The Baha'i Faith

[anonymaus]

If I've ever met a Baha'i I didn't know it, and I've only heard from other people that while they profess to seek the unity of mankind they are weird insular people similar to orthodox Jewish communities who act somewhere between a commune and a Freemasonry-like social club.

Does anyone have any first or second hand experience with this odd gaggle of faith-hippies?

One of the Baha'i symbols:

[Fortis in Arduis]

Yes, my old painting tutor was a Baha'i but I am not going to mention any names or discuss this any further.

[Óttar]

Yes, my old painting tutor was a Baha'i but I am not going to mention any names or discuss this any further.

Top Secret! MI5! :eusa_silenced:

[Gooding]

I was involved in the Baha'i Faith for about a year. Baha'is sign a declaration card and get a membership card after their declaration is sent in. They meet every nineteen days at a member's house for a "Feast". This "feast" consists of prayers, reading the current letter from the National Spiritual Assembly, more prayers and a small snack at the end. The Faith is governed by the International House of Justice based in Haifa, Israel. They pray either one large prayer a day or a smaller prayer three times a day.They believe in the message of a man known as Baha'u'llah, known as the Manifestation of God for our day. They respect all the holy books from the major religions of the world, but follow their own Khitab al Aqdas, their own Book of the Laws. Their greeting is Allah-u-Abha, or God is Glorious. They believe in a single God, daily Prayer, an annual nineteen day Fast in March, and a pilgrimage to Haifa at least once in their lifetime. Baha'i Prayers is their prayerbook. The faith was born in Iran and still has followers there. The Persian Baha'is in America tend to be wealthy and are treated with some deference by the non Persians, despite the Faith's claim that all races are equal and racial mergings should be encouraged. Krishna, Zoroaster,Buddha,Moses,Jesus,Muhammad, the Bab and Baha'u'llah are all regarded as Manifestations of God and their religions are all regarded as valid. The Baha'i Writings reflect the Shi'a Muslim origins of the Baha'i Faith as well as its development under Abd'ul Baha and Shoghi Effendi.

[Poltergeist]

I heard that according to their faith couples need to get permission from their parents to marry.

[Gooding]

I heard that according to their faith couples need to get permission from their parents to marry.

Yeah.That was one stupid custom among many that had me running screaming first to the Hindu Durga Temple, where I learned some Shaivism, then to the Shin Buddhist Temple where my wife and I got married. The Yuppie attitudes of the Buddhists had me running to the Heathens, then the treatment of the local folkbuilder to my wife sent me flying to..where I am now. A regular spiritual tourist, me.

[Lutiferre]

Another false religion, very akin to Islam in it's beginnings.

[Treffie]

Another false religion, very akin to Islam in it's beginnings.

So just like Christianity v's Judaism then?

[Lutiferre]

So just like Christianity v's Judaism then?

No, not "just like". Not even Baha'i is "just like" Islam.

Christianity's beginnings with Jesus, a Galilean and Israelite in direct continuity with Israel, cannot even be compared to Muhammad, some Arab 600 years later who created his own religion far outside of Israel and in the exact timeframe in which the Torah and the Gospels had reached availability for the learnt in the Arabian lands he resided in. That he studied and plagiarised them only to start a religion as an outsider based on Israelitic monotheistic concepts is obvious, and the amount of fictions added unto it striking (for instance the idea that Abraham visited Mecca and the Black Stone).

[sean]

I visited the Wilmette temple in Illinois many years ago and was attracted to world-citizen type ideas like an international language. It is worth a visit for its architectural value, no question. They have some pretty beautiful architecture. People should check out the temple purely for the aesthetics.

As for the people, I didn't see any crowds, but the people that were running it were a mix of whites and brown people in western dress. There were a few tourist looky-lous from the area (all suburban white).

Anyway, Baha'i faith is a joke. First off, it hinges on Babism being true, there is no way to take that seriously as a coherent divinely-inspired ideology, then there are the tenets and spiritual practices, which are at worst plagiarism of Islam and at best completely arbitrary. Then there is the conduct of the early followers, when they weren't deceiving people that they were actual Muslims, they were in-fighting, this caused the exile of Baha-u-llah.

All in all I think their religion is never going to grow because it appears to be a cult to outsiders, which now that I think about it makes alot of sense considering it's the UN faith of choice.