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The Baha'is

Riders

Well-Known Member
I decided to go back and try to take a few more classes on them before I make my mind up on anything. The ladies were pretty nice. I did tell them not long after I started taking classes I was not interested in joining any religion now, they acted insulted and said they never push their religion to get converts.

So I was worried they may have been insulted and lost contact with them. But I decided to take a few more classes before I make up my mind so, got in contact with them today. Hope they can get a zoom class together in the next week or two.
 

TransmutingSoul

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I decided to go back and try to take a few more classes on them before I make my mind up on anything. The ladies were pretty nice. I did tell them not long after I started taking classes I was not interested in joining any religion now, they acted insulted and said they never push their religion to get converts.

So I was worried they may have been insulted and lost contact with them. But I decided to take a few more classes before I make up my mind so, got in contact with them today. Hope they can get a zoom class together in the next week or two.

I wish you all the best in your search. No Baha'i should push their faith on another.

My advice would be to do book 1 Rhui as it is aimed at building communities.

Make it known from the start that all you want is to learn and nothing else.

I would be happy to join in the zoom, as I am aware of your wishes in that regard and it is always great meeting people you have spoken to on the net.

Regards Tony
 

Riders

Well-Known Member
I wish you all the best in your search. No Baha'i should push their faith on another.

My advice would be to do book 1 Rhui as it is aimed at building communities.

Make it known from the start that all you want is to learn and nothing else.

I would be happy to join in the zoom, as I am aware of your wishes in that regard and it is always great meeting people you have spoken to on the net.

Regards Tony
Thank you I will let you know.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
I decided to go back and try to take a few more classes on them before I make my mind up on anything. The ladies were pretty nice. I did tell them not long after I started taking classes I was not interested in joining any religion now, they acted insulted and said they never push their religion to get converts.

So I was worried they may have been insulted and lost contact with them. But I decided to take a few more classes before I make up my mind so, got in contact with them today. Hope they can get a zoom class together in the next week or two.

It's Baha'is
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
I decided to go back and try to take a few more classes on them before I make my mind up on anything. The ladies were pretty nice. I did tell them not long after I started taking classes I was not interested in joining any religion now, they acted insulted and said they never push their religion to get converts.

So I was worried they may have been insulted and lost contact with them. But I decided to take a few more classes before I make up my mind so, got in contact with them today. Hope they can get a zoom class together in the next week or two.
Do you already belong to this Unitarian Universalist group? If you do, what are their basic beliefs? Do they compliment or coincide with what you're learning about the Baha'i Faith?
 

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
I decided to go back and try to take a few more classes on them before I make my mind up on anything. The ladies were pretty nice. I did tell them not long after I started taking classes I was not interested in joining any religion now, they acted insulted and said they never push their religion to get converts.

So I was worried they may have been insulted and lost contact with them. But I decided to take a few more classes before I make up my mind so, got in contact with them today. Hope they can get a zoom class together in the next week or two.

All the best with your studies. Baha’is should completely avoid putting pressure on others. At the end of the day we’re all human.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Do you already belong to this Unitarian Universalist group? If you do, what are their basic beliefs? Do they compliment or coincide with what you're learning about the Baha'i Faith?

From my perspective I have been close to the UU all my adult life, and appreciated the diversity of UU beliefs in their members. Actually it would be difficult to say their beliefs coincide to any one belief, but my Baha'i beliefs are compatable with UU beliefs.
 

Riders

Well-Known Member
I am thinking of UU. I would like to know more about what The B'ahais think about homosexuality.
 

eik

Active Member
I am thinking of UU. I would like to know more about what The B'ahais think about homosexuality.
Baha'is verge towards an Islamic perception of Christianty, which means rejection of all orthodox forms of Christianity. You should be aware of that, if they tell you that they embrace Jesus. Actually they don't embrace Jesus as the Christ. You need to know what you're doing, because it seems to me you're in a dangerous position if you were brought up a Christian and you mistakenly assume that Baha'is embrace Christianity. They do not.
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
I am thinking of UU. I would like to know more about what The B'ahais think about homosexuality.

Y'oure putting the apostrophe in the wrong spot. It comes before the 'i,' not after the B.
 

eik

Active Member
From my perspective I have been close to the UU all my adult life, and appreciated the diversity of UU beliefs in their members. Actually it would be difficult to say their beliefs coincide to any one belief, but my Baha'i beliefs are compatable with UU beliefs.
Which tends to raise the question: "what is belief in UU or Baha'i?" I didn't think UU went in for "belief" as such (Unitarian Universalists assert no creed) except for the matter of Jesus having NOT come down from heaven, which I concede does seem to coincide with Baha'i. Yet this is a negative, not a positive. What do you actually believe?
 

eik

Active Member
That is not correct. Jesus is Christ, the 'Son of God'.
Regards Tony
Doesn't mean anything, as the mantra "son of God" can infer either an adopted or begotten son of God and it seems Baha'is doesn't believe in his physical resurrection so don't believe he was "the" begotten son of God come down from heaven, per Christianity. When I said, "the Christ,"I meant, "the Saviour" (i.e. the "one and only saviour"). Jesus could not be such a saviour if his message incomplete and others needed to fulfil his destiny as indeed Islam teaches. Which is why Baha'i has a very "islamic" flavour to it, which it must do anyway to embrace Mahomet.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
I am thinking of UU. I would like to know more about what The B'ahais think about homosexuality.
Baha'is verge towards an Islamic perception of Christianty, which means rejection of all orthodox forms of Christianity.
Riders... this might be good news for you. In my discussions/arguments with Baha'is, they are very similar to what liberal Christians believe.... that the Bible has to agree with modern science. So they are very progressive... except with sexual behaviors. But I don't think they get too pushy about it. It's more like it is between the individual and God.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Baha'is verge towards an Islamic perception of Christianty, which means rejection of all orthodox forms of Christianity. You should be aware of that, if they tell you that they embrace Jesus. Actually they don't embrace Jesus as the Christ. You need to know what you're doing, because it seems to me you're in a dangerous position if you were brought up a Christian and you mistakenly assume that Baha'is embrace Christianity. They do not.
No, Baha'is do not embrace orthodox forms of Christianity.

We embrace Jesus as Jesus and not as "the Christ" because we consider that a false belief of Christianity, not anything Jesus ever taught. As a Christian, I think it is important to know what you believe and why you believe it.

“That the figure of the Nazarene, as delivered to us in Mark’s Gospel, is decisively different from the pre-existent risen Christ proclaimed by Paul, is something long recognized by thinkers like Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Herder and Goethe, to mention only a few. The distinction between ‘the religion of Christ’ and ‘the Christian religion’ goes back to Lessing. Critical theological research has now disputed the idea of an uninterrupted chain of historical succession: Luther’s belief that at all times a small handful of true Christians preserved the true apostolic faith. Walter Bauer (226) and Martin Werner (227) have brought evidence that there was conflict from the outset about the central questions of dogma. It has become clear that the beliefs of those who had seen and heard Jesus in the flesh --- the disciples and the original community--- were at odds to an extraordinary degree with the teaching of Paul, who claimed to have been not only called by a vision but instructed by the heavenly Christ. The conflict at Antioch between the apostles Peter and Paul, far more embittered as research has shown (228) than the Bible allows us to see, was the most fateful split in Christianity, which in the Acts of the Apostles was ‘theologically camouflaged’. (229)

Paul, who had never seen Jesus, showed great reserve towards the Palestinian traditions regarding Jesus’ life. (230) The historical Jesus and his earthly life are without significance for Paul. In all his epistles the name ‘Jesus’ occurs only 15 times, the title ‘Christ’ 378 times. In Jesus’s actual teaching he shows extraordinarily little interest. It is disputed whether in all his epistles he makes two, three or four references to sayings by Jesus. (231) It is not Jesus’ teaching, which he cannot himself have heard at all (short of hearing it in a vision), that is central to his own mission, but the person of the Redeemer and His death on the Cross.

Jesus, who never claimed religious worship for himself was not worshipped in the original community, is for Paul the pre-existent risen Christ….

This was the ‘Fall’ of Christianity: that Paul with his ‘Gospel’, which became the core of Christian dogma formation, conquered the world, (237) while the historic basis of Christianity was declared a heresy….

Pauline heresy served as the basis for Christian orthodoxy, and the legitimate Church was outlawed as heretical’. (240) The ‘small handful of true Christians’ was Nazarene Christianity, which was already extinct in the fourth century……

The centerpiece then, of Christian creedal doctrine, that of Redemption, is something of which—in the judgment of the theologian E. Grimm (244) --- Jesus himself knew nothing; and it goes back to Paul. “

(Udo Schaefer, Light Shineth in Darkness, Studies in revelation after Christ )

How Paul changed the course of Christianity
 

eik

Active Member
Jesus, who never claimed religious worship for himself was not worshipped in the original community, is for Paul the pre-existent risen Christ….

This was the ‘Fall’ of Christianity: that Paul with his ‘Gospel’, which became the core of Christian dogma formation, conquered the world, (237) while the historic basis of Christianity was declared a heresy….

Pauline heresy served as the basis for Christian orthodoxy, and the legitimate Church was outlawed as heretical’. (240) The ‘small handful of true Christians’ was Nazarene Christianity, which was already extinct in the fourth century……

The centerpiece then, of Christian creedal doctrine, that of Redemption, is something of which—in the judgment of the theologian E. Grimm (244) --- Jesus himself knew nothing; and it goes back to Paul. “

(Udo Schaefer, Light Shineth in Darkness, Studies in revelation after Christ )

How Paul changed the course of Christianity
Complete baloney! Jesus was worshipped in his physical body, generally after his resurrection but also before: Matt 28:9, Mat 28:17, Luk 24:52, John 9:38.

More importantly Paul was only engaged with the risen Christ, the Christ who now ruled the universe from his place on God's throne, which accounts for the differences between him and the other apostles. That is why Paul calls him "Christ". Jesus was the name of a human being. The risen Jesus has a different name, that "no man knoweth" (Rev 2:17).

So Baha'i has nothing to do with Christianity. It promotes a heresy in place of Christianity, a heresy that Jesus did not come to save anyone but to merely promote peace and good will.

Such a false "gospel" would have been condemned not only by Paul but by all the other apostles too in the strongest possible terms. All Baha'is would have been excommunicated by just about every single Christian denomination in the early church.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Doesn't mean anything, as the mantra "son of God" can infer either an adopted or begotten son of God.....
Baha'is do not believe that God can have a begotten son because God is not a biological creature who can produce offspring. Rather, we believe that "Son of God" refers to the relationship Jesus has with God, who was His Father in a metaphorical sense:

“Although the Bahá'í writings say nothing about the title 'Son of God (or 'only begotten Son of God, [John 3:16]) there is much that can be said about it from a Bahá'í perspective. 'Son of God is an extremely important title of Jesus for Christians, so much so that in the minds of many Christians 'Son of God' defines the relationship of Jesus with His Father. But often Christians do not think about the symbolic meaning of the title; indeed, many seem unaware that the title is symbolic at all.

What does the term 'Son' mean? Normally, the word has a simple biological meaning, but that meaning is the very one that cannot apply to the relationship between God and Jesus, for God does not have genetic material to confer upon Jesus, nor does God have a body with which He could unite with Mary to produce a son. Christian theology never meant the term to be understood literally; as the above quote from Gregory of Nazianzus emphasizes, God begot Christ 'without passion, of course, and without reference to time, and not in a corporeal manner' ('The Third Theological Oration – On the Son' 161). The Qur'án echoes Gregory's recognition of God's transcendence when it says, 'Allah is only one God. Far is it removed from His transcendent majesty that He should have a son' (Qur'án 5:171).

Consequently, the word 'Son' must be understood in a metaphorical or symbolic sense; the same is true of the verb 'begotten' when applied to Jesus.”

Jesus Christ in the Bahá'í Writings

That said, Baha'is do uphold the Virgin Birth:

"First regarding the birth of Jesus Christ. In light of what Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have stated concerning this subject it is evident that Jesus came into this world through the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit, and that consequently His birth was quite miraculous. This is an established fact, and the friends need not feel at all surprised, as the belief in the possibility of miracles has never been rejected in the Teachings. Their importance, however, has been minimized."
(From a letter dated December 31, 1937 written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer)

When I said, "the Christ,"I meant, "the Saviour" (i.e. the "one and only saviour"). Jesus could not be such a saviour if his message incomplete and others needed to fulfil his destiny as indeed Islam teaches. Which is why Baha'i has a very "islamic" flavour to it, which it must do anyway to embrace Mahomet.
Jesus was a Savior in the sense that He sacrificed His life on the cross for the sins of humanity, but there is no reason to believe that sacrifice is all that would ever be necessary for mankind throughout all of eternity. That is a Church teaching, not a teaching of Jesus. Who do you want to follow, Jesus or the Church?

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.
 
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