What is the Baha'i message in simple words?

[wil]

Tone said.the Buddha is a manifestation of.G!d.

I said.

Is not everyone?

I am Sorry, I am not understanding your point in asking that question. Please clarify.

Regards Tony

Is not everyone a manifestation of.G!d?

Would make sense Sidhartha was too?

Or are you indicating some special manifestation? If so, how so, and do you have a list of these manifestations...

 

[Ahanu]

Peer pressure has always been a thing, and I don't envision it going away any time soon.

I do not envision a fierce individualism departing soon either. Despite the fact that this distribution to a non-Baha'i is one's own choice in one's own will (Kitab-i-Aqdas 109), as @Tone Bristow-Stagg has clearly shown (since the provisions are there to get you to write a will in the first place), I will assume for the sake of argument a hypothetical scenario in which one is peer pressured by Baha'is into not giving to non-Baha'is even though such peer pressure runs counter to the spirit of the Baha'i Faith. In other words, we are assuming there is a collaboration amongst Baha'is to keep non-Baha'is poor and disenfranchised under a future Baha'i State.

The idea is easily discredited to begin with: early Baha'is in Iran were noted for setting up schools and hospitals for all despite the religious background of those who used them. They were eventually closed by the Iranian government. Why would we work against the freedoms Iranian Baha'is worked so hard for? Baha'is in Iran were soon forced out of getting a high-quality education to keep them poor and disenfranchised. This is still going on today. Abdu'l-Baha is another example of someone who gave freely to all.

Turning to a related topic, I would like to note the distribution of funds under Huququ'llah is not your own choice; this matter is left to the Universal House of Justice to distribute them accordingly. Under a future Baha'i State it will be distributed in such a way as to help keep its citizens from poverty and solve economic problems in society. To neglect the rights of minorities - such as atheists, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews, and so on - would be implausible and a step backwards, as the Universal House of Justice has indicated (see here and here).

 

[Ahanu]

Aren't we all? Seems a number of countries have had this issue...including both of ours.

Notoriously fanatics in any religion favor it...but only if it is their religion.

I don't think anyone has to worry about the bahai taking over for a few hundred years... I think Christianity had a bigger start and it took a while before we started into serious conquering....

And now looking back on it historically our missionaries may have expanded the ranks by violence and coercion but did not do the converts or religion any favors...

A peaceful approach Jesus tried...but his followers not so much.

Reminder: I am waiting for your reply to my question in post #173. Take your time. Just not sure if you have noticed the question or not.

 

[Tony Bristow-Stagg]

Tone said.the Buddha is a manifestation of.G!d.

I said.





Is not everyone a manifestation of.G!d?

Would make sense Sidhartha was too?

Or are you indicating some special manifestation? If so, how so, and do you have a list of these manifestations...

From the scriptures, they tell me that no, we are not Manifestations of God.

The Spirit of Humanity needs to be reborn into the Spirit that are the Messengers, that are sent by God, they are from the Holy Spirit, they are not men like us.

Regards Tony

 

[Ahanu]

(Regarding non-Trinitarian Christians, it has to be said that most (if not all?) denominations emerged in the United States in relatively recent history.)

If not all? According to biographies of Muhammad, where did the Prophet send his early followers in order to escape from persecution in 615?

 

[Aupmanyav]

To neglect the rights of minorities - such as atheists, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews, and so on - .

1.1 billion Hindus, 2.38 billion Christiqans, 1.91 billion Muslims, 507 million Buddhists (Google Search) will be minorities in the future Bahai state. You have very high hopes.

 

[Ahanu]

1.1 billion Hindus, 2.38 billion Christiqans, 1.91 billion Muslims, 507 million Buddhists (Google Search) will be minorities in the future Bahai state. Your brain volume is very large.

Again, I'm just assuming for the sake of argument, @Aupmanyav.

Anyway, the religions you listed were all minorities at one time or another. We will explore a time when Muslims were once a minority in 615 as soon as Thomas delivers an answer to the question in #205 if he has time, because I think it leads to interesting traces of non-Trinitarian Christianity. Interestingly, here in the States the Baha'i Faith is the second largest religion in South Carolina.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Would you take a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Carolina#Religion
Let me post it for you. You are falsely representing the data. Does Bahai religion permits you to tell lies if it suits you?

Religion

Religion in South Carolina[91]

Evangelical Protestant (35%)
Mainline Protestant (16%)
Historically Black Protestant (15%)
Catholic (10%)
Other Christian (2%)
Other (2%)
Unaffiliated ("none") (19%)
Don't Know (1%)
According to the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA), in 2010, the largest religion is Christianity, of which the largest denominations were the Southern Baptist Convention with 913,763 adherents, the United Methodist Church with 274,111 adherents, and the Roman Catholic Church with 181,743 adherents. Fourth-largest is the African Methodist Episcopal Church with 564 congregations and 121,000 members and fifth-largest is the Presbyterian Church (USA) with 320 congregations and almost 100,000 members.

As of 2010, South Carolina is the American state with the highest per capita proportion of citizens who follow the Baháʼí Faith, with 17,559 adherents, making Baháʼí the second-largest religion in the state.

How can 17,559 adherents in a population of 5,190,70, make it the largest religion? Do you think the members of this forum are fools?

 

[RJM]

Again, I'm just assuming for the sake of argument, @Aupmanyav.

Anyway, the religions you listed were all minorities at one time or another. We will explore a time when Muslims were once a minority in 615 as soon as Thomas delivers an answer to the question in #205 if he has time, because I think it leads to interesting traces of non-Trinitarian Christianity. Interestingly, here in the States the Baha'i Faith is the second largest religion in South Carolina.

However, the vast majority of Christians are Trinitarian. Do the Baha'i follow the Muslim argument that this violates the belief in one God -- that Trinitarians, which of course includes Catholics, are all naughty polytheists?

Do they understand that Trinitarians prefer not to be told what they believe, when their attempts to explain what they actually do believe fall on deaf Muslim (and also Baha'i) ears -- preconditioned by the declarations of their infallible messengers?

It's an exhausting argument

(edited)

 

[Cino]

I will assume for the sake of argument a hypothetical scenario in which one is peer pressured by Baha'is into not giving to non-Baha'is even though such peer pressure runs counter to the spirit of the Baha'i Faith. In other words, we are assuming there is a collaboration amongst Baha'is to keep non-Baha'is poor and disenfranchised under a future Baha'i State.

The idea is easily discredited to begin with: early Baha'is in Iran were noted for setting up schools and hospitals for all despite the religious background of those who used them

The early Christians were lovely people who displayed great acts of charity towards each other and non-believers, were persecuted, etc. They used Jesus' words to guide them. Later on, when Christian states emerged, the scriptures were used to justify great atrocities. It is entirely within the range of humanity's abilities to turn something beautiful into a blunt weapon of oppression.

In this regard, I am a pessimist. A line like the one about non-Baha'is not inheriting anything is a time-bomb. People have no problems at all taking text passages out of context, when it suits them.

 

[Ahanu]

Would you take a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Carolina#Religion
Let me post it for you. You are falsely representing the data. Does Bahai religion permits you to telllie if it suits you?

A lie must be deliberately told, @Aupmanyav. The source you quote says Baha'i is "the second-largest religion in the state."

 

[Aupmanyav]

That si a mistake in Wikipedia, perhaps inserted by Bhais like you. It needs to be corrected. They have given the membership of various Christian denominations clearly. Is not it shameful to tell white lies?

 

[RJM]

That si a mistake in Wikipedia, perhaps inserted by Bhais like you. It needs to be corrected. They have given the membership of various Christian denominations clearly. Is not it shameful to tell white lies?

@Ahanu did not deliberately lie, However you have made your point the statement is incorrect

 

[Ahanu]

That si a mistake in Wikipedia, perhaps inserted by Bhais like you. It needs to be corrected. They have given the membership of various Christian denominations clearly. Is not it shameful to lie?

Wouldn't Christian denominations fall under the umbrella of one religion called Christianity? Actually, it was reported in non-Baha'i sources.

 

[Cino]

I think we're drifting away from summarizing the Baha'i message informally in simple words.

Ahanu gave it a try, early on in the thread. How could that statement be extended to include what we have discussed so far?

At least the role of the manifestation of God seems to be missing from that list?

 

[RJM]

Wouldn't Christian denominations fall under the umbrella of one religion called Christianity? Actually, it was reported in non-Baha'i sources.

Lol
Clever

But a rather misleading use of statistics, to create a 'sensational' media headline?

 

[Ahanu]

Lol
Clever

But a rather misleading use of statistics, to create a 'sensational' media headline?

From a sceptic: Maybe there ARE more Baha'is than Jews in South Carolina! (religionnews.com)

 

[Ahanu]

"All these data come from the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, which conducts a U.S. Religion Census every 10 years."

 

[Aupmanyav]

Maybe there ARE more Baha'is than Jews in South Carolina! (religionnews.com)
"To consolidate the new members of the faith, an institute was established in Hemingway, S.C. in 1972, as well as the nation’s only Bahá’í radio station, WLGI (“Promoting love, peace, and unity”), in 1984. By the mid-1980s, there were over 20,000 on the rolls in South Carolina, more than in any other state. But, Stockman acknowledges, 30 years later just 4,500 of the 17,500 members in the state currently recorded in the national Bahá’í database have good addresses. “All we can say about the other 13,000 is that they are not active enough as Bahá’ís to update their address when they moved.”

So is the Bahá’í Faith the second most populous religion after Christianity in South Carolina? The 2013 American Jewish Yearbook lists the state as having fewer than 14,000 Jews. Given what Stockman has to say, I’m prepared to stick to my original claim that Judaism is the (very distant) second most populous religion there. Still, a significant portion of those 13,000 Bahá’ís listed but without updated addresses — many of them low-income African Americans who could be missed by phone surveys — may still consider themselves members of the faith."So who knows?"

What now, Ahanu? Just propaganda does not work.

 

[Ahanu]

What now, Ahanu?

See post #218. You said it was a lie the Baha'i inserted. No, it is from a non-Baha'i source.

Also, your quote still shows it is likely possible. So, yes, I will stand by my statement.