
Bahá'í laws - Wikipedia

The Bahai laws listed here, you can just say that you don't agree with and then do them anyway and all other Bahai's would just say, well that is your choice, the laws are not really there to be followed if you don't want to anyway. To me that seems strange, why write them in the first place then and not just make a single law saying "Do and believe as you please."

Why would it really matter what Jesus looked like? The body is not who we are, it is just a vehicle that houses our soul, which is our real self. That is a made up Jesus we have in the Bible. It is all based upon stories of the resurrection and the ascension and it is not real.

As mention earlier about the soul, can you describe to me what a soul is? Does this exists outside ourselves and our mind and if so, does it exists even after we die?

It doesn't as such matter what Jesus looked like, what I was trying to illustrate by that example is the difference between an historical Jesus and Jesus of faith. Obviously the historical Jesus must have looked like a person from where he were born and neither as an African, European or Asian. But Jesus of faith look like that to people, when they think of him. Therefore you can talk about the historical Jesus and that of faith. Because if we want to understand what people during the time of Jesus believed and didn't believe, what their purpose was for writing the texts etc. We have to look at the historical Jesus and not the one of faith, because he is whatever people believe he is, he is God and not God at the same time depending on what people have come to believe. So if you read the ancient texts based on that, you will not get a correct understanding of what the ancient Jews actually believed, but an apologetic view of what was going on. Which leads to statements like Jesus came to bring love as you wrote earlier or that Baha'u'llah is clearly talked about in the scriptures. You might believe that, which again is fine, when we look at it from the point of view of faith. But historically there is no support for what you are claiming, it is not found in the bible and the verses you quote is not about Baha'u'llah, because the Jews would have no clue about him or even sharing his ideas, it would most likely be seen as blasphemy to make such claims. So what im trying to tell you is that, one have to approach it from different angles, the historical way and that of faith.

You have been brainwashed. The Holy Spirit is not living inside of anyone; that is a false teaching of the church. It makes no sense that a Holy Spirit living inside of people could do the following things that are in John 14, 15 and 16; only a man could do those things:

• Teach you all things
• Call to remembrance what Jesus said
• Testify of Jesus
• Glorify Jesus, receive of Jesus, and shew it unto you
• Guide you into all truth
• Speak what He hears and shew you things to come
• Reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment

There are different views of what the holy spirit is among Christians depending on what they believe. But I don't think it is wrong to sort of see it as something that they believe help them in some way as a guide in their faith. Christians believe that through prayers, God will listen to them, that God is an intervening God, which is all knowing, omnipotent and omniscient and one that might help them when they need it. So to claim that the holy spirit is not capable of any of this, is your claim vs whatever Christians that might disagree with you. Obviously any Christian would be able to say that you have never experienced anything like they have because you are not a Christian so how would you know what the holy spirit is? It is not really a topic I can comment on, because Im not sure exactly how different Christians look at the holy spirit. But based on the bible, it is described as something that comes from God and that can be passed on to any humans and therefore it is very unlikely to assume that we are talking about a person here.

No, the Spirit of truth and the Comforter refer to the person of Baha’u’llah, and Baha’u’llah testified of Jesus and glorified Jesus.

Im sorry, but it doesn't. If you read the texts in contexts and what the Jews believed, it have nothing to do with Baha'u'llah, it simply goes against what the bible is saying and what we know about the ancient Jews.

 

[Unity of Mankind]

This is not against nature, homosexuality is not only found in humans it happens in animals as well.

So perhaps homosexuality in animals is a deviation or anomaly from normal? Whenever seen practiced in nature is it not unusual from what is mostly seen?

So you don’t see a need for sex to fit into some kind of constructive social context? In nature sex is practiced according to instinct but humans have demonstrably lived beyond mere instinct in a myriad of ways not seen anywhere else in nature. For example, except in man can you imagine nature wondering if there is a higher purpose for existence than merely satisfying physical needs? In other words a rationality exists in man which is absent in nature; otherwise how could man have harnessed forces in nature for his exclusive benefit? Such harnessing has always occurred in a social context.

In modern society what is considered Illicit or amoral sex has too often led to rape and even murder, especially when it is only for selfish reasons.

Say a physician has an illicit sexual affair outside his marriage with his secretary and later decides to replace his wife with the secretary by murdering the wife in order to avoid a messy divorce? Such crimes have occurred! From a religious perspective both individuals and society can ill afford such deeds as a result denying one’s higher spiritual nature!

Going by memory the contribution made by Jesus is “Man does not live by bread alone” and Baha’u’llah “The chief instrument for order in the world is religion.” Both contributions have to do with man’s higher nature!

 

[Nimos]

So perhaps homosexuality in animals is a deviation or anomaly from normal? Whenever seen practiced in nature is it not unusual from what is mostly seen?

So you don’t see a need for sex to fit into some kind of constructive social context? In nature sex is practiced according to instinct but humans have demonstrably lived beyond mere instinct in a myriad of ways not seen anywhere else in nature. For example, except in man can you imagine nature wondering if there is a higher purpose for existence than merely satisfying physical needs?

Ill be completely honest here and admit that im not an expert on animal sexuality

So would encourage you to double check any of my information. But from what I "know" animals use sex for other things than humans do, there is not a lot of animals that have sex purely for pleasure (if any) besides humans. So animals use it both to calm each other, maybe form bonds etc. I seem to recall that in some cases female chimps actually let their offspring have sex with them to make them relax, this is obviously not homosexuality, but merely to illustrate that animals do not use sex the same way as we do, therefore I think one have to be careful to say that this is not normal. You have to remember that we don't spy on all animals 24/7, so the fact that we have actually observed this behavior in them could suggest that it might not be as uncommon as we might think.

So I got this list from Wiki showing all the mammals that have been observed to display homosexual behavior, we are talking about quite a few animals:

List

• African buffalo[21]
• African elephant[22]
• Agile wallaby[23]
• Amazon river dolphin[19]
• American bison[21][24]
• Antelope[25]
• Asian elephant[26]
• Asiatic mouflon[27]
• Atlantic spotted dolphin[19]
• Australian sea lion[28]
• Barasingha[29]
• Barbary sheep[30]
• Beluga[19]
• Bharal[31]
• Bighorn sheep[30]
• Black bear[32]
• Blackbuck[33]
• Black-footed rock wallaby[23]
• Black-tailed deer[29]
• Bonin flying fox[34]
• Bonnet macaque[13]
• Bonobo[35][36][37]
• Bottlenose dolphin[19][38]
• Bowhead whale[19]
• Brazilian guinea pig[39]
• Bridled dolphin[19]
• Brown bear[32]
• Brown capuchin[40]
• Brown long-eared bat[41]
• Brown rat[42]
• Buffalo[30]
• Caribou[43]
• Cat (domestic)[44]
• Cattle (domestic)[45]
• Chacma baboon[46]
• Cheetah[26]
• Chital[47]
• Collared peccary[48]
• Commerson's dolphin[19]
• Common brushtail possum[49]
• Common chimpanzee[50]
• Common dolphin[19]
• Common marmoset[40]
• Common pipistrelle[51]
• Common raccoon[52]
• Common tree shrew[53]
• Cotton-top tamarin[54]
• Crab-eating macaque[13]
• Crested black macaque[13]
• Dall's sheep[30]
• Daubenton's bat[41]
• Dog (domestic)[55]
• Donkey[56]
• Doria's tree kangaroo[23]
• Dugong[57]
• Dwarf cavy[39]
• Dwarf mongoose[58]
• Eastern cottontail rabbit[42]
• Eastern grey kangaroo[23]
• Elk[29]
• Euro (a subspecies of wallaroo)[23]
• European bison[21]
• Fallow deer[29]
• False killer whale[19]
• Fat-tailed dunnart[59]
• Fin whale[19]
• Fox[60]
• François' langur[61]
• Gazelle[25]
• Gelada baboon[62]
• Giraffe[4][25][63]
• Goat (domestic)[30]
• Golden monkey[64]
• Gorilla[65][66]
• Grant's gazelle[25]
• Grey-headed flying fox[41]
• Grey seal[28]
• Grey squirrel[67]
• Grey whale[19][20]
• Grey wolf[68]
• Grizzly bear[32]
• Guinea pig (domestic)[39]
• Hamadryas baboon[62]
• Hamster (domestic)[39]
• Hanuman langur[69]
• Harbor porpoise[70]
• Harbor seal[28]
• Himalayan tahr[71]
• Hoary marmot[72]
• Horse (domestic)[73]
• Human (see Human sexual behavior)
• Indian fruit bat[41]
• Indian muntjac[74]
• Indian rhinoceros[75]
• Japanese macaque[13]
• Javelina[76]
• Kangaroo rat[42]
• Killer whale[19]
• Koala[77]
• Kob[14][78]
• Larga seal[28]
• Least chipmunk[67]
• Lechwe[78]
• Lesser bushbaby[79]
• Lion[26][80][81][82][83][84]
• Lion-tailed macaque[13]
• Lion tamarin[40]
• Little brown bat[41]
• Livingstone's fruit bat[41]
• Long-eared hedgehog[85]
• Long-footed tree shrew[53]
• Macaque[86]
• Markhor[87]
• Marten[52]
• Moco[88]
• Mohol galago[79]
• Moor macaque[13]
• Moose[89]
• Mountain goat[30]
• Mountain tree shrew[53]
• Mountain zebra[90]
• Mouse (domestic)[91]
• Moustached tamarin[54]
• Mule deer[29]
• Musk-ox[92]
• Natterer's bat[41]
• New Zealand sea lion[28]
• Nilgiri langur[69]
• Noctule[51]
• North American porcupine[93]
• Northern elephant seal[28]
• Northern fur seal[28]
• Northern quoll[59]
• Olympic marmot[94]
• Orangutan[95][96]
• Pacific striped dolphin[19]
• Patas monkey[97]
• Pere David's deer[29]
• Pig (domestic)[98]
• Pig-tailed macaque[13]
• Plains zebra[99]
• Polar bear[32]
• Pretty-faced wallaby[23]
• Proboscis monkey[64]
• Pronghorn[100]
• Przewalski's horse[90]
• Pudú[47]
• Puku[101]
• Quokka[102]
• Rabbit[103]
• Raccoon[52]
• Raccoon dog[104]
• Red deer[29]
• Red fox[105]
• Red kangaroo[23]
• Red-necked wallaby[23]
• Red squirrel[67]
• Reeves's muntjac[74]
• Reindeer[43]
• Rhesus macaque[13]
• Right whale[19]
• Rock cavy[39]
• Rodrigues fruit bat[41]
• Roe deer[29]
• Rufous bettong[106]
• Rufous-naped tamarin[54]
• Rufous rat kangaroo[23]
• Saddle-back tamarin[54]
• Savanna baboon[62]
• Sea otter[107]
• Serotine bat[41]
• Sheep (domestic)[30][108]
• Siamang[109]
• Sika deer[29]
• Slender tree shrew[53]
• Snub-nosed monkey[110]
• Sooty mangabey[97]
• Sperm whale[19]
• Spider monkey[111]
• Spinifex hopping mouse[42]
• Spinner dolphin[19]
• Spotted hyena[15][18]
• Spotted seal[28]
• Squirrel monkey[112]
• Striped dolphin[19]
• Stuart's marsupial mouse[113]
• Sika deer[114]
• Stumptail macaque[13]
• Swamp deer[29]
• Swamp wallaby[23]
• Takhi[90]
• Talapoin[97]
• Tammar wallaby[23]
• Tasmanian devil[113]
• Tibetan macaque[115]
• Tasmanian rat kangaroo[23]
• Thinhorn sheep[30]
• Thomson's gazelle[25]
• Tiger[116]
• Tonkean macaque[13]
• Tucuxi[117]
• Urial[118]
• Vampire bat[41]
• Verreaux's sifaka[119]
• Vervet[97]
• Vicuna[120]
• Walrus[121][122]
• Wapiti[123]
• Warthog[124]
• Waterbuck[125]
• Water buffalo[30]
• Weeper capuchin[40]
• Western grey kangaroo[23]
• West Indian manatee[126]
• Whiptail wallaby[23]
• White-faced capuchin[40]
• White-fronted capuchin[40]
• White-handed gibbon[127]
• White-lipped peccary[128]
• White-tailed deer[29]
• Wild cavy[39]
• Wild goat[30]
• Wisent[21]
• Yellow-bellied marmot[114]
• Yellow-footed rock wallaby[23]
• Yellow-toothed cavy[39]

List of mammals displaying homosexual behavior - Wikipedia

In modern society what is considered Illicit or amoral sex has too often led to rape and even murder, especially when it is only for selfish reasons.

Say a physician has an illicit sexual affair outside his marriage with his secretary and later decides to replace his wife with the secretary by murdering the wife in order to avoid a messy divorce? Such crimes have occurred! From a religious perspective both individuals and society can ill afford such deeds as a result denying one’s higher spiritual nature!

I think one have to be careful here, because again humans are very different, when it comes to this. We have been taught that "sharing" love between each other is wrong and deceitful etc. But whether that is based on our nature or culture, I think is hard to know. Because we know that certain cultures actually share there wives with strangers as a showing of appreciation, the ancient Inuits had "gangbang" parties. Romans had sex left right and center, so why did they not see it like we do?

The other thing is that we today can be bound together, meaning that in case of divorce a person might loose a lot of money, which could be an excuse to kill someone. Threats of maybe loosing children to the other part, there are lots of reason why people can react as you describe. So not saying you are wrong, but I think one have to dig a lot deeper with this, if one want to understand how it really works, its quite complicated when you think about it I think. And again im not an expert on it, so just guessing and looking at what seem to be the case and how other and older cultures handled it. To me I think a lot of it comes from religion and maybe later Christianity where suddenly you should be marriage and it was sacred etc.

In regards to rape, this is a seal raping a pingvin, which I never knew were going on, but apparently it does:

 

[Trailblazer]

Therefore I think its very unlikely to assume that what we find in the bible does not reflect what they believed, obviously there are differences in the texts, which give us an idea that they probably didn't agree on everything.

Yes, it makes sense that what is in the Bible reflects what people believed at that time it was written and that is a good observation, that the laws reflected what was going on at the time. Sex with animals; that is hard to believe, but it just shows that people can be that depraved.

You present this as if sex between homosexuals is wrong, why is that? What does it matter to you or how can it ever be your concern, how other people decide to express their love for each other? And why is it of any concern to God, you still have homosexuals that believe and love God, why is that not enough for him? And we know for a fact that a certain procent of people are homosexuals, so if God didn't design the body for it then why are anyone homosexuals, what would be the reason for it in the first place? Is it to defy God? An act of Satan or how would you explain it? You know it could be considered quite offending to homosexuals when you write the following right "If humans followed the laws of God that would not be necessary."?

Homosexual sex is not my concern, but apparently it is God’s concern. I understand your sensitivity to the feelings of homosexuals, but just because people enjoy certain activities, that does not make them right in the sight of God. People also enjoy drinking alcohol and taking recreational drugs, but that is also prohibited in Baha’i Law.

Homosexual sex is no worse than sex between unmarried heterosexuals according to the Bible, the laws of the Qur’an, and the Baha’i Laws. Both are against the law, so we do not single out homosexuals. The whole idea that sex is so important for people to be happy is extremely problematic. The primary purpose of sex is procreation and aside from that it is not necessary as is food and sleep, but people act as if it is of the same necessity as food and sleep, which is a really sad commentary on society and how pleasure-oriented people are. Just think of how society could be transformed if people put aside their selfish desires and cared more about other people rather than their enjoyments. I am not only referring to sex, but sex is a big time waster and it also takes the thoughts of people away from what is more important.

The reason, I get caught up in it is because I think you are handling the scripture without any care. That you twist and turn them to mean whatever you want them to, without any regards to history or who they originally were written for.

I do not know what you are referring to that you think I have twisted the meanings of. The only thing I have interpreted is prophecies, because I know they refer to Baha’u’llah.

But you have no issue cherry picking from them whenever you think they backup the claim that its about Baha'u'llah, despite that they is obviously not. His name is not mentioned anywhere in the bible. Reading the text in context and in relation to history clearly tell us another story and that what you are claiming is completely against what is written in the bible.

Baha’u’llah was the Messiah the Jews were waiting for as well as the return of Christ, and no misinterpretations of scripture by Jews or Christians will ever change that.

Why would the name Baha’u’llah be in the OT, He had not even gotten a name until He was born? Yet the Glory of God means Baha’u’llah in Arabic and that is throughout the OT and the name Baha’u’llah was in Arabic Bibles, which were taken from the shelves.

Baha'u'llah was the Translation found in Bibles prior to 1870 until they were removed from circulation.

Bibles of 1833 and 1858 clearly showing BAHÁ'U'LLÁH IN REVELATION 21:23.

In the Book of Revelation of St John there is a famous passage that thrills every heart especially where It reveals that on that Day the New City will not need the sun or the moon because the light of that City will be the Glory of God. This is the passage in English and in the original Greek Re 21:22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. 23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. 24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: [kai h polis ou xreian exei tou hliou oude ths selhnhs ina fainwsin en auth h gar doxa tou theou efwtisen authn kai o luxnos auths to arnion] Thus the City that is to Come does not need Helios [sun] nor Selenos [moon] but the Doxa [Glory] of Theos [God] is the Light of It.

There is a Tablet of Bahá'u'lláh in Persian wherein Bahá'u'lláh quotes the New Testament Passage in Arabic. And indeed in the Arabic the Glory of God that lights the City is translated as Bahá'u'lláh azaa'a feeha, i.e., literally in the Arabic of the New Testament as quoted by the Supreme Manifestation the appellation of Doxa tou Theou is Bahá'u'lláh,

This Tablet is also quoted in a compilation of Glad Tidings [Bishárat] by the late Hosaam Noghaba'ee which is available through Publishing Trusts. In the Washington Library of Congress in the Arabic new Testaments of 1833 and 1856 this servant confirmed that the passage in the Arabic NT is exactly as the Supreme Manifestation has quoted It but not in the versions after 1870!

I have the Photocopies of the 1833 and 1856 New Testaments if you want to see them.

Whenever you read a verse for which you disagree you throw it away with an excuse that it probably not true, yet the very next verse apparently is. You can't approach texts like these in such way, without being able to present some sort of evidence for why verse X is wrong while verse Y is correct.

I really do not know what you are referring to. I have a different interpretation of some verses than Jews and Christians but so what? They do not OWN those scriptures. Moreover, the book was intended to be sealed up until the time of the end as per Daniel 12, so only now can the book be understood, since we are in the time of the end ushered in by the Bab and Baha’u’llah.

Its like people claiming that slavery is not to be found in the OT and that God didn't approve of it. When he commanded the damn laws according to the OT. Its not be truthful to these texts, whether you believe in God or not. So when people deny those things, because they simply refuse to believe it or whatever reason there might be, then I react to it. Because if everyone that believe in God of the bible just freely can make up things about him based on whatever they believe, then God is dead.

I do not deny that God might have ordered certain things that are in the OT, I just say I do not know if God did that because men wrote it and there is no way to verify where they got their information. Why should I believe it came from God through prophets? I have no way to know that. I don’t know why you say “then God is dead.”

So when things gets to extreme they are not by God but man made? So whoever wrote down what they believed were the laws of God, a scribe might have thought to himself "Oops, I think God forgot a law, let me just add it here in the middle of the others.." that would be a reasonable explanation assuming that God made any of these laws in the first place, right?

Like I said before, I do not know how much of a hand God had in making these laws, but maybe God did have a hand in them and they were harsh because harsh laws were needed back then.

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[Trailblazer]

You don't see anything problems about this way of approaching old texts? Imagine I made the claim that Jesus is in fact Satan, which is clearly demonstrated by his temptation in the desert, which you probably know? What is actually going on in these verses is Jesus talking with himself and trying to drive out Satan from within, but he never manage to do it, because he won't take the leap of faith. Therefore Jesus is still consumed by Satan and all verses where Jesus appear to say something good, is because he is trying to deceive people, which perfectly explain why people, even today never can agree on what Jesus and God is all about and why things in the world seems so bad.

What a distortion. This is the result of misinterpreted scriptures. Satan is not a real entity; it is the lower selfish nature of man. That is obvious to Baha’is because we know what Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha wrote.

Matthew 16:23-26 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

The way I interpret those verses is that Jesus was talking to Himself, telling Satan, which represented His lower selfish desires, to get away from Him. Satanic desires are our selfish desires, things we want that are not of God, desires that prevent us from following God. For whoever will live for self shall lose his eternal life, but whoever will sacrifice his life for the sake of Jesus and God shall gain eternal life. It is the soul that gets eternal life, not the body.

So if we live for self and the worldly things we gain the world but we lose our soul in the sense that we lose eternal life.

Eternal life refers to a “quality” of life, nearness to God, which according to Jesus comes from believing in Him, and according to Baha’u’llah, comes from knowing Him and believing in Him. One can have eternal life in this earth world as well as in the spiritual world (afterlife).

But then you must have not done it correctly, im sorry. But to reach an absolute conclusion that Baha'u'llah is what he claims is not possible. You might reach the conclusion that it to you seem to be the most likely. But you will always have the question in the back of your head, whether he were telling the truth, because you can not verify it to absolute certainty. Therefore you must admit that a large part of your believe in him is purely based on faith, which is no problem, but it is simply not based on rationality then?

It is possible to reach an absolute conclusion, and that is called certitude. No, there is nothing in the back of my head that wonders if I am right, not after over 48 years of being a Baha’i. The fact that I cannot verify that Baha’u’llah got messages from God is just the way it is because nobody can verify anything about God. I believe based upon what I know about Baha’u’llah and what He wrote. I consider that a rational belief but of course some faith is involved, since nobody can ever prove anything about God and whether He spoke to Messengers.

All that said, I do wonder about God, if God is All-Loving why so many people suffer, but that is another matter.

Its not arrogant, because I do not believe God exists, I think all these laws were made by humans and done so, because they were relevant for the society and culture in which they lived. So yes Im claiming that im more competent than those humans, based on the knowledge of the twenty-first century. That is why I do not believe God is all knowing, because I don't even think he exists in the first place. Therefore as with all other atheist, we have to work with the assumption that God exists when we talk about religion and from the scriptures about the God from which a religious person choose it from. So if you decide to pick the God of the bible, then that is the God I will pick as well.

Okay, I understand it from this perspective. You are comparing the laws that men wrote in the Bible back then with what exists in modern times. In that sense you are more competent because you have knowledge that men did not have back then.

However Bahai seem to choose a lot of variations of the same God from all over the place, but since this God is from what I know, based on that of the Bible, that is the one I work with. And IF that god exists, then according to what I have read and the laws he have made, I claim, that it to ME shows one of two things, 1. God is man made or 2. God is incompetent.

Why can’t you simply accept that those texts were written to aply to people who lived thousands of years ago, so they could have been appropriate for those people? Slavery might have been needed back then and homosexuality might have needed to be controlled by strict laws. How does that make God incompetent? You are trying to apply an ancient text to modern times and it just won’t work. God sends new Messengers with new teachings and laws to apply to the times we live in. Slavery has been abolished and homosexuality is not punishable by death.

When these laws were made, they were relevant for the culture and life these people lived. Some were based on how things were back then, like slavery. Which were not uncommon, it doesn't make the ancient Jews worse than anyone else living at that time, because to them this were how things were done. Other were based on ignorance like homosexuality, because they most likely found it weird or a way to put men in a none dominating position, because that might have been the way they looked at it.

Now you are doing an about face. If these laws were relevant for the culture and life these people lived, how would that make God incompetent?

 

[Trailblazer]

First of all, it have never been proven that we have a soul, in fact no one have any idea how to even define what a soul is. So to say that we have one is just guessing and even more so to claim that animals doesn't have one either, remember that some ancient cultures believed in spirit animals etc. There might actually still be some cultures that still believe it. Its a claim based on your religious belief, for which there is no evidence.

The soul is a mystery of God no human has ever been able to unravel. Animals have an animal spirit, but not a rational soul. It is a claim based upon my religious belief, for which there is evidence.

“Thou hast asked Me concerning the nature of the soul. Know, verily, that the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel. It is the first among all created things to declare the excellence of its Creator, the first to recognize His glory, to cleave to His truth, and to bow down in adoration before Him. If it be faithful to God, it will reflect His light, and will, eventually, return unto Him. If it fail, however, in its allegiance to its Creator, it will become a victim to self and passion, and will, in the end, sink in their depths.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 158-159

Secondly, you seem to imply that homosexuals couples/families are of no value to society, which might be to slightly stretch what you mean, but you say that heterosexual marriage and family is what society is built on, which seems to suggest that since homosexuals can't have children they merely fill up society for no good reason? Can you try to explain exactly what you mean by that, or put in another way, in regards to family, society and God, how does homosexuals contribute to this?

Homosexuals cannot have their own children and raise them the way heterosexuals do. The basis for society is the family with parents and children so if nobody ever had children the human race would eventually die out. That does not mean homosexuals cannot contribute to society in other ways. My husband and I never had any children, but we try to contribute to society.

In regards to how I view homosexuality benefiting the individual and society? I think its of no importance whatsoever, it makes no difference at all when it comes to society, just as being marriage is of no importance. In regards to the individual, I think its a valid enough reason, that if it makes them happy then they should be allowed to do it as it doesn't causes harm to anyone else. And basically that might be the only thing that benefit society, that if these are happy, their attitude will reflect on their behavior and ultimately on people around them. But again, them having one or the other sexuality, is in general of no importance at all to society.

Personally, I do not view one’s sexual preference as important, so I do not see what the big deal is. On the other hand, I do not think that just because something makes people happy that makes it right to do. I might be happy going out to a bar and drinking but this is not good for me or for society. Do you understand how sex is no different? It is just something people enjoy doing, but it is not something they have to do, not anymore than I have to drink alcohol. The primary problem with society as I see it is that all people care about is themselves and what they enjoy doing. This pleasure-seeking attitude can lead to nothing beneficial for society.

You would never accept this explanation regarding anything else would you, so lets say what women could and couldn't do on a daily basis, lets say that you couldn't drive cars anymore, no explanation given, just that you weren't allowed? And if I understood you correct, the reason you wouldn't is because you have no faith or trust in the person making such rule. Yet when these people say you can't do something, you just accept it, because you trust what they say is true? How is that not blind faith?

Driving is not a fair comparison because the UHJ is just ONE institution that women cannot serve on. If it was more than that that women could not do I might question it but is just ONE THING. There are Baha’i laws that give preference to women over men, but men don’t complain about them. It is not blind faith, it is acceptance of what Baha’u’llah wrote, knowing there was a legitimate reason that will be revealed in due time.

But since you don't trust what is in the bible, you have to put all your trust into Baha'u'llah or Abdu'l-Baha or whoever can tell you what God is, right? But where did they get their information from? Baha'u'llah or someone claimed he got them from God, but he seems to talk about the God of bible, but you have already demonstrated that you don't trust the bible, even though Baha'u'llah refer to it.

I trust the essence of what is contained in the Bible, but the Bible is no longer pertinent ton this age in history. Here is what the UHJ wrote about the Bible:

The Bahá'ís believe that God's Revelation is under His care and protection and that the essence, or essential elements, of what His Manifestations intended to convey has been recorded and preserved in Their Holy Books. However, as the sayings of the ancient Prophets were written down some time later, we cannot categorically state, as we do in the case of the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, that the words and phrases attributed to Them are Their exact words.
(9 August 1984 to an individual believer)
The Bible: Extracts on the Old and New Testaments

Baha’u’llah got His information from God and wrote it Himself, so I put far more trust in it than in the Bible, which was only inspired by God but written by men.

That is a bold claim, so Baha'u'llah rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, You are aware that is where
the Al-Aqsa Mosque is currently build, which weren't build by Baha'u'llah and according to some Jews this is where the temple should be build? So what about that prophecy or do you mean that the Jews got it wrong and it was never meant to be build there?

The prophecy about the temple being built has been fulfilled by Baha’u’llah, and it was never about an actual building. Baha’u’llah was the Temple.

Tablet of the Temple (Súratu'l-Haykal)

Bahá'í view

In the Bahá'í view the prophecy of the Third Temple was fulfilled with the writing of the Súriy-i-Haykal by Bahá'u'lláh in pentacle form.[41] The Súriy-i-Haykal or Tablet of the Temple, is a composite work which consists of a tablet followed by five messages addressed to world leaders; shortly after its completion, Bahá'u'lláh instructed the tablet be written in the form of a pentacle, symbolizing the human temple and added to it the conclusion:[42]

Thus have We built the Temple with the hands of power and might, could ye but know it. This is the Temple promised unto you in the Book. Draw ye nigh unto it. This is that which profiteth you, could ye but comprehend it. Be fair, O peoples of the earth! Which is preferable, this, or a temple which is built of clay? Set your faces towards it. Thus have ye been commanded by God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.[43]

Shoghi Effendi, the head of the Bahá'í Faith in the first half of the 20th century, explained that this verse refers to the prophecy in the Hebrew Bible where Zechariah had promised the rebuilding of the Temple in the End Times as fulfilled in the return of the Manifestation of God, Bahá'u'lláh, in a human temple.[42][44] Throughout the tablet, Bahá'u'lláh addresses the Temple (himself) and explains the glory which is invested in it allowing all the nations of the world to find redemption.[41][45] In the tablet, Bahá'u'lláh states that the Manifestation of God is a pure mirror that reflects the sovereignty of God and manifests God's beauty and grandeur to mankind.[41] In essence, Bahá'u'lláh explains that the Manifestation of God is a "Living Temple" and Bahá'u'lláh addresses the organs and limbs of the human body and bids each to focus on God and not the earthly world.[41]

Third Temple - Wikipedia

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[Trailblazer]

What do you mean Jesus came to bring love, what is that based on? Jesus was a Jew and wanted to bring back the Kingdom of God, which is most likely a term he got from John the baptist, it had nothing to do with love, it was about saving the Jews from the Romans and get rid of the corruption of the Pharisees, that would changed the law according to what benefited them and ultimately Jesus got crucified because of his opposition to the rule of Rome, which were pretty much the only reason why people would be crucified according to history. Jesus would never have seen himself as a Christian, in fact none of the people in the bible would have, they all wanted to expand Judaism and saw themselves as Jews according to that of the OT.

Jesus did not come to earth to build the Kingdom of God on Earth. Jesus explained to the Jews why He came:

John 18:36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

John 18:37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

Jesus came to bear witness to the truth about God. I said that Jesus came to bring love because the primary teaching of Jesus was that we must love God and our neighbor.

So im not sure how that relate to Baha'u'llah bringing justice to the world? Its first after Jesus death and Pauls conversion that we see any real attempts to bring gentiles into Judaism and the spread of the word of God start to take place. But even Paul wouldn't have seen himself as a Christian, that is something that came later after his death. I mean Jesus probably would have no idea what Baha'u'llah was about had he been living today, because their ideas of what each other were doing, would have been completely different as far as I see it.

You have your head stuck in the past. We are not living 200 years ago, we are living now. Baha’u’llah came to bring justice to this world so we could live in a just society; that was His primary message:

2: O SON OF SPIRIT! The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes. The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 3-4

64: O OPPRESSORS ON EARTH! Withdraw your hands from tyranny, for I have pledged Myself not to forgive any man’s injustice. This is My covenant which I have irrevocably decreed in the preserved tablet and sealed with My seal.
The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 44

That seems weird, you said earlier that everything Baha'u'llah said is correct and that you don't question what him and Abdu'l-Baha says. So wouldn't they count as your religious leaders, whether they are alive or not. You wouldn't go change some of what they have said if you didn't agree, right? In fact its not even a solution that what they said were wrong if I understood you correct? What is the difference between that and when Muslims claim that the Quran is the final book and can't be changed, Muslims also interpret this differently depending on what they believe.

Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha were not religious leaders. Baha’u’llah was a Manifestation of God and Abdu’l-Baha was appointed by Baha’u’llah as the centre if His Covenant. By contrast, a religious leader is a man who speaks with no authority from God. What was written by Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi is called the Baha’i Writings and it can no more be changed than the Bible or the Qur’an can be changed.

So you all come together and vote for what goals you have or how do you come up with them?

Also if you go here:
Bahá'í laws - Wikipedia

The Bahai laws listed here, you can just say that you don't agree with and then do them anyway and all other Bahai's would just say, well that is your choice, the laws are not really there to be followed if you don't want to anyway. To me that seems strange, why write them in the first place then and not just make a single law saying "Do and believe as you please."

The UHJ sets the goals for the Baha’is of the world and that filters down to the NSA and what the NSAs pass that along to the LSAs.

Baha’i Laws were set by Baha’u’llah and they cannot be changed. The UHJ can legislate on what has not been expressly revealed by Baha’u’llah and the UHJ can decide when it is appropriate to release certain laws and make them applicable to the Baha’i communities. All the Baha’i Laws are not yet applicable, they will be released as Baha’is are ready for them, given the state of society.

As mention earlier about the soul, can you describe to me what a soul is? Does this exists outside ourselves and our mind and if so, does it exists even after we die?

The soul animates the human body while we are alive on earth. The soul communicates its desires through the brain to the physical body, which thereby expresses itself, so the soul is responsible for the mind, senses and emotions as well as physical sensations. The body is just a vehicle that carries the soul around while we are alive on earth, a place to house the soul. The soul is our self, our true reality.

The soul is the sum total of the personality so it is the person himself; the physical body is pure matter with no real identity. The person, after he dies and leaves his physical body behind, goes to the spiritual world where the soul takes on a spiritual body made up of heavenly elements that exist in the spiritual realm.

“The answer to the third question is this, that in the other world the human reality doth not assume a physical form, rather doth it take on a heavenly form, made up of elements of that heavenly realm.” Selections From the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 194

Since all we have ever experienced is physical, it is impossible for us to understand what it is like to be a spiritual being rather than a physical body.

“The nature of the soul after death can never be described, nor is it meet and permissible to reveal its whole character to the eyes of men.........
The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother. When the soul attaineth the Presence of God, it will assume the form that best befitteth its immortality and is worthy of its celestial habitation.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 156-157

There are different views of what the holy spirit is among Christians depending on what they believe. But I don't think it is wrong to sort of see it as something that they believe help them in some way as a guide in their faith. Christians believe that through prayers, God will listen to them, that God is an intervening God, which is all knowing, omnipotent and omniscient and one that might help them when they need it. So to claim that holy spirit is not capable of any of this, is your claim vs whatever Christians that might disagree with you.

I have no problem with looking at the Holy Spirit this way, as guiding Christians, and many Baha’is also believe this way. It is really God doing all this, through the Holy Spirit. All I was saying is that the Holy Spirit does not literally take up residence inside the physical body which is what most Christians believe. Here is what Abdu’l-Baha wrote that explains what the Holy Spirit does: 25: THE HOLY SPIRIT

Im sorry, but it doesn't. If you read the texts in contexts and what the Jews believed, it have nothing to do with Baha'u'llah, it simply goes against what the bible is saying and what we know about the ancient Jews.

Why would I care about what the ancient Jews believed about the Comforter and the Spirit of Truth? Those did not even appear in the Bible until the NT was written. The correct interpretation of John 14, 15 and 16 is what I presented. Jesus was the first Comforter who brought the Holy Spirit to humanity and Baha'u'llah was another Comforter and He was also the Spirit of Truth.