What Is The Bahai Religion?

[sigurdV]

I noticed there is one Bahai follower who prints in hypography...

 

I think there should be a safe place for him to answer questions.

 

So I ask: What is the Bahai Religion and how does it differ from other religions?

[Guest MacPhee]

I noticed there is one Bahai follower who prints in hypography...

 

I think there should be a safe place for him to answer questions.

 

So I ask: What is the Bahai Religion and how does it differ from other religions?

 

A Wiki search shows that Bahai is not very original or interesting. It sounds like a politically-correct mix of Marxism-Leninism, Catholicism, Buddhism, with a dash of Environmentalism and Zen. We have enough religions to cope with already. Do we really need another one.

[jeremyb]

We have enough religions to cope with already. Do we really need another one.

 

That really is not the correct way of looking at the situation.

 

With that analogy one could say, all that is needed is just one religion. Religious Freedom should be granted to all, including those of use who choose to have no religion.

[Guest MacPhee]

That really is not the correct way of looking at the situation.

 

With that analogy one could say, all that is needed is just one religion. Religious Freedom should be granted to all, including those of use who choose to have no religion.

 

Thanks Jeremyb. You say "Religious Freedom should be granted to all". Surely that depends on the religion. What if a religion required its followers to go around killing everyone who didn't believe in it. Don't you think such a religion should be expunged as a social menace?

 

Anyway, this is straying from the point. The OP was about the "Bahai Religion". This religion looks to me fairly harmless. Not a social menace. No killing. More like a boring load of tosh. But that's just my personal opinion. Perhaps the "Bahai follower", who apparently is on these boards, can correct my opinion by supplying more information about the religion's merits.

 

I look forward to receiving enlightenment, peace be with all posters.

[jeremyb]

Thanks Jeremyb. You say "Religious Freedom should be granted to all". Surely that depends on the religion. What if a religion required its followers to go around killing everyone who didn't believe in it. Don't you think such a religion should be expunged as a social menace?

 

Anyway, this is straying from the point. The OP was about the "Bahai Religion". This religion looks to me fairly harmless. Not a social menace. No killing. More like a boring load of tosh. But that's just my personal opinion. Perhaps the "Bahai follower", who apparently is on these boards, can correct my opinion by supplying more information about the religion's merits.

 

I look forward to receiving enlightenment, peace be with all posters.

 

 

who are you to judge on what religions are boring loads of tosh and what religions are not? are you above everyone else? you talk like a landover baptist.

 

Of course those religions that seek destruction and mass murder should be held in check, but that is not what we are talking about here is it.

 

Statements like these are ignorant:

 

We have enough religions to cope with already. Do we really need another one.

More like a boring load of tosh.

 

edit: i did some digging on your previous posts to try and get a sense of what I was dealing with:

 

The woman is biologically programmed to give birth to children. Then look after them, while they're growing up. So her thoughts must rightly be focussed on this essential task.

 

She ought not to be diverted from it, by outward distractions. Like wondering what the stars are. Such ruminations are a male preserve. Which explains why Science is dominated by men. They have the spare time to think about such esoteric things. They don't have to breast-feed the kids.

 

This must, essentially, be true. Otherwise, how do you explain why there are so few successful women scientists. Why don't women win as many Nobel Prizes, as men?

 

 

 

 

You really do sound like a landover baptist.

Edited March 16, 2012 by jeremyb

[Guest MacPhee]

Thanks Jeremyb for your reply.

 

The term "landover bapist" was new to me - I've now Wiki'd it, but found it slightly confusing.

 

As regards the Bahai religion, perhaps my use of "tosh" was injudicious. However, everyone has a right to their own opinion, as you'll doubtless agree.

 

You quote an extract from an earlier post of mine, on the role of women in science. This doesn't seem particularly relevant to the topic being discussed here, but I believe that what I said was true. Though we musn't say such things nowadays.

 

It might be best, for me to respectfully withdraw from this discussion, as the chill wind of suspension is starting to blow from the horizon!

 

Best regards.

[CraigD]

The term "landover bapist" was new to me - I've now Wiki'd it, but found it slightly confusing.

The Landover Baptist church is intended to be confusing.

 

It’s a satire of an ultra-fundamentalist Christian church done in such a straight-faced manner that some naive religious extremist wants to join its fictitious congregation, and some naive opponents of religious extremism want to protest its fictitious existence.

 

My favorite example of this humor is the suggestion that these commandments, from Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (KJV),

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:

 

Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;

 

And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

 

And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

be taken literally, and rebellious children be stoned to death. :eek:

 

As regards the Bahai religion, perhaps my use of "tosh" was injudicious. However, everyone has a right to their own opinion, as you'll doubtless agree.

Scientifically, the sacred writings all of the major world religions, and most of the minor ones I’ve seen, contain, when they venture into making statements of an objective, factual nature, tosh. It seems to me nearly certain this is because these writings are either very old, from a period where scientific knowledge was either slight or arguably non-existent, or written more recently by fabulists (eg: Mormonism’s 19th century Joseph Smith, Scientology’s 20th century professional science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard).

 

On the other hand, the scripture and traditions of most religions all, in my experience, contain sound and useful moral philosophy, codifying such common-sense ideas as the Golden Rule. In this domain, they’re not tosh.

 

Steven Gould explained this “tosh/non tosh duality” well, I think, in his advocacy of a view he termed NOMA, which hold, paraphrasing, that science should stick to where it’s good and useful, and religion where it’s good and useful, and, more importantly, that neither of these “teaching domains”, or magisteria, are empty. According to NOMA, trouble ensues when one applies a scientific concept and approach to a social/moral problem, such as evolutionary biology to people with heritable diseases having children, or a religious idea to a question of objective fact, such as the geological history of the Earth, or the value of [imath]\pi[/imath].

 

Back to this thread’s topic, Bahaism. While, as an atheist, I’m not a religionist of this or any other religion, I’ve been acquainted with Baha’ism for about 30 years. My first brush with it was when a religionist friend with whom I’d had lengthy and deep discussions of many things told me she believed I was, effectively, Baha’I, which immediately piqued my interests in it.

 

Over the years, I’ve reflected on and distilled a personal idea of the essence of Baha’ism consisting of 3 key features

• “Interfaith-ness” – that all religious thought are attempts to express and codify common truths, principles, and needs.
  
• Reason – that ones moral and ontological beliefs should be obtains through thinking, not the acceptance of authoritative dogma
  
• “Anti-proselytizing-ness” – that people should not be aggressively persuaded to accept a given religion, but gently exposed to many religious idea, enticed to think about them, and form their own beliefs. Baha’is (at least the self-described ones I’ve talked to at much length) believe that this processes will, eventually, lead to everyone being Baha’i.
  

Frankly, I’m charmed by a religion claimed by religionists with the quiet audacity to insist that I, a devout atheist, knowingly or not, am a member of it.

 

Baha’is have, IMHO, many of the faults typical of religionists – stepping over the NOMA boundaries to make concrete conclusion such as that the universe was created by an omniscient, omnipresent God, and that divine prophets are appointed/created by this God about every thousand years. But, in my experience, they’re gentle in their beliefs, remaining mindful of their fallibility, and of the possibility that their beliefs are mistaken.

 

I like the religion. :)

[mugwande]

Thanks for the explanation for Bhahai, you real sound like one of then but like the topic was, think the questionare needs someone who will explain the real meaning of bhahai and the different between it as the other religions. am curiously following this topic

[Guest MacPhee]

Thanks for the explanation for Bhahai, you real sound like one of then but like the topic was, think the questionare needs someone who will explain the real meaning of bhahai and the different between it as the other religions. am curiously following this topic

 

I think CraigD's post #7 analysed and summed up the subject sufficently.

[chilehed]

...Frankly, I’m charmed by a religion claimed by religionists with the quiet audacity to insist that I, a devout atheist, knowingly or not, am a member of it...

This sounds rather similar to a narrow point of Catholicism, which holds this as a possibility.

 

I've known a couple of Ba'hais, and, based on my conversation's with them, CraigD's summary is pretty good.

Edited October 21, 2012 by chilehed

[Guest MacPhee]

Perhaps posts which advocate a particular religion, should be obliged to add a rider:

 

"Other Gods are available"

[chilehed]

Perhaps posts which advocate a particular religion, should be obliged to add a rider:

 

"Other Gods are available"

Only if it were truly a belief of that religion, yes? That's not the case for Catholicism, nor, I believe, for Ba'hai.

[sigurdV]

About bahai: They have no priests and they have a democratic internal organisation. They come from Iran and they are persecuted there.