That is what I said. According to Baha’i beliefs, the Holy Spirit is the light of God. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is detestation of the light of God,
the divine perfections. In a sense then it is detestation of God since one hates the divine perfections (God’s qualities).
That depends upon what you mean by “having” the Holy Spirit. How does one have the Holy Spirit?
Question.—What is the Holy Spirit?
Answer.—The Holy Spirit is the Bounty of God and the luminous rays which emanate from the Manifestations; for the focus of the rays of the Sun of Reality was Christ, and from this glorious focus, which is the Reality of Christ, the Bounty of God reflected upon the other mirrors which were the reality of the Apostles. The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles signifies that the glorious divine bounties reflected and appeared in their reality. Moreover, entrance and exit, descent and ascent, are characteristics of bodies and not of spirits—that is to say, sensible realities enter and come forth, but intellectual subtleties and mental realities, such as intelligence, love, knowledge, imagination and thought, do not enter, nor come forth, nor descend, but rather they have direct connection.
Some Answered Questions, p. 108
25: THE HOLY SPIRIT
This is all very woolly. The Holy Spirit comes from the Father, and in the Christian era takes from what is Christ's and makes it known to believers. To Christ God had given all things. Christ is for this reason infinitely superior to the author of Baha'i.
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 16:13
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
14
He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.
15
All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.
I do not even believe in the devil, so of course I am not saying the Christian church is the work of the devil, but I am not saying it is the work of the Holy Spirit either. Christianity grew rapidly because it became the official religion of Rome.
The world is far more black and white that you suppose.
Matthew 12:30
"Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters"
The Holy Spirit belongs to Christ. The Christian church is the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. Anyone who opposes either the Christian church (construed in biblical terms as the body of Christ rather than in terms of political structures) or the enlargement or corruption of the church is of the devil, in Christian terms.
May be you're not appraising that to oppose Christ is to do the work of the devil in Christian theology, and by the words of Christ himself who asserted all his opponents as of the devil, unless genuinely ignorant, which is the only excuse you have in Christian theology for not believing in Christ.
Eph 4:27
Neither give place to the devil.
The reason for Islam is Muhammad, who renewed the Holy Spirit.
Mahomet opposed the Holy Spirit because he opposed Christ and consigned the Christian church to obsolescence.
I did not say that He was more unique, but who, aside from Christians and Muslims have acknowledged Jesus Christ?
Obviously that has not worked very well, since there are thousands of sects of Christianity, each with different interpretations of the Bible which has lead to different beliefs about the nature of Jesus, the afterlife, and the return of Christ. If the Holy Spirit has allowed all Christians to understand the Bible, why don’t all Christians have the same understanding?
First actual Christian belief in respect of the core message and significance of Christ is far more conformant than you might suppose.
Different sects do not necessarily equate to different fundamental beliefs. Opinions will always differ in respect of prophecies etc and especially secular matters such as politics etc, and also in respect of extra biblical philosophies respecting the subtleties of the trinity etc, which are attention grabbing but in the long run not significant for the most part.
Core belief in Jesus held out as the son of God and resurrected and raised to the throne of God will be fairly uniform across all "sects."
As to understanding, the Christian faith is not something that arrives instantaneously (although it may do) like in Islam, where you don't have to do a lot to be a muslim: just go with the flow. It's not so in Christianity. Faith is compared to the growing of a tree:
Luke 13:19
"[Faith & the kingdom of God] is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it."
Almost all Baha’is in the western world were formerly Christians. I do not have to convert anyone, those who want to know the truth will find it on their own. So far, few have found it, but that will change in the future.
"formerly Christians" i.e. nominal Christians. There are many of those, whose only Christianity is a culture not a faith. Baha'i is a cop out, it imposes few obligations and doesn't require faith in miracles or any real intellectual activity, as Christianity does demand.
Matthew 7:13-14 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Christians believe that are so special, that only they have the Holy Spirit. It is beyond arrogant. Imo, Christians who have heard of Baha’u’llah and turned away do not have the Holy Spirit because if they did they would not have turned away from Baha’u’llah, who brought the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit was in the world long before Baha’u’llah, courtesy of Christ. I'm not even sure if you know him, because if you did you wouldn't say Christ has been superseded.
I did not say His teachings have been superseded; I only ever said that His Dispensation has been superseded. I am sorry that you still don’t understand what that means.
I do get it, because the Christian dispensation has superseded the dispensation of Moses. Moses remains relevant, but many of his principles i.e. respecting animal sacrifices and sacrifice under the Old Covenant, and black letter rules of law, for justifiction are no longer relevant because Christ has superseded them. They simply do not apply in the spiritual era, although useful for teaching and instruction.
As for Baha’u’llah, I regret that Baha’u’llah has done nothing IMO to show that he is in any way superior to Christ, or has any right to assert Christ's spiritual religion as having been superseded. Rather he has done much to show he is completely inferior by failing to acknowledge that Christ is the "only" begotten son of God and the only path to salvation, as well as being the only fulfilment of all biblical (i.e Old Testament) prophecy; and so superior to himself, being a mere man who died, and was buried, and will be judged by Christ himself.
Authentic: of undisputed origin; genuine.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=authentic+means
The Qur’an is more authentic than the NT because we know it was written by the scribes who knew Muhammad and either memorized or wrote down want He said, after which time it was compiled into the Qur’an. By contrast, the authors of the NT never even met Jesus, so there is no way that the NT could be the exact words spoken by Jesus.
No evidence that the gospel accounts were not written by those who had not met Christ.
Just propaganda. The Koran is compiled from numerous unidentified sources and materials, some of it Christian, some which clearly didn't originate with Mahomet, although some of it may have done. No one really knows what is and what is not authentic in the Koran, but in any event the central tenet of Mahomet's message, i.e. justification by observance of religious law invented by Mahomet and the deprecation of the biblical Christ is anathema to all true Christians, and which is why for most of the Christian era, Mahomet has been classified as a pagan.
That comment is way off base, given Baha’is are not even allowed to be involved in politics.
“The Faith which this order serves, safeguards and promotes is … essentially supernatural, supranational, entirely non-political, non-partisan, and diametrically opposed to any policy or school of thought that seeks to exalt any particular race, class or nation. It is free from any form of ecclesiasticism, has neither priesthood nor rituals, and is supported exclusively by voluntary contributions made by its avowed adherents. Though loyal to their respective governments, though imbued with the love of their own country, and anxious to promote at all times, its best interests, the followers of the Bahá’í Faith, nevertheless, viewing mankind as one entity, and profoundly attached to its vital interests, will not hesitate to subordinate every particular interest, be it personal, regional or national, to the over-riding interests of the generality of mankind, knowing full well that in a world of interdependent peoples and nations the advantage of the part is best to be reached by the advantage of the whole, and that no lasting result can be achieved by any of the component parts if the general interests of the entity itself are neglected….”
The Promised Day Is Come, vi - vii
Baha'is may refrain from
partisan politics but they certainly do not shun governance/policy and government leaders.
