Baha'i groups discuss the Covenant of Baha'u'llah

[Trailblazer]

A proof from evidence: this is evidence that this and that is impossible except if so and so is sent by God.

Are you referring to miracles?

 

[Link]

Are you referring to miracles?

Those count. But not necessarily physical miracles.

 

[Trailblazer]

Those count. But not necessarily physical miracles.

Then what kind of miracles?

 

[Link]

Then what kind of miracles?

For example, Quran has cumulative case of linguistic features that humans have never done, still can't do, and is obviously beyond their capability. I've read Bahai Writings, it claims that they are similarly signs of God like the Quran. But I've seen humans write better and has no linguistic miracle features and subtle signs like the Quran, that when you begin to witness, you know are from God.

The musical tone of the Quran is also a miracle, in that it's perfect in how it sounds, each precise word perfectly placed, and not only that, unlike songs written by humans, different type of recitations with different tones, speeds, expressions, voices, all sound beautiful in their own way (some do sound better, but they all sound good).

And for example, Quran contains no paragraphs, no formal writing, yet most of it can't be classified in terms of poetry (the small Surahs I understand can be), yet the melodic sound with the meaning with the spiritual experience, they all speak that it's from God.

Logically speaking, God is capable of speaking with calculated speech that sounds the best, has many linguistic subtle placed words and speak in a style far above the capability of humans.

I don't see this is Bahai scriptures, but I witness it in Quran.

Repetition is bad in writing where it's not calculative. Redundancy is not good. Quran is highly repetitive, so if there is any redundant uncalculated no need of repeating thing it says, it will be not from God. But if it's extremely repetitive, but in a way, that is not redundant nor bores humans, and in fact, is a way for it interpret itself continuously, and open doors opening other doors it has. This speaks that it's from God. One example I think of is all the verses pertaining to Musa (a) and his words with respect to Haroun (a). The different paraphrases in Surah Taha, Surah Shuara, Surah Qasas interpret itself in a way there is no room for misinterpretation. But not only that, each way it's phrased is perfect to the Surah. Not only that, but similar words expressed of Mohammad (s) compliment it.

This feature of calculated repeating, I've not witnessed from normal humans. Never redundant, perfectly place, interpreting, and expanding. And when you doubt hell and need proof for it, the Quranic way it expands on arguments for it with the Surah it's in. All this, is a proof, it's not from a fabricator.

 

[Trailblazer]

I don't see this is Bahai scriptures, but I witness it in Quran.

Since that is in the Qur'an, why would it be repeated in the Baha'i scriptures?
Why does it have to be an either-or? I believe both are from God, just as all Baha'is do.

 

[Link]

Since that is in the Qur'an, why would it be repeated in the Baha'i scriptures?
Why does it have to be an either-or? I believe both are from God, just as all Baha'is do.

The speech of Bahai scriptures is mundane. It doesn't contain any sign it being from God. I would expect God to replace the Quran with something like it or better it terms of evidence, sign, and proof. The Quran itself says he never abrogates or replaces a sign/proof except with like of it or better.

So it can't be a downgrade in terms of evidence and proof. The Quran is highly better, and if I recall correctly Shokh Efendi even said that it's linguistic poetically superior the to the Bahai Scriptures and unique.

 

[Trailblazer]

The speech of Bahai scriptures is mundane. It doesn't contain any sign it being from God. I would expect God to replace the Quran with something like it or better it terms of evidence, sign, and proof. The Quran itself says he never abrogates or replaces a sign/proof except with like of it or better.

So it can't be a downgrade in terms of evidence and proof. The Quran is highly better, and if I recall correctly Shokh Efendi even said that it's linguistic poetically superior the to the Bahai Scriptures and unique.

That is only your subjective personal opinion, what you prefer. I cannot compare the Qur'an to the Baha'i Writings since I have not read the Qur'an, except for some passages that Baha'u'llah quoted, but I have to admit those verses were eloquent.

God did not replace the Qur'an. God does not replace holy books, He only reveals new ones.

“Once in about a thousand years shall this City be renewed and readorned….

That City is none other than the Word of God revealed in every age and dispensation. In the days of Moses it was the Pentateuch; in the days of Jesus, the Gospel; in the days of Muhammad, the Messenger of God, the Qur’án; in this day, the Bayán; and in the Dispensation of Him Whom God will make manifest, His own Book—the Book unto which all the Books of former Dispensations must needs be referred, the Book that standeth amongst them all transcendent and supreme.”

Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 269-270

 

[Link]

I suggest you study Quran and compare them.

 

[Trailblazer]

I suggest you study Quran and compare them.

I will, as soon as I have time! I think my late husband had a copy and it is in the bookshelf somewhere.

 

[Link]

I will, as soon as I have time! I think my late husband had a copy and it is in the bookshelf somewhere.

Can you read Arabic?

 

[Trailblazer]

Can you read Arabic?

No, but I wish I could.

 

[trident765]

Can you explain exactly what you mean by the Institute Process and why you think that the Institute Process destroys Baha'i communities?
...
I am an older Baha'i and I never took part in Ruhi, if that is what you mean by the Institute Process, but that is not a reason to not take part in other Baha'i activities such as Feasts.
...

Ruhi is a comparatively small problem. It is the meta-Ruhi that is the bigger problem, and it is the meta-Ruhi that is meant by "Institute Process". The Institute Process is the pseudoscience the UHJ created as a pointless abstraction of the Ruhi books, and now nearly any Baha'i gathering you attend is filled with talk of this pseudoscience. Hours of talk about "clusters", "milestones", "nuclei", "expansion phases", "expanding capacity", and so on, and it's all completely meaningless and pointless. Anyone who is not completely worthless gets tired of hearing this crap over and over again and stops attending Baha'i gatherings. Children especially can't stand it. Really the only people who can tolerate it are those too senile for their minds to process how stupid it is, which is why only elderly people attend Baha'i gatherings these days.

Are you saying that young people who belong to the Baha'i Faith don't attend Baha'i activities because of the Institute Process? How do you know that?

Children drift away from the Baha'i Faith because 1) The gatherings are boring, and 2) The children grow up not fearing God, and 3) They grow up not developing an emotional attachment to the Baha'i Faith. The Institute Process is responsible for all of these. The gatherings are boring because they consist of the Institute Process and the Institute Process is pointless. The children don't fear God because the fear of God and the might of God are deliberately left out of the Children's and Junior Youth books. And the Children's and Junior Youth books do not talk about Mulla Husayn or any of the Baha'i history, or any of the struggles made by the pioneers of the Baha'i Faith, the victories or tragedies of the Baha'i Faith, so the children grow up never forming an emotional attachment to their religion.

What if the Baha'i Faith was not doing the Institute Process, then would you have no objections to what they are doing?

I can't say this. The Institute Process is a bad thing the Baha'i administration is doing. But there are an unlimited number of other bad things the Baha'i administration could be doing in the absence of the Institute Process.

 

[bahamut19]

I can't say this. The Institute Process is a bad thing the Baha'i administration is doing. But there are an unlimited number of other bad things the Baha'i administration could be doing in the absence of the Institute Process.

The institute process is a great example. With the process and the Ruhi coursework and implementation, there are no qualitative or quantitative metrics or information to understand what success is. There is no information revealed about them other than during a Ridvan message listing the total programs of growth, social action initiative, etc. Without any way to measure success or information about specific assemblies or clusters, there is no way to adapt, learn from others, or see if there needs to be a pivot or reset. With the idea that all of this comes from an infallible body, that is an organization which will not error, then there will never be any pressure or need to consider what success is or processes of improvement.

If the organization was considered able to make errors, especially in aspects where Baha'u'llah does not outline the function of the houses of justice such as administration, then there could be processes in place to improve and change especially at the local level.

Also, in regards to the Ridvan 2021 message for the 5 year plan, the UHJ is hoping for a 12.7% annualized (compounding) growth in core activities and the number of clusters having intensive programs of growth year over year in order to achieve their stated goals. This is the only thing which can be measurable. If they do not have this large growth each year, what will happen? Will Baha'is pretend it never happened and blindly say "Covenant Covenant!" or will they question why this 5 year plan did not reach the stated goals and that maybe, just maybe, there should be a paradigm shift?

Once, on the reddit r/bahai forum, someone mentioned a community in Uganda where 95% of the population were Baha'i. I asked which community. The moderators deleted my question and from thereafter, any comment I made needed moderator approval. All I seriously asked was where in Uganda is 95% Baha'i? I seriously would have wanted to take a trip and see how this happened and what good things I could learn from it. Yet, I will never have this opportunity because there mere act of questioning was forbidden, even about something so simple as a feel-good story.

When a whole month in the Baha'i calendar is called Questions, it makes you wonder just how far the Baha'i community would go to protect this idea of infallibility. So far we can see certain passages of Baha'u'llah have been purposefully mistranslated to change its meaning favorable to the Covenant idea, certain passages only translated outside of context so they can be made to seem they are about a meaning favorable to the Covenant, excommunication of people who question or challenge these ideas, and the filtering of any content where they are able to regarding said Covenant and directives of the UHJ. It is a lot of deception, which is a shame. Abdul-Baha and Shoghi Effendi sometimes had great ideas, and Abdul-Baha seemed like a charismatic and likeable person. Them as religious figures, though, that's too high of a station for them. They should be viewed solely as administrators and nothing more.

 

[CG Didymus]

Once, on the reddit r/bahai forum, someone mentioned a community in Uganda where 95% of the population were Baha'i. I asked which community. The moderators deleted my question and from thereafter, any comment I made needed moderator approval. All I seriously asked was where in Uganda is 95% Baha'i? I seriously would have wanted to take a trip and see how this happened and what good things I could learn from it. Yet, I will never have this opportunity because there mere act of questioning was forbidden, even about something so simple as a feel-good story.

50 years ago, I was told that whole villages had become Baha'i. I'd be interested in hearing how any village with 25% or more Baha'is is doing.

 

[Truthseeker]

The institute process is a great example. With the process and the Ruhi coursework and implementation, there are no qualitative or quantitative metrics or information to understand what success is. There is no information revealed about them other than during a Ridvan message listing the total programs of growth, social action initiative, etc. Without any way to measure success or information about specific assemblies or clusters, there is no way to adapt, learn from others, or see if there needs to be a pivot or reset. With the idea that all of this comes from an infallible body, that is an organization which will not error, then there will never be any pressure or need to consider what success is or processes of improvement.

On a local level there are reflection meetings within a cluster, where they discuss all of the above in their cluster. There is feedback to National Assemblies as to what is going on. The same is true of the UHJ. This idea of putting pressure on these higher bodies, or more specifically to not obey with limits is contrary to our Administrative Order. The reasoning is that we should obey their directives, though with modifications to our local area that adapts to our area, because if we do that, if what they propose doesn't work, they will know they made a mistake. If we just go our way and not pay any attention to what they are saying, and things go South, they have no idea if what they directed us to do works or not. I don't know that the UHJ is infallible on how they outline generally how we go about our activities. It is explicit that they are infallible about laws and such that are not covered in the Aqdas.

Abdu'l-Baha said in His Will and Testament that the UHJ is “freed from all error”, but does this cover their plans? I don't know. Keep in mind also that Abdu'l-Baha is interpreting this statement by Baha'u'llah:


It is incumbent upon the Trustees of the House of Justice to take counsel together regarding those things which have not outwardly been revealed in the Book, and to enforce that which is agreeable to them. God will verily inspire them with whatsoever He willeth, and He, verily, is the Provider, the Omniscient.
(Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 68)

I provided a refutation to @trident765's assertion that Baha'u'llah didn't ordain the UHJ that in the end he didn't answer.

If the organization was considered able to make errors, especially in aspects where Baha'u'llah does not outline the function of the houses of justice such as administration, then there could be processes in place to improve and change especially at the local level.

Also, in regards to the Ridvan 2021 message for the 5 year plan, the UHJ is hoping for a 12.7% annualized (compounding) growth in core activities and the number of clusters having intensive programs of growth year over year in order to achieve their stated goals. This is the only thing which can be measurable. If they do not have this large growth each year, what will happen? Will Baha'is pretend it never happened and blindly say "Covenant Covenant!" or will they question why this 5 year plan did not reach the stated goals and that maybe, just maybe, there should be a paradigm shift?

There was a 1 year plan in 2021, and a nine year plan in 2022, so there is some kind of error concerning that. I also see nothing about a 12.7% growth in 2021 or 2022 Ridvan messages. You seem to have some erroneous information on all that. It doesn't matter, though. Whatever goal is not reached, if it isn't, the UHJ itself will make adjustments to the plan. I met the UHJ myself and detected the highest integrity from them. They are also elected for qualities of character.

Once, on the reddit r/bahai forum, someone mentioned a community in Uganda where 95% of the population were Baha'i. I asked which community. The moderators deleted my question and from thereafter, any comment I made needed moderator approval. All I seriously asked was where in Uganda is 95% Baha'i? I seriously would have wanted to take a trip and see how this happened and what good things I could learn from it. Yet, I will never have this opportunity because there mere act of questioning was forbidden, even about something so simple as a feel-good story.

That is just a forum moderated by some people, and I've had a problem or two from them myself, along a similar line. That has nothing to do with Baha'i Administration.

So far we can see certain passages of Baha'u'llah have been purposefully mistranslated to change its meaning favorable to the Covenant idea, certain passages only translated outside of context so they can be made to seem they are about a meaning favorable to the Covenant, excommunication of people who question or challenge these ideas, and the filtering of any content where they are able to regarding said Covenant and directives of the UHJ.

Aside from the accusation of purposeful mistranslation which I deem to be entirely false, the UHJ does not make anyone a Covenant-breaker to be shunned on people who question their ideas. They only do that for people in organizations that challenged at some point in the Covenant being passed to Abdu'l-Baha and set up an alternative organization in response, and the same in regards to Shoghi Effendi or the UHJ.

 

[bahamut19]

There was a 1 year plan in 2021, and a nine year plan in 2022, so there is some kind of error concerning that. I also see nothing about a 12.7% growth in 2021 or 2022 Ridvan messages. You seem to have some erroneous information on all that. It doesn't matter, though. Whatever goal is not reached, if it isn't, the UHJ itself will make adjustments to the plan. I met the UHJ myself and detected the highest integrity from them. They are also elected for qualities of character.

I apologize for the wrong information. It was the 9 year plan from 2022. On page 21, it describes some numbers. There were 4,000 intensive programs of growth. There are 2 higher levels described, where 1,000 clusters surpassed the third milestone, and 30 clusters have over 1,000 core activities. One unspecified cluster has over 20,000 participants.

On page 95, by the time of Ridvan 2031, they hope there are 22,000 total clusters. They want 14,000 clusters having intensive programs of growth. This would be an increase of 10,000 in 9 years, from 4,000. They want clusters which surpass the 3rd milestone to increase to 5,000. This is an increase of 4,000 in 9 years from 1,000. They did not describe goals for the largest milestone of over 1,000 core activities.

Based on these numbers, what annualized growth rate is expected to achieve these goals? On the worksheet I created, I came to 12.7% per year growth. As of 2023, the world's population is growing by 0.84%. This is significant growth and by my estimations, at 12.7% growth per year, the entire world will be participating in Baha'i core activities in 72 years, or the year 2095. This would be 251 years after the Bab made his declaration and 203 years after Baha'u'llah passed away.

Let me know your calculations. Are you seeing 12.7% growth in your cluster or community?

 

[CG Didymus]

Those count. But not necessarily physical miracles.

The Bible and the NT are filled with miracles. They do become a big part of what makes the religion true and from God. Baha'is do have an important point about "miracles"... they only are convincing to the people that witnessed them. But that's not exactly true, because we are then expected to trust their testimony that those things actually happened.

And people in a religion, like Christianity, do come to believe that the stories in the Bible and NT are true. I question them. Like a typical one is Jonah being swallowed by a big fish. Or that Moses parted the seas. Or may favorite, Moses' staff turned into a snake.

Great stories. Great miracles. But did they really happen? What's strange for me is that Baha'is downplay the miracles in the Bible and deny that one of the greatest miracles, the resurrection of Jesus, really happened.

But to get back on track with the thread.... The succession of leadership in the Baha'i Faith goes all the way back to you and your religion. Was the Bab the "Promised One", "the Madhi" or whatever he was claiming to be? Then... was there supposed to be two "Promised Ones", the Bab and Baha'u'llah? Then within the Baha'i Faith itself, that's for them to decide, whether Abdul Baha' and Shoghi Effendi and the UHJ are the legitimate ones that were to succeed Baha'u'llah.

 

[Truthseeker]

Let me know your calculations. Are you seeing 12.7% growth in your cluster or community?

In my particular cluster in Montgomery County, Ohio the situation has been stagnant for a good while. It is one of the more stagnant clusters. It is very hard, it seems, in this area to include friends of the Faith in our core activities. Nationwide in the US it was reported that 64% of the children in children classes are not Baha'is, for Junior Youth the figure is 72% of junior youth in junior youth classes are not Baha'is. As to those two activities at one time there was good participation by a children class in Dayton by children who were not Baha'is, but today I am not aware of any childrens classes at all in this county because the Baha'i center in Dayton had to close where these classes took place, nor junior youth classes right now. There is a shortage of Baha'i youth and children here, and that may the case nationwide. Nationwide 28% of participants are friends of the faith in devotionals and study classes, and certainly there is good activity on that front, but not very many friends of the Faith involved in those right now. In the US the number of participants in children's classes increased from 5,028 to 5,090. The number of participants in junior youth classes shrunk from 4,087 to 3,724. The number of people in study classes shrunk from 13,111 to 11,390. The number of participants in devotionals went from 56, 309 to 52,915. The number of core activities are much the same. However, this applies to the US only. I don't know what the situation may be in other countries around the world.

 

[Truthseeker]

Let me know your calculations. Are you seeing 12.7% growth in your cluster or community?

I want to add one more thing. The US community was stagnant in the number of Baha'is in the US before the institute process went into place. So in my estimation the institute process has neither increased or decreased the growth of the number of Baha'is in the US.

 

[bahamut19]

In my particular cluster in Montgomery County, Ohio the situation has been stagnant for a good while. It is one of the more stagnant clusters. It is very hard, it seems, in this area to include friends of the Faith in our core activities. Nationwide in the US it was reported that 64% of the children in children classes are not Baha'is, for Junior Youth the figure is 72% of junior youth in junior youth classes are not Baha'is. As to those two activities at one time there was good participation by a children class in Dayton by children who were not Baha'is, but today I am not aware of any childrens classes at all in this county because the Baha'i center in Dayton had to close where these classes took place, nor junior youth classes right now. There is a shortage of Baha'i youth and children here, and that may the case nationwide. Nationwide 28% of participants are friends of the faith in devotionals and study classes, and certainly there is good activity on that front, but not very many friends of the Faith involved in those right now. In the US the number of participants in children's classes increased from 5,028 to 5,090. The number of participants in junior youth classes shrunk from 4,087 to 3,724. The number of people in study classes shrunk from 13,111 to 11,390. The number of participants in devotionals went from 56, 309 to 52,915. The number of core activities are much the same. However, this applies to the US only. I don't know what the situation may be in other countries around the world.

Are these numbers year over year?