Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Why Is There More Than One Religion?

An ongoing serious point of discussion that is frequently raised by so many has been, why humanity needs continued Divine guidance? A line of reasoning as to this need is clearly expressed in the words of Baha'u'llah, the prophet founder of the Baha'i Faith; He contends the following:

“All the Prophets of God,” asserts Bahá’u’lláh in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, “abide in the same tabernacle, soar in the same heaven, are seated upon the same throne, utter the same speech, and proclaim the same Faith.” From the “beginning that hath no beginning,” these Exponents of the Unity of God and Channels of His incessant utterance have shed the light of the invisible Beauty upon mankind, and will continue, to the “end that hath no end,” to vouchsafe fresh revelations of His might and additional experiences of His inconceivable glory. To contend that any particular religion is final, that “all Revelation is ended, that the portals of Divine mercy are closed, that from the daysprings of eternal holiness no sun shall rise again, that the ocean of everlasting bounty is forever stilled, and that out of the Tabernacle of ancient glory the Messengers of God have ceased to be made manifest” would indeed be nothing less than sheer blasphemy.

“They differ,” explains Bahá’u’lláh in that same epistle, “only in the intensity of their revelation and the comparative potency of their light.” And this, not by reason of any inherent incapacity of any one of them to reveal in a fuller measure the glory of the Message with which He has been entrusted, but rather because of the immaturity and unpreparedness of the age He lived in to apprehend and absorb the full potentialities latent in that Faith.

Shoghi Effendi, in The World Order of Baha'u'llah

3 comments:

  1. This question is one that each person may ask in his heart. I think the universal recognition of the simple, profound Oneness of Religion will be a sign of the coming of age of our civilization.
    In the meantime, the adolescent struggles remain.
    Some day, love will replace fear.

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  2. I think for 2 groups of people who do not recognize the logic of the Bahai teachings, this is an interesting question. The other group has never thought carefully about what it is like to be a school teacher: math, science, whatever.

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  3. Thank you both for your wise comments.
    EdoRiver: welcome back...it has been a while! The question of the teacher you raised is really down to the core of the need for progressive revelation. Interesting that you bring it up as it highlights the content of the first post on this blog nearly 3 years ago.

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