RE: Question to Theists
June 18, 2014 at 12:09 pm
(This post was last modified: June 18, 2014 at 12:21 pm by zanOTK.)
(June 18, 2014 at 11:02 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote:(June 18, 2014 at 10:52 am)zanOTK Wrote: It's not really a "gut feeling" for me, nor is it indoctrination. It's past experience. Which suck, because personal experience can't really be used as any kind of evidence. But I'm not trying to prove anything, so *shrug*.
As for claims about God's actions: Most of the "major" ones, Baha'is basically believe are myth. They are said to hold metaphorical truths, but are not literally true themselves. That doesn't mean we don't believe in miracles period, it just means we don't believe in MOST of them actually happening.
There are a LOT of "divergent details." Starting with: Catholicism came out of Judaism, the Baha'i Faith came out of Islam. Catholics today believe that the practitioners of other religions -maybe- have a chance of going to heaven due to the "mystery of Christ's sacrifice," Baha'is believe the practitioners of other religions have just as much of a chance as Baha'is do to achieve a good afterlife. Which leads to another: Baha'is don't believe in Heaven and Hell. We believe that these are metaphors for nearness to and distance from God. We also believe that you can continue to draw nearer to God after death (to Catholics that would basically be saying you can get to Heaven from Hell). Also, while Catholics have a powerful priesthood, Baha'is have no clergy. For spiritual matters, we are responsible for ourselves. For administration, we hold elections for the Local, Regional, National, and International administrative bodies. Baha'is also don't believe in the Trinity, or that Jesus resurrected after being crucified.
Just out of curiosity, what kind of miracles do you believe happened? And then, does that fall into your 'gut feeling' area of belief, or do you have any evidence for those miracles?
We believe in the virgin birth of Christ, we believe that the Bab (forerunner of Baha'u'llah, founder of the Baha'i Faith) didn't die the first time the Persian government attempted to have Him executed by firing squad (the whole story on that is available online, if anyone is interested in reading it), and we believe that Baha'u'llah performed a few miracles Himself during His ministry. Thing is, I don't really know about most of the miracles we accept happened, at least not off the top of my head. Mostly because Baha'is don't really care about miracles. We don't believe they prove anything, except to those that witnessed them, so they're not really all that important to anyone else.
As for whether that's "gut feeling" or we have proof, neither. Or, I guess it could be labeled under the Founder's "gut feelings," if you like.
(June 18, 2014 at 12:07 pm)pocaracas Wrote: Gotcha... Do you guys have a holy book?
That's hard to answer. Not because we don't, but because there have been 15,000 works identified as being by Baha'u'llah alone (most of which have not yet been translated into English from the original Arabic and Persian). This, however, is including epistles. There are quite a few larger works written by Baha'u'llah, though, which include: The Kitab-i-Iqan (Book of Certitude, written before He declared His mission. It was written as a defense of the Bab from the standpoint of the Bible and the Quran), the Kitab-i-Aqdas (Most Holy Book, our book of Laws. Also contains some of our theology.), the Hidden Words (short book written by Baha'u'llah to communicate the "essence" of religion. One of my favorites), 7 Valleys and 4 Valleys (two completely different books which are actually not connected to one another in any way except that they are the two main "mystical" works by Baha'u'llah. If I remember right, they were both written in response to letters sent to Baha'u'llah. They are usually published in a single volume.), and decent sized collection of prayers. So yeah, we don't have one holy book, but we do have holy books.
