• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Why do believers believe what they believe?

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
(continued)

"Panopticon" is blatantly propagandistic. To create reader receptivity for his thesis that Bahá'í Faith in the U.S. has become deceptive, controlling and manipulative, Cole begins the article with diction carefully chosen to arouse suspicions and negative emotions. Indeed, his first sentence encourages readers to adopt a suspicious, paranoid mind-set and engage in conspiratorial thinking: "Despite the large literature on American religious bodies, some groups remain curiously off-limits to investigation"

The phrase "curiously off-limits" (ibid.) suggests that something odd or `fishy' is going on. "Off-limits" has strong authoritative (police, military) connotations, which, of course, is exactly what Cole wants to suggest about the Administrative Order. The word "curiously" insinuates that perhaps somebody may even be hindering a "careful investigation" (ibid.), a possibility that feeds Cole's portrait of a dishonest and manipulative Administrative Order. that, according to him, maintains a network of spies.

Cole's attempt to arouse emotions is reinforced in the second sentence of "Panopticon" which points out how these "curiously off-limits" (ibid.) religions "carefully cultivate public images that hide important facets of their outlook and internal workings" As used here, both of the italicized words carry strong suggestions of intentional deceit. To complete this orchestration of connotations, Cole refers to the disastrous "collapse of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's Oregon commune" (ibid.). This reference is intended to arouse reader's emotions by recalling the extreme isolation and regimentation undergone by Bhagwan's followers as well as the absolutely uncritical adulation they accorded him. Cole wants readers to transfer such associations to his portrait of the Administrative Order.
Okay, so he is making things up about the Baha'i Faith now. But what about when he was a Baha'i? Why would he feel he was forced out? Was he treated justly? Here's something Juan Cole wrote about the situation...

I became a Baha'i in 1972 at the age of 19... Under the influence of Shoghi Effendi's Advent of Divine Justice, I​
immediately began studying Arabic at Northwestern and switched to majoring in​
religion, completing a B.A... In 1974 I pioneered to Lebanon as part of the Five Year Plan... I then went to UCLA in fall, 1979, to begin a doctorate in Islamic Studies, studying with Professor Amin Banani (son of the Hand of the Cause) and others...​
At the request of the Association for Baha'i Studies, in 1980-81 I wrote "TheConcept of Manifestation in the Baha'i Writings." In the '80s I also translated two books by Mirza Abu'l-Fadl. The House of Justice commended me for the latter and asked me to do some translating for them...​
I went back to UCLA, finished writing up, and came to the University of Michigan in 1984, after which I was very much immersed in trying to establish myself in Middle East scholarship. I heard only vague echoes of the 1988 crackdown on *dialogue* magazine (I was abroad when the heavy action occurred), which had been published by some friends of my in Southern California...​
In the '90s I occasionally published articles on the Baha'i faith in places​
like History Today or scholarly journals...​
Now the part where he gets in trouble with the Baha'i administration...

Then [email protected] came along, and I was introduced to the new medium of electronic mail on a big listserv. I think all of us were astonished at what followed, with feminist Baha'is discussing with rather conservative Iranian males, fundamentalists discussing with academics, mystics meeting bureaucrats, and all sorts of diverse views being expressed. [email protected] was controversial in a community that was used to pretty tight controls on public, written discourse, but I had no reason to think it was somehow illegitimate as an activity,..​
I still have no idea why it was that in late April, 1996, I was called up by a member of the Continental Board of Counselors and informed that I had on [email protected] "made statements contrary to the Covenant." I have been back over my messages there numerous times and find nothing in what I said that in any way challenged the Baha'i Covenant... I am sure that the entire thing was an unfortunate misunderstanding, and have heard back privately from members of the Universal House of Justice to that effect...​
I have to admit, with some shame, that my faith in Baha'u'llah was shattered by this episode. Leaving ideology aside, the officials I was dealing with seemed to me very weird. When, full of unutterable sorrow, I announced my resignation from the faith under this duress...​
 
Last edited:

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
I have to admit, with some shame, that my faith in Baha'u'llah was shattered by this episode.
I have no doubt that he lost his faith. What happened after that illustrates that.

I am sure that the entire thing was an unfortunate misunderstanding, and have heard back privately from members of the Universal House of Justice to that effect...
This sounds honest to me. I don't think that Universal House of Justice would publicly criticize a member of the Continental Bord of Counselors, because that is not in their nature to publicly criticize any one. They only comment on good qualities of people or a group of people in public in my experience. Why this shattered his faith is a mystery to me. That a person misunderstood him and thought he was saying things "contrary to the Covenant" would do that to him perhaps indicates might come from weak faith before that. It was the straw that broke his back. I don't know, though. A scholar can sometimes develop a weak faith because they scrutinize with a searching eye, and people like that can find things that make it hard to believe. I know this from experience though I'm not a scholar. I scrutinize things with a searching eye also. At times in the past my faith was weak, though it isn't now. I've found too many answers to my doubts.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
A scholar can sometimes develop a weak faith because they scrutinize with a searching eye, and people like that can find things that make it hard to believe. I know this from experience though I'm not a scholar. I scrutinize things with a searching eye also. At times in the past my faith was weak, though it isn't now. I've found too many answers to my doubts.
If one looks hard enough they will always find some reason NOT to believe, then they tell people like me that I should look at every little detail and I'd see something that proves the Baha'i Faith is not true, but I am not going to do that. You know that I have some 'issues' with what Abdu'l-Baha said, but I am not going to drop out of the Baha'i Faith just because of that. Moreover, I realize that it could be a matter of intrpretation or just something that rubs me the worng way, like when he says "be happy!" I have an emotional reaction but since I am able to recognize it as such, I know it is my own personal issue. And so what if Abdu'l-Baha made a mistake? He was not infallible. It is the preponderance of evidence that matters, not every little detail.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
If one looks hard enough they will always find some reason NOT to believe, then they tell people like me that I should look at every little detail and I'd see something that proves the Baha'i Faith is not true, but I am not going to do that. You know that I have some 'issues' with what Abdu'l-Baha said, but I am not going to drop out of the Baha'i Faith just because of that. Moreover, I realize that it could be a matter of intrpretation or just something that rubs me the worng way, like when he says "be happy!" I have an emotional reaction but since I am able to recognize it as such, I know it is my own personal issue. And so what if Abdu'l-Baha made a mistake? He was not infallible. It is the preponderance of evidence that matters, not every little detail.
You don't have to look real hard or
at anything small to see that god- of- the
Bible does not exist.

A thought about book of mormon. bahai as well as bible- god, is why would the great spirit inspire such utterly
wretched prose?
A shoe store manager ought do better.

Doesn't it seem as if by rights it would be soaring,
rich ,magnificent, layer after layer of profound
wisdom?
Half the words in BoM are " and it came to pass"
and the Bible goes in and on with who begat who
and nonsense like Noah's ark.

Where's the credibility?
 

Audie

Veteran Member
I don't find it implausible.
I don't fount that.

I looked at a paragraph of bahai- book to figure
out what it said.

It boiled down to one short sentence of
pretty ordinary stuff.

It's not much of a almighty, imo, who would
inspire such a turgid mess of obscurantism.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
It's not much of a almighty, imo, who would
inspire such a turgid mess of obscurantism.
I did not used to understand the Writings of Baha'u'llah, so I read the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha instead, since they were easier for me to understand.
Many decades after I became a Baha'i, I picked up Gleanings again, and I understood what Baha'u'llah wrote about God, and that is when my life started to turn around. Before that I believed that a God existed but I only half believed. Now I am certain that God exists and I feel I know something about God, although God is mostly a mystery.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
I have no doubt that he lost his faith. What happened after that illustrates that.


This sounds honest to me. I don't think that Universal House of Justice would publicly criticize a member of the Continental Bord of Counselors, because that is not in their nature to publicly criticize any one. They only comment on good qualities of people or a group of people in public in my experience. Why this shattered his faith is a mystery to me. That a person misunderstood him and thought he was saying things "contrary to the Covenant" would do that to him perhaps indicates might come from weak faith before that. It was the straw that broke his back. I don't know, though. A scholar can sometimes develop a weak faith because they scrutinize with a searching eye, and people like that can find things that make it hard to believe. I know this from experience though I'm not a scholar. I scrutinize things with a searching eye also. At times in the past my faith was weak, though it isn't now. I've found too many answers to my doubts.
Here's one account of what the problem was...

Another attempt at getting unofficial views published in the community was the magazine Dialogue, which was published briefly in the mid-1980s. Although the editors and staff cooperated with the often cumbersome review process, the magazine was viewed with great suspicion by the National Spiritual Assembly. At the 1988 National Convention, when delegates from around the country gathered to elect the next year's Assembly, External Affairs Secretary Firuz Kazemzadeh denounced a particular article slated for publication called A Modest Proposal and described those involved with the magazine as "dissidents". Faced with such hostility, and with their reputation thus ruined in the eyes of the community, the editors stopped publication. Several of those involved in the L.A. study group and Dialogue magazine were later active participants on the Talisman forum.​
The nucleus of the email forum called "Talisman" began when two old friends, Professor Juan R.I. Cole of the University of Michigan and Professor John Walbridge of the University of Indiana began an intense email correspondence concerning some aspects of early Baha'i history. (The results of this research can be seen in Cole's book Modernity and the Millennium, available through Amazon.) Both men had been Baha'is for more than twenty years, and had been "pioneers" (Baha'i missionaries) in the Middle East during thier youth. In the early 1990s, these email discussions continued on a small forum called, somewhat whimsically, "Majnun"(this Arabic word means "crazy"). The members of Majnun were all scholars and specialists, and the forum was quite academic.​
In 1994, Walbridge started up Talisman, a more open forum on a big listserv at the University of Indiana. While the stated purpose of the list was the academic study of the Baha'i Faith, a great majority of the participants were not specialists or college professors. Old-time members of Talisman describe those early days as a time of excitement and wonder. Because of the pattern of Baha'i missionary work, most Baha'is live in small, scattered communities of less than 30 people. While the Baha'i community prides itself on its ethnic diversity, many Talisman participants had never been exposed to such diverse views on Baha'i teachings. Outspoken feminists found themselves corresponding with old-fashioned Middle Eastern men; legalistic administrators talked to mystics; scriptural literalists went head-to-head with scholars using academic methods.​
While Talisman was exciting, it also tended to be contentious, and Baha'is traditionally value "unity" and the harmony of the group. More conservative Baha'is, including those serving on Baha'i institutions, were deeply disturbed by Talisman's rather freewheeling and argumentative atmosphere.​
Matters came to a head in late 1995, when David Langness was contacted by the National Spiritual Assembly(NSA)concerning an email he had written to Talisman about the Dialogue episode. He had been the main author of A Modest Proposal and gave vent to the secretive way Baha'i jurisprudence is handled. This post also made the statement that the Universal House of Justice had not approved of the NSAs action in the Dialogue case. The NSA called the statement a lie and insisted that he publicly apologize and retract the statement. (There seems to have been considerable difference between public and private statements on this issue, and I personally believe it to be a matter of confusion rather than dishonesty.)Langness posted a reluctant retraction but it was deemed unsatisfactory by the NSA. He was penalized by the loss of his "administrative rights". This meant that he could not vote, or be elected to a Baha'i institution, or participate in any even that was limited to Baha'is in good standing.​
In February 1996, a young member of Majnun (the smaller list continued with its more specialized discussions) was furious at the way the NSA handled the case and suggested that an organized protest be formed along with a written statement of reform proposals for Baha'i administration. Another member of this small circle of friends responded with a humorous message, gentle vetoing the idea as potentially causing more harm than good, and saying that the administration couldn't do anything about the existence of Talisman or the spread of liberal ideas, even though they disliked it. Fatefully, this email was sent to the broader forum, Talisman, instead of to the Majnun list. This message, later dubbed the "Majnun post"was misinterpreted as evidence of a conspiracy and used as an excuse to investigate the prominent posters on the list.​
These included John Walbridge and his wife, Linda, Juan Cole, Steven Scholl of White Cloud Press and founding editor of Dialogue magazine, and Anthony Lee of Kalimat Press, an independent Baha'i publisher. Accounts differ concerning the nature and purpose of this investigation. Cole, who had made the most extensive public statements on the crackdown insists that he was threatened with being called a "covenant-breaker" if he did not stop posting his liberal views on email forums. (A covenant-breaker is a heretic who advocates a form of authority other than the Baha'i institutions. The penalty for this is shunning.) Baha'i officials deny that Cole was ever threatened.​
The only written evidence of the nature of the threats made against the Talisman posters are two letters by Counselor Stephen Birkland, the Baha'i official asssigned to the investigation, to Scholl and another Talisman participant.Both of these letters end with the warning that "your promulgation of views contrary to the Teachings was damaging to the Cause. If you were to resume in any fashion this course of action, the effect would be to bring you into direct conflict with the Covenant"; that is, they would be regarded as "covenant-breakers". The letters also make it clear that Birkland's instructions came from the supreme governing body of the Baha'i Faith, with its seat in Haifa.​
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
You don't have to look real hard or
at anything small to see that god- of- the
Bible does not exist.
One of my arguments against the Baha'i Faith is that they believe and deny the Bible and most all the other Scriptures of every other religion except the Quran.

Their "symbolic" interpretation of the Bible almost makes sense to me, but not quite. Like whoever were the writers of Genesis, I don't see them putting together some fantastic, mystical story filled with symbolism... That Adam and Eve represented something and the serpent and the tree of good and evil etc. I just think they were plain old religious mythical fiction. The obvious meaning was what was important. Obey God or else. And, since people today still believe it that way, I think a few thousand years ago it wouldn't have been hard to get people to believe the story was true.

Here's Abdul Baha' on the symbolic meaning...

"Adam is the spirit of Adam, and Eve is His soul; the tree is the human world, and the serpent is that attachment to this world which constitutes sin, and which has infected the descendants of Adam. Christ by His holy breezes saved men from this attachment and freed them from this sin. The sin in Adam is relative to His position. Although from this attachment there proceed results, nevertheless, attachment to the earthly world, in relation to attachment to the spiritual world, is considered as a sin. The good deeds of the righteous are the sins of the Near Ones. This is established. So bodily power is not only defective in relation to spiritual power; it is weakness in comparison."[
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
One of my arguments against the Baha'i Faith is that they believe and deny the Bible and most all the other Scriptures of every other religion except the Quran.
That is absolutely false. Baha'u'llah referred to the Bible as God's holy Book, God's most great testimony amongst His creatures.
It is not only Baha'is who have a "symbolic" interpretation of the Bible, many Christians do as well.

“We have also heard a number of the foolish of the earth assert that the genuine text of the heavenly Gospel doth not exist amongst the Christians, that it hath ascended unto heaven. How grievously they have erred! How oblivious of the fact that such a statement imputeth the gravest injustice and tyranny to a gracious and loving Providence! “How could God, when once the Day-star of the beauty of Jesus had disappeared from the sight of His people, and ascended unto the fourth heaven, cause His holy Book, His most great testimony amongst His creatures, to disappear also?”​
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
The obvious meaning was what was important. Obey God or else. And, since people today still believe it that way, I think a few thousand years ago it wouldn't have been hard to get people to believe the story was true.
That is the obvious meaning - obey God or else - and that is the symbolic meaning of the 'story' of Adam and Eve.
The story does not have to be true in order to convey the symbolic meaning.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
One of my arguments against the Baha'i Faith is that they believe and deny the Bible and most all the other Scriptures of every other religion except the Quran.

Their "symbolic" interpretation of the Bible almost makes sense to me, but not quite. Like whoever were the writers of Genesis, I don't see them putting together some fantastic, mystical story filled with symbolism... That Adam and Eve represented something and the serpent and the tree of good and evil etc. I just think they were plain old religious mythical fiction. The obvious meaning was what was important. Obey God or else. And, since people today still believe it that way, I think a few thousand years ago it wouldn't have been hard to get people to believe the story was true.

Here's Abdul Baha' on the symbolic meaning...

"Adam is the spirit of Adam, and Eve is His soul; the tree is the human world, and the serpent is that attachment to this world which constitutes sin, and which has infected the descendants of Adam. Christ by His holy breezes saved men from this attachment and freed them from this sin. The sin in Adam is relative to His position. Although from this attachment there proceed results, nevertheless, attachment to the earthly world, in relation to attachment to the spiritual world, is considered as a sin. The good deeds of the righteous are the sins of the Near Ones. This is established. So bodily power is not only defective in relation to spiritual power; it is weakness in comparison."[
I don't know how anyone can even read
stuff like that, let alone take it seriouly
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
I don't know how anyone can even read
stuff like that, let alone take it seriouly
I've said a few times that I was very spiritually gullible. I assumed there was a God and all the rest of the things that religions say, because I trusted the people that were telling me these things were true.

Then, like the Baha'is say, investigate on your own to verify if these things are true. I did and easily found reasons to question and doubt most all religions, including the Baha'i Faith.
 

CG Didymus

Veteran Member
A Baha'i quote...

The Bible is not wholly authentic, and in this respect not to be compared with the Qur'án, and should be wholly subordinated to the authentic sayings of Bahá'u'lláh.​
My major gripe, the Baha'i belief about the resurrection of Jesus...

From a Baha’i point of view the belief that the Resurrection was the return to life of a body of flesh and blood, which later rose from the earth into the sky is not reasonable, nor is it necessary to the essential truth of the disciples’ experience, which is that Jesus did not cease to exist when He was crucified (as would have been the belief of many Jews of that period), but that His Spirit, released from the body, ascended to the presence of God and continued to inspire and guide His followers and preside over the destinies of His dispensation.​
As to the resurrection of the body of Christ three days subsequent to His departure: This signifies the divine teachings and spiritual religion of His Holiness Christ, which constitute His spiritual body, which is living and perpetual forevermore.​
By the "three days' of His death is meant that after the great martyrdom, the penetration of the divine teachings and the spread of the spiritual law became relaxed on account of the crucifixion of Christ. For the disciples were somewhat troubled by the violence of divine tests. But when they become firm, that divine spirit resurrected and that body - which signifies the divine word - arose.​
The Cause of Christ was like a lifeless body; and when after three days the disciples became assured and steadfast, and began to serve the Cause of Christ, and resolved to spread the divine teachings, putting His counsels into practice, and arising to serve Him, the Reality of Christ became resplendent and His bounty appeared; His religion found life; His teachings and His admonitions became evident and visible. In other words, the Cause of Christ was like a lifeless body until the life and the bounty of the Holy Spirit surrounded it.​
Such is the meaning of the resurrection of Christ, and this was a true resurrection....​
From letters written on behalf of the Guardian
We do not believe that there was a bodily resurrection after the Crucifixion of Christ, but that there was a time after His Ascension when His disciples perceived spiritually His true greatness and realized He was eternal in being. This is what has been reported symbolically in the New Testament and been misunderstood.​

So... is it "absolutely" false that Baha'is both believe and deny the Bible and the NT? Not "wholly" authentic? It all can't be taken "literally"? Fine with me, but just say it and stand by it. Don't pretend that the Baha'i Faith believes in the Bible, as in believing it is the inerrant, infallible Word of God. Baha'is don't.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
So... is it "absolutely" false that Baha'is both believe and deny the Bible and the NT? Not "wholly" authentic? It all can't be taken "literally"? Fine with me, but just say it and stand by it. Don't pretend that the Baha'i Faith believes in the Bible, as in believing it is the inerrant, infallible Word of God. Baha'is don't.
Who said that Baha'is believe that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God? Most Baha'is do not believe that. So what?

Baha'i views of the Bible vary widely. My views lie in the middle area.

Introduction

Although Bahá'ís universally share a great respect for the Bible, and acknowledge its status as sacred literature, their individual views about its authoritative status range along the full spectrum of possibilities. At one end there are those who assume the uncritical evangelical or fundamentalist-Christian view that the Bible is wholly and indisputably the word of God. At the other end are Bahá'ís attracted to the liberal, scholarly conclusion that the Bible is no more than a product of complex historical and human forces. Between these extremes is the possibility that the Bible contains the Word of God, but only in a particular sense of the phrase 'Word of God' or in particular texts. I hope to show that a Bahá'í view must lie in this middle area, and can be defined to some degree.

Bahá'í teachers and scholars both have an interest in solving this problem. It should be noted at this point that the problem of Biblical authority addressed here is logically prior to that of Biblical interpretation, and the defining of a Bahá'í view is logically prior to engaging in inter-religious dialogue.

Conclusion

The Bahá'í viewpoint proposed by this essay has been established as follows: The Bible is a reliable source of Divine guidance and salvation, and rightly regarded as a sacred and holy book. However, as a collection of the writings of independent and human authors, it is not necessarily historically accurate. Nor can the words of its writers, although inspired, be strictly defined as 'The Word of God' in the way the original words of Moses and Jesus could have been. Instead there is an area of continuing interest for Bahá'í scholars, possibly involving the creation of new categories for defining authoritative religious literature.

A Baháí View of the Bible
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
If one looks hard enough they will always find some reason NOT to believe, then they tell people like me that I should look at every little detail and I'd see something that proves the Baha'i Faith is not true, but I am not going to do that. You know that I have some 'issues' with what Abdu'l-Baha said, but I am not going to drop out of the Baha'i Faith just because of that. Moreover, I realize that it could be a matter of intrpretation or just something that rubs me the worng way, like when he says "be happy!" I have an emotional reaction but since I am able to recognize it as such, I know it is my own personal issue. And so what if Abdu'l-Baha made a mistake? He was not infallible. It is the preponderance of evidence that matters, not every little detail.
I obsessed too much over individual trees in the Baha'i forest too much in the past. However, in the end it made me more knowledgeable in the end, by God's mercy.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
Before that I believed that a God existed but I only half believed. Now I am certain that God exists and I feel I know something about God, although God is mostly a mystery.
I remember those days when you believed in Baha'u'llah, and was doubtful of God's existence. That was an unusual aspect of you that caught my attention.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
I obsessed too much over individual trees in the Baha'i forest too much in the past. However, in the end it made me more knowledgeable in the end, by God's mercy.
That is good that you became more knowledgeable because I rely upon your knowledge! It is funny how things work out sometimes.
 
Top