Who was Baha'u'llah?

[CG Didymus]

I'll note the irony that Baha'i often claim their goal is unity, but in the reality of their comments unity is a low priority. The primary priority sems to be getting converts, and/or defending the belief in a way that implies non-Baha'i are "not getting it" some way.

Exactly what it seems like. There is no compromise. There is no humility. There is, "We are right" kind of attitude.

This is a good point. Of course Baha'u'llah is dead but we have his writings to examine and I find them tedious, superficial, and lacking any practical information. Have these writtings impressed the most skeptical minds? Not in this forum, and with a prophet with a God on his side I would expect extraordinary wisdom and clarity, and some plan to accomplish goals. The majority dilemma is utilizing an idea of God at all because that causes immediate conflict with both other theists and atheists alike.

So, is there a God and did this God send the Baha'i prophet? Who knows? Baha'is keep putting out threads that claim those things, but they admit they can't objectively prove it. Yet, they keep doing it.

What they seem to ignore is that some of us have read what their prophet and their religion says. And, because of some of the things believed and taught in the Baha'i Faith, some of us reject it or at least question it. Their beliefs about homosexuality didn't go over well. But what about their plan for peace? Can it work?

And, if the Baha'i Faith is the truth, supposedly it will work and "God's" laws, the Baha'i laws, will be the law of the land. All the world will be living in what Baha'is call, "The most great peace." What's that all about? What's the plan and details on how to get there? They don't talk much about those things. But that'd be another great survey for them to do. Will the Baha'i peace plan work? Or... maybe not "Yes" three votes. "No" eighteen.

 

[CG Didymus]

But when it comes to history Jesus was not infallible? So, for example when He talked about Moses or the events of the past, which was history He made mistakes?

As if Baha'is believe the Bible and the NT are accurate in their historical details. To me, that's a plus that they don't.

 

[dybmh]

I just assumed that the Bible says that God is infallible but I cannot find anything in the Bible that says that.

Deuteronomy 32:4
2 Samuel 22:31
Psalms 18:31

 

[Trailblazer]

Exactly what it seems like. There is no compromise. There is no humility. There is, "We are right" kind of attitude.

That is absolutely false. It is some other religions like Christianity that do not compromise, not the Baha'i Faith.
But if you keep looking at the Baha'i Faith with tainted glasses you will have a tainted view.

 

[Trailblazer]

Deuteronomy 32:4
2 Samuel 22:31
Psalms 18:31

Thanks. Those verses don't say God is infallible but they kind of mean the same thing.

 

[Windwalker]

So, in your view, even God is fallible?

Of course not. God is Spirit. So fallibility and infallibility do not apply. I think you did not understand what I was trying to say.

God is not omnipotent and omniscient? He has been from the beginning that has no beginning, is not true?

I think your idea of omniscient means something different than how I understand that. What does omniscient mean to you in regards to God? Knowing tomorrow's winning lottery ticket numbers? That is not how I view the omniscience of the Divine. I do not view it as this idea of mentally knowing all bits of data in the concept of omniscience. We are talking about God, not a superhuman deity.

Regarding the eternal nature of the Divine, I think we may have a different idea about that as well. Do you believe eternal means time without end? I do not. I believe it is timelessness, and so concepts of beginnings, or endings are meaningless. The eternal is both outside and within time itself.

What these have to do with the human Jesus, or the man Bahaullah not knowing the science of the future is, can you try to explain the connection here?

 

[Truthseeker]

Well you see this is one of the core problems I have with that system itself. Why do the words of these illuminated individuals need to be taken as infallible? I think this is very wrongheaded. It is also an enormous house of cards that sets up followers of that doctrine for a massive crush upon their faith in God when it turns out these "infallible" prophet's words have errors in them!

That has been a blessing in disguise for me. When I have thought I've seen contradictions and errors in His Writings, I have pondered the matter deeper, and came out with new insights. If I had never thought Him infallible, and just another human, I wouldn't have probed deeper into reality.

For instance, I recall some past discussions with a couple Baha'i here (who I cannot remember), how that evolution is wrong because the prophet said that humans did not evolve from earlier animal species into humans, but were human beings from the very start. Obviously, this is completely erroneous scientifically.

It was Abdu'l-Baha would discussed that to be precise, and as I understand the situation (and the current head of the Baha'i Faith the UHJ agrees with me), it has been proven by science that man and apes had a common ancestor. The point that Abdu'l-Baha was seeking to make was that a human being was not just not another animal, but he has powers an animal does not, such as having a soul which can reflect all the attributes of God, (and can also be worse than an animal, I might add) and an intelligence that can think in abstract terms. Certainly an animal can reason, but it can only do so in a concrete way.

 

[Trailblazer]

God is Spirit. So fallibility and infallibility do not apply.

Why can't Spirit be infallible?

 

[Truthseeker]

Not everyone who claims they are the 2nd coming of Christ are dangerous individuals like a David Koresh. There are many who are quite harmless, or even benefactors to others in their delusions about themselves.

That's true. That's why you have to investigate further for some. I might add, being harmless does nothing for me, there has be some good works.

What I can't wrap my mind around though is why you claim that they have to proclaim they are a prophet in order to accomplish the good God "sent" them to do? Why is that? If you read the narrative stories about Jesus in the gospels, there is this constant mystery in the minds of everyone, even his immediate disciples about who Jesus was.

He never went around proclaiming he was a prophet. He never went around proclaiming he was the messiah. He let his words and actions speak for themselves, and left it up to others to decide. Only when Peter said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God", did the story about him have Jesus acknowledge it! This is the opposite of what you are claiming is necessary. Isn't it?

For over 10 years after Baha'u'llah first received His Revelation He told those who perceived that He was a Prophet to not reveal this, this was not the time for people know this publicly.

He left that an open-ended question in the minds of others. "Who do men say that I am?," he asked his inner disciples. And yet they came to that conclusion he was the messiah on their own. That's how he wanted it to be done. Not through his own self-promotion, but through their own inner, subjective relalizations.

As I said above, those around Baha'u'llah came to that realization on their own.

I am not making a hasty generalization. I have a substantial amount of reasons why I distrust claims of prophethood.

What do you base that reason for not trusting on?

I've never suggested that there are no such things as truly illuminated souls. In fact I very much believe there are.

But you don't believe in infallible illumined souls.

I just greet those who blare their own trumpets and declare themselves to the 2nd coming of the Christ, which huge, deserved skepticism. That is a healthy thing to do. But as I've said, that act itself of self-promotion, or self-declarations is to say the least suspicious. Add to this, it runs contrary to the spirit if grace and humility that is inherent in those who are truely, authentically Enlightened.

You should be skeptical when someone makes a claim like that. We have pointed out to you that Baha'u'llah had grace and humility, in our opinion. But you can't see it though our eyes, you have to look through your own.

But do take note here, I never said he was a "false claimant". I don't believe he was a liar. I said it is likely he was simply delusional. I'm sure he may have believed that about himself and was telling the truth as he believed it. But that doesn't mean that self-belief has truth to it.

We are going around in circles. Being delusional makes Him a false Prophet, if such He was.

Not necessarily. People can read scriptures in a wide variety of ways to support whatever they really want in it. I've seen the way Baha'i handles the scriptures of other religions, and to say the least it's pretty inaccurate. There's a lot of forced-fitting going on in order to make the claims of their prophet true.

To each his own. How do you know that it's inaccurate? By what standard?

 

[Truthseeker]

Jesus never wrote one single word of scripture. Yet doesn't everyone know who he was?

What does that have to do with anything? It seems your frustration is getting the best of you.

Sorry to tell you, but I've experienced this, and countless others as well. This is not "what I believe". It is what I have experienced. You may not believe this, but then are you saying I am a liar in speaking of my own personal experiences? Or that I did not experience it, but only believe I did?

So have I, but it is a delusion to say this is God Himself. In my view, you are experiencing God indirectly. I remember a time when I read a Writing by Baha'u'llah and suddenly out of the blue, I had an intense love for God and Baha'u'llah, and I couldn't tell the difference between the two. I was in ecstasy. Another time I was in the Shrine of Baha'u'llah, and this time my spiritual experience took the form of a deep peace. Before I entered that Shrine, I was agitated. It depends on my receptivity and the grace of God but sometimes when I recite a revealed prayer by Baha'u'llah, I get a spiritual high that is milder than those two experiences.

In my view, what is being experienced in the Holy Spirit, not God Himself. He is too exalted to be experienced directly. We would be burnt to cinders.

 

[Truthseeker]

The nature of spirituality is to find trust or rest in the unknown. It is not about having Answers with a capital A you can look to in the hope of finding rest and security for the soul.

You should read this:

The Seven Valleys

It is a mystical work which for the life of me I can't really get a good grasp on the material beyond the Valley of Knowledge. My mind is too analytical.

 

[Truthseeker]

I have pointed this out to others in similar contexts, how that even if some teachings or scriptures are held to be infallible, everyone, without exception, must interpret the meanings of said teachings or writings, and no interpretation ever is itself infallible! So the claim that just because you read certain words a certain way is "Not my words, but God's words", is a total fallacy. At the very best, it is your fallible interpretation of supposedly infallible words.

So to claim one's source is infallible has no value at all, if the one trying to understand them is fallible. That is the weak link in the chain, and the fallibility claim snaps apart at that weak link.

But furthermore, the very expectation itself, looking for it to be "infallible" is a spiritually misguided approach itself at the outset. It is looking for a sense of security for the anxious mind by being "told" what the Answer is, rather than finding rest in the spirit, in the face of the Unknown. The latter is the nature of spirituality. The former is the nature of fear and anxiety.

I have explained earlier how knowing that Baha'u'llah is infallible has value for me. When there are apparent contradictions or fallacies, and I examine it further I gain wisdom and knowledge. We are not "told" what the answer is, in many cases.

 

[Trailblazer]

It discredits his claims that he speaks for a god or that a god speaks through him.

Oh it does? Personal opinions on an opinion poll on a religious forum discredits the claim of a messenger of God?
I knew you were illogical but I never thought you were that illogical.

If that were the case, the message would be something no human could have written.

Are you claiming that an ordinary human could have written the message? If so, that is a bald assertion, unless you can prove that is the case.
Your personal opinion about how the Writings of Baha'u'llah sound does not prove anything except that they do not appeal to YOU.

Yeah. It's worse now. 3/16 believe, 13/16 (81%) do not.:

What do you think that 81% vote proves? It certainly does not prove that the claims of Baha'u'llah are not true. To say that would be the fallacy of ad populum.

If the same poll was posted on a Baha'i forum what do you think the vote would be? Would that prove that the claims of Baha'u'llah are true?

Yes they were.

No, they were not grandiose self-claims and the proof of that is all in the Writings of Baha'u'llah.
Of course you can misinterpret what Baha'u'llah meant in those Writings just to try to win an argument, but you do not KNOW MORE about what Baha'u'llah meant than the Baha'is on this thread, who combined, have over 100 years of time as Baha'is and have read all the Writings of Baha'u'llah.

Your claim that Baha'u'llah made grandiose claims that refer to HIMSELF can easily be refuted. I already did that early on in this thread so there is no need to re-post those verses.

Number two. How could he more grandiose than that? I suppose by claiming to be a god himself.

Number two does not apply to Baha'u'llah, since he did not have an over-inflated sense of worth, power, knowledge, or identity, quite the contrary.

Of course, delusional here means holding a false belief, especially ones unsupported by evidence

But you do not know that His claim was false, that is only your personal opinion. Mt personal opinion is that it was supported by evidence, as noted below.
Tough tiddliwinks if you don't like the evidence. It is no skin off my nose or off Baha'u'llah's nose, and God doesn't care either, since God is independent of all His creatures. It's only your loss, nobody else's.

“Say: The first and foremost testimony establishing His truth is His own Self. Next to this testimony is His Revelation. For whoso faileth to recognize either the one or the other He hath established the words He hath revealed as proof of His reality and truth. This is, verily, an evidence of His tender mercy unto men. He hath endowed every soul with the capacity to recognize the signs of God. How could He, otherwise, have fulfilled His testimony unto men, if ye be of them that ponder His Cause in their hearts. He will never deal unjustly with any one, neither will He task a soul beyond its power. He, verily, is the Compassionate, the All-Merciful.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 105-106

 

[Truthseeker]

But trust what? His knowledge of science and natural history? Or his knowledge of the ways of the Divine? There is a difference in subject matter here. I do not believe Jesus the human who lived two thousand years ago had supernatural knowledge of science and industry. He would not have known about black holes, quantum physics, or even about evolutionary theory. But, when speaking of the timeless nature of the Divine, yes, he had profound and trustworthy insight and knowledge of this.

Believe it or not, I believe he did know all this, or was connected to the source of all that knowledge, who is God, but it was not his role to reveal all that.

 

[Truthseeker]

I think your idea of omniscient means something different than how I understand that. What does omniscient mean to you in regards to God? Knowing tomorrow's winning lottery ticket numbers? That is not how I view the omniscience of the Divine. I do not view it as this idea of mentally knowing all bits of data in the concept of omniscience. We are talking about God, not a superhuman deity.

Well, never mind, this discussion is a waste of time.

 

[Trailblazer]

Believe it or not, I believe he did know all this, or was connected to the source of all that knowledge, who is God, but it was his role to reveal all that.

Did you mean but it was not his role to reveal all that?

 

[Truthseeker]

Dis you mean but it was not his role to reveal all that?

Thanks for pointing I left out that word. I will edit my post.

 

[Trailblazer]

If he proclaimed he was the return of Christ and the Message of God for the Age, that is self-promotion.

Self-promotion for the sake of God because that was His mission from God! That is what God told Him to do.

And I disagree that was necessary. Jesus never went around proclaiming he was the Messiah, did he?

No, He just claimed to be the Son of God and the the only way man can come to God.

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
It was the Christians who claimed Jesus was the Messiah.

If you want to compare Jesus to Baha'ullah, Baha'u'llah never claimed that He was the Only Way to come to God. All He ever said was that He was the Manifestation of God for this age.

Baha’u’llah sternly warned us never to make any distinction between any of the Messengers of God (who are the Manifestations of His Cause) because they all arise to proclaim the same religion, since there is only one eternal religion of God. Baha’u’llah wrote that the works and acts of all the Manifestations of God were all ordained by God, a reflection of His Will and Purpose, meaning that all the religions are equally true and all the Messengers are equal in stature.

“Beware, O believers in the Unity of God, lest ye be tempted to make any distinction between any of the Manifestations of His Cause, or to discriminate against the signs that have accompanied and proclaimed their Revelation. This indeed is the true meaning of Divine Unity, if ye be of them that apprehend and believe this truth. Be ye assured, moreover, that the works and acts of each and every one of these Manifestations of God, nay whatever pertaineth unto them, and whatsoever they may manifest in the future, are all ordained by God, and are a reflection of His Will and Purpose. Whoso maketh the slightest possible difference between their persons, their words, their messages, their acts and manners, hath indeed disbelieved in God, hath repudiated His signs, and betrayed the Cause of His Messengers.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 59-60

He left that an open-ended question in the minds of others. "Who do men say that I am?," he asked his inner disciples. And yet they came to that conclusion he was the messiah on their own. That's how he wanted it to be done. Not through his own self-promotion, but through their own inner, subjective relalizations.

Why does it matter what Jesus did? That was another age in history, one we are no longer living in, and Jesus has a completely different mission from Baha'u'llah. This is a new day and a new way. The world's peoples no longer have time to dink around wondering who a Messenger of God is.

This strikes at why I find this self-declarations of being the Messenger of the Age to be at odds with the spirit of Truth itself.

Baha'u'llah was the Spirit of Truth, that was His claim.

The lilies of the field do not promote themselves with a fanfare of blaring trumpets. They just silently speak greater glory than all the idols of our ideas of greatness. This is how I believe.

Those times are in the past. That is what I believe.

Not necessarily. People can read scriptures in a wide variety of ways to support whatever they really want in it.

That applies to ALL people, not just to Baha'is.

Do you note here how Jesus did not going around proclaiming who he was? It was a mystery to everyone, because he never told them! And you ask how would they know if he didn't tell them? Here is the very answer to your question. It was not revealed because Jesus told them, but because it was realized subjectively, in Peter's own inner being, in his heart, through his faith. Not because of the claims of Jesus.

Now are you starting to see my point in this?

Baha'u'llah did not go around proclaiming who he was, except to the kings and rulers and religious leaders of His day, because it was important they they knew and there would have been no other way for them to know who He was had He not written to them proclaiming it.

I see your point, but it is illogical to compare what happened 2000 years ago with what happened in the 19th century, and expect it to be the same way as it was back then. What else is the same in the world today? The needs of the present times are completely different from what they were 2000 years ago.

“The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. “Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 213

Jesus never wrote one single word of scripture. Yet doesn't everyone know who he was?

They know who Jesus was because the gospel authors wrote about Him. What's your point, that Baha'u'llah should not have written anything? Should He have waited for others to write about Him decades later, as happened with Jesus, when He was perfectly capable of writing Himself?

Sorry to tell you, but I've experienced this, and countless others as well. This is not "what I believe". It is what I have experienced. You may not believe this, but then are you saying I am a liar in speaking of my own personal experiences? Or that I did not experience it, but only believe I did?

You do not have to be sorry. I do not know anything about anyone else's personal experiences, I only know about my own personal experiences.

As I said, it is not a matter of belief. It is a matter of experience. The only thing I could say is a belief is that I believe it is possible for everyone to experience what I have, because I have. But it's not a belief that I experienced what I did. It is an experience, not an idea.

It is also not a belief that I experienced being guided by God to recognize Baha'u'llah, and continue to be guided by God daily to remain steadfast in my faith. Are you going to tell me I was not guided? It is an experience, not an idea.

Okay, so then you have had some experience you can draw upon that informs your beliefs? Then you cannot dismiss the experience of others when they tell you of their own experiences. The only difference being is that you have not experienced what they have, and you don't understand what their experience is. Then you are left with trying to explain to yourself how your ideas differ from theirs based upon their experiences. Right?

I do not dismiss your experiences. You have had some experience you can draw upon that informs your beliefs. Do you dismiss the experience of others when they tell you of their own experiences? The only difference being is that you have not experienced what they have, and you don't understand what their experience is. Then you are left with trying to explain to yourself how your ideas differ from theirs based upon their experiences.

But yet, you are still doing so. I don't mind discussing this with you. And clearly you aren't unwilling to discuss it either, as you continue to post your arguments in response. So I'm not sure why you are tacking this on here.

I can only explain my personal experiences just as you can only explain yours, but we cannot understand each other's personal experiences since they are personal to us. I take it on since I normally respond to posts that are posted to me unless someone is really rude and disrespectful.

By the way, you might ask @Truthseeker about his peronal experiences of God since he desires to connect to God and I think he has had some mystical experiences.

 

[RestlessSoul]

If a god can speak to Baha'u'llah, it can speak to us all.

I completely agree. But first, we have to learn how to listen.

 

[InvestigateTruth]

Of course not. God is Spirit. So fallibility and infallibility do not apply. I think you did not understand what I was trying to say.

I think your idea of omniscient means something different than how I understand that. What does omniscient mean to you in regards to God? Knowing tomorrow's winning lottery ticket numbers? That is not how I view the omniscience of the Divine. I do not view it as this idea of mentally knowing all bits of data in the concept of omniscience. We are talking about God, not a superhuman deity.

Regarding the eternal nature of the Divine, I think we may have a different idea about that as well. Do you believe eternal means time without end? I do not. I believe it is timelessness, and so concepts of beginnings, or endings are meaningless. The eternal is both outside and within time itself.

What these have to do with the human Jesus, or the man Bahaullah not knowing the science of the future is, can you try to explain the connection here?

How do you know God is a Spirit?
From the Bible?
Simple question for you