Mani was a very nice man.
Please provide a source for your information. How do you know he was “a very nice man”? Examples?
He believed in Jesus and accepted him as the Lord. Great!
I’m aware he called Jesus “Lord” and he believed in Jesus. But what exactly were his beliefs about this controversial figure named Jesus? Examples?
All three of us have so much in common...
We also have ideas we don’t share. Mani had an extremely pessimistic view of sexuality. For him and his followers, sexual concupiscence was the “primordial sin and the punishment for sin, which procreates itself through copulation” [2]. St. Augustine, who left Manichaeism after being a follower for nearly a decade, was evidently influenced by its lingering traces in some bits of his theology (at least according to some of his contemporaries and some modern scholars): one Mani scholar notes “both [Mani and Augustine] refer to sexual concupiscence in a highly negative way, it is sinful, a punishment for sin, and sin is propagated through it”. There's a lot more to say on this topic that I find interesting. But I'll leave it for now.
The Cologne Mani Codex discovered just before 1970 settled the debate about the origins of Manichaeism. Was it rooted in Persian religious tradition of Zoroastrianism or Christianity? Mani grew up in an Elchasaite community, a Jewish-Christian sect founded by Alchasai [3]. Some notable characteristics I discovered about this sect is they reject parts of the Old and New Testaments (including Paul’s writings) and abstained from meat, wine, and women. Even though Mani separated himself from this community and started a new one, some of these former beliefs remain intact in one form or another.
But unlike Bahaullah who brought us countless prayers, laws, teachings and new never before seen spiritual insights - Mani just repeated what the Great Manifestations said before and brought nothing new to the table.
Please provide quotations and citations for your assertion Mani “just repeated what the Great Manifestations said before”. We already see from above Mani didn’t “just repeat” what the “Great Manifestations” said before. From my understanding of Baha'i thought, Manichaean theodicy is different from anything Baha’u’llah taught. "The Manichaean solution to the problem of evil is that God is neither all-powerful nor the sole creator of the world” [4]. Mani also adopted a belief in transmigration from Asia. According to the research of Baha’i scholar Christopher Buck, I noted Manichaeans believed “the profligate return to earth as beasts” [5]. So, if you’re keeping count, three differences between Manichaeism and the Baha’i Faith have been jotted down so far.
Of course, there are some similarities. In the
Shaburagan, a work by Mani, we read: “Apostles of God have constantly brought wisdom and deeds in successive times. In one era they were brought by the apostle al-Bud to the land of India, in another (era) by Zardasht to Persia, and in another (era) by Jesus to the West. Now this revelation has descended and this prophecy is promulgated during this final era by me, Mani, the apostle of the God of truth to Babylonia”. I'm unsure whether or not Mani considered himself to be the last prophet, but some scholars note he did. If so, this also contradicts Baha'i Writings.
And why Lao Tzu or Rumi? Because he just said what Buddha, Zoroaster, and Christ said - over again. He brought nothing new (he literally just re-said everything)
No, he didn’t literally resay everything. See the above for three examples.
Do you think Mother Teresa is Jesus? Christ? No... she is just a saint (in my opinion - or maybe you think she is just a great lady) and I believe YES she did perform miracles... but then again I've made miracles happen myself. Yes!!! I have healed myself and others using the power of God the Lord Christ - I have - or the Lord has - but then again I am not Christ. I am not the Manifestation of God. I am not the Son of God - I am the son of Adam his creation. That is the difference between Bahá'u'lláh and Mani. Mani could have been a saint, he could have been a seer, only God knows... BUT everyone knows he is not Christ. Why? Because Gods religion never fails!
Hmm . . . I’m more interested in what the religious community of Mani as a whole contributed to the world in comparison with the religious community of Christianity as a whole. For example, David Bentley Hart notes in Christianity there’s a long tradition of monastic hospitals that helped those in desperate need [6]. This tradition “had no real precedent in pagan society (unless one counts, say, the
valetudinaria used by the military to restore soldiers to fighting form)”. This quote from his work is worth a read:
“There was, after all, a long tradition of Christian monastic hospitals for the destitute and dying going back to the days of Constantine and stretching from the Syrian and Byzantine East to the Western fringes of Christendom, a tradition that had no real precedent in pagan society (unless one counts, say the valetudinaria used by the military to restore soldiers to fighting form). St. Ephraim the Syrian (A.D.C. 306-373), when the city of Edessa was ravaged by plague, established hospitals open to all who were afflicted. St. Basil the Great (A.D.C 329-379) founded a hospital in Cappadocia with a ward set aside for the care of lepers, whom he did not distain to nurse with his own hands. St. Benedict of Nursia (A.D.C. 480-537) opened a free infirmary at Monte Cassino and made care of the sick a paramount duty of his monks. In Rome, the Christian noblewoman and scholar St. Fabiola (d. A.D.C. 399) established the first public hospital in Western Europe and — despite her wealth and position — often ventured out into the streets personally to seek out those who needed care. St. John Chrysostom (A.D. 347-407), while patriarch of Constantinople, used his influence to fund several such institutions in the city; and in the diakoniai of Constantinople, for centuries, many rich members of the laity labored to care for the poor and ill, bathing the sick, ministering to their needs, assisting them with alms. During the Middle Ages, the Benedictines alone were responsible for more than two thousand hospitals in Western Europe. The twelfth century was particularly remarkable in this regard, especially wherever the Knights of St. John — the Hospitallers — were active. At Montpellier in 1145, for example, the great Hospital of the Holy Spirit was founded, soon becoming a center of medical training and, in 1221, of Montpellier’s faculty of medicine. And, in addition to medical care, these hospitals provided food for the hungry, cared for widows and orphans, and distributed alms to all who came in need”.
From the above quote, we see consistency in this practice over time. Charity was a religious obligation that even the emperor Julian couldn’t help but notice as Christianity increased in popularity. As noted above, when plagues hit, many Christian leaders opened hospitals; wealthy Christians opened hospitals and eagerly sought those in need; others made caring for the sick highest priority for monks. Most importantly, Christianity redefined what it meant to be a person in the ancient world they inhabited. One was recognized as fully human regardless of class, race, or sex.
I'm still searching for what Mani's religious community contributed to the world. A negative example about a possible influence on Augustine was noted, but I'm looking for positive examples. Do you know of any? I'm interested in the observable effects a religion produces. Hmm . . .
Works Cited
[1] Werner Sundermann, “CHRISTIANITY v. Christ in Manicheism,” in
Encyclopædia Iranica, vol. V, fasc. 5, Costa Mesa, 1991, pp. 335-39; available online at
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/christianity-v.
[2] Johannes van Oort, “Was Julian Right? A Re-evaluation of Augustine’s and Mani’s Doctrines of Sexual Concupiscence and the Transmission of Sin”,
https://www.academia.edu/30173327/W...ual_Concupiscence_and_the_Transmission_of_Sin
[3] Cologne Mani Codex
[4] Calder, Todd, "The Concept of Evil",
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/concept-evil/.
[5] Buck, Christopher,
Paradise and Paradigm: Key Symbols in Persian Christianity and the Baha’i Faith
[6] Hart, David Bentley,
Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies, Yale University Press, Kindle Edition.
