I talked with a new Baha'i friend (I've been checking it out pretty heavily now) last night about some of those things ... teaching, they call it. This guy had been around for over 30 years and said that, indeed, a lot of folks had kinda overdone it for awhile on the going into areas and teaching like that. He said things are more balanced now.

Although, I disagree with the prohibitions against pre marital sex and the drinking of alcoholic beverages. I definitely feel that it is legit. The basic beliefs are part of my core. Your search with them is bound to be positive whether you end up agreeing completely with them or not. They are to my experience positive people...pacifists... I don't recall ever feeling any sinister vibes or ulterior motives.
Since I found your message under the celebrity category...Dizzie Gilespie was a Bahai.

hi, This is my first post. For background on me, I confess Christianity as my faith, and my wife and I have recently left a church with aberrant theology and an abusive pastor. Wow, what a way to make a long story short! Anyway, what I know avout the bahai' faith is that it seems to be an amalgamation of other faiths, with a central thread that states that God has used many prophets over the ages to communicate His truths, (truth with a lowercase "t") and they respect Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, etc. and incorporate the more palatable and seemingly benevolent teachings of all major world religions. the difficulty i have with this philosophy is that the totality of their teachings involves contradictions. Buddha was agnostic, Jesus teaches Trinitarianism, Islam is monotheistic also, but not trinitarian----How can they all be from God when they cannot even agree on the nature of God? They can all be wrong, but they can't all be right. Cafeteria plans work great in restaurants and investmant portfolios, but are not valid for one's assurance of one's eternal state. All of the above faiths make strong dogmatic statements that will exclude the others from reasonable tenebility. I say throw it all out and explore them individually, for whatever my opinion's worth.

It's great that you ask these questions and that you are free from an abusive pastor. I think it's possible that all of these traditions have elements of truth. I don't think it's all or nothing. The basic love your neighbor as you love yourself and do unto others as you would have others do unto you are a common thread and are more meaningful than the other doctrenaire teachings that may conflict. It's good, though, to question why do some ideas conflict with each other. I also have trouble viewing Jesus as a ticket to heaven. It's very selfish to love Jesus because he gives you eternal life. That is such a what's in it for me mentality. Why not love Jesus and /or the others because a belief that they speak the truth and can potentially help us lead a beautiful honest life here on earth.
I am not a proponent of any religion...any group.

Those interested in the cult practices of the fundamentalists among my fellow bahais might want to look at some of the links below, especially Prof. Cole's and my website:


START HERE - NEWCOMERS


Newcomers to talk.religion.bahai, alt.religion.bahai, and
Belief.net might want to exercise unusual caution. It wi ll require
more than a passing glance at a few messages to begin
to understand what is taking place here.

I suggest you begin with the links below which provide a
historical survey of the last several years of bahai censorship
and then visit further my website and Professor Cole's.

Cole's articles below provide a comprehensive
view of fundamentalism within the bahai faith today.

Brief Quotations - Professor Juan Cole
[www.fglaysher.com]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Juan R. I. Cole, University of Michigan,
"Fundamentalism in the Contemporary U.S. Baha'i Community,"
Religious Studies Review, Vol. 43, no. 3 (March, 2002):195-217:
[www-personal.umich.edu]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

In his book Modernity and the Millennium, published by Columbia University
Press in 1998, Professor Cole observes the Baha'i administration has
increasingly come under the control of fundamentalists, "stressing
scriptural literalism . . . theocracy, censorship, intellectual intolerance,
and denying key democratic values (196)."

Roll Call of Victims
[www.fglaysher.com]

To the Universal House of Justice - March 31, 1997
[www.fglaysher.com]

The Bahai Technique ---- **Essential Reading** ---- Demonize,
Libel, Slander, Discredit, Smear, Scapegoat, Shun... etc....
[www.fglaysher.com]

--------------------------------------------------------
talk.religion.bahai on the Web:
Free reading and posting, including the largest Usenet archive:
[groups.google.com]

--

Frederick Glaysher
The Bahai Faith & Religious Freedom of Conscience
[www.fglaysher.com]

I've known several people who are Baha'i. I never once was preached too or encouraged to investigate their faith in any pressuring or impolite fashion.

It is the *only* religion whose practitioners have not done that, which I find rather impressive. They all seemed to be very nice, responsible, mature people. Rather conservative, but quite tolerant.

Penny

There was so much violence and oppression against Baha'i in Iran after 1979. This violence was also directed toward Iranians who had converted to Hindu based religions. Their perseverance is amazing.

I've known Baha'i people over the years. I never felt that they were fanatical in any way. None of them ever tried to convert me. In fact, they seemed quite laid back. If there are any cult-like Baha'i groups, I'm sure that they're limited to some overzealous missions here and there.

I certainly don't believe that their "no premarital sex" and "no intoxication" rules indicate a cult. The orthodox form of every religion has these rules, it is only recently that they have been relaxed.

Also, I read from somewhere that Bahai considers Buddhism and Hinduism as bonefide? Is this true, or only within certain circles?

This is my problem with the Baha'i Faith, or any other faith that says we all worship the same god ...

Jesus Christ called himself God (John 8:58)

If Jesus Christ was simply a prophet or a great teacher, why would he make this statement?

And if he was lying, doesn't that contradict everything else he taught? Liers aren't really good people, are they?

Hmmm ..... Seems to me that we all don't worship the same God.
And, as stated before me, we can all be wrong, be we can't all be right. So which is it? It seems to me that every Baha'i person I've met is moral and upstanding. Yet Christ called us ALL to repentance. And the Bible clearly states that for anyone to enter into the kingdom of God, they have to go through Christ.
(John 14:6)

Granted, there are several good things about each religion, many shared and some unique, but when it comes down to who is GOD and what is THE TRUTH, there is very little that all world religions have in common.

plague

One of the key aspects of fanaticism of any kind, is Absolutism. That is, rigid ideas about "absolute truth", and what ALL people must do, etc.

For instance, what if all of these beliefs about God are wrong?
What if Life arose through Evolution by Natural Selection over millions of years, in a Cosmos that is billions of years old, like the scientific evidence says?
What if God is merely a construct and a projection of the human mind, arising out of the loneliness of human Consciousness?

Its when people get set in their mind that what they believe is Absolute Truth, that trouble starts.
Because what then do you do with unbelievers like me?
Stone them?
Silence dissent?

One of the best weapons to combat cults, and fundamentalist religions, is critical, flexible, and exploratory thinking.
But that requires a tolerance for ambiguity, and i understand many people cannot stand that level of uncertainty.

All i have to say is thank goodness for the separation of church and state.
Perhaps new religious institutions can arise that focus on Ethics, Compassion and comparative religion, and not absolutism and a regressive judgemental fundamentalism.

But i doubt it.

Coz

Absolute truth does exist.
I believe it to be one thing.
Someone may believe it to be another.
Again, we can all be wrong.
But if you're living like there is no God, you'd better be right.

I am confident