• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Have the end times arrived?

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
What were the verses again?
Daniel Chapter 12 King James Version
11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.

12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.​
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Please bear in mind that Christianity had not been corrupted when Jesus still walked the earth, and none of those false church doctrines existed for at least 300 years. Baha'u'llah had a few choice words to say about the Jews rejecting Jesus and it is a good thing I don't have that saved on this laptop!
And how would we know that? Here's is supposedly Peter preaching 40 days after the crucifixion...
Acts 2:22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him...

29 “Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. 30 But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. 31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. 32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.​
I don't know about you, but that sure sounds like he was claiming that Jesus came back to life. Would you have believed Peter? But, if the Baha'i is true, then we know that Jesus didn't come back to life, so for Peter to claim that Jesus did come back to life is a false teaching. And then I checked on the beliefs of the early Church leaders...
Two of the earliest Church Fathers, Polycarp and Ignatius taught the deity of Christ. The early Church father, Irenaeus (circa A. D. 120-190) wrote that Polycarp was “instructed” and “appointed” by the apostles, “conversed with many who had seen Christ,” “having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles,”(2) “the accounts which he gave of his intercourse with John and with the others who had seen the Lord. And as he remembered their words, and what he heard from them concerning the Lord, and concerning his miracles and his teaching, having received them from eyewitnesses of the ‘Word of life,'”(3) So his view of Jesus is very important. In The Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians, he mentions “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” and “our Lord and God Jesus Christ.”(4)​
So, if this is accurate, then the belief in the deity of Jesus was already being taught.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Well. Seven pages on whether prophecies about the end times are being fulfilled. And the argument is unresolved, of course.

Meantime, is anyone looking out the window? It's a mid October morning here in London and the temperature is improbably mild; haven't seen a frost yet this autumn, if it even is autumn. Hasn't rained for a week or so, but you can bet that when it does, the sky will dump half the Atlantic on us in a matter of hours. Back in August, some roads in London became rivers, in a matter not of hours but minutes.

This year, it rained in Greenland for the first time in recorded history. Elsewhere, the world is burning. Athens was surrounded by fire and smoke in July and August, people in Hungary were forced to jump in the lakes to escape extreme heat. And this is Europe, with it's temperate climate. How are things where you are?
I believe that the end times arrived 177 years ago, but with climate change, political and social unrest, and then the worldwide pandemic it has become increasingly apparent that the world is rapidly changing and it will never be the same.

The end times is not the end of the world, it is the end if an old age and the beginning of a new age.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Actually I reread your post and do not agree. We have no way of knowing whether or not Christianity was not corrupted until at least 300 years after the time of Jesus. It could have been easily corrupted before the Gospels were written. We have no way of knowing.
Yes, all we have is the stories written by people. Some of those stories got rejected by the Church. So there were lots of "traditions" floating around. Who's to say if any were really accurate? And, since Baha'is deny that Jesus physically rose from the dead, if they are right, then the gospel stories already were corrupted. And, we can read for ourselves and see that the gospel stories contradict each other. But... The Baha'is really don't say that the resurrection story is a corruption and is false. They say it was symbolic, a metaphor. So only the literal interpretation of the resurrection is false.

I don't believe that is the case at all, though. I think that is exactly what the NT writers were claiming... that Jesus came out of the tomb and had some sort of physical body that they could see and touch. So, to me, if that is not true, then all of Christianity is based on a made up fictional story, a myth, or worse, a lie.

But lies, when believed to be true, sure do seem to be just as good as being true.
 
Last edited:

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
That is true. All I was trying to say is that it was not corrupted when Jesus was alive and the Jews of that time rejected Jesus.

I believe that it was already corrupted by the time the resurrection stories were written, but I am sure you would know when that was better than me, I guess a few decades after Jesus died.
Yes, that's a better answer.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Yet you then ask if the Baha'i have done enough, could have they done more? ;)

Oh the quandary, but basically faith is up to each heart, and some think they have no faith in life! :)

Regards Tony
Are Baha'is, in general, doing enough? Could they do more? Didn't Shoghi tell them to leave the cities? Did they? Maybe a few? How about now? How many Baha'is go out and teach or hold firesides? How many go pioneering? How many are inactive? Why? Should Baha'is have deepened them more? Most all religions, that is "organized" religions, have that problem. How to keep the masses motivated.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
And how would we know that? Here's is supposedly Peter preaching 40 days after the crucifixion...
Acts 2:22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him...

29 “Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. 30 But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. 31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. 32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.I don't know about you, but that sure sounds like he was claiming that Jesus came back to life. Would you have believed Peter?
Acts 2 is Peter? I thought that was Paul. No, I would not have believed anything that Paul said about Jesus.

“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
 

TransmutingSoul

Veteran Member
Premium Member
TB, Tony are you listening? Instead of trying to "prove" God exists or that Baha'u'llah is a manifestation of that alleged God, what are the strengths? Do Baha'is have the answers to the world's problems?

The problem is there are people do not think God exists and they do not consider that God has given us the guidance we need in this age.

Thus when we offer what needs to be done by Baha'u'llah, then they would offer that is just your opinion.

What would you have us do about that CG?

I am thinking it would be to leave internet chat forums and work with people in my community until the day the poo hits the fan in a big way.

Then at least we have the choice of a way of life to turn to, that was the example being offered for the last 150 years and more.

Regards Tony
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Well. Seven pages on whether prophecies about the end times are being fulfilled. And the argument is unresolved, of course.

Meantime, is anyone looking out the window? It's a mid October morning here in London and the temperature is improbably mild; haven't seen a frost yet this autumn, if it even is autumn. Hasn't rained for a week or so, but you can bet that when it does, the sky will dump half the Atlantic on us in a matter of hours. Back in August, some roads in London became rivers, in a matter not of hours but minutes.

This year, it rained in Greenland for the first time in recorded history. Elsewhere, the world is burning. Athens was surrounded by fire and smoke in July and August, people in Hungary were forced to jump in the lakes to escape extreme heat. And this is Europe, with it's temperate climate. How are things where you are?
That's the thing. Christians, as far as I know, have Jesus returning after all the bad stuff happens. Baha'is say that the "Christ", there guy, Baha'u'llah, has already come. Were the prophecies of the end times fulfilled back in the mid-1800's? 'Cause it sure seems that things are getting worse now. They get around that by saying that because the world rejected Baha'u'llah's message that we'd have to go through some bad times to get us to finally come to the realization that indeed, he was telling the truth... that he is God's messenger for today and has the answers to fix the mess we're in. So is he? Is he the "Christ" returned?
 

TransmutingSoul

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Are Baha'is, in general, doing enough? Could they do more? Didn't Shoghi tell them to leave the cities? Did they? Maybe a few? How about now? How many Baha'is go out and teach or hold firesides? How many go pioneering? How many are inactive? Why? Should Baha'is have deepened them more? Most all religions, that is "organized" religions, have that problem. How to keep the masses motivated.

Guess that is up to each person to decide for their own self CG, as it is also each person's choice to decide to embrace and give their life to living that Message.

Baha'u'llah and Abdu'lbaha never forced anyone to change their mind or do what they did not want to do, all God does is give us a Message by via a chosen Messenger, who by their person and life try to encourage us and then leaves it up to us to sort it all out.

"As you have faith, so shall your power and blessings be, this is the balance, this is the balance, this is the balance." Abdu'lbaha

Regards Tony
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
The problem is there are people do not think God exists and they do not consider that God has given us the guidance we need in this age.

Thus when we offer what needs to be done by Baha'u'llah, then they would offer that is just your opinion.

What would you have us do about that CG?

I am thinking it would be to leave internet chat forums and work with people in my community until the day the poo hits the fan in a big way.

Then at least we have the choice of a way of life to turn to, that was the example being offered for the last 150 years and more.

Regards Tony
And of course until you can properly defend your beliefs it is just your opinion by definition. That is why when theists make claims about their gods and try to force or even urge others to follow those rules the burden of proof is upon them.

This is not that hard to understand. If you have specific beliefs about your god and apply those only to yourself others will let you be. It is when you try to declare something moral or immoral that one needs to be able to defend those claims. By the way, claims about morality apply to atheists too. The difference is that they will usually offer a rational explanation of why certain actions are immoral.
 

robocop (actually)

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Daniel Chapter 12 King James Version
11 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.

12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.​
I am not familiar with Daniel 12, but here's what a former prophet in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said about it (he made headers for every chapter in our canon):

In the last days, Michael will deliver Israel from their troubles—Daniel tells of the two resurrections—The wise will know the times and meanings of his visions.

Michael is Adam.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
The problem is there are people do not think God exists and they do not consider that God has given us the guidance we need in this age.

Thus when we offer what needs to be done by Baha'u'llah, then they would offer that is just your opinion.

What would you have us do about that CG?

I am thinking it would be to leave internet chat forums and work with people in my community until the day the poo hits the fan in a big way.

Then at least we have the choice of a way of life to turn to, that was the example being offered for the last 150 years and more.

Regards Tony
Well, back forty or so years ago, I would have followed the advice and recommendations in the "Modest Proposal" article. Of course whatever a Baha'is says is going to get some opposition. But, by talking about whether God exists or not is only going to get Baha'is into back and forth arguments with Atheists. And I really don't think Atheists are your enemy. They don't believe all the bad stuff religions have done and they don't believe their made up false doctrines. They also don't believe in the Scriptures, especially the Bible. But, in a way, neither do Baha'is. Baha'is don't take it literally. That's a positive when it comes to talking to Atheists.

What is the main moral teaching of most religions? Do good. Love of another. The rest is just stories that don't help. Stories like, God destroyed a city of evil people. God flooded the world and killed all the evil people. God ordered that his people kill all the people, including woman and children, in some city of evil people. God had his prophet kill all the false prophets of some false God.

Unfortunately, Baha'is can't really say they "believe" in the other religions, because you don't agree with what they teach. But how do you talk and act around your Christian friends? I'd imagine you get to know them as people first and find some things you have in common. Here on the forum, it is too easy to come off as seeming like Baha'is are superior. You have the latest message. You have a prophet that wrote his own things. And you say things like all other religions have been abrogated. You ain't going to make friends that way. People are going to argue about everything you say.

I'd get in discussions with liberal Christians and liberal Muslims and Reformed Jews and other religious people that don't take their religion so literally. But, even though I argue with Baha'is, I think were all getting better and a little more respectful of each other. But, I'd put it on the Baha'is to be the leaders in doing that. You're the ones that have to be the ones showing respect. And part of respect is to listen to others. You know you're going to disagree with them, but how do you find that something, that common ground, that you can agree on and build on.

Right now, most of us are worlds apart. Lots of us have been witnessed at and preached at and told by religious people what is The Truth. We don't trust them and don't believe them. And some of us used to believed like them and came to reject those beliefs. And, like I said, lots of those beliefs of the other religions are rejected by Baha'is too. But what do Baha'is believe that people that are fed up with hearing about an invisible God would want to hear and could relate to?
 

TransmutingSoul

Veteran Member
Premium Member
And of course until you can properly defend your beliefs it is just your opinion by definition.

I see that differently. The Message of God is the standard and stands upon its own merit.

It does not need you or me to embrace it, it is the standard if we accept it or not and the world then unfolds according to our actions.

Like the teaching of Jesus that says to turn the other cheek, which Baha'u'llah also offerd in that he said it is better to be killed than kill.

Thus the standard is manifested in an action, where we choose to embrace the peace of no retaliation or we retaliate, it is up to us to put that into practice. If we do, God's Message will unfold in a way that God willed for us, we did not insert out own will.

So when Baha'u'llah offered there is One God and that we are One people, that is the standard, we will live by it, or we will not and the world is shaped by our acceptance or rejection of that standard.

We can look back and see that easier, we can see where Christians have not practiced what Jesus taught and shaped history as a result of those actions.

What country has not faced the onslaught of Christain based evangelizing that did not fully practice the Love Jesus offered, it was more of a man made genocide, a domination, not an invitation.

Regards Tony
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
I am not familiar with Daniel 12, but here's what a former prophet in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said about it (he made headers for every chapter in our canon):

In the last days, Michael will deliver Israel from their troubles—Daniel tells of the two resurrections—The wise will know the times and meanings of his visions.

Michael is Adam.
Yeah, I was just wondering if there was something about those 1290 days and 1335 days. That's something that Baha'i and 7th Day Adventist get into, but I disagree with both of them, because it says when such and such happens, then from that time there will be this many days. Those days and then changed to "prophetic" years. But the starting date is not with what it says in Daniel, it is made to start with something that gives them a good "fulfillment".
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
I believe that the end times arrived 177 years ago, but with climate change, political and social unrest, and then the worldwide pandemic it has become increasingly apparent that the world is rapidly changing and it will never be the same.

The end times is not the end of the world, it is the end if an old age and the beginning of a new age.
As I recall that in "Pilgrim's Notes" Shoghi said that some cites would be, I think the word was, "vaporized." But, since Pilgrim's Notes aren't official, what do the writings say will happen during the trials and tribulations? And then what will cause them to stop? Again, from what I remember Baha'is telling me was that it would get so bad, as a desperate last resort, the people of the world would turn to the Baha'i Faith. Is that true or was that "unofficial"?
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Yes, I know that. You found a verse with a part of a line that you like. So what?. By that standard I can show you that the Bible disproves God since it says that "there is no God" at least eight times. Context matters and I do not see that in your quote mine.
I was just pointing out what Jesus said. Do you have some other verses that contradict that verse?
What do you think the context is?
 
Top