Continuing Revelation

[smaneck]

It seemed that @smaneck said the fruits we must judge to distinguish between real and phony Manifestations are the religious teachings such as the Torah or the Quran. The problem is that only "never-theist" atheists can judge the wisdom of these religious texts without bias. A believer is not qualified to make these judgments. Even an atheist like myself with a religious background is not qualified. When I read quotes from Muhammad or Baha'u'llah, I am unimpressed. When I read quotes from Jesus, I am still impressed. Why? Because I used to be a Christian, but I was never a Muslim or a Baha'i. I suspect that if I was never any kind of believer, then all these religious texts would be equally uninspiring.

So we need some objective standards for these proposed Manifestations.

You know there are people besides atheists and believers. There are those Baha'is call seekers and they are quite capable of reading and evaluating a text. Unlike you I was impressed by Baha'u'llah's Writings and I first read them as a Christian, not a Baha'i. However, the Writings are only one of the proofs I offered. There were two others. But I don't think any of them could be called 'objective' because that is not how spiritual matters operate. To rephrase a verse from an old song, "If religion were a thing that intelligence could buy, then the smart would live and the dumb would die."
A spiritual text requires a level of spiritual discernment, not measured by an "objective standard."

 

[LoAmmi]

LoAmmi, you say you do not pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Do you pray in the name of the Lord?

How would you characterize prayer that draws down the power of heaven? Moses's prayers? Daniel's prayers. David's prayers? Are there any common denominators?

We pray to HaShem, we don't pray in anybody's name. What HaShem decides to do at that point is up to Him.

Most of our prayers do begin with the same phrase though, saying Blessed is HaShem, Lord of the Universe.

 

[smaneck]

Most of our prayers do begin with the same phrase though, saying Blessed is HaShem, Lord of the Universe.

Is Lord of the Universe Malik Alam? That's what it is in Arabic.

 

[LoAmmi]

Is Lord of the Universe Malik Alam? That's what it is in Arabic.

Melech haolam

 

[smaneck]

Melech haolam

Direct cognate. I suspected as much.

 

[cloudyday2]

A spiritual text requires a level of spiritual discernment, not measured by an "objective standard."

Another alternative is to evaluate the religions independent of the supposed Manifestations that created them. If something said by Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, or Baha'u'llah sounds correct then accept it, and if it sounds wrong then deny it. Declaring people to be Manifestations exempts their teachings from criticism. It is better to have no Manifestations so that the teachings must stand on their own merits.

 

[smaneck]

Another alternative is to evaluate the religions independent of the supposed Manifestations that created them. If something said by Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, or Baha'u'llah sounds correct then accept it, and if it sounds wrong then deny it. Declaring people to be Manifestations exempts their teachings from criticism. It is better to have no Manifestations so that the teachings must stand on their own merits.

Except in practice that makes you the standard of truth.

 

[cloudyday2]

Except in practice that makes you the standard of truth.

Ultimately, that's the way it is anyway. We each must make choices based on our assessment of different hypotheses that may or may not be true. One of my favorite sayings in the Bible is "what is truth?" by Pontius Pilate.

So we can either abdicate our individual responsibility and say "this seems wrong, but the Lord works in mysterious ways" or we can say "this seems wrong, so it isn't true" - realizing that we are fallible humans that might be mistaken. Either way we are the standard of truth.

 

[Arthra]

What's required in my view is to seek... explore and discover for yourself. In my experience I studied the revealed words and learned as much as I could about the lives of the Manifestations ... I found I could not reject any of Them.

 

[jackcv]

You know there are people besides atheists and believers. There are those Baha'is call seekers and they are quite capable of reading and evaluating a text. Unlike you I was impressed by Baha'u'llah's Writings and I first read them as a Christian, not a Baha'i. However, the Writings are only one of the proofs I offered. There were two others. But I don't think any of them could be called 'objective' because that is not how spiritual matters operate...A spiritual text requires a level of spiritual discernment, not measured by an "objective standard."

I feel more unity with people like Smaneck the more I focus my own seeking into

1. the scriptures of my own and other great world religions,
   
2. the words of the living prophets today,
   
3. asking my own questions, based on the scriptures, to the Source of all truth, and
   
4. listening/feeling for answers from him.

Unlike some, I was impressed with the wisdom and beauty of the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao te Ching, the Quran, and the Tanakh (OT), although I was raised reading primarily the NT and Book of Mormon.

What Smaneck refers to as "spiritual discernment" is stressed around the world and down through history by the greatest thinkers - those who see things clearly enough to simplify them. It is a term I first noted in 1 Corinthians 2:14, and I define as the willingness/aptitude/ability to give and receive information through the spiritual "sense", aside from the 5 senses. Some call it intuition, inspiration, the inner voice (Gandhi), the still, small voice (Tanakh), the little voice that tells me the truth, revelation (LDS), mystery (1 Cor 4:1), spirituality (not spiritualism), the Spirit (OT & NT), Spirit of Truth (NT).

Spirituality is the true source of morals, which are supra-rational, not measurable by objective standards comprehensible to human beings in this life (Isa 55:8-9) although, as Joseph Smith said, "The things of God are of deep import; and time, experience, and careful, ponderous, solemn thoughts can only find them out."

The greatest sages steer us in this direction.

 

[jackcv]

What's required in my view is to seek... explore and discover for yourself. In my experience I studied the revealed words and learned as much as I could about the lives of the Manifestations ... I found I could not reject any of Them.

While I am as sure as I am alive that Jesus is the very Messiah and God Almighty, I have found the same thing Arthra says here.

Only later did I see that the true Christian scriptures tell the same thing. There are true and false prophets among every nation, kindred, tongue and people. There are people everywhere who love the appearing of the Lord Jesus, though they have never heard His name, because they are souls who are consecrated to love, truth, and service. Almost everything they do is in the name of Jesus Christ, though they may live and die rejecting the bizarre caricatures of Him that some people say they worship.

 

[jackcv]

We pray to HaShem, we don't pray in anybody's name. What HaShem decides to do at that point is up to Him.

Most of our prayers do begin with the same phrase though, saying Blessed is HaShem, Lord of the Universe.

How would the Jews characterize Enoch's, Moses's, Daniel's, and David's prayers that drew down the power of heaven? What common denominators have they identified? I can't imagine that this question has not been passionately discussed in Jewish circles for thousands of years, and recorded. I have found several.

 

[jackcv]

We pray to HaShem, we don't pray in anybody's name.

Most of our prayers do begin with the same phrase though, saying Blessed is HaShem, Lord of the Universe.

How would you paraphrase that phrase? What does blessed mean to a Jew? What is the purpose and desired effect of "blessing" God - or do you just mean "God is happy" or something like that? Is it only to induce the proper state of mind in the individual, or does it have a purpose larger than self?

 

[LoAmmi]

How would you paraphrase that phrase? What does blessed mean to a Jew? What is the purpose and desired effect of "blessing" God - or do you just mean "God is happy" or something like that? Is it only to induce the proper state of mind in the individual, or does it have a purpose larger than self?

Who Blesses Whom?

Many English-speaking people find the idea of berakhot very confusing. To them, the word "blessing" seems to imply that the person saying the blessing is conferring some benefit on the person he is speaking to. For example, in Catholic tradition, a person making a confession begins by asking the priest to bless him. Yet in a berakhah, the person saying the blessing is speaking to G-d. How can the creation confer a benefit upon the Creator?

This confusion stems largely from difficulties in the translation. The Hebrew word "barukh" is not a verb describing what we do to G-d; it is an adjective describing G-d as the source of all blessings. When we recite a berakhah, we are not blessing G-d; we are expressing wonder at how blessed G-d is.

From http://www.jewfaq.org/prayer.htm

 

[cloudyday2]

What's required in my view is to seek... explore and discover for yourself. In my experience I studied the revealed words and learned as much as I could about the lives of the Manifestations ... I found I could not reject any of Them.

Two questions:
(1) If you don't reject any of Them, then you must have a concise list of these Manifestations. It seems to me that the Baha'i keep this list secret, because it is easier to recruit a Raelian (for example) into the Baha'i faith if you can imply that the founder of Raelism is accepted as a Manifestation when he probably is not accepted.
(2) Many of the Manifestations mentioned by Baha'u'llah have contradictory teachings unless they are heavily filtered through Baha'u'llah's own interpretations of what They really meant to say.

I think the Baha'i on this forum are very nice people, but I think the Baha'i religion is mentally and psychologically oppressive to its members. All religions are that way somewhat, but Baha'i is worse because it is still small and young.

Tolerating religion is like tolerating small pox.

 

[pawnraider]

As was the writer of Genesis.

So how do you account for the contradiction?

 

[pawnraider]

Yet you happily adopted terms like "Trinity" and "incarnation", neither of which were found in the Bible.

Indeed. While the terminology is not to be found in the Bible the reasons or using the terminology are.

 

[pawnraider]

Not a statement that would even make sense to a Baha'i since we all believe in Jesus.

Interesting. And what exactly is it about Jesus that you believe in? Do you believe the only through Jesus Christ can on be saved? Do you believe that He is the Messiah? Acts 4:12, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

 

[pawnraider]

That is the sort of answer one expects from junior sunday school children. I expect more real thought from a senior contributor like yourself.

Insult noted! So are "junior sunday school children" the only ones allowed to quote from the Bible? Be that as it may I tend to think that some "junior sunday school children" are more knowledgeable about the Bible than some of their adult counterparts. Here's a little something else about false prophets from the book of Deuteronomy: "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him." This bit can be found in Deuteronomy 13:1-4.

 

[smaneck]

Two questions:
(1) If you don't reject any of Them, then you must have a concise list of these Manifestations.It seems to me that the Baha'i keep this list secret,

There is a list of those Manifestations that have been named as such by either Baha'u'llah or Abdu'l-Baha. It is certainly not secret and can be found on most Baha'i websites. We do not think that list is necessarily exhaustive. For instance, there may well have been Native American Manifestations. I strongly suspect Quetzalcoatl might have been one of them, but Baha'u'llah never mentioned him. However we do not accept anyone as a Manifestation who came after Baha'u'llah because Baha'u'llah insisted that there would not be any 'ere the passing of a thousand years.

because it is easier to recruit a Raelian (for example) into the Baha'i faith if you can imply that the founder of Raelism is accepted as a Manifestation when he probably is not accepted.

You've got a wild imagination. I've never even met a Raelian.

(2) Many of the Manifestations mentioned by Baha'u'llah have contradictory teachings unless they are heavily filtered through Baha'u'llah's own interpretations of what They really meant to say.

I wouldn't say many, but some of them lived so long ago it is hard to know what they taught.

I think the Baha'i on this forum are very nice people, but I think the Baha'i religion is mentally and psychologically oppressive to its members.

Not feeling particularly oppressed.