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Homosexuality and religious.

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
TBF, the texts only say to purge the world of the evil passion of homosexuality. If all homosexuals stop being homosexual, no purge is necessary.
And everything, except sex with the person of the opposite gender that a person is married to. is evil. Can't touch yourself. Can't touch someone else. Can't think about. Just pure, Godly thoughts are allowed. God has already tried to kill adulterers and homosexuals, and it didn't work. So, what's God's big plan to "purge" the world of these "evil" passions? If they are Baha'is, God plans to fine them or take their voting rights away? I wonder how successful that's going to be? But why are Baha'is committing these things?
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Actually, it would be much easier on Bahais(and other religions) if their writings were not believed to be inerrant. Then they could pick the parts that they believed in.
But the writings, they believe, came from God. They can't be in error. Except the old stuff that God said was without error in the past religions. Those things are now in error.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Everyone is welcome to be part of the Baha'i community whatever their sexual orientation. You don't even need ro be a Baha'i.

If someone wants to become an enrolled member of the Baha'i Faith there are qualifications to become a member and expectations.

If you are a gay couple and want to be part of the Baha'i community, that is great. However if you want to become a Baha'i and enrolled member of the faith community, there will be barriers.

Understandably those who identify as gay want to be in an openly gay relationship AND be an enrolled member of the Baha'i community with full administrative rights. When obstacles arise they become hurt. They complain their rights are being violated and accuse the Baha'is of being unloving.
What is a couple to do then? Not join?
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
I'm still behind. But I went even further back to finally watch this video. UHJ should tell Baha'is to stop telling gays that they are welcome and totally accepted in the Baha'i Faith. I hope some Baha'i watch the videos. But I know they'll have to support the UHJ's and the NSA's decisions. Which means they can't think for themselves when it comes to something that the Baha'i Faith teaches. They have obligated themselves to believe it and follow it.
Indeed they have. I find it more interesting from a psychological perspective than anything else. Personally, I couldn't live with such blaring contradictions, but I suppose I could if I didn't see them. In almost all Hindu schools, the teaching is to lean on your own spine, and figure stuff out for yourself. One of my favorite 'back at you' questions from Hindu teachers is 'Why are you asking me?" It puts the onus on the individual.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
In this day, when information is freely available, I find it bizarre that someone who is openly gay and in a committed gay relationship would join a religion that has laws that prohibit homosexual behavior and complain about the terms and conditions their faith requires. Its like going to medical school, rejecting Western medicine and insisting on the right to be a practitioner of alternative medicine instead.
We can read their stories and watch their videos and find out why they joined. But now that they have joined, what is the proper and just thing to do with them? Get them to stop practicing homosexual behaviors? The Baha'is has got to be "yes". If they don't get married to someone of the opposite gender, then they are to be celibate and not even have sex with themselves? I think that is probably a "yes" also. Then what is they are married to their partner? The Baha'is expect them to get a divorce? Another "yes"?

Then I totally agree with you, why did they join? Unless they didn't know?
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
We can read their stories and watch their videos and find out why they joined. But now that they have joined, what is the proper and just thing to do with them? Get them to stop practicing homosexual behaviors? The Baha'is has got to be "yes". If they don't get married to someone of the opposite gender, then they are to be celibate and not even have sex with themselves? I think that is probably a "yes" also. Then what is they are married to their partner? The Baha'is expect them to get a divorce? Another "yes"?

Then I totally agree with you, why did they join? Unless they didn't know?
I find it equally as bizarre why someone who espouses equality and justice for all could possibly remain in a faith that doesn't do that. Unless of course denial works for you.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Another delicious irony is that Bahullah said that people should leave a religion that causes enmity or discord
Also
"But the religion which does not walk hand in hand with science is itself in the darkness of superstition and ignorance". (Abdul Baha). You couldn't make it up!
Ah, but I know the loophole... What Baha'u'llah is true. The science of today that doesn't agree with the Baha'i religion is wrong and those scientists are ignorant of the truth. Someday, true science will acknowledge and confirm the truth of the Baha'i Faith. But, right now, the science we do have is good enough to point out the ignorance and superstitious beliefs of all the other religions.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
If an organisation refuses to admit people because they are gay, they are breaking discrimination law.
So, they have to, by law, let them in? Then sanction them and make their lives so miserable that they quit? Okay, yeah, I can see that.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
His teachings have established a world community working unitedly for the betterment of the world. Previously opposed races, religions and nationalities all as one. I don’t see that elsewhere in the world where we see white vs black, Christian vs Muslim and nations going to war with each other. (Myanmar, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Russia, China, USA, Taiwan, Israel and Palestinians)
Yes, the unity under the Baha'i religion does work. But they are no longer practicing their old religions. What would the Baha'i Faith do with a Christian or Muslim that kept proclaiming fundamentalist beliefs about those religions? Or a white and black that kept proclaiming white power and black power?

The "unity" that the Baha'i Faith teaches that only people of the opposite gender can get married and have sex. So, if a homosexual wants to become united, completely, into the Baha'i community, they are expected to no longer participate in homosexual activities. For Baha'is to be fully unified, all of them has to follow all the Baha'i rules. If they did it would be a perfect Baha'i world. But people don't fully follow. Some still carry some prejudices and don't always show love and respect for others. Then there is the administration. I think they are too authoritative. But to be "unified", Baha'is have to obey them. Maybe it's better than other religions in a lot of things, but it's not perfect, because people, even Baha'i people, aren't perfect. But you know that.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
No matter what science discovers my attitude is always that they are equal fellow human beings. One of the main reasons I became a Baha’i was that I believed all humanity are one family and need to accept each other regardless of race, religion, nationality or lifestyle differences. I will always believe in the goodness of people.
Didn't you say you were taught about the Baha'i Faith by gay Baha'is? And, if so, how did they tell you about the Baha'i laws concerning homosexuality?
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Not at all. I treat homosexuals as equals. Nothing for me to condemn. God’s laws are are for His followers only.
But the Baha'i Faith would "condemn" them if they were having sex with each other and were members of the Baha'i Faith. Wouldn't you at least mention it to them and say, "You know the writings say that what you're about to do is wrong and forbidden."
 

loverofhumanity

We are all the leaves of one tree
Premium Member
Yes, we have that capacity. If we did not have that capacity we could not be held accountable to God.

“I have perfected in every one of you My creation, so that the excellence of My handiwork may be fully revealed unto men. It follows, therefore, that every man hath been, and will continue to be, able of himself to appreciate the Beauty of God, the Glorified. Had he not been endowed with such a capacity, how could he be called to account for his failure?”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 143

“He hath endowed every soul with the capacity to recognize the signs of God. How could He, otherwise, have fulfilled His testimony unto men, if ye be of them that ponder His Cause in their hearts. He will never deal unjustly with any one, neither will He task a soul beyond its power. He, verily, is the Compassionate, the All-Merciful.”
Gleanings, pp. 105-106

Thanks very much for these quotes. I found the first one but couldn’t find the other one. I think it’s like a 6th sense that humans have to be able to recognise the Prophets of God.
 

loverofhumanity

We are all the leaves of one tree
Premium Member
But the Baha'i Faith would "condemn" them if they were having sex with each other and were members of the Baha'i Faith. Wouldn't you at least mention it to them and say, "You know the writings say that what you're about to do is wrong and forbidden."

No one forces anyone to join our religion. If people don’t like it’s laws then don’t join. Simple as that. Why join a religion you are against. It’s common sense not to join.
 

loverofhumanity

We are all the leaves of one tree
Premium Member
Firstly Jesus isn't known to exist, and certainly didn't start Christianity. It was followers of stories about a character named Jesus who did, and they are mostly unknown. And Moses is considered a fictional character, yet the Hebrews existed well before that person was to have existed. Both Siddartha and Baha'u'llah were flawed people who had some level of wisdom. You treat Baha'u'llah as God, and that is your error. Maybe it's an error you adopted with the beliefs, I'm not sure. But you keep referring to God as an absolute truth when there is at least reasonable doubt that Baha'u'llah was a genuine prophet. Critical thinkers have serious doubts about any goids existing and we often admit that our level of evidence is for an actual God to appear and demonstrate itself.

So no wonder religious leaders have caused strife, there is no actual God keeping any of them in line. Good leaders will act in good faith, and bad will cause harm, because that is how power corrupts the human mind. I observe the Bahai on the forum as basically good people but have become more and more insistance and assertive that their beliefs and dogma is true. I see some signs of humility, but not where it counts. I actually had a pretty good opinion of Bahai until recently. This often happens as believers engage in debate and then find themselves defending the darker sides of their dogma. It brings out the darker side of the believer, and the believer doesn't see it. This is why I get concerned about any dogma that can't survive tests in reality.


Sure, you have decided that the religion you picked is truth, yet it doesn't survive tests in reality. So seriously, what is deficient in your existence that you believed needed a religion to fill in the emptiness? Could it be self-confidence, pride, ego? This is a pattern common with many theists. They lack meaning in their lives through their own efforts, so attach themselves to an established "truth" that meaning is withdrawn from. It's meaning from association. So it is quite fragile as you do little to accomplish much at all exept obedience. You are likley aware that your morals are compromised because you have aligned yourself to a dogma that is prejudical. So I would not be surprised that this realization has caused a deep level of stress for you, and other Bahai trapped between dogma and a moral sense. I'm sympathetic, but to my mind it is like seeing a person deliberately hit their foot with a hammer. They feel geniune pain, but it is self-caused. My Sympathy is limited.


Yet all this uplifing you feel and not a single word to condemn what Baha'u'llah said about gays, nor acknowledge that this prejudice has caused harm againt innocent people.

How can you feel uplifted in any way knowing your prophet was immoral?

I’ve been in this religion for 45 years and because of it have a happy and stable life. As soon as I discovered Who Baha’u’llah was I embraced His Cause with joy and happiness. Those who are unaware of the Source of this Faith will be unable to appreciate its significance.

Im filled with joy and happiness and indescribable inner peace and contentment each day because of Baha’u’llah. I thank God that I have been made worthy to accept this wonderful Cause while the world is still fast asleep and unaware of its greatness.

This is a blessing that I could never be truly grateful for even if I were to give thanks to God for ‘a thousand ages and centuries’.

I understand you feel strongly about these issues and others but our loyalty is to Baha’u’llah as we believe His Words are from God while people make errors of judgement and seem to be making up what’s right and wrong, good and bad and moral and immoral along the way without having any real idea.

So if you want to believe homosexuality is moral then that’s your business just don’t try and force me to accept your views because I believe what Baha’u’llah said is true and have all my life believed it to be immoral as a catholic and when I was an atheist. But I have homosexual friends and my beliefs don’t cause me to be unkind to them. On the contrary they accept me as their friend and don’t bully me to accept their beliefs unlike people here.

It’s disgraceful that we are being bullied here to turn against our own religion and Prophet because of fanatics who want to force us to accept their views. We don’t come here condemning people for not accepting Baha’u’llah, that is their belief so we respect that.
 

loverofhumanity

We are all the leaves of one tree
Premium Member
So was that a "yes" or "no" to your opinions about god being infallible?

BTW, there is no need to copy paste Bahai scripture as an answer as it is meaningless to people not already convinced by it.
Rational, evidence based arguments are all we need.

The main reason I use the quotes is that they say ‘exactly’ what I want to say. I can try and paraphrase to make it easier.
 
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