What humans have done with religions that were revealed by Messengers of God is divisive. They have used these religions to advance their own selfish interests and gain power over others. I can certainly understand why nonbelievers and even some believers are averse to organized religions.
That is absolutely true, the Voice of Baha’u’llah is drowned out by the other Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, who are the majority religions in the world and who have the most power. This will change eventually as the Baha’i Faith grows, but it will take a long time. These other religions are not going to go quietly into the night, they will fight for what they think is their ground; but it is not their ground, it is God’s ground, and God has ordained that eventually there will be one common Faith, so that is what will happen eventually.
“That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith. This can in no wise be achieved except through the power of a skilled, an all-powerful and inspired Physician. This, verily, is the truth, and all else naught but error. Each time that Most Mighty Instrument hath come, and that Light shone forth from the Ancient Dayspring, He was withheld by ignorant physicians who, even as clouds, interposed themselves between Him and the world. It failed, therefore, to recover, and its sickness hath persisted until this day. They indeed were powerless to protect it, or to effect a cure, whilst He Who hath been the Manifestation of Power amongst men was withheld from achieving His purpose, by reason of what the hands of the ignorant physicians have wrought.” The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, pp. 91-92
Baha’u’llah proclaimed that
God is one, religion is one, and humanity is one, but because of the older religious leaders, who Baha’u’llah referred to as “ignorant physicians,” religious people remain divided because they believe their religion is separate from all the other religions, better than all the other religions, the final religion, and “the only way” to God.
Obviously, that one common Faith is not going to be Christianity or Islam because neither of the two religions are going to combine with the other one. I do not know if this common Faith will be the Baha’i Faith, because by the time this happens there might be a new religion that supersedes Baha’i.
I think you did say that. Indeed, it is the Abrahamic faiths that have been problematic. The dharmic faiths such as Hinduism and Buddhism are not seeking power and control. They are peaceful and tolerant.
Basically I believe in God without religion and you believe in God via one united religion, more or less.
if you check my signature you will see exactly how I believe what I believe. IMHO your faith has a hopeless uphill struggle ie in uniting, finding common agreement ,whilst my approach still has an uphill struggle but one that is perhaps less steep. I don't have any followers and don't want not expect any. But anything that destroys even one little part of the power of the Abrahamic religions, allows the true voice of God a little more room in this world of shouting religions...and religions are being challenged more and more.
This is my view (a blog post I wrote a while ago now)
The True Word of God - Freeing Yourself from Religious Guilt, Fear and Suffering
"In order to be free of all the guilt, fear and oppression that religion can cause, it is necessary for you to go travel back with us to the beginning of things, to a time when religion did not exist, a time of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel and Noah and contemplate exactly what God should be; Perfect, All-Seeing, All-Knowing. The answer to your suffering lies in the simplest of times, before religion walked on this earth. "
"So Who is God?
Something must be made clear from the outset. It does not matter who exactly God is, rather it is His nature that is important to understand. Some say that God is either Enki and Enlil or some combination of the two Sumerian Gods, hence Elohim, the plural. It is impossible for us to find the truth; except we do know that The Sumerian story of the Flood is the oldest legend of that event and that Jewish scribes, who carefully wrote the early parts of the Bible, once lived in Sumer. No, it matters not who God is. The point is that God is our Creator and by definition must be Perfection..
There is a God, but He Does Not Operate In This World
Surprisingly the Old Testament Bible is very clear that whilst there is a Creator, scientifically unproven of course in our times, this Creator does not get involved with, nor intervene in this world. In other words, whilst God sees all things God has given us freewill and the responsibility of dealing ourselves with the wickedness that some commit That is not my religious opinion. It is the very Bible that tells this to us, We will show you the logic that has led to the above claim and the way in which we have all been so misled. Basically, Semitic religions have misrepresented the facts to us, and that God has not been with us in this world since Genesis.
Start To Look for God at the Beginning and with the Right Objectives
Starting at the beginning with the right Objective. It is vital to get two things absolutely correct when you are setting out to find or discover something, like the truth of things.
Firstly, one must make sure one has the objective clearly defined in the mind’s eye; nothing else will do. Here the main objective is the understanding of the true nature of God, especially in relation to humanity and our world
Secondly one really does have to find the beginning of things and start there
Understanding The true nature of God
God must be Perfection and would create and treat us all equally. God would allow us freewill but regardless of this God would have to be omnipotent omnipresent, omnipresent all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing and perfect to be God and nothing less would suffice. God would never be towards his creations, weak, indecisive, violent, destructive, vengeful, demanding of followers, praise and worship, angry and so on. Why not? Surely if God were all-powerful, God could be anything that God wishes, and this must be true but to us his creations he is as an ever-loving all-powerful parent that has blessed us with free-will. It is a difference between "could" and "would". God created our world, blessed us all to be fruitful and multiply and has no wish ever to destroy us, no matter how bad we get.....
At this point some people might bring up the Flood, but that will be dealt with later. God was, is and will ever be beneficial to us. It is not easy to consider God, given the duality of our nature and our world. We live in a world of life and death, good and bad, growth and shrinkage. We may well be represented by the number two, but God is represented only by the number one. God has no duality, no blessings and curses, only blessings. While we grow and wither, God only grows. While we wax and wane, God only waxes. While we can be love and hatred, God is only love. How can this be when we are made in the image of God ? It is because we are made in His image, not a carbon copy. The statement that we are created in the image of Gd means that we were formed as a reflection of our Creator’s attributes and characteristics. This cannot be taken to mean that we literally look, feel or think like God does, because He has no form and is not limited in any way. Rather, we are like a one-dimensional reflection of a real object. From the reflection we can have an inkling of the original, but the reflection is literally nothing in comparison to the original.This is expressed in many ways: some physical, others psychological, and still others are purely in the spiritual realm for example. All other creations are doing exactly what they are programmed to do and cannot change their natures. Only the human being has the power to grow, mature and change, because he or she is a reflection of God, who is unlimited. Man was endowed with the power to think independently, to peer into the future and to make rational decisions. This is a reflection of God’s infinite wisdom, but unlike God, we are flawed.
The Truth of Things
If any person attempts to seek the truth of things mid-way through an event or happenstance or at its end, then that person is no more than a fool. The beginning of things is the simplest form, the root. Everything is conceived pure or with the purest of intentions and only later gets corrupted. Note the monk who stripped of all worldly wants and desires can begin to see things for what they really are.
Starting To Look For the True God
With a firm picture in your mind’s eye of this all-powerful, ALL KNOWING AND ALL-SEEING benign creator you must start to look for your objective right at the beginning of our holy books, the Old Testament ie at the beginning and It must be said that as every Muslim really does believe that it was Allah who wrote the Old Testament for the Jews I doubt that Muslims would object to my using, in their eyes Allah’s first holy book. What’s more we are going to use the part that The Jewish nation were NOT accused of tampering with, by both Muslims and Christians i.e. Genesis.
Christianity reveres the Old Testament almost as much as the New Testament and Christians would agree that the God of Genesis is God as certainly would the members of the ever-faithful and long-suffering Jewish religion. Anything in Genesis, i.e. the first, the beginning the original, trump verses that appear later in the Bible and we shall also see why this is true. It must also be remembered that Jewish scribes were at great pains to record everything as accurately as possible, especially in the early parts of the Bible.
cont