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What if these Christian beliefs are not true?

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
oh how ironic "Baha'is do not follow the doctrines of men. We follow the Laws of Baha'u'llah which He penned in His own hand.''

I believe not only is he merely a man but does not seem to be inspired by God either. I suspect that he was inspired by the Bible and the Qu'ran.
Ironically, they have a problem with Krishna being an incarnation of a God, and they have a problem with Christians that believe Jesus is part of a Godhead, but both of them and their prophet they believe are "manifestations" of God. They don't believe they were ordinary men. Manifestations existed with God from the beginning I think is what they believe.

But who really knows? Each religion has to make their guy special in someway. What I don't agree with is how Baha'is make people like Adam, Noah and Abraham into Manifestations. From the Bible stories, I don't see it. They were very ordinary men with flaws. A manifestation they say are like "perfectly" polished mirrors. That definitely doesn't fit those guys and especially Adam.

And I agree with you. The guy who took the title "Glory of God" or "Baha'u'llah borrowed a lot from the Quran and the Bible. But he sided with the Quran when it came to Isaac and Ishmael and said it was Ishmael that was taken by Abraham to be sacrificed? And in one of Baha'u'llah's book he talks about Noah and doesn't even mention the flood?

Yeah, it inspired by something. But who knows what. For Baha'is it's the same God of all the major religions. But that God of theirs sounds the most similar to the God of the Quran.... that is except to Muslims. They don't seem to want much to do with Baha'is and their God either.

But, other than that, as far as "organized" religions go, it's not too bad... But the bar is pretty low.
 
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CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Myself, I don't believe because of interpretation of prophecies any more. What ever logical problems they present the reality of the Revelation of Baha'u'llah stands for me.
Yeah, when I looked at the "prophecies" about Jesus from a Jewish perspective, I agreed with them... Jesus was not their Messiah. And still, the absolute worst prophecy for me is the virgin birth prophecy. All Christians can take is the one verse, Isaiah 7:14, and none of the rest of them. The boy is clearly someone at that time and place and is a sign for King Ahaz... When the boy reaches a certain age, the two enemy kings will be dead.

For me the whole virgin birth story could be nothing but a made up legend. For Baha'is, I don't know what you do with it, because in your writings it says it is true.
 

TransmutingSoul

May God's Will be Done
Premium Member
Make up your mind... They "prophecy" for 1260 lunar years.

So, while Muhammad and Ali, who are already dead, but are still giving their prophecy you say until the year 1260, the beast arises, which you say is the Umayyad dynasty, that started in 661AD and ended in 750AD. This beast kills the two witnesses and they are dead from 622 until 1260, then come back to life. Here's the quote from Revelation...

Rev 11:7 Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them. 8 Their bodies will lie in the public square of the great city—which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt—where also their Lord was crucified. 9 For three and a half days some from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial. 10 The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.​
11 But after the three and a half days the breath[b] of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet...​
It says they had finished their testimony. A testimony that lasted 1260 days, that you turn into years. And then the beast kills them and they are dead for 3 1/2 days, which you convert to be 1260 years. So, they are alive and preaching and dead at the same time. But there are more prophecies that you convert to 1260 years that come later. And those too, you make start and stop at the same time.

But... there are more problems. You make the year 661AD to be the mark or number of the beast, 666. And you do that by adding 5 years to 661, because you say Jesus wasn't born in the year "0". But you don't know exactly when Jesus was born, but you make it 5 years to fit your interpretation. But... let's move on.

There are more than 100 times the "Woes" are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian NT. Why are these "Woes" people? People you call manifestations of God. Now during each "Woe" things happen, do they fit what happened during the life of that particular person? Here's what happens during the second "Woe". Which you claim is the Bab...

12 The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.​
13 The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the four horns of the golden altar that is before God. 14 It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. 16 The number of the mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number.​
17 The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. 18 A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. 19 The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury.​
20 The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. 21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.​

1260 minus 1260 equals year 0 in the Islamic calendar. Which is the year 622. That's your start date, which I doubt was the start date for any of those prophecies. And there's also a start date for the prophecies in Daniel. One of them might be the year that a decree went out to rebuild Jerusalem, but that's not the start date of the other one. That is the year the abomination of desolation was set up.

It's a nice try. But there's a lot of holes in your interpretation. You like it? You believe it? That's just great. All it shows to me is that Baha'is don't think for themselves but follow along with whatever their religion tells them is true.
That was just a big confusion of such a simple explanation CG.

Prophecy does not give event after event in a set timeline. The writings and stories give pieces of a puzzle that we get to put together.

First determine what are the pieces and then put them in place with known events.

Each Faith has two witnesses, remember Christ said Elijah always comes first, so we get the One who prepares the way and then the Messenger.

So we have 1260
We have 2 witnesses

Both those pieces fit into Islam

Then a beast 7 heads 10 horns, what's this piece?

Well the Umayyad caliphate had 7 kingdoms and 10 users that can fit that metephor, another piece that fits into Islam.

I will finish there CG, it's not for me to break all this down, I have no need for prophecy to prove Baha'u'llah as His Person and the Message are self explanatory, they fulfil the tests that Jesus asked us to use.

The fruits and the testimony of Baha’u’llah are more than enough for me. It's your journey how you decide to choose the truth of all that was offered.

I see Abdul'baha's explanations are brilliant.

Regards Tony
 
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TransmutingSoul

May God's Will be Done
Premium Member
LOL it was a leading question . fact is you guys & gales don't have a clue . very little from the book Revelation can be taken literally . you need to look beneath the words to find the significance of what's said . Two Witnesses was a requirement of law to establish fact from fiction, if Two Witnesses do not agree no verdict would/could be given. you think its two people from mankind , no
I agree this statement you made is is true, and context is everything "You need to look beneath the words to find the significance of what's said".

Regards Tony
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
oh how ironic "Baha'is do not follow the doctrines of men. We follow the Laws of Baha'u'llah which He penned in His own hand.''
There is nothing ironic about that for anyone who knows who Baha'u'llah was. He was a man but also a Manifestation of God.
As a Manifestation of God He had a twofold nature, one nature human the other nature divine. The same applied to Jesus since Jesus was also a Manifestation of God.

By stark contrast, the Christian doctrines were written by men who had no divine nature and no authority was vested in them to speak for Jesus.
Jesus did not even write the Bible so Christian beliefs are far, far removed from the original source, which was Jesus.
Talk about ironic.
 

TransmutingSoul

May God's Will be Done
Premium Member
But, other than that, as far as "organized" religions go, it's not too bad... But the bar is pretty low.
The bar must be the opposite, it must be high, as not many can and have jumped over it.

You yourself offer the bar is too high and not many can follow the virtues and morals.

That is the journey in faith, it takes humility and sacrifice of self.

Regards Tony
 

TransmutingSoul

May God's Will be Done
Premium Member
His teachings were widely interpreted as a kind of parallel evolution, in which humans had a separate line of descent to some primitive form, separate from animals.[59][60] But the emphasis on the harmony of science and religion and the success of the modern evolutionary paradigm resulted in at least 19 books and articles from 16 authors over the period of 1990 to 2009 trying to address how Bahá'ís should view evolution in light of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's statements, the majority of which took universal common ancestry as fact and attempted to reconcile with a new interpretation of the statements.[61] Two articles by Keven Brown and Eberhard von Kitzing,[62] jointly published under the title Evolution and Bahá'í Belief (2001), stand out as the only book-length review of the issue by Bahá'ís during the period, and has been well received.[63][64]

The new understanding viewed the apparent meaning of parallel evolution as an unfortunate misunderstanding that should be carefully studied and interpreted in terms that make sense today. Gary Matthews wrote,


This understanding was included in the Foreword to the 2014 printing of Some Answered Questions, stating:


Baháʼí views on science - Wikipedia

Not all Bahá'ís were convinced of the argument that ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's statements are in complete alignment with modern evolutionary theory. Salman Oskooi wrote his 2009 thesis on the subject and was unconvinced by the various authors trying to reconcile the issue with modern science, writing that ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's statements have an "apparent discord with science", "appear uninterpretable in any sense but their apparent meaning", and the apparent meaning is that "humans have been distinct from other beings since the time of some primitive stage of our evolution."[67] Oskooi concluded that ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was fallible on scientific matters, but that the issue does not contradict the fundamental premise of the faith. Also in 2009, Ian Kluge wrote that, "There is no question that ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's views on human evolution are in conflict with current scientific thought", but he concluded that religion cannot "uncritically agree with science on all its pronouncements at all times" due to the changing nature of science itself.[68]

In 2023, Bryan Donaldson published On the Originality of Species, attempting to address the issue from the point of view of new research in evolutionary biology that could plausibly support the idea of "independent and parallel growth of many categories of plants and animals out of a network of gene-sharing unicellular roots."[69] Donaldson points to a variety of trends in evolutionary thought since the late 1990s, concluding that,


Baháʼí views on science - Wikipedia

I am not sure why people find this hard to understand.

To me it is simple, Human was always a distinct species, no matter how we evolved and formed in this Matrix. Remember we are talking of the connection of the species with the human spirit, more than the animal spirit.

I also see we are not the only Human species and that in all the other worlds of God, there are other "Human" species.

I see this as the capacity of a consciousness with the power of rational thought.

You and @Trailblazer may enjoy this from the Baha'i Forum, posted by Earth. This resonated with me as this is what I was thinking before I knew these conversations were had, albeit this would be a pilgrim note.


Regards Tony
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
Yeah, when I looked at the "prophecies" about Jesus from a Jewish perspective, I agreed with them... Jesus was not their Messiah. And still, the absolute worst prophecy for me is the virgin birth prophecy. All Christians can take is the one verse, Isaiah 7:14, and none of the rest of them. The boy is clearly someone at that time and place and is a sign for King Ahaz... When the boy reaches a certain age, the two enemy kings will be dead.

For me the whole virgin birth story could be nothing but a made up legend. For Baha'is, I don't know what you do with it, because in your writings it says it is true.
The virgin birth thing from Isaiah does not look that good to me, either. However, I do believe that miracles happen occasionally as far as the actual virgin birth. In the Kitab-i-Iqan the virgin birth is seen as a test to the Jews of the time, not a miraculous sign of the truth of Jesus, though.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
I am not sure why people find this hard to understand.

To me it is simple, Human was always a distinct species, no matter how we evolved and formed in this Matrix. Remember we are talking of the connection of the species with the human spirit, more than the animal spirit.

I also see we are not the only Human species and that in all the other worlds of God, there are other "Human" species.

I see this as the capacity of a consciousness with the power of rational thought.

You and @Trailblazer may enjoy this from the Baha'i Forum, posted by Earth. This resonated with me as this is what I was thinking before I knew these conversations were had, albeit this would be a pilgrim note.


Regards Tony
I see that Earth was talking to WhiteBuffaloCalfWoman, which means this reply was to a Lakotan indigenous person. White Buffalo Calf Woman was their possible prophet. Kevin Locke talked about her. The responder also understands the significance of this handle.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
I am not sure why people find this hard to understand.

To me it is simple, Human was always a distinct species, no matter how we evolved and formed in this Matrix. Remember we are talking of the connection of the species with the human spirit, more than the animal spirit.

I also see we are not the only Human species and that in all the other worlds of God, there are other "Human" species.

I see this as the capacity of a consciousness with the power of rational thought.

You and @Trailblazer may enjoy this from the Baha'i Forum, posted by Earth. This resonated with me as this is what I was thinking before I knew these conversations were had, albeit this would be a pilgrim note.


Regards Tony
In that thread there is a Deb Clark Vance from Ohio, and I see a Deb Vance in my Email list, but I don't really know her. I have a long Email list that includes many people I don't know.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
Each Faith has two witnesses, remember Christ said Elijah always comes first, so we get the One who prepares the way and then the Messenger.
Another generalization... do all religions have two witnesses? I'd ask you to show that, but I know you can't. But you say "each" faith? So, did each person Baha'is say were manifestations bring a new book and a new faith? No. Adam didn't and didn't have a second "witness". He had Eve his wife that talked him into eating the forbidden fruit.

But I don't take that story literal. And I doubt you do either. So why make a character in a mythical story not only real... but also a manifestation?
We have 2 witnesses

Both those pieces fit into Islam

Then a beast 7 heads 10 horns, what's this piece?

Well the Umayyad caliphate had 7 kingdoms and 10 users that can fit that metephor, another piece that fits into Islam.
Yeah, good idea... Let's look at some of the pieces and see how they fit.

Rev 12:1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.”[a] And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.​
Who's this woman that has a crown of 12 stars? As I recall, this child of hers Baha'is say was the Bab. How does that fit the context? Because now we have a dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns and 7 crowns. Who is this dragon and do those things about it represent?

She gives birth to this child that will rule the nations? Are you sure that's the Bab? Or do you have some other ideas? But another interesting piece to the puzzle... The woman flees to the wilderness for 1260 days. So who is this woman? Baha'is have to make these 1260 days to be the same things as the others and say that this refers to the year 1260.

Here's another piece of the puzzle about this dragon...

17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.​
It wages where against Christians? What do you think?

And now enters the beast...

13 The dragon[a] stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. 2 The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. 3 One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. 4 People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?”​
The dragon gives its power to the beast. And you say the beast is the Umayyad's? Yes, just like you said, it had 10 horns and 7 heads. But one of the heads had a serious wound. As I remember, Baha'is pretend this is some Umayyad ruler in Spain somewhere. But here's some more about this beast...

5 The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months... 7 It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. 8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.​
Ah, 42 months... which for Baha'is is also 1260 years, therefore this must refer to the year 1260 or 1844. And did the Umayyad's ever have this kind of power? I don't think so.

But then there is another beast...

11 Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. 12 It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed... It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.​
18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.[e] That number is 666.​
So, the first beast is the Umayyad's. Who is this second beast? Who ever you say it is, it would have been given its power by the beast with the head wound. That's a pretty good clue. And who had the power to make it so people couldn't buy or sell unless they had this mark of beast? No one I know of. But you must know. Now wait... Doesn't Abdul Baha say the number 666 refers to the year that the Umayyad dynasty started? Something like taking the year 661, the year it started, and adding 5 years to it because Jesus was born approximately 5 years before year zero?​
But how does that work? Up to now all the "prophecies" were all about the Islamic calendar that uses lunar years. But this prophecy uses the Gregorian calendar? Amazing. Two calendars that didn't exist yet and God knew. Wow, that's absolutely incredible... or un-credible, one or the other.​
Anyway, too many pieces for me to figure out. I'm glad the Baha'is know exactly what they all mean.​
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
So why make a character in a mythical story not only real... but also a manifestation?
My theory is that they took the name of a real person and constructed a mythical story around him. Really, we know nothing about Adam as a person and Manifestation.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
Anyway, too many pieces for me to figure out. I'm glad the Baha'is know exactly what they all mean.
We have a lot of guesses other than the stuff from Revelation 11 and part of Revelation 12. Except that 666 refers to 666 years after Christ was born according to Abdu'l-Baha.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
I see that is complementary to all God given Faiths, but shows us that man makes many strange beliefs and practices that are not of God.
Jesus agrees with the above because Jesus informs us Not to believe as the religious Pharisees did - Matthew 15:9
Jesus believed Scripture is religious truth - John 17:17
Thus, Jesus based his beliefs and teachings by his logical reasoning referring to the old Hebrew Scriptures

P.S. As to 'why we are here' the answer I find is found at Ephesians 1:12 the whole purpose of our existence to bring praise to God
Praise by taking excellent care of Earth as instructed at Genesis 1:28
Originally we were to expand the paradisical Garden of Eden to cover the whole Earth
If you were out working in your beautiful garden and someone came along an interrupted you, would you say because I was interrupted I am never going back to my garden, or rather once the interruption was over you would go back to your lovely garden ___________
Satan is the one who threw a monkey wrench into Eden, but Jesus will get rid of Satan ( Hebrews 2:14 B ) thus we can then go back to the garden and make Earth a beautiful paradisical garden as Eden originally was
This is a reason why we are all invited to pray to God for Jesus to come ! - Rev. 22:20
Come and bring ' healing ' to earth's nations - Rev. 22:2 - then Earth can be ' healed ' to become like the sample Garden of Eden
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
The bar must be the opposite, it must be high, as not many can and have jumped over it.

You yourself offer the bar is too high and not many can follow the virtues and morals.

That is the journey in faith, it takes humility and sacrifice of self.

Regards Tony
When the Bab and Baha'u'llah came, which religion had set the bar very low? I think it was very low. Especially the largest religion, Christianity. It was being forced on people as the Europeans took over other lands. The religions of those people were outlawed and the Children were sent to Christians schools.

Within Christianity, one sect fought against another sect. Within a sect a person could be burned at the stake for not believing the "correct" doctrines.

Baha'is themselves say they are wrong about several of their doctrines... like the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, about Satan and hell, and about Jesus being God. If the Baha'is are right about those things, that puts the bar below ground level and makes them pretty much a false religion.

And what do Baha'is believe about Shia and Sunni Muslims? In fact Baha'is have the Islamic Umayyads dynasty as being the "Beast" from the Book of Revelation. Then what do you think of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and the Ahmadiyyas?
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
I am not sure why people find this hard to understand.
No, it's easy. Humans might have at one time looked like a fish, but they were really a human being.

Then what next? They looked like a reptile? Then some lower mammal? Like maybe a mouse? Then later a monkey?

But all that time there were other fish, reptiles, mice, and monkeys that looked the same as them but were not humans?

So, when the creature destined to become human evolved to the next higher animal did all of them change at the same time? Leaving none of the lower species behind? Or was it gradual? Some fish turned into a lizard but others changed later?

Because they looked like the other creature, did some of the human fish have sex with non-human fish? And like later when humans looked like monkeys. Did they know not to interbreed with non-human monkeys? Then what if a female monkey changed into a human before any males? Did she have sex with one of the male soon-to-be human monkeys until one of them changed into being fully human?

Now, in the early stages of evolution, when there was, let's say, only fish, were some fish destined to be humans and some giraffes, some elephants, some tigers and so on? Doesn't that create the same problem? Wouldn't these fish be breeding with other fish that looked alike but were really a different species?

Anyway, other than that, yes, an easy concept to understand. And, like you always do, I have complete confidence that you can clear up my simple questions.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
My theory is that they took the name of a real person and constructed a mythical story around him. Really, we know nothing about Adam as a person and Manifestation.
I know that Baha'u'llah talks about Noah. But nothing about Adam? Or how about Abraham?

My complaint about how he talks about Noah is that it has nothing to do with the Bible story, no flood and no ark.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
We have a lot of guesses other than the stuff from Revelation 11 and part of Revelation 12. Except that 666 refers to 666 years after Christ was born according to Abdu'l-Baha.
You know, it's not like Christians don't have the same kinds of problems in how they use the Hebrew Bible. The worst to me is how they make the "Morning Star" Satan. I think in Latin the morning star is "lucifer" or something. I wonder why they didn't use the Hebrew word?

But about 666, it's the number or mark of the beast. But there are two beasts and a dragon in Revelation. Here's the verses that mention it....

Rev 13:11 Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. 12 It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. 13 And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. 14 Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.​
18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.[e] That number is 666.​
The first beast I think is the one that is supposed to be Umayyad's. And the one with the head wound I think was the Umayyad ruler that was in Spain...

In 711, less than a century after the birth of Islam, an army of Arabs and Berbers serving the Umayyad caliphs of Damascus (in Syria) landed in the Iberian Peninsula, ushering in a new phase of art and culture in the region. Within a period of seven years, most of the peninsula was under Muslim rule. These new territories came to be known by their Arabic name, al-Andalus.​
In 750, the Umayyad dynasty in Syria fell to the Abbasids. The one surviving member, 'Abd al-Rahman I (reigned 756–88), escaped to Spain and established autonomous rule there.​
But the second beast is not the beast with the head wound. And it is the second beast that is associated with the number or mark of 666. So, I don't think that it can be made to be the date of when the Umayyad's first took control. But in Revelation it says that the mark or number of the beast was put on the hand or forehead of the people and they couldn't buy or sell unless they had this mark, which, it says, is the name or number of his name... and is the number of a man 666.

Anyway, I know it's something that a "true" believer can't easily examine and come up with any other conclusion except that the interpretation of their religion is what is true.

But that's the same problem we all have with Born-Again Christians. They only know and they only believe what the Bible and the NT says. They can't believe anything that contradicts their beliefs.

But Baha'is shouldn't be like that, but I'm afraid they are and kind of have to be. Since, if Baha'u'llah said it... or if even Abdul Baha' said it, no matter what anyone else says, they have to be right. So, onward we go with these endless threads where we argue and debate the same types of things over and over again. Baha'is say this, and other people say that. Ain't no unity in that.

And if it was Baha'i vs. Baha'is it would be that the "spark" of truth is found somewhere in the disagreement. But when it's Baha'i vs. a non-Baha'i, the Baha'is "knows" they are right. Here's that quote, and it's from, of course, Abdul Baha'

The shining spark of truth cometh forth only after the clash of differing opinions. – Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 87.
 
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