Category Archives: Baha’i Faith

A religion that is not nearly as progressive as it looks from its propaganda.

What Actually Motivated the Bab and Baha’u’llah?

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Christianity is well known for its emphasis on the expectation of the Return of Christ to set up the Kingdom of God on Earth. What’s not so well known is that Shia, a branch of Islam, has similar expectations regarding the Imam Mahdi, also known as the 12th Imam or the Hidden Imam. In reddit, a Muslim said the following:

The followers of Ja’far al-Kaddhab
byu/imastudentt inshia

investigator919

I’ll just say one thing: When Imam Mahdi comes he will establish peace and justice once and for all. He will not change Islam and he will not bring a new religion.

_________________________

But that very assumption means that it is possible that as thousands of years continue to come and go, the Muslim population may gradually come to the conclusion that the expectation of Imam Mahdi to come is unrealistic and that Islam is not a true religion after all.

That seems to be an issue Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, was aware of.

https://bahai-library.com/writings/bahaullah/gwb/099.html

The vitality of men’s belief in God is dying out in every land; nothing short of His wholesome medicine can ever restore it. The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the vitals of human society; what else but the Elixir of His potent Revelation can cleanse and revive it?

Could this loss of belief in God be a direct result of the prophecies of the return of Christ or of Imam Mahdi never coming to pass?

Why the Rapture is a bogus concept

A Critical Analysis of the Epistle of 2 Peter

We can understand that there was an actual time limit for the return of Jesus:

Matthew 16:28 King James Version (KJV)

Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

So Jesus should have returned by about 100 AD or so. Maybe AD 150 at the very latest. He didn’t, so:

Deuteronomy 18:22 King James Version (KJV)

 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

But the Quran clearly defines Jesus as a prophet of God. If Jesus failed to return in the time limit he himself gave, then according to Moses, he did not speak for God. If Jesus was false, so was Muhammad. If Muhammad was false, so were the Imams of Shia. So we shouldn’t expect the Imam Mahdi to ever return either. And since Baha’u’llah affirmed both Jesus and Muhammad as Prophets of God, he too is not one himself.

So where does that leave the Bab and Baha’u’llah? Well, the Bab claimed to be the Imam Mahdi, yet he was killed by a firing squad on July 9, 1850, thus failing to fulfil the promises of the Shias. And Baha’u’llah was said to be the return of Christ, but that seems illogical given the time limit Jesus gave. The Muslims, the Babis, and the Baha’is only seem to have credible faiths when you fail to remember that time limit for the return of Christ.

If you are ignorant of what Jesus REALLY taught (and failed to fulfil), you can be a sucker for anything. So to sum up:

  1. Jesus will never return.
  2. The Imam Mahdi will never return
  3. There is no religion after Judaism that is true.
  4. The desperate attempt by Baha’u’llah to stop the spread of atheism was pointless. Atheism is not a bad thing.

And those are my conclusions.

Wahid Azal Goes on Another Childish Rampage

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It’s been known for years that both DavidBinOwen and Wahid Azal have been “ban evaders” in reddit, meaning they would create many sockpuppet accounts to try to infiltrate and disrupt the discussions in r/exbahai long after they were banned from it. These have been documented on the following blog entries:

History Repeats Itself in the ExBaha’i Subreddit
Wahid Azal Repeats his Lies and Makes More Excuses
Damning proof that Wahid Azal lied outright about Naser Emtesali and “u/MirzaJan”
A massive fight with “DavidBinOwen” in reddit
The Hilarious Discrediting of DavidBinOwen

Recently, Wahid has been making many, many, MANY accounts for the purpose of harassment of us.

We first noticed this here:

What are some of the strangest laws written by the bab you found?
byu/hhhhhbbhghhh inexbahai
Seeker_Alpha1701
Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist
 
Are you referring to the various Baha’i houses of worship that have been built around the world? They are indeed known to have nine sides to them….a design that is impractical as hell.
 
On a related note, I have yet to see arguments regarding the Bab or his teachings that make him look any more credible or appealing than, say, Adolph Hitler or Charles Manson. I mean, they had followers and became world famous, with scholars researching their supposed mental states and their rises and downfalls, but beyond that, who cares? They’re both dead and their perverted movements should have died with them, obviously. Good riddance.

_____________________________________

SayfAllahQuddusiyah

One day, God willing, we will say this very thing about America and its faux-liberalism which built itself atop slavery, genocide of natives, resource theft, white supremacy, and the death of millions around the world.

The Primal Point and His relevance will outlive the dominance of you arrogant white liberal Anglo-American honkies. Take it to the bank!

____________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring

Of course, I’m not falling for that crap.

__________________________

SayfAllahQuddusiyah

No redd herring there. A statement of fact. Get your logical fallacies right without recourse to wackopedia.

___________________

SuccessfulCorner2512

The Bab was mentally ill. Almost everything he wrote was strange. Even Baha’i scholars find it incomprehensible.

________________

 
SayfAllahQuddusiyah

Only two types of people make such a statement: 1) Shiite seminarians and/or IR regime apologists and 2) biased individuals with no knowledge of either classical Arabic or 1200 years of Islamic literary developments. If your understanding of the Bab was filtered through warped Baha’i lenses that is no reflection on actual facts. If your understanding of the Bab is filtered through biased Shiite establishmentarian lenses that is no reflection on the facts either. Scholars such as E.G. Browne, A-L-M Nicolas, Arthur Gobinueau, Todd Lawson, Denis MacEoin, Stephan Lambden, etc, were and are all fascinated by him and have spent a considerable period of their lives studying Him and the writings He composed in only a 6 year period. For an Englishman and then a Frenchman to learn classical Arabic and Persian – such as Browne and Nicolas – in order to get access to the Bab’s writings in the original says your observation is ignorant, way off, totally misplaced, and is no reflection on any facts. For a Frenchman like Nicolas to meticulously translate several of the Bab’s major works over a 30-year period, says the Bab’s works have deep appeal – and far more than the mediocrities of Haba’. Those who find Him strange do so because they have not the slightest comprehension of the deep mysticism behind it, or otherwise possess an ideological axe to grind, such as the mullahs and their supporters. Furthermore, if everything He wrote was strange, as you say, thousands wouldn’t have been galvanized to take up arms in His name against the corrupt and parasitic Qajar state, aristocracy and clergy which you regularly like to defend in a typically knee-jerk reactionary, rightwing British kind of way.

As for the charge of mental illness: an Irish doctor in the employ of the British legation found no such evidence. Nevertheless it is a common tactic of slander and defamation normalized specifically by the Anglo-Saxon – who themselves are the greatest psychotic sociopaths and murderers history has ever witnessed – to dismiss a figure such as the Bab or similar with the label as a smokescreen in order not to have to address matters or deal with serious issues.

_________________
The chief mod of this subreddit responded to SucessfulCorner2512:
 
investigator919

I double this.

_______________________

SayfAllahQuddusiyah

Of course you would. I say the Ayatollah Khomeini was a dangerous clinical sociopath and bloodthirsty psychotic that the Pahlavis should’ve executed when they had the chance. The memories of his lifelong student Ayatollah Montazeri and others confirms it. I also say that Khamenei and his son Mojtaba are likewise dangerous clinical sociopaths and criminal psychotics, and that any Iranian who puts them away is a literal Kaveh, the Blacksmith, of the times. What do you say to that?

________________

investigator919
I couldnt care less. Regardless, the Bab was mentaly ill.
____________________
Important-Lime-7442

And you are a cyber-basiji in the employ of the cyber-army of the IRI. Moreover, you are not an Iranian as your style of written Persian proves (where you are also denounced by other Iranians for being a shill):

https://www.reddit.com/r/iranian/comments/zekepg/shopkeepers_across_iran_take_part_in_mass_walkouts/ize17mn/?context=3

This by you below is also not any formal or idiomatic style of composition in Persian:

دهنتو ببند حرف اضافی نزن

آخر توهمین شماها. نفهم میگم اینجا اینترنت اوکی بوده خودم داشتم با اینترنت کار می کردم آخرش میای فحش ناموس بدی که توهمتو قالب کنی به من.

–

You are obviously either a Pakistani or Indian, and no Iranian.

كثافت سگ بسيجى

__________________

Using Google Translate, the Persian passages read in English:

Shut your mouth, don’t talk too much.

The end of your illusions. I don’t understand, the internet is ok here. I was working with the internet myself. Finally, you come to insult me and cast your illusion on me.

Basiji dog litter

Looks like real Persian words to me. Also, what would be the point of anyone NOT an Iranian serving the intelligence agencies of Iran by moderating a subreddit against the Baha’i Faith and defending Iran all over the place? Instead of, you know, serving his own country?

Also, I have lived in Texas all my life, but I have never spoken with a “Texan” accent (which is actually a myth, BTW). Azal’s claim against investigator919 is like someone saying I have no right to be called a Texan because I don’t speak a certain way. Since Azal lives in Australia and not Iran, his claim is just bullshit. He doesn’t know any more about how present day Iranians use Persian than I do.

Holographic_Realty

Burying the believer in a crystal coffin is interesting. I’m not sure how one would acquire the funds to do that unless the person was already wealthy to begin with. I think there is another one that says a non-Babi spouse is to have all of their possessions stolen by their Babi partner if they don’t convert to the religion.

I think a lot of the Babi Laws were meant to be symbolic to some degree. Given that we are so used to the Baha’i organization doing everything it can to distance itself from its Islamic roots, it is easy to forget that the Babi religion was founded during a time of “spiritual mania”. I think the Bab felt like he had to sound “tough” to stand up to people who would try to bully and persecute his followers, but that’s just my speculation.

____________________

SayfAllahQuddusiyah

No such law in the Bayan. You have confused Haba’s law in the aqdas that non-Baha’i family do not inherit with another law in the Bayan. The Bayan instead says that non-believers are to be disenfranchised of their property under a Bayani state/kingdom unless they convert because only believers in the Bayan are to reside in a Bayani state/kingdom (which is only inclusive of the five provinces constituting Iran and Iraq). At the same time it makes it a sin to dispossess any individual of their home or place of residence and prohibits forced conversions to the Bayan.

And, no, none of these laws were meant to be symbolic. Symbolic of what, exactly?

______________

So I went after him:

Seeker_Alpha1701
 

Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist

I think he is lying to you, not correcting.

In 2017, I did a critical analysis of the Kitab-i-Aqdas from start to finish. The part dealing with inheritance was explored here:

https://dalehusband.com/2017/08/28/a-critical-analysis-of-the-kitab-i-aqdas-part-two/

Here is everything the Aqdas says about inheritance:

We have divided inheritance into seven categories: to the children, We have allotted nine parts comprising five hundred and forty shares; to the wife, eight parts comprising four hundred and eighty shares; to the father, seven parts comprising four hundred and twenty shares; to the mother, six parts comprising three hundred and sixty shares; to the brothers, five parts or three hundred shares; to the sisters, four parts or two hundred and forty shares; and to the teachers, three parts or one hundred and eighty shares. Such was the ordinance of My Forerunner, He Who extolleth My Name in the night season and at the break of day. When We heard the clamor of the children as yet unborn, We doubled their share and decreased those of the rest. He, of a truth, hath power to ordain whatsoever He desireth, and He doeth as He pleaseth by virtue of His sovereign might.

Should the deceased leave no offspring, their share shall revert to the House of Justice, to be expended by the Trustees of the All-Merciful on the orphaned and widowed, and on whatsoever will bring benefit to the generality of the people, that all may give thanks unto their Lord, the All-Gracious, the Pardoner.

Should the deceased leave offspring, but none of the other categories of heirs that have been specified in the Book, they shall receive two-thirds of the inheritance and the remaining third shall revert to the House of Justice. Such is the command which hath been given, in majesty and glory, by Him Who is the All-Possessing, the Most High.

If the deceased should leave none of the specified heirs, but have among his relatives nephews and nieces, whether on his brother’s or his sister’s side, two-thirds of the inheritance shall pass to them; or, lacking these, to his uncles and aunts on both his father’s and his mother’s side, and after them to their sons and daughters. The remaining third of the inheritance shall, in any case, revert to the Seat of Justice. Thus hath it been laid down in the Book by Him Who ruleth over all men.

Should the deceased be survived by none of those whose names have been recorded by the Pen of the Most High, his estate shall, in its entirety, revert to the aforementioned Seat that it may be expended on that which is prescribed by God. He, verily, is the Ordainer, the Omnipotent.

We have assigned the residence and personal clothing of the deceased to the male, not female, offspring, nor to the other heirs. He, verily, is the Munificent, the All-Bountiful.

Should the son of the deceased have passed away in the days of his father and have left children, they will inherit their father’s share, as prescribed in the Book of God. Divide ye their share amongst them with perfect justice. Thus have the billows of the Ocean of Utterance surged, casting forth the pearls of the laws decreed by the Lord of all mankind.

If the deceased should leave children who are under age, their share of the inheritance must be entrusted to a reliable individual, or to a company, that it may be invested on their behalf in trade and business until they come of age. The trustee should be assigned a due share of the profit that hath accrued to it from being thus employed.

Division of the estate should take place only after the Ḥuqúqu’lláh hath been paid, any debts have been settled, the expenses of the funeral and burial defrayed, and such provision made that the deceased may be carried to his resting-place with dignity and honor. Thus hath it been ordained by Him Who is Lord of the beginning and the end.

There is a lot to criticize, but the specific reference to “that non-Baha’i family do not inherit” is not one of them…..indeed, I found no such distinction anywhere in the Aqdas, or I would have commented on it somewhere in my blog entry series on the subject. Here is the entire list:

https://dalehusband.com/bahai-writings-criticism/

Meanwhile we have this from the con artist above.

No such law in the Bayan……..The Bayan instead says that non-believers are to be disenfranchised of their property under a Bayani state/kingdom unless they convert because only believers in the Bayan are to reside in a Bayani state/kingdom (which is only inclusive of the five provinces constituting Iran and Iraq).

Which is a distinction without a difference. Much like saying the Bayan does not command the destruction of books but does call for them to be erased. Really?

So this dingbat opposes the tyranny of the Islamic Republic of Iran and even the corrupt democracy of the USA, but thinks a Bayani republic that denies non-Babis the right to own property and censors non-Babi books is acceptable?!

____________________

Later:

Rosette9
agnostic exBaha’i
 
That Babi’s were forbidden to ask questions, his edicts to burn all non-religious books, that believers should give him priceless gifts…
 
These are things that are common knowledge among Baha’is as well as exBaha’is. But just as moon landing denialists can’t stand the idea that we actually sent men to the moon for some reason, Wahid Azal can’t stand the obvious point that the Bab was a lunatic……..because he himself is one too!
 

SayfAllahQuddusiyah

No such law, and given the massive amount of literary output by the Bab in only a 6 short year period, this decisively proves that He never forbade questions. What He specifically forbade was asking “why” (lima) and “wherefore” (bima) of He whom God shall make Manifest when He appears, i.e. interrogating Him, and this ordinance exists due to the bitter personal experience of the Bab when He arrived in Bushire from the hajj and subsequently when under custody because the subtext of this ordinance is not to treat He whom God shall make Manifest the way the Shi’ite mullahs and their supporters treated Him. Contrary to the mullahs who regularly practiced book burning (as they still do), especially of the writings of their rivals and critics, there is no law in the Bayan to burn non-religious books or books or any written material of any kind. In fact the very opposite. The effacement or destruction of any written material is explicitly forbidden in the Bayan per gate 13 of the 9th Unity:

أنتم أبدا كتابا لا تخرقون

“You are not to destroy any book [or any piece of writing, since in Arabic kitab/book in the accusative and indefinite case can refer to a book or any other piece of written material] under any circumstance!”

https://bayanic.com/lib/fwd/ABayan/ABayan-FWD.html

The claim originates with Haba’ and his son which has been uncritically repeated by the Shiite mullahs and their supporters (like u/Investigator919), and now clueless and confused secular Anglo-European ex-Bahais as well. So either no such law exists in the Bayan and the Baha’i founder and his son lied – as the textual evidence explicitly proves – or there is confusion about two different laws. In the 6th gate of the 6th Unity of the Bayan, the Bab says to efface all previous scriptures; meaning, to cease allowing the scriptural books of previous dispensations to act in any form as a centerpiece in a subsequent dispensation, which He explicitly glosses as such in the Persian Bayan. However, this has nothing to do with the physical destruction of any book or scriptural text, not to mention it explicitly echoes a verse of the Qur’an (13:39):

يَمْحُو اللَّهُ مَا يَشَاءُ وَيُثْبِتُ ۖ وَعِندَهُ أُمُّ الْكِتَابِ

God effaces what He/It wills and establishes/confirms [what He/It wills]! And with It/Him is the Mother of the Book!

As well as the second theophanic sequence of the hadith kumayl (which acts as a proof-text to everything the Bab contextualizes):

محو الموهوم و صحو المعلوم

The effacement of supposition/conjecture and the realization of the Known!

As matter of fact, even though Abbas Effendi propagated this slur of Babi book burning, it was in fact Baha’is who went out of their way around the world to destroy and/or efface copies of the Leiden edition of nuqtat’ul-kaf by E.G. Browne when it was published. Abbas Effendi even ordered the Baha’is to do so. In fact, I know of Baha’is in the past 30 years who went around public libraries throughout the United States and effaced or stole from shelves and then destroyed copies of William M. Miller’s The Baha’i Faith: Its History and Teachings. So the destruction of books is in fact a practice literally engaged in by Baha’is themselves.

As for giving priceless gifts to the Point: again, this ordinance relates to He whom God shall make Manifest, and what exactly the problem is with this ordinance, is anyone’s guess.

What a ridiculous load of mental gymnastics!

First:

given the massive amount of literary output by the Bab in only a 6 short year period, this decisively proves that He never forbade questions.

That’s actually a non sequitur. Someone could write a dozen novels and yet never respond to a single letter written to him by a fan of his writing.

The claim originates with [Baha’u’llah] and his son which has been uncritically repeated by the Shiite mullahs and their supporters (like u/Investigator919), and now clueless and confused secular Anglo-European ex-Bahais as well. So either no such law exists in the Bayan and the Baha’i founder and his son lied – as the textual evidence explicitly proves – or there is confusion about two different laws.

This is also nonsense. I would later show exactly why.

Seeker_Alpha1701

The idea that Baha’u’llah so blatantly lied about the Bayan to justify abrogating it doesn’t hold up for one simple reason: In Baha’u’llah’s time, nearly all the Baha’is were former Bayanis and thus they would have had access to the Bayan to see if there were such laws for Baha’u’llah to abrogate. There would have been no need for Baha’u’llah to abrogate anything from the Bayan if those laws were anything reasonable like that claimed above. Baha’u’llah was engaging in one form of “damage control”, while the lying commenter was doing another form, but both should be rejected.

It’s a bit like a neo-Nazi claiming today, “Hitler never wanted to exterminate the Jews; he just wanted them out of Europe.” So what the fuck were all those concentration camps for?!

__________________

Fool_Killer313
 
Neither Gomer, Interrogator919 and their alter ego SuccessfulCorner2512 or MirzaIRI_Jan appear to read classical Arabic (or French, for that matter) and so rely on either garbled English translations by Peter Terry (from Nicolas’ original French) or material put out by IRI outfits or material by MacEoin and others, but deliberately taken out of context. However, I have offered links to the text of the Arabic Bayan itself:

  1. The autograph in the hand of the Bab Himself: https://www.academia.edu/36798591/Codex_Arabic_Bay%C4%81n_pdf

  2. The Azali lithograph edition from the autograph (whose editor’s preamble was translated by me from Persian to English for Bayanic.com): https://bayanic.com/lib/fwd/ABayan/ABayan-FWD.html

  3. The INBA 43 text (a Baha’i publication): https://www.h-net.org/~bahai/diglib/INBA/INBA043.pdf

  4. Muslim anti-Babi polemicist `Abd al-Razzaq al-Hasani’s typescript edition: https://www.h-net.org/~bahai/areprint/bab/A-F/b/bayana/bayana.htm

Those who assert must prove! So Gomer and his IRI handlers must prove on the prima facie evidence of the text of the Arabic Bayan itself that 1) the Bayan commands book burning, 2) that the Bayan commands building 9-sided houses, 3) that the Bayan disallows the asking of questions and 4) that the Bayan commands that priceless gifts be given to the Bab. I have already proven 1) to be a lie since the 13the gate of the 9th Unity clearly states:

أنتم أبدا كتابا لا تخرقون

“You are not to destroy anybookwhatsoever/under any circumstance!”

https://bayanic.com/lib/fwd/ABayan/ABayan-FWD.html

* Or any piece of writing, since in Arabic kitab/book in the accusative and indefinite case can refer to a book or any other piece of written material.

Gomer and his IR handlers have skirted around this question for 4 straight years without ever offering a single piece of credible evidence or rebuttal. Instead, like the professional propagandists and gaslighting censors that they are, they have dug in their heels every time and continued to repeat themselves with the same inane talking points as before over and over again.

Finally, I will go on record and say that the clear evidence proves Interrogator919 to be a dyed in the wool and classic Shi’ite Muslim fundamentalist anti-Babi BIGOT and his sock-puppet Gomer a textbook SOCIOPATH for actually following this person. I have proven my case and the facts speak for themselves. Gomer has once again proven himself as a know-nothing and arrogant Pyle-of-Merde!

______________________

But I wasn’t going to let that con artist off the hook! Looking through all those links, I expected to find an English version of the Bayan from a reputable scholar that would confirm Azal’s claims.  Instead, I only found Arabic copies of pages of the Bayan with no translations and therefore NO way for a skeptic like me to verify anything Azal was saying. I knew then that I was merely being set up for more verbal abuse.

Seeker_Alpha1701
Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist
And…..every link in that comment above leads to NOTHING that supports your claims…..and yes, I clicked on all four of them. So you fail yet again to prove anything.
 
Again, if it is true that Baha’u’llah so blatantly misrepresented the Bayan in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, then he should have lost nearly all his followers after the latter book came out. Imagine if Jesus said, “my followers need no longer obey the Torah’s commandment to circumcise newborn boys.” Would it have been reasonable for a Jew to say, “There is no such law in the Torah, Moses has been misquoted”? Jesus himself would simply crack open the Torah, point to the actual references in question, and thus prove the Jew a liar. The only way your claims make sense is if the Bayanis and Baha’is in Baha’u’llah’s time did not have any copies of the Bayan to confirm what Baha’u’llah taught. If they didn’t, why the hell did the Bab write it for, if not for his followers to read and obey?
 
Ironically, it is exactly because most of us here don’t know Arabic that you thought you could fool us with your lies. You really need to give up this useless game…..you simply can’t win because reality doesn’t agree with you.
_______________________
Later….
 
Seeker_Alpha1701
Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist
Why would Baha’u’llah abrogate laws of the Bayan that never existed? Why didn’t Sub-i-Azal take advantage of the situation to completely discredit his brother and prove once and for all that he was right? You can’t answer that, can you?
 
I don’t tolerate it when Baha’i “historians” like Adib Taherzadeh publish made up shit that they insist is true, so why should YOU be given a free pass?
_________________
He tried to evade that argument, so I kept after him.
 
Seeker_Alpha1701
 

Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist

You keep forgetting that I am an atheist with no loyalty to Iran. I, MirzaJan and investigator919 all oppose the Baha’i Faith, so we are partners in that. And we thought you were one too. Instead, you betrayed us with lies and backstabbing.

But we also know that it all started with the Bab and IT SHOULD HAVE ENDED WITH HIM in 1850. It was Baha’u’llah who revived the Babi community and then replaced the Bab’s teachings with his own. He never would have been able to do that if the former Bayanis rejected him for lying about the Bayan and turned instead to Sub-i-Azal. You know this. The surest way to discredit the Baha’i Faith is to strike at its very root. Which is the Bab, since Baha’u’llah was once his follower.

The Bab claimed to be the return of the Mahdi. TRUE OR FALSE?

The Shias expected the Mahdi to overthrow the enemies of Islam. TRUE OR FALSE?

The Bab was gunned down in 1850 after his followers were defeated in battle. TRUE OR FALSE?

If I am to EVER believe in the Bab and the Bayani teachings, then at least ONE of those premises must be established as FALSE. SO WHICH IS IT?

___________________

  1. Indeed, the Primal Point declared Himself the Qaim and Mahdi.

  2. What the Shias expected is not necessarily what the prophecies say or what they even mean, especially in light of the central Shiite doctrine of al-bada’ (the alteration of the divine plans) which is also a core doctrine of the Bayan itself.

  3. The Primal Point was indeed martyred and the early believers of the Bayan massacred by the combined state-clergy pogrom unleashed against them. But those who survived went on to actively work against the Qajar dynasty which they overthrew in the early 20th century. The destruction of the power of the Shiite clergy is still a work in progress and is now starting to bear fruit, and we will succeed in permanently cutting the power of those tyre-heads and their allies to size for good! When we do, the Babi Revolution will be complete.

____________________________

Fool_Killer313

Why would Baha’u’llah abrogate laws of the Bayan that never existed?

Simple, because he was anti-Bayani all along as the evidence of Avarih in the first volume of his Kashfúl-Hil unequivocally proved: Haba’ denounced the Bab at his interrogation in the presence Mirza Agha Khan Nuri (a distant kinsman and the prime minister of Iran at the time) after the failed assassination on Nasiruddin Shah in the summer of 1852 (Avarih quotes directly from government archives of the interrogation). Second, because at the time the complete Bayani corpus was few and far between and in the hands of a very few people (because if these texts were ever found by authorities, they would be destroyed and the person in whose possession they were, killed), even well into the 1890s. So Haba’ took advantage of this situation and said whatever he wanted to say about the Bayan – and did! Why do you think E.G. Browne amassed so many Babi texts and catalogued them with Cambridge University? Because otherwise this history would have probably been lost given that both fundamentalist Shi’ites and Baha’is went out of their way to try to destroy it.

Why didn’t Sub-i-Azal take advantage of the situation to completely discredit his brother and prove once and for all that he was right?

He did! In tome after tome after tome of text – and he wasn’t the only one. Your problem is that you cannot access any of this material and have such a partial grasp of the historiography and texts that it is not even worth anyone’s time to teach you anything, nor have you demonstrated any interest in learning anything since your logic appears to be based on confirmation bias. In that respect, atheist or not, you are exactly like the Baha’is or fundamentalist Shi’ites.

_________________

I was getting close to nailing that fraud, so I kept up the pressure.

Seeker_Alpha1701
 

Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist

[[[Haba’ denounced the Bab at his interrogation in the presence Mirza Agha Khan Nuri (a distant kinsman and the prime minister of Iran at the time) after the failed assassination on Nasiruddin Shah]]]

Aren’t Shias allowed to deny their own beliefs in public to avoid persecution? Appearantly that’s what Baha’u’llah did. Too bad it didn’t help him.

[[[In tome after tome after tome of text – and he wasn’t the only one.]]]

Then Sub-i-Azal should have won and there should be NO Baha’i Faith today. The Bayani Faith should be the world religion instead. He failed and therefore so must you!

___________________

Fool_Killer313
Aren’t Shias allowed to deny their own beliefs in public to avoid persecution? Appearantly that’s what Baha’u’llah did. Too bad it didn’t help him.
Whatever. But the fact that he denounced the Point of the Bayan makes his entire claim disingenuous with him revealed as a complete asshole!
 
Then Sub-i-Azal should have won and there should be NO Baha’i Faith today.
Is this how you believe the world works? You aren’t really that naive as 50+ year old, are you? That the righteous prevail?! You got Donald Trump as president in 2016 – and may yet get him again in 2024 – in an election he actually lost in the popular vote (on top of Russian meddling). You got George W. Bush as president in an election in 2000 which he also lost to Al Gore. History is riddled with bad guys winning and prevailing over the good, and especially in the realm of religion and religious movements, like the example of Jesus himself or Imam Husayn (as) whom your handler claims to believe in.
____________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

[[[ My agenda is simply to set the record straight and take the Bayan out of the hands of bahais who have held it hostage and the misrepresentations of fundamentalist anti-Babi Shiites who have uncritically repeated canards originated by bahais.]]]

That’s nonsense! If the Shias have access to the Bayan, they don’t need any input from Baha’is, do they?

[[[1. Indeed, the Primal Point declared Himself the Qaim and Mahdi. 2. What the Shias expected is not necessarily what the prophecies say or what they even mean, especially in light of the central Shiite doctrine of al-bada’ (the alteration of the divine plans) which is also a core doctrine of the Bayan itself.]]]

Bada was also the same bullshit argument the Hands of the Cause of God used to justify the Baha’i community continuing without a Guardian after Shoghi Effendi died. So why aren’t you a Haifan Baha’i?

[[[3. The Primal Point was indeed martyred and the early believers of the Bayan massacred by the combined state-clergy pogrom unleashed against them. But those who survived went on to actively work against the Qajar dynasty which they overthrew in the early 20th century. The destruction of the power of the Shiite clergy is still a work in progress and is now starting to bear fruit, and we will succeed in permanently cutting the power of those tyre-heads and their allies to size for good! When we do, the Babi Revolution will be complete.]]]

You mean the SECULAR revolution. How can a Babi revolution happen in Iran when it’s just you representing the Babi cause?

_____________________

Fool_Killer313

That’s nonsense! If the Shias have access to the Bayan, they don’t need any input from Baha’is, do they?

Then why do they keep repeating Baha’i arguments and citing Baha’i texts, and never the Bayan itself?

Bada was also the same bullshit argument the Hands of the Cause of God used to justify the Baha’i community continuing without a Guardian after Shoghi Effendi died. So why aren’t you a Haifan Baha’i?

Stupid argument. Again, al-Bada is a core Shi’ite doctrine and is confirmed in the Bayan. WTF does this have to do with being or not being a Haifan Bahai just because a bunch of self-appointed CEOs cited it in 1957? Lame.

You mean the SECULAR revolution. How can a Babi revolution happen in Iran when it’s just you representing the Babi cause?

No, I mean the Babi Revolution, since anti-clericalism in Iran began with us. What outer form it solidifies as when it fructifies is secondary. We began the whole thing. The end of the mullahs will be our ship finally brought to port. QED

Right……but what if the secular republic that replaces the Islamic state legalizes the Baha’i Faith? Azal would go ballistic over that! LOL!

_________________

Seeker_Alpha1701
Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist
 
[[[Then why do they keep repeating Baha’i arguments and citing Baha’i texts, and never the Bayan itself?]]]
 

investigator919

Since most if not all the readers of this sub do not understand Arabic or Persian, without delving into the semantics, it suffices to say both translations literally agree on one thing: were the Bab come to power books and writings would only be limited to what the Bab said or approved. Good luck promoting these beliefs.

“Chapter six of the sixth unit which is about destroying all books but those that have been written or will be written about this Order (meaning the Bab’s creed). (The Bāb, Farsi Bayān, unit 6, chap. 6.)”

The sixth gate of the Sixth Unity. Regarding the ordinance [ḥukm] of the erasure [maḥw] of all books, all of them, except what has emerged or will arise in this Cause.

[[[Stupid argument. Again, al-Bada is a core Shi’ite doctrine and is confirmed in the Bayan. WTF does this have to do with being or not being a Haifan Bahai just because a bunch of self-appointed CEOs cited it in 1957? Lame.]]]

It just illustrates your inconsistency…….You accept Bada when it suits you and reject it when it doesn’t. I deny Bada in ALL its versions. If there are ANY contradictions in the teachings of a religion, IT IS NOT TRUE!

And then came the final and ultimate discrediting of that idiot:

Seeker_Alpha1701

[[What would have resolved the debate in his favor would be an English translation of the Bayan made by a scholar such as Edward Granville Browne that states exactly what Azal claims.]]

I assumed there WERE such translations already, so why did you not present one of them instead? You didn’t, so I concluded you were just playing mind games all along. Because you did that to us before, of course.

___________________

 
Seeker_Alpha1701
 
Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist
 
So first the con artist says:
 
[[[One day, God willing, we will say this very thing about America and its faux-liberalism which built itself atop slavery, genocide of natives, resource theft, white supremacy, and the death of millions around the world.
 
The Primal Point and His relevance will outlive the dominance of you arrogant white liberal Anglo-American honkies. Take it to the bank!]]]
 
And then:
 
[[[The destruction of the power of the Shiite clergy is still a work in progress and is now starting to bear fruit, and we will succeed in permanently cutting the power of those tyre-heads and their allies to size for good! When we do, the Babi Revolution will be complete.]]]
 
But later:
 
[[[Is this how you believe the world works? You aren’t really that naive as 50+ year old, are you? That the righteous prevail?! You got Donald Trump as president in 2016 – and may yet get him again in 2024 – in an election he actually lost in the popular vote (on top of Russian meddling). You got George W. Bush as president in an election in 2000 which he also lost to Al Gore. History is riddled with bad guys winning and prevailing over the good, and especially in the realm of religion and religious movements, like the example of Jesus himself or Imam Husayn (as) whom your handler claims to believe in.]]]
 
You keep changing rhetorical tactics to keep propping up your bullshit long after you should have given up!
 
Indeed, this is EXACTLY the sort of mental gymnastics I have always hated seeing from Baha’i’s like DBO, Christian apologists, and others in religion and politics that are such GODDAMN HYPOCRITES IN PUBLIC, because their inconsistent religious or political dogmatism enables the behavior they want to get away with. And the whole point of debating with Wacki Azoo for so long was to expose him for what he is, no better than all those other assholes in this messed up world!

LOL!!!!!

Baha’i Elections are a Total Sham

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First, read this blog entry:

The Universal House of the International Teaching Center of Justice

And here is a report on how elections work at the national level.

https://news.bahai.org/story/1675/

National Bahá’í Conventions: A unique electoral process

June 7, 2023

BAHÁ’Í WORLD CENTRE — The past weeks have seen Bahá’í communities around the globe elect their national governing councils—known as National Spiritual Assemblies. The series of annual conventions will conclude with Guam, where Typhoon Mawar has caused some delay.

National conventions bring together delegates who have earlier been elected in district or “unit” conventions across the country. National conventions provide an opportunity for delegates, from each unit, to carry out their sacred responsibility of voting for the members of the National Assembly in a joyful and spiritual atmosphere.

The election of the National Assembly follows the basic Bahá’í electoral procedures: there is no nomination or campaigning, secret ballots are used, electors consider moral character and capability, and those women and men who receive the most votes are elected.

There are also consultations among the delegates, who explore insights from Bahá’í endeavors toward social transformation at the local, regional, and national level. These endeavors involve educational programs that build capacity for community-building, as well as social action, and participation in societal discourses.

______________

Also, watch these videos:

Because there are not nominations or campaigning, it is impossible for others to openly challenge the leadership and demand change. Incumbents are virtually guaranteed to win. And that means the leadership can pretty much do whatever the hell they want, regardless of the actual needs of the people.

A perfect example is this:

The Desperation of the Baha’is as the 100th Anniversary of the Death of Abdu’l-Baha Approaches

Who the fuk asked for this?!

And they paid for their hubris too!

Abdu’l-Baha’s Shrine Burns to the Ground

Then there was this incident in Italy:

Whitewashing corruption among Italian Baha’is

 

Note this also:

National conventions bring together delegates who have earlier been elected in district or “unit” conventions across the country.

Is that how ALL national Baha’i elections are run? Especially large Baha’i communities might have to elect delegates from districts, but for tiny Baha’i communities on islands or other small nations or divisions within nations, they could just have members of Local Spiritual Assemblies or even the entire community membership do the electing. The results would likely be the same.

If you look at the events being depicted, it looks like they are joyful, profoundly spiritual matters. But a process that enables corruption and chokes off debate and real chances for change is hardly worth doing.

 

A discussion about the Baha’i Faith in r/exchristian

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As both an ex-Christian and an ex-Baha’i, I have been active in subreddits that reflect my background and interests.

https://www.reddit.com/r/exchristian/

https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/

Here’s a discussion in one subreddit I took part in:

[deleted by user]
by inexchristian

Seeker_Alpha1701
 
Humanist, UU, Ex-Baptist & Ex-Baha’i
 
The ONLY reason I was ever homophobic was because of my being raised Baptist and later being a Baha’i. Once I stopped believing in the idea of infallible God-centered religions, I dropped my bigotry against LGBT people. I accepted that the founders and writers of most great religions knew nothing about sexual matters.
_________________________
 
callyo13
Oh how interesting! May I ask what enticed you to become Baha’i?
_____________
So here I was making a casual reference to one of my past religions and apparently this other person had never heard of it, so I had to explain to them what it was about.
 
Seeker_Alpha1701
 
Humanist, UU, Ex-Baptist & Ex-Baha’i
My assumption that if there was a God, then logically I needed to find the most recent religion founded in his name instead of following an older one. One should know the will of God for this age, right? 
Once I realized that the Baha’i Faith was no better than Christianity, I gave up on belief in God completely. I am atheist now.

____________________

callyo13
 
That’s so interesting to me because I often hear the opposite claim. That we should go to the oldest religion as its the most true. I’ve met Christians who legitimately believed Christianity was the first religion. Then there’s Islam that claims all the prophets of other religions were actually Muslims whose words got corrupted over time + we are all born Muslims. I’ve never seen someone contemplate the opposite before.
_________________
I thought, “In what universe does that make even a little bit of sense???”
 
Seeker_Alpha1701
Humanist, UU, Ex-Baptist & Ex-Baha’i
False dogmas and mistaken assumptions are common among older faiths. That’s how they sell themselves.
Following an older religion is like trying to work as a mechanic on a 2015 Ford car using a guide of a 1956 Ford car.

For the record, I drive a 2015 Ford Fiesta. And I do believe that as humans evolve, so should their religions. 

Another Haifan Baha’i Gets Busted on Reddit

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A subreddit devoted to religion in general got a post from a Muslim about the Baha’i Faith.

Questions for bahai’s
byu/Narwhal_Songs inreligion

But among the comments there was a verbal tennis match between trident, a Unitarian Baha’i, and FrenchBread, a Haifan Baha’i.

FrenchBread5941
You will have many responses if you post this in r/bahai
________________
trident765
Baha’i
r/Freespeechbahai for alternative Bahai perspectives

________________

FrenchBread5941
you aren’t even a Baha’i
________________
trident765
Baha’i

Yes I am

_______________

FrenchBread5941
There is no such thing as Haifan or Unitarian Bahá’ís. You can’t make things up like that. I can call myself the Wizard of Oz but it doesn’t mean anything.
___________________________
trident765
Baha’i

The difference between Haifan and Unitarian Bahais is Haifan Baha’is believe that after Baha’u’llah’s death Abdul Baha’s Will was to be followed, which appointed Shoghi Effendi and then the UHJ as the successors, whereas Unitarian Bahais believe that after Baha’u’llah’s death the instructions of the Kitab i Ahd were to be followed, which appointed Mirza Muhammad Ali as the successor of Abdul Baha.

I don’t see why you think there is no such thing as a Unitarian Bahai.

__________________

FrenchBread5941
The Kitab-i-Ahd did not appoint Mirza Muhammad Ali. Go read it again.
_______________________
trident765
Baha’i

It says Abdul Baha and then Muhammad Ali after him.

_____________________

FrenchBread5941
No it says the station of Muhammad Ali is beneath that of Abdul’Baha. It says nothing of him succeeding Abdul’Baha. It also says we must obey Abdul’Baha and to turn away from him is like turning away from Baha’u’llah. Abdul’Baha was free to choose his successor and he chose Shoghi Effendi. It’s a done deal. There is nothing to argue.
____________________
trident765

Only in the Haifan translation. Beneath is a mistranslation of the word بعد, which means “after” and does not mean “beneath”. Earlier translations did not use the word beneath. I include the Horace Holley translation in this post:

https://old.reddit.com/r/FreeSpeechBahai/comments/pbkwoe/my_interpretation_of_bahaullahs_successor/

The word “beneath” is not found here.

This is what the Kitab i Ahd says in the original language:

وصيّة اللّه آنکه بايد اغصان و افنان و منتسبين طرّاً بغصن اعظم ناظر باشند انظروا ما انزلناه فی کتابی الاقدس اذا غيض بحر الوصال و قضی کتاب المبدء فی المآل توجّهوا اِلی من اراده اللّه الّذی انشعب من هذا الاصل القديم مقصود از اين آيه مبارکه غصن اعظم بوده کذلک اظهرنا الامر فضلاً من عندنا و انا الفضّال الکريم قد قدّر اللّه مقام الغصن الاکبر بعد مقامه انّه هو الآمر الحکيم قد اصطفينا الاکبر بعد الاعظم امراً من لدن عليم خبير

_______________________

FrenchBread5941
Whether or not you translate it as “beneath” or “after” does not change the fact that the passage is not implying in any way about who should be the successor after Abdul’Baha. I can’t fathom how you can read it in such a matter. Once Muhammad Ali broke the covenant by not recognizing Abdul’Baha it’s a moot point. Muhammad Ali was excommunicated so he can’t be the successor anyway. You need to stop spreading this kind of disinformation. It’s so harmful to your soul that I am deeply saddened for you.
_____________________
trident765

It doesn’t imply it. It commands it explicitly:

Verily, God hath ordained the station of the Greater Branch after the station of the former. Verily, He is the Ordainer, the Wise. We have surely chosen the Greater after the Greatest as a Command from the All-Knowing, the Omniscient!

____________________

FrenchBread5941
It says station not succession. My station is lower than Abdul’Baha but that doesn’t mean I am to succeed him. The key word is station.
____________________
trident765
Baha’i

So what was the point of mentioning Muhammad Ali at all?

____________________

FrenchBread5941
To make sure Muhammad Ali (and everyone else in the family and the community) knew that Muhammad Ali was to obey Abdul’Baha. So that Muhammad Ali would not challenge the successorship after Baha’u’llah’s death, and everyone would turn to Abdul’Baha for leadership and there wouldn’t be a schism.
________________
trident765

Baha’i

Wouldn’t it make things clearer to just not mention Muhammad Ali, and just say that everyone was to obey Abdul Baha?

____________________

FrenchBread5941
Clearly Baha’u’llah felt the need to address Muhammad Ali by name specifically so that there would be no doubt or question amongst everyone in the family. I’d recommend you read God Passes Bye which talks quite a bit about the trouble that Muhammad Ali was causing at the time for Abdul’Baha. Later in Abdul’Baha’s ministry, Muhammad Ali went as far as trying to have Abdul’Baha crucified by the Ottomans.
________________________
Well, that was over two months ago. When I found that thread, I decided that FrenchBread needed to be taught a lesson in humility. So I went after him!
Seeker_Alpha1701
Unitarian Universalist

If other Baha’is are anything like YOU in the way you argued with trident here, then clearly those responses in the Baha’i subreddit are not to be trusted.

You said:

There is no such thing as Haifan or Unitarian Bahá’ís. You can’t make things up like that. I can call myself the Wizard of Oz but it doesn’t mean anything.

That’s like saying there is no such thing as a Christian outside the Roman Catholic Church. Don’t be so bigoted! Then you claimed:

[The Kitab-i-Ahd] says the station of Muhammad Ali is beneath that of Abdul’Baha. It says nothing of him succeeding Abdul’Baha. It also says we must obey Abdul’Baha and to turn away from him is like turning away from Baha’u’llah. Abdul’Baha was free to choose his successor and he chose Shoghi Effendi. It’s a done deal. There is nothing to argue.

Do you read the original languages of Baha’u’llah’s writings, Arabic and Persian? Apparently not! When trident tried to correct you with the actual quotation from the passage in question, you simply doubled down on the falsehoods.

Whether or not you translate it as “beneath” or “after” does not change the fact that the passage is not implying in any way about who should be the successor after Abdul’Baha. I can’t fathom how you can read it in such a matter. Once Muhammad Ali broke the covenant by not recognizing Abdul’Baha it’s a moot point. Muhammad Ali was excommunicated so he can’t be the successor anyway. You need to stop spreading this kind of disinformation. It’s so harmful to your soul that I am deeply saddened for you.

Why do you assume Mirza Muhammad-Ali broke the Covenant? Because you believe what was written about him decades after the fact? You weren’t there, so you don’t know what really happened, do you?

The real reason for the dispute between the brothers was because Abdu’l-Baha falsely claimed infallibility for himself after Baha’u’llah made clear in the Kitab-i-Aqdas that NO ONE but God and a Messenger of God could be infallible. He also warned his followers in that book that no one could claim direct revelation from God for 1000 years after his time. Abdu’l-Baha’s claim about himself made it look like he was equal to his father and that made Muhammad-Ali think Abdu’l-Baha violated the Covenant. And once the Covenant was broken, the obligation to obey Abdu’l-Baha became irrelevant. Abdu’l-Baha was just as bound to the rules of his father as Muhammad-Ali was. Having Muhammad-Ali act as a check on Abdu’l-Baha’s absolute power was actually a wise thing for Baha’u’llah to do, in hindsight. Too bad most Baha’is, including you, have chosen to ignore the actual facts about Baha’u’llah’s own teachings. Instead, you use talking points that really don’t make sense. Trident did say:

Wouldn’t it make things clearer to just not mention Muhammad Ali, and just say that everyone was to obey Abdul Baha?

Obviously, yes! Then you said:

Clearly Baha’u’llah felt the need to address Muhammad Ali by name specifically so that there would be no doubt or question amongst everyone in the family.

Because……if Abdu’l-Baha was caught breaking the Covenant, Muhammad-Ali would have the right to challenge him by the authority given to him by both the Kitab-i-Aqdas and the Kitab-i-Ahd. And THAT’S WHAT HE DID!

And as for this final claim of yours:

Later in Abdul’Baha’s ministry, Muhammad Ali went as far as trying to have Abdul’Baha crucified by the Ottomans.

That’s absurd! And when did the Ottoman Empire ever crucify people?

It’s only natural for Shoghi Effendi after being made Abdu’l-Baha’s successor to demonize Muhammad-Ali to justify what was done. Therefore, his book God Passes By is not credible. It’s like Joseph Stalin demonizing Leon Trotsky after Stalin became the Soviet dictator, even though Trotsky was also a loyal Communist.

_____________________

The next day after I made that comment, I discovered that FrenchBread had blocked me and my comment had been downvoted by several people. Such pathetic cowardice! But that’s what happens when Haifan Baha’is can’t control the conversation like they can in r/bahai! They run away!

Wahid Azal Disgraces Himself Again.

Posted on by

Wahid Azal has a long history of picking stupid fights with people just to pump up his hyperinflated ego. This week, he did it again to one of my exBaha’i allies.

Response to u/SuccessfulCorner2512
by inBAYAN

He was referring to this:

Universal Peace Quotes by 20th Century
byu/trevor-mack inexbahai

Where the following comments were made:

SuccessfulCorner2512
It’s difficult to understand that view, to be honest. If I were to rank the Baha’i figures in terms of harmful beliefs, the Bab would top it by some margin, followed by Baha’u’llah (though the future potential for harm is greater for BH). The Bab caused anarchy and bloodshed for several years, and when given a viable plan to stop the bloodshed, he replied that the blood was like fertiliser for the soil. He advocated beliefs so deeply fanatical that we can find no parallel outside recent extremist religious movements such as ISIS, e.g. taking possessions away from non-believers to give to believers, burning books, and many other despicable, evil, and ludicrous teachings.

The notion that God would “manifest” on Earth and tell us to burn books and kill non-believers, as the Bab did, makes me shudder. The Bab was definitely one of the evilest men in recent Persian history.

________________

trident765
Unitarian Baha’i

I’m not too concerned with the Bab’s teachings on violence since Baha’u’llah came later and banned holy war and abrogated the burning of books. So it is no longer an important question if the Bab taught violence. In any case, there have been times in history where violence was justified (e.g. pre-Islamic Arabia).

______________________

SuccessfulCorner2512
So God endorsed the burning of books and homicide in 1844 and changed his mind in 1863. Fickle isn’t he.
__________________
Then someone barged in to attack SuccessfulCorner.
Charming-Jacket-7672
Wahid Azal sockpuppet

What is your evidence that the Babis endorsed burning books and homicide, you shameless IR hack? Tell us again how many leftists Khomeini ordered executed without trial at the tail end of the war with Iraq that you so-and-sos started.

___________________

Charming-Jacket-767

Wahid Azal sockpuppet

The Bab caused anarchy and bloodshed for several years,

This is IRI state propaganda and mullah nonsense articulated by the same people who literally created anarchy in Iran during 1978-9 to seize power by force and murder millions. No such anarchy was created in Iran by the Babis. They were pushed by a corrupt system, and so rightfully took a stance of defensive jihad against it. Proto-ISIS was the Ayatollah Khomeini and the system you truck for, basiji-e-koon kesh!

____________________

I recognized this user as another account being used by Wahid Azal, so I deleted the comments and reported them to the other mods of r/exbahai, causing him to be banned again.

SuccessfulCorner then went to the new post Azal made in his own subreddit.

SuccessfulCorner2512

Wahid, I’d be happy to debate you if you’d be happy to tone down the obtuse language and use paragraphs.

Now, tell me more about yourself. You identify as a Babi but not a Baha’i?

___________________

wahidazal66
Bayānī

You don’t know who I am? Some of the people of Hot Air (أهل هباء) (i.e. our terminology for bahais first coined by Subh-i-Azal) consider me to be enemy #1.

Now, you have made a series of false assertions that come straight out of the textbooks of IR state propaganda regarding the Babi period. Can you support what you say?

Let’s start here. You say:

“The Bab caused anarchy and bloodshed for several years, and when given a viable plan to stop the bloodshed, he replied that the blood was like fertiliser for the soil. “

Besides being a lame, ahistorical and revisionist apology for Qajar absolutism and the unchecked power of their clerical allies of the time, pray tell, where exactly did the Primal Point say, “blood was like fertiliser for the soil“? Source?

Besides other things, the argument you are making above is a pro-statist argument. First, you are rationalizing the authoritarianism and corruption of the Qajar state and clergy. Second, you are thoroughly whitewashing the events of the time. Third, you have not even factored in what the Qajar state and clergy did to push the Babis into open revolt against it. In other words, your argument possesses no causality and attempts to represent the Babi Revolution as a sort of sui generis violent uprising with the state and clergy as its “innocent victims” – LOL! – who did nothing to bring it upon themselves! Again, these are the sorts of fallacies and whitewashes the IRI and its hawzavi allies regularly employ as talking points about the Babis and the era: talking points that also have a few of their sources in the intellectually dishonest Baha’i sectarian rewrite of Babi history.

Then you say: He advocated beliefs so deeply fanatical that we can find no parallel outside recent extremist religious movements such as ISIS…

The comparison to Daesh/ISIS is a regular IR talking point and is nonsense, and the claim to finding no parallel is an even bigger fallacy. But these are things IR state media and the seminary regularly (and hypocritically) claim about the Bayan.

Then without context, you state:

e.g. taking possessions away from non-believers to give to believers, burning books, and many other despicable, evil, and ludicrous teachings.

First, disenfranchising non-believers of their property in the Bayan is only a feature under a Babi/Bayani state which did not exist between 1844-1850. Second, contrary to what you and the mullahs claim, there is no provision in the Bayan for the burning or destruction of books. Instead this is a claim first dishonestly asserted by the founder of Bahaism and then parrot-fashion repeated by the mullahs as a way to misrepresent the provision and nuanced language of the sixth gate of the sixth Unity of the Bayan. In fact the 13th gate of the 9th Unity of the Bayan unequivocally commands the opposite, that under no circumstance a book or piece of writing ever be materially destroyed:

أنتم أبدًا كتابًا لا تخرقون

So what are the other despicable, evil, and ludicrous teachings here then? Your very language in misrepresenting the teachings, ordinances and history of the Bayan is the language of the IRI! Do you deny it?

____________________

SuccessfulCorner2512

·11 hr. ago

You don’t know who I am? Some of the people of Hot Air (أهل هباء) (i.e. our terminology for bahais first coined by Subh-i-Azal) consider me to be enemy #1.

Never heard of you. You appear to be the only follower of an extinct religion, which must be fun.

It’s ironic that you talk about hot air, as you’re standing alone on top of an extinct volcano (Babism), substituting its bygone life with noise and hot air of your own.

Besides being a lame, ahistorical and revisionist apology for Qajar absolutism and the unchecked power of their clerical allies of the time, pray tell, where exactly did the Primal Point say, “blood was like fertiliser for the soil”? Source?

The sentiment here was the dominant pep talk from the Bab and among the followers of the blood-stained Babi movement. There’s no shortage of examples, including Hujjat-i-Zanjani who encouraged the Babi’s with “God has always decreed that in every age the blood of the believers is to be the oil of the lamp of religion.”

Similarly, Mulla-Husayn proclaimed, “Many a soul will, in this city, shed his blood in this path. That blood will water the Tree of God, will cause it to flourish, and to overshadow all mankind”.

Of course, the Bab could have intervened to stop the needless bloodshed. The Mu’tamid of Isfahan, Imárat-i-Khurshíd, approached the Bab with a plan which included arranging the marriage of the Bab to a sister of the Shah. The Bab replied “Not by the means which you fondly imagine will an almighty Providence accomplish the triumph of His Faith. Through the poor and lowly of this land, by the blood which these shall have shed in His path, will the omnipotent Sovereign ensure the preservation and consolidate the foundation of His Cause.”

Of course, none of this happened. They all died in vain for an evil and worthless cause.

First, disenfranchising non-believers of their property in the Bayan is only a feature under a Babi/Bayani state which did not exist between 1844-1850.

Shame on you, and shame on this disgusting false religion!

The theocratic state envisioned by the Bab was one characterized by a strange dualism of wickedness and stupidity. You acknowledged above an example of the unspeakably wicked vision of the Bab. Examples of his unspeakably stupid teachings include Babis writing the 95 names of God in henna on their bodies after a bath, reciting 700 Bayanic verses daily, not keeping over 19 (wahid) books, and many others, but I’ll spare you the embarrassment. The Bab’s obsession with the number 19 was clearly an expression of mental illness. He even foretold a time when “even the pens on the pencase shall be arranged according to the number wahid (19)”.

As for your comments on the response of the state, let us be absolutely clear: there is no government on Earth that would allow a new group of religious fanatics to establish such an evil and dystopic society as that envisioned by the Bab.

_________________

Wahid’s response showed he had been insincere in wanting any real debate.

wahidazal66 
Bayānī

ROFLMAO! That’s it? That’s all you got. Tsk tsk tsk…

Let’s get something straight, by your uncritical, unnuanced and totally shambolic ahistorical state propaganda sloganeering of a response (that is utterly full of sh*t from start to finish like everyone and everything associated with that regime) – merely repeating parrot fashion the same trite BS of IR state propaganda – you reveal yourself exactly as being what I say you are: an openly transparent propagandist and shill full of crap working for the Islamic Republic of Iran just here littering reddit and Wikipedia with their trash. You opine:

“God has always decreed that in every age the blood of the believers is to be the oil of the lamp of religion.”

The sentiment and words come directly from Shi’ite hadith. That you have a problem with it just shows your ignorance regarding your own sources. Then comes the real holler:

“Many a soul will, in this city, shed his blood in this path. That blood will water the Tree of God, will cause it to flourish, and to overshadow all mankind”.

You are citing a Baha’ i source, the Dawn Breakers, where Shoghi Effendi is literally putting words into the mouths of the protagonists for dramatic effect. We don’t even accept the legitimacy of that source. Find me something comparable in nuqtat’ul-kaf. Be that as it may, let’s assume for argument’s sake he said it: again, such wording and sentiments are replete throughout Shi’ite sources which the Babis merely echoed and pericoped. Your so-called dajjaal-imam Khomeini went on the pulpit in May 1979 in front of cameras and encouraged people to get themselves martyred and spill their own blood after the assassination of Mottahhari. Hypocrisy much?

And here is where your total ignorance and bias really reveals itself:

Examples of his unspeakably stupid teachings include Babis writing the 95 names of God in henna on their bodies after a bath, reciting 700 Bayanic verses daily, not keeping over 19 (wahid) books, and many others, but I’ll spare you the embarrassment. The Bab’s obsession with the number 19 was clearly an expression of mental illness.

Actually, it is writing allahumma (O God) for men with henna once (and in the baths) and al-rahman (the Compassionate) for women once (and in the baths). 95x is the bare minimum number of times a daily dhikr is to be recited. 700 is the number that the dhikr Allahu Azhar is to be recited. 19 is the number of the Unity (wahid) as well as the numerical value of Existence (wujud) in the science of the letters, not to mention the precise number of letters in the bismillah. If you call it mental illness, perhaps you should also call your dajjaal so-called imam one too since he too was enamored by the science of the letters and numbers and demonstrates it in his commentaries on al-Fatiha, the works of Hamza Fanari and Sadruddin Qunawi, etc. Your ignorance, animus and bias towards the the Primal Point and the Babis is so profound that it thoroughly unmasks you as a shill because for all their own unbelievable ignorance no bahai – whether enrolled or ex – would ever utter the kind of garbled, ignorant BS as you have here.

Then you say:

Of course, the Bab could have intervened to stop the needless bloodshed. The Mu’tamid of Isfahan, Imárat-i-Khurshíd, approached the Bab with a plan which included arranging the marriage of the Bab to a sister of the Shah. The Bab replied “Not by the means which you fondly imagine will an almighty Providence accomplish the triumph of His Faith. Through the poor and lowly of this land, by the blood which these shall have shed in His path, will the omnipotent Sovereign ensure the preservation and consolidate the foundation of His Cause.”

Again, you have your chronology completely garbled while also citing a BS source. While the Primal Point was in Isfahan and under the protection of Manuchehr Khan Mu’tamid-ad-Dawlih, the Georgian, who was the Point’s devotee, there was no bloodshed. So whatever words Shoghi Effendi has put into the mouth of the Point, it is a figment of his own imagination. The bloodshed begins 18 months after He left Isfahan. Be that as it may, you are blaming the Primal Point for refusing a royal bribe? You are a piece of work, but quite predictable for the IR/hawzavi types who are literally willing to give fellatio to anyone who even symbolically supports them, whatever the cost, like Khamenei is to Putin ATM. One recent name comes to mind as to what utter clowns you vilayatis are on that score: Catherine Shakdam!

Your incessant comparison of the Babis to Daesh/ISIS is the dead giveaway that you are a regime hack since it is one of the most notable and regular talking points of the regime. Hasan Ershad keeps repeating it parrot fashion. Every other regime polemicist has been saying exactly the same thing over and over again. Your alter ego u/Investigator919 has been saying this stuff like a broken record himself, and every time he has been challenged and shown the evidence that his assertion is a lie, he censors or runs away – and later comes back saying the same thing again. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it is a regime hack! That gullible fools like DH can’t see it is because, well, they are gullible fools being played like fiddles by you devils. But not everyone is a mentally ill, attention-seeking gullible fool like DH is.

That said, you and those viciously malevolent ignoramuses like you are a decisive argument as to why the Babis should’ve slaughtered every single last one of you hawzavis without mercy to the last man, woman and child without pulling a single punch. If they had, there wouldn’t have been a Khomeinist state in Iran for the past 44 years with an estimated and cumulative number of 3-4+ million Iranians murdered by it. This generation won’t be making the same mistake again.

In conclusion, you say you’ve never heard of me? Your alternative handle u/Investigator919 very much has. Hear this then, Basiji-e-oghdei: nice try, a$$h*le, but surely you don’t think people are really that dumb to not be on to you. Fuck off now back to your cubicle in Qom, or run along keep pretending you are some exbahai living in the UK and no one notices – when you aren’t any such thing!

Consider this having wiped the floor with your degenerate backside. So go now and cry to your little know-nothing, pedo Texan puppet, Gomer, to comfort his fellow degenerate because my argument opening this post stands unassailable like the Rock of Gibraltar with you duffuses incapable of refuting it.

سبزى پلو با ماهى، كس ننت بسيجى

The designations “DH” and “Gomer” refer to me. Gomer is perhaps a reference to Gomer Pyle, a classic TV character from the 1960s.

Meanwhile, I noticed the post by Azal and crossposted it to r/exbahai

A defense of the Bab
by inexbahai

And made my own comments:

Seeker_Alpha1701

Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist

Since I am probably banned from r/BAYAN and would never go in there anyway:

The Bab claimed to be the return of the 12th Imam. That claim was forever debunked by his death…..HE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE MARTYRED! But the influence of Christianity enabled Babis to later believe the Bab willingly died for the Cause of God just as Jesus had done. Google “sunk cost fallacy” to understand this appearant shift in their thinking.

Yes, the Babis DID attempt to overthrow the Persian government by violence once the Shah refused to convert to the Babi Faith, because the Iman Mahdi was expected to overthrow ALL the enemies of the Cause of God. Wahid Azal is flat out lying if he denies the fuking obvious.

_______________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist

an audience of mostly ‘vanilla and milk-toast’ Anglo-American liberals of ‘Unitarian Universalist’ mold

It is hilarious that he used to call me (an American of European descent and, yes, a Unitarian Universalist) a racist, while he himself spits out such blatantly bigoted crap like that, clearly aimed at me. Who does he think he is?!

He needs to get a dictionary. And sessions with a psychiatrist. He has absolutely no business telling others about racism. #hypocrite

_________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist

And here’s another damning example of Wahid Azal totally misrepresenting the Bab’s teachings in a desperate attempt to make the Bab look better than he was:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/comments/cxdsax/answering_investigator919s_disinfo_part_1/

Gaslighting 101.

_____________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist

Over there:

SuccessfulCorner2512

Wahid, I’d be happy to debate you if you’d be happy to tone down the obtuse language and use paragraphs.

Now, tell me more about yourself. You identify as a Babi but not a Baha’i?

wahidazal66

You don’t know who I am? Some of the people of Hot Air (i.e. our terminology for bahais) identify me as enemy #1.

Now, you have made a series of assertions that come straight out of the textbooks of IR state propaganda regarding the Babi period. Can you support what you say?

_______

identify me as enemy #1.

I seriously doubt that, since you are not a government official in Iran or some other country known to have persecuted Baha’is. You are just some cultist screaming across the internet.

you have made a series of assertions that come straight out of the textbooks of IR state propaganda regarding the Babi period.

Isn’t THAT itself a wild assertion? Don’t ask him to support his claims while you never can support YOURS.

____________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist

Wahid has edited his earlier comment, perhaps thinking I wouldn’t notice and react to it. It is now up to u/SuccessfulCorner2512 to respond to his challenge. Specifically:

  1. Where did the Bab say that “blood was like fertilizer for the soil” in reference to his opponents in Persia?

  2. Is it really appropriate to compare the Babi movement in the 1840s to ISIS? Based on what facts?

___________________

SuccessfulCorner2512
I’ll cross-post here in case he deletes it:
(The long comment he made at Azal over there)
_______________________
Seeker_Alpha1701

Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist

Oh, I’m sure he won’t delete your reply, but he will resort to personal insults, lies, and mental gymnastics that rival anything Baha’is have ever done. That’s what he is notorious for and why he was banned from here years ago.

_______________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

Ex-Baha’i Unitarian Universalist

Confirmed!

(The long comment Azal made with references to me…..that were added in an edit later)

Google Translate makes that last Persian passage to say:

Vegetable rice with fish, you won’t like it.

Whatever that means.

SuccessfulCorner then reported to me that Azal banned him from r/BAYAN. LOL!

BTW, it’s interesting that Azal uses the same arguments to make the Bab’s lunacy more palatable to Western audiences that Baha’is do, and Baha’is have done so much to spread knowledge of and belief in the Bab around the world, yet Azal hates Baha’is. That’s like Christians hating Jews despite Jesus himself being Jewish!

Another note: Dismissing arguments against the credibility of the Bab as Iranian state propaganda is a form of the ad hominem fallacy. Historical facts with clear and consistent documentation and logical consistency are what matter, not where the facts came from. That’s why I used logic and my understanding of Shia Muslim teachings to debunk the Bab’s and Wahid Azal’s claims. I would do that even though I am an atheist and even if Iran had a secular government.

Just for fun, here’s a song by the rock band Ghost:

A Challenge Leads to a Peaceful Resolution

Posted on by

While exploring reddit, I discovered another Baha’i subreddit I had never seen before:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BabandBahaullah/

This community will be to discuss the revelations and ministries of the Bab and Baha’u’llah, use their teachings as primary sources for discussion, and find pathways to enable positive social change. Please abide by the rules and show loving kindness for all.

Then I saw this:

Ask Anything Thread
byu/Bahamut_19 inBabandBahaullah

Anything, I wondered? So I decided to challenge the subreddit’s creator.

Seeker_Alpha1701

What do you consider to be valid proofs of the Bab and of Baha’u’llah?

What would make you reject at least one of them?

____________________

Bahamut_19
I am incapable of proving God exists. How could I ever prove something came from God? This is the claim of the Bab, Baha’u’llah, and others.
Why do I accept their claims? For the same reason I continue to believe in God despite the incapability to currently prove God exists? It is based on faith, grounded in a feeling I feel within myself.
There are many things in existence we take for granted but have no proof of. We have evidences of their existence, but no actual proof. I’m ok with that.
Since I do not require any proofs for that which I feel within me, the only thing that would change my perspective is if my feeling were to change.

________________

That was NOT anything like I expected, since I was used to seeing arrogant talking points from fanatics like DavidBinOwen.

Seeker_Alpha1701
Your honesty is commendable. This is what separates you from bigoted extremists.
____________________
 
Bahamut_19
What had changed your perspective regarding the Bab?
__________________
Yikes! I guess I should have seen that coming! But I decided I would not hold back from being direct in answering the question.
 
Seeker_Alpha1701
Several things…..

  1. The Bayani claim that the Bab was NOT the forerunner of Baha’u’llah, but was supposed to bring in a new age for humanity on his own. Baha’u’llah was said to be a usurper.

  2. The Shia Muslim claim that the Bab’s claims about himself were debunked the moment he was killed. He should have defeated his enemies instead.

  3. The Sunni Muslim claim that the twelve Imams Shiites revere were not of any special status. The Bab was supposed to be the return of the 12th Imam.

  4. The atheist argument that if God cannot be proven to exist, then claims by Prophets supposedly sent by God are irrelevant.

But my actual rejection of the Baha’i Faith in 2004 had nothing to do with the Bab. That’s another issue altogether.

_______________________

Bahamut_19
The reason why I asked about the Bab is because if you were a Baha’i, you had to have believed in the Bab during the time you were a Baha’i. As you express yourself to be an atheist (assuming by point 4), your points 1-3 actually wouldn’t matter since the Bayani, Shia, and Sunni people do believe in God. Any claim any of those 3 groups would make would be irrelevant if you also believe in point 4.

What happened in 2004 which made you question that which the Bab had taught?

___________________

Why was he fixated on the Bab, I wondered. Again, I was direct in my response.

Seeker_Alpha1701

It was the general perception that if the Baha’i Faith was failing, the Bab had also failed, since Baha’u’llah was a follower of the Bab before starting the Baha’i Faith. I still believed that Baha’u’llah was supposed to be the one the Bab had foretold (thinking they knew each other, since they were both contemporaries and countrymen).

And if the Baha’i Faith had failed, since it was supposed to be the Religion of God for this age, God himself had failed.

Then I thought, “Maybe there is no God and that would explain why religions around the world are so messed up.”

And once I reached that conclusion, I never looked back. I rejected ALL God-centered religions.

_____________________

Bahamut_19

I understand why you feel as you do. As Bahau’llah (I think) taught, if religion becomes the source of fanaticism and yields no more fruit, it is best if it no longer exists.

Also, it is extremely difficult to see any faith or religion without the clergy and the organization. The Baha’i Faith has spent so much effort making it seem the organization IS the faith, that it is nearly impossible for people to see the Bab or Baha’u’llah without the Faith. In the Aqdas, he does promise another Manifestation and in the Iqan, he says why. Because the people would have completely turned away from the revelation.

However, I still feel that outside of the organization, God is having effect towards the things God promised through Baha’u’llah and nearly all of this exists outside of the organization, mostly by people who have never heard of the Bab or Baha’u’llah. I particularly wish people knew the story of the Bab. His ministry deeply touches me. I do not believe He was merely a forerunner but really was the Gate and the Primal Point. He first appeared in a dream of mine in 2003, and it took me nearly 5 years to figure out that this person was real.

As of 2023, there is much much less war in the world. The entire Western Hemisphere has no nation or tribe actively fighting the other. There is a loose federation of nations, although the United Nations is far from a potential end goal. Translation services and AI is bringing us closer to a common script. Many older faiths and/or believers of those faiths have adopted many of the tenets, such as monogamy, women having more freedom in things such as how they dress, and a greater understanding that there are common truths in all of the major faiths.

I can see the argument that says these and other things are the product of human innovation, which is true. This is the path we were meant to be on. I do believe we can progress more quickly if we adhere to the teachings of God more fully, but certain things are inevitable regardless of our belief or non-belief.

With that being said, a friend and I have plans to create, independent of the Baha’i Faith, a functioning Mashiriq’ul-Adhkar in our community. The Dawning Place of (community name).

BTW, I have visited a UU church before. It seems like a good community and its good to see people of varying perspectives have a common bond. I hope they have success in their goals.

_____________________

Again, I was quote floored by the gracious nature of his comments. It was a clear example of someone “killing me with kindness”. I decided at that point this particular Baha’i was no threat to the ex-Baha’i community of reddit I was representing. So I withdrew from the discussion.

Seeker_Alpha1701
Thank you for agreeing to let me come here. This was a pleasant discussion. This is how talks on religion should always be conducted. Farewell.
 
And I moved on…..

A Question About Translating the Baha’i Writings

Posted on by

Check this out:

Why do Baha’is not translate the writings of Baha’u’llah and the Bab?
byu/SuccessfulCorner2512 inexbahai

And other members of r/exbahai, including me, gave replies.

Seeker_Alpha1701

 

exBaha’i atheist

Same reason the Catholic Church kept the Bible locked up in Latin long after that language died out…..they didn’t want the common people to know they were being scammed. The Protestant Reformation led to the Bible finally being translated into the common languages. The Catholic Church was then forced to change.

________________

TrwyAdenauer3rd

 

Because by modern standards Bahaullah and the Bab were extremely conservative, whereas the Baha’i Faith in the West markets itself as a religion for progressives.

__________________

trevor-mack

 

Never-Baha’i Christian

My take is that they know it says embarrassing material in it and if they were to translate it; members would leave in droves. It is quite revealing that William Miller who was a critic translated the Aqdas before the Baha’i Faith did. If Shoghi Effendi was such a great translator;why was he translating hundreds of pages before even attempting to translate Bahá’u’lláh’s most important work?

Also, if the Persian Bayan is the most important work of the Bab; why not translate it?

Is the Baha’i faith wants to spread their message because it changes lives for the better; why suppress it then?

_________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

 

exBaha’i atheist

It should be noted that even the Baha’i writings that have been translated into English are incredibly damning. In 2017, I subjected the Kitab-i-Aqdas to a critical analysis from start to finish, working over the course of a week and a half.

https://dalehusband.com/bahai-writings-criticism/

https://bahai-writings-criticism.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-critical-analysis-of-kitab-i-aqdas.html

The following year, I did the same to Abdu’l-Baha’s Will and Testament:

https://bahai-writings-criticism.blogspot.com/2018/04/a-critical-analysis-of-will-and.html

And two years ago I went after one of the most prominent Baha’i “history” writers who got elected to the Universal House of Justice and completely discredited him too!

https://dalehusband.com/2020/08/10/adib-taherzadeh-con-artist/

It seems that FRAUD is a crime in every other human activity except religion. I don’t think Baha’is should be persecuted, but someone like Adib Taherzadeh really should have been exposed as a pathological liar long before he could get as powerful as he became. But he got away with his crap because of the corrupt leadership of the Faith before him. He was serving their interests, so they eventually made him one of them.

If you start with corruption, it tends to perpetuate itself. The Universal House of Justice is a completely illegitimate body that, along with the rest of the Baha’i Administrative Order, should be dismantled. But I am confident it will eventually fall apart on its own.

_____________________

womtib

 

This is where I get confused. Because I’ve asked people before what motivates the UHJ, and the response is usually that they are true believers. Yet I can’t understand how someone can be a true believer and lie about the faith that they supposedly believe in. Are they actually fraudsters trying to make money or have power? Or is it a version of cognitive dissonance, where they believe in a particular idea of the faith and then in their heads rationalise anything else that doesn’t fit with it, as either irrelevant or blocked out from their memory?

______________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

 

exBaha’i atheist

Adib Taherzadeh wrote a book, The Covenant of Baha’u’llah, which is one loooooong collection of acts of “mental gymnastics”. This is when you start with the ASSUMPTION that something must be true, no matter what, and construct arguments to support the claim. That’s the exact opposite of how an honest investigation should be run. (“Here are the facts……what conclusions can we draw from them?”)

That book eventually made me realize after I got it that Christian fundamentalists and Baha’is argue the SAME WAY! And since I had already rejected Christianity…..

Most Baha’is (and Christians, really) are simply members of a loving community and may not give much thought to why they believe certain things. But in order to DEFEND dogmatic, extremist religion, you have to lie about it! You can either choose to believe the lies and thus be corrupted, or reject them after using consistent logic to cut through the double standards of mental gymnastics.

To understand how corrupt the whole process is, imagine if the police, the lawyers, and the courts all ASSUMED you were guilty of a crime and simply rejected an alibi you put forth (“I wasn’t even there, so I couldn’t have done it!”) and insisted you be punished because the facts didn’t matter, only the DOGMA that you are a criminal. THAT’S HOW MENTAL GYMNASTICS WORK!

____________________________

womtib

 

I remember somewhere reading that the Bab’s followers later followed a practice of dissimulation, lying about their own religion in order to work around persecution, or to gain influence and force regime change. I don’t know how accurate that might be, but it does make me wonder sometimes if the same thing is going on – we believe the faith, but we know it won’t be palatable for others, so we lie about what it really is, while retaining our belief in the hidden doctrine.

I guess this is what it might be, rather than deception for profit, or self-deception pure and simple. Mental gymnastics to me is slightly ambiguous, since it might imply that they are lying to themselves to deny a dogma they know to be true. Whereas it seems like maybe these people believe the ends justify the means – that they know and believe in the writings that they don’t share with others, but believe that it’s OK to lie about them, because the end result, of creating a new world system, justifies any measures.

A “Unitarian Baha’i” comes across as an idiot, again!

Posted on by

Look at this:

What broke your shelf?
byu/taeinthewind inexbahai

Various ex-Baha’is gave interesting comments, but then trident765 came along and had to ruin the party by posting bullshit. Keep in mind that as a Unitarian Universalist, I fully support the Unitarian Baha’i faction as the only credible version of the Baha’i Faith in existence. So what did trident say?

I was born into the mainstream Baha’i Faith but now consider myself a Unitarian Baha’i.

For me, my conversion happened after reading A Lost History of the Baha’i Faith and discovering that in the early 20th century Muhammad Ali’s followers had basically exactly the same criticisms of the mainstream Baha’i Faith as me. Up until then, I thought people like Abdul Baha and Shoghi Effendi would be on my side. But after seeing that people just like me existed during their lifetimes, and that because of their views they were hated, slandered, and excommunicated by Abdul Baha and Shoghi Effendi, I realized that Abdul Baha and Shoghi Effendi would hate me. Abdul Baha’s and especially Shoghi Effendi’s writings seemed to indicate that it was people’s job to just obey authority no matter what, and if you disagree with authority, then even if you are right you are wrong by virtue of disagreeing. In my opinion this is an extremely toxic thing to make people think, and it will eventually just lead to authority leading their followers off a cliff.

At one point I almost stopped believing in Baha’u’llah altogether, but I just saw no reason to, because Baha’u’llah never really said the kinds of authoritarian stuff that Abdul Baha and Shoghi Effendi said.

I myself have a copy of that book and helped promote it on Amazon, despite attempts by Baha’i fanatics to interfere.

I REALLY wish trident wasn’t a Unitarian Baha’i, because he is staunchly anti-liberal and I think of the Unitarian Baha’i movement as being much like the liberal religion of Unitarian Universalism, certainly more than the Haifan Baha’is are! In case you needed a reminder:

Becoming a mod at r/exbahai

I cannot understand how he can say he opposes authoritarian systems, including in religion and also attacks others as worshipping a god of liberalism when actual liberalism is about opposing authoritarianism in all forms. He is seriously delusional!

Indeed, Baha’u’llah himself had a strictly authoritarian bent to his writings. Here’s a perfect example from the Kitab-i-Aqdas:

Consider the pettiness of men’s minds. They ask for that which injureth them, and cast away the thing that profiteth them. They are, indeed, of those that are far astray. We find some men desiring liberty, and priding themselves therein. Such men are in the depths of ignorance.

Liberty must, in the end, lead to sedition, whose flames none can quench. Thus warneth you He Who is the Reckoner, the All-Knowing. Know ye that the embodiment of liberty and its symbol is the animal. That which beseemeth man is submission unto such restraints as will protect him from his own ignorance, and guard him against the harm of the mischief maker. Liberty causeth man to overstep the bounds of propriety, and to infringe on the dignity of his station. It debaseth him to the level of extreme depravity and wickedness.

So therefore the claim by trident:

Baha’u’llah never really said the kinds of authoritarian stuff that Abdul Baha and Shoghi Effendi said.

is an outright LIE!!!

Becoming a mod at r/exbahai

Posted on by

Last month, I was promoted to be the newest moderator at the exBaha’i subreddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/

Having to protect that group from intruders and trolls while also keeping it a safe space for freedom of speech is a delicate balancing act.

My first test of my abilities was here:

Interesting Baha’i discussion on term convert
byu/TrwyAdenauer3rd inexbahai

Which was a crosspost from here in r/bahai:

The terms “convert” and “conversion”
byu/Narvi_- inbahai

The discussion in r/exbahai began with this:

TrwyAdenauer3rd
 

To me reflects that many Baha’is outright disagree with, are unaware of, or are just embarrassed by the conservative nature of the Faith as outlined by Shoghi Effendi.

Similarly many Baha’is take umbrage at covenant-breaking being equated with excommunication despite Shoghi Effendi and his secrataries comments in various places, i.e.:

That Document, furthermore, lauds the courage and constancy of the supporters of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant; expatiates on the sufferings endured by its appointed Center; recalls the infamous conduct of Mírzá Yaḥyá and his failure to heed the warnings of the Báb; exposes, in a series of indictments, the perfidy and rebellion of Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí, and the complicity of his son Shu‘á‘u’lláh and of his brother Mírzá Badí‘u’lláh; reaffirms their excommunication, and predicts the frustration of all their hopes; summons the Afnán (the Báb’s kindred), the Hands of the Cause and the entire company of the followers of Bahá’u’lláh to arise unitedly to propagate His Faith, to disperse far and wide, to labor tirelessly and to follow the heroic example of the Apostles of Jesus Christ;

https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/shoghi-effendi/god-passes-by/24#229666135

As regards the matter of those who have withdrawn from the Faith on the west coast: as you know, no one has the right to excommunicate anybody except the Guardian of the Faith, himself.

https://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/MC/mc-276.html?query=excommunicate&action=highlight#gr1

There are two things which he wishes to impress upon you. The first is that depriving people of their voting rights is the heaviest sanction which can be imposed at the present time (with the exception of excommunication, which is a right the Guardian has never permitted anyone else to exercise). Therefore, the greatest care should be exerted to try and remedy a situation before depriving anybody of their voting rights, and the action itself should only be taken if absolutely necessary.

https://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/MC/mc-263.html?query=excommunication&action=highlight#gr1

__________________

Then the Baha’i who started the original discussion in r/bahai attacked us.

Narvi_-

Do not cross post my posts on here — this is not your discussion.

____________________

TrwyAdenauer3rd
You posted it on reddit, you can’t stop anyone from discussing it elsewhere on the internet (as much as Baha’is would like to be able to ban all discussion outside of on-rails Ruhi book skits and cheesy promotional videos from Haifa).

You could follow the advice given to people who post critical content on r/bahai and find somewhere else to complain about not being able to censor the internet.

I cordially invite you to adopt a humble posture of learning to advance the process of learning about unleashing the society building engine of limitless potentialities.

_________________

Narvi_-

This is a discussion I as a Baha’i am having with other Baha’is, it was not for people like you to use and misrepresent for your own agendas.

________________

There were a lot of other things said, but I will jump ahead to where I entered the conflict.

 
Seeker_Alpha1701
ModModerator Achievement 
 
exBaha’i atheist

That’s enough! I will start moderating this place until you agree to either engage this discussion properly or simply go away.

______________

Narvi_-
 
Haifan Baha’i

This is literally one of the last places on Reddit that I want to be. I’m only here to tell you to leave my content alone.

____________

Seeker_Alpha1701
 
exBaha’i atheist

Do not be telling others what to do. If you don’t want your content reposted, DON’T MAKE IT PUBLIC. It’s really that simple. He did nothing wrong here…..but you did!

________________

Rosette9
 
agnostic exBaha’i

Good grief! Nothing nothing made me realize how toxic the Baha’i Faith is like seeing how exBaha’is are treated on this forum.

You can’t discuss that! Those are Baha’i words, you can’t use those words! I forbid it! You can’t think about things I tell you not to think! Stop reflecting on your experiences and discussing your thoughts in a supportive community!

They claim to have the solution to world peace, but cannot handle a democratic discussion from a differing perspective 🙄

___________________

Amir_Raddsh

If you posted it, so it will be crossposted anywhere. If you don’t want this, so you can 1- erase your post 2- cry out to the UHJ and ask them to create their own Bahá’í social network with their FULL censorship as they are specialists on it. LOL

______________

I did delete several comments, but otherwise kept my cool.

Round two;

Leftist ex-Bahais: Do you not see the parallels between leftism and (Haifan) Baha’ism?
byu/trident765 inexbahai

Seeker_Alpha1701
 
exBaha’i atheist

What are you talking about? Leftist politics are normally about using government as a social tool to bring about legal equality amongst people of different races, classes, genders, and religions. It’s not about censorship, which is a tool used by authoritarian states, not leftist ones.

The so-called “Communist” states in the 20th Century that claimed to be leftist were scams that simply replaced the ruling classes that ruled before Communism with the Communist parties themselves. George Orwell wrote Animal Farm to discredit that sort of nonsense.

Your claims and arguments make no sense whatsoever. Indeed, the Haifan Baha’i leadership strikes me as more right-wing than leftist. A true leftist leadership wouldn’t deny women the chance to get elected to it or insist on suppressing LGBT rights or expel “Covenant breakers” merely for dissenting from the leadership.

The idea that leftists want to suppress small businesses with individual owners is news to me too. What leftists hate are giant CORPORATIONS which are a basic component of modern capitalism and corporations are collective entities just like governments…..except they are NEVER democratic, because workers don’t get to elect their bosses.

Don’t get politics confused with religion, please. That’s what Conservatives have been doing and I’m fed up with it!

______________________

There was a lot more said there. After a while, I locked the comments there because things were getting too heated, and then unlocked them a few hours later. Trident reacted to my attempts to keep things orderly like this:

Most people on r/exbahai are idolators
byu/trident765 inFreeSpeechBahai

Nice libel, eh?

Round three also involved trident.

Saskatoon religious volunteer admits sexually exploiting 16-year-old girl – Court heard the man met the girl while volunteering in Saskatoon’s Bahá’í Community in 2015, when he was 29 years old.
byu/A35821363 inexbahai

He started off with:

trident765
 
Unitarian Baha’i

The thing he/they did wrong is not getting married first. It is ridiculous to put 16 year olds in the same category as children. She was not “exploited”.

___________

Seeker_Alpha1701
 
exBaha’i atheist

I’ve been told that most people’s minds don’t fully mature until their 20s, so most teens are easily manipulated by adults to become their tools….which is why most criminal gangs are composed of teens. A desperately lonely and confused teen can be seduced into sex with an adult that only wants to exploit them.

I was referring to this:

Being Better Educated and Changing my Opinion

____________

trident765
 
Unitarian Baha’i

If this were true then every guy would be manipulating teen girls, myself included. The fact is that it is in fact extremely difficult to manipulate a 16 year old girl, because at that point she has gone through puberty and has developed defense mechanisms against it. If you think that you as an old creep are capable of seducing a teen girl, then you are delusional.

Like he has ever been a teenage girl?!

__________________

Seeker_Alpha1701
Bravo!
exBaha’i atheist

If this were true then every guy would be manipulating teen girls, myself included.

OMG!!! Like guys cannot CHOOSE NOT to be abusers of girls and women?! WTF is wrong with you?!

No, don’t bother answering because you are about to be BLOCKED!

______________

I didn’t have the ability to ban him outright from r/exbahai, so blocking him from being able to contact me was as much as I could do. Well, that and lock some of the comments.

 

 

Abdu’l-Baha’s Shrine Burns to the Ground

Posted on by

Look at this:

The future shrine of Abdul Baha is now ashes
byu/MirzaJan inexbahai

For some background of this, see:

The Desperation of the Baha’is as the 100th Anniversary of the Death of Abdu’l-Baha Approaches

Even when the construction was going smoothly, it looked so STUPID!

Two videos about this were posted on YouTube:

One idiot said on the second video:

Not sure where this is but not looking like holy land. the shrine being built of Abdulbaha is in holy land.pass

Meanwhile:

[deleted by user]
by inbahai

More idiots said things like:

Shaykh_Hadi

It’s a temporary setback. There’s no need to be.

___________________

BazineNetal
 

With fire he tests the iron and gold He tests us

_____________

Jar3kTV

“Were it not for calamity, how would the sun of Thy patience shine, O Light of the worlds?” – Lawh-i-Qad-Ihtaraqa’l-Mukhlisun (Fire Tablet, Bahá’u’lláh)

May Bahá’u’lláh guide us through this dark period and may He restore the Master’s Shrine and the Twin Holy Houses, amen.

_____________________

buggaby

Stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

_________________

SuchSalad4

Crisis and victory

___________________

More like crying and idiocy, amirite?

As for me, I said:

Seeker_Alpha1701

They really can’t take a hint, can they? Like the death of Shoghi Effendi wasn’t evidence enough that their religion was not credible?!

 

A Podcast/Interview featuring myself and Wahid Azal

Posted on by

Note: After Wahid Azal and I became enemies, he was so desperate to eliminate this podcast from YouTube that in November of 2021 he filed a false copyright claim against it and I had to file a counter notification to get it back. He must know that I can use this video against him, as a warning to others to never trust him enough to collaborate with him on future podcasts! And now that I know he considered this a threat, that’s exactly what it will be used for!

The blog entries giving details of my recent battles with Azal are :

Wahid Azal is trying to get me banned from YouTube

Update on my Current Battle on YouTube

Defeating Wahid Azal again!

Battling with Wahid Azal on Vimeo too

MORE evidence of Wahid Azal’s blatant hypocrisy!

And now here are all the hateful and blatantly dishonest comments he threw at me after he got my YouTube channel shut down:

https://dalehusband.com/2021/11/21/update-on-my-current-battle-on-youtube/#comment-20964
NW Azal says:
November 21, 2021 at 5:21 PM

I am coming for this blog now, Gomer. You have one choice: take down all of the postings you have made about me here, one by one delete them, as well as elsewhere, and we will call it a day and I will leave you alone from there on out. Don’t do it, and I will send lawyers after you to force you to take them down and I will collect damages from you personally in the process, esp. since we now have your home address. Don’t believe me, go talk to an attorney and ask them what I can and cannot do to you. Your choice.

___________________

https://dalehusband.com/2021/11/21/update-on-my-current-battle-on-youtube/#comment-20997
November 25, 2021 at 9:14 PM
You don’t have a leg to stand on, Gomer. If you ever entered a courtroom with me, I would bury you. This is why you put on the hissy-fit hysterics because you know this too, fucking degenerate! This is also why you tried to kill yourself.

__________________

These next two comments were automatically thrown in my blog’s trash bin:

Dumbass, you tripped over yourself. I still hold copyright over that video. Even you have asserted it for the record. Not only have you not defeated anything, long-term I have everything you own. Good luck in court https://www.reddit.com/r/realexbahais/comments/rc1hsu/gomer_forgot_when_he_himself_asserted_the/

______________________

That’s not how copyright works, idiot. The content was made from my computer by me. I never granted you any right to the content. Therefore the copyright remains mine. You have asserted it for the record yourself. Any court and/or lawyer worth their salt will tell you the same. I have you by the balls, and I will collect all kinds of damages from your sorry redneck paedo BIA a$$. Watch me!

__________________

Here’s more bullshit:

https://dalehusband.com/2021/12/08/defeating-wahid-azal-again/#comment-21119
December 8, 2021 at 5:06 PM
We want you in court, moron, because there you are going to have to explain how you yourself asserted for the record that the original video belongs to Wahid Azal https://www.reddit.com/r/realexbahais/comments/rc1hsu/gomer_forgot_when_he_himself_asserted_the/
He has more than a copyright claim now on your insane redneck dumbass!

_____________________

https://dalehusband.com/2021/12/08/defeating-wahid-azal-again/#comment-21124
December 8, 2021 at 6:36 PM
Not how copyright works, dickhead. You were never given any rights by Wahid Azal to the content. The content was made by Wahid Azal from his computer. You have asserted for the record yourself that the “original version” is his. You are toast, and no lawyer or court worth their salt will tell you differently. Kill yourself now, and this time succeed where you failed last time. It is the easier option for you because if Wahid Azal takes you to court, you are dead.

___________________

https://dalehusband.com/2021/12/08/defeating-wahid-azal-again/#comment-21136
December 9, 2021 at 3:04 AM
Yes, you do need permission. No legal transfer of copyright was ever made over to you. You have violated intellectual property and you have committed fraud. None of the screenshots you have posted remotely demonstrate any transfer of rights of intellectual property. Go talk to a lawyer.

_________________

https://dalehusband.com/2021/12/08/defeating-wahid-azal-again/#comment-21138
December 9, 2021 at 3:11 AM
Because, dumbass, your logo is not the content. The content is the podcast which was made on Wahid Azal’s device. He has sole propriety and copyright over it. Not you. You can keep your stupid logo. But the content belongs to Azal – and the content is independent of any logo by you – and this is EXACTLY what any court will tell you. You aren’t a lawyer. Don’t know the first thing about the subject. But you are going to be taught a lesson now you will not soon forget.

_________________

I could assert repeatedly that one should ask a scientist to confirm that the earth is flat and that wouldn’t make it so, of course.

So for several weeks, I kept waiting and wishing and hoping I would have my day in court with him…….and it NEVER happened! Instead, I finally got these emails:

alt
 

Dear Dale Husband,

In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we’ve completed processing your counter notification.

The following videos have been restored unless you have deleted them:

________________

Dear Dale Husband

We are writing in response to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) counter-notification that you provided to us relating to material located on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/654107711 (the “Material”), which was previously removed as a result of a DMCA notice.

Please note that, as of the date hereof, in accordance with DMCA provision 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(2)(C), Vimeo has restored the Material. Vimeo has also notified the person that filed the DMCA notice that Vimeo did not receive notice, within the prescribed statutory period, that a court action was filed seeking to restrain you from engaging in alleged infringing activity relating to the Material.

We trust that this concludes this matter.

Sincerely,
Vimeo Inc.

_____________

SO WAHID AZAL CHICKENED OUT IN THE END! ROTFLMAO!!!!

The Hilarious Discrediting of DavidBinOwen

Posted on by

So last blog entry I dealt with the Beavis of reddit. Now it’s time to go after its Butt-Head!

Take a look at this:

[deleted by user]
by inFreeSpeechBahai

I’ve been an inactive Baha’i since about college… 15 years or so? I married a non-Baha’i who is a lovely person and does his best to do right by his actions but is generally an atheist with some agnostic considerations. We have two young kids now (5 and 2) and this is about the time when I would have considered starting them in Baha’i classes if it weren’t for COVID… except…

There’s a reason I’ve been inactive. Ever since I was engaged to my husband of now 12 years, the Baha’i’s in the community I grew up in would immediately ask if he was a Baha’i – not how we met, or what our plans were, and when I said, no he’s not, their immediate answer was “Well, he will be one day.” And I was NEVER, ever out to convert my husband. I hate the Ruhi books – and I’ve done like four of them. I did the first book twice. And it all reeks of brainwashing as opposed to independent investigation of the truth. It felt more like a test than open and honest study of the texts.

My mom is Iranian and I’m like a seventh generation Baha’i on her side, and my dad converted from Catholicism to the Faith. My dad hates the Ruhi books and has pretty much become inactive too other than the occasional Feast. I’ve moved far away due to jobs and graduate school and ended up putting roots in a new, large city. And the community just puts me off. I never realized how unnerving being introduced as a new Baha’i to the community is. Immediately I was jumped upon to introduce myself, and my family, and to drag my non-Baha’i husband along and volunteer my home for events and join a Ruhi circle…

There was so much expectation that I shut down and never went back – and I’m an extrovert so this wasn’t me being overwhelmed by people in general.

What happened to practicing the Faith as opposed to just talking about it to other people? What happened to asking ppl in the community if they need help, and providing it, instead of asking for every ounce of free time a person has left? We’ve moved again within the same city and I’m afraid to reach out to the local chapter here incase I’m overrun. Or get voted onto the LSA, because I have no time or sanity for that – thank COVID for depression and anxiety and other issues.

I believe in most of the tenants of the Faith, but I find it harder and harder to be a “Baha’i” in things other than my own personal ethical and moral codes and behaviors. And if I try to bring it up with Baha’i friends from my childhood… they sort of just don’t know what to do with me and tell me to pray.

I miss having a community. I want my kids to know about the Faith and all the good things Baha’i’s do or at least did when I was a child. Maybe my eyes are just opening to it now, or maybe something shifted around the time I was in college… but I’m so disappointed in our communities and their overwhelming desire to convert rather than serve.

____________

This was later cross posted to r/exbahai:

Struggle to Reconnect with the Community
byu/MirzaJan inexbahai

At the original post. a member named Any-Part4466 picked a fight with the one who made the OP.

Any-Part4466
 

NO one should say you have to do anything in order to be a Baha’i. You are free to not give to the Funds and free to not attend Feasts or meetings as you wish. NO one says you should devote excessive time to the Faith in service if you do not want to. That being said, I have learned from personal experience that there is a spiritual price one pays for being inactive and for having negative attitudes towards others and engaging in excessive criticism.

In my experience, most of the problems people have like yours relate to attitudes and expecting things from the community without offering anything in return. In my community, we focus on service to others, including local food banks and shelters for children for abusive homes and other groups as well.

A number of persons in my community do participate actively in the Institute process, of which Ruhi courses are only a part of not the whole, but many (most) do not have much time and some may, at most, attend a devotional or take a Ruhi course maybe once every couple of years. The Institute focus has been on devotional meetings, study circles (which do not have to be Ruhi and have included Kitab-i-Iqan and Will & Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha study), children’s classes, and home visits. There is less, not more, focus on conversion than in the past when I first became a Baha’i in the late 1980s and early 1990s, contrary to what you are suggesting.

First, I never have been in a Baha’i community where a Baha’i was expected to convert his/her spouse. There are often some few pushy or nosy individuals in any community (certainly were in the church I grew up in) but you have to just learn to look past them or forgive them or simply tell them appropriately it is not their business.

Second, I find your statements about the Ruhi books completely offensive and contrary to the experience of most Baha’is. There are some elements and statements at times in sections that I disagree with and express that appropriately. They mostly ask open-minded questions, allow for dialogue, emphasize service, and provide a perspective. I have no clue why anyone would feel that they are brainwashing. All materials in school and in a religious community come from a belief and perspective in my experience. In the Baha’i Faith and in the way Ruhi courses are supposed to be tutored, free and open discussion is allowed as long as it does not veer into criticism of others. My sense is that is just a pejorative term people use when they do not like or disagree with something and used far too often and inappropriately.

Third, most Baha’i communities are welcoming in my experience having moved around quite a bit in my Baha’i life of 30+ years. Most Baha’is once they get to know each other are helpful and friendly. Perhaps the real issue is how you present yourself, verbally or non-verbally to other Baha’is and your attitude.

Fourth, there is no “local chapter” in the Baha’i Faith. There are Local Spiritual Assemblies and local communities or groups where no Assembly exists. All LSAs are organized on a citywide basis, not within a city. In larger cities, they sometimes divide the city into clusters for certain Feasts and meeting in order to make for smaller and more friendly, personal feasts and less travel but those are not LSAs. So, therefore, some of what you are saying does not make any sense in the context of the Baha’i community. If you are in a larger city, then worrying about being elected to the LSA with the attitudes you expressed seems strange and odd.

She replied as follows:

glitterbombardier
 

My words have certainly struck a cord with you, and I apologize if they have conveyed any sense of an attack on the Faith. It is both possible for me to love the Faith and struggle at the same time. I am hurt and lost and have been brushed off by those in my local and extended communities when I’ve talked about these struggles with the Faith, so I brought them online where I thought maybe I could get more perspectives than quotes from the texts or pressure to do Ruhi. I don’t mean to criticize so harshly, but I do see how my words read as such.

I am regretful my experience with Ruhi has not been yours – I truly wish it had been. But the way the classes I specifically took were run did not lend me the feeling of study but rather of reciting and writing an answer that we were guided to, rather than formed ourselves.

I would like to defend myself that I never said the community demanded these things of me. Expectation and disappointment can be unspoken and no less heavy a burden. A community can be warm and friendly and engaging – and most Baha’i communities are – but even then to be so eager to welcome you that they overdo it. I have also been a part of online Baha’i communities – a Baha’i mother group on FB – and some of them said such nasty things about politics and the LGBTQ community that I had to leave. I’ve known Baha’i’s who beat their spouses and children (I myself was a child at the time).

No community is perfect, and I strive to recognize this in my own community as well as myself – I have not been an exemplary example of a Baha’i since becoming inactive. I give back to my communities in my own way – I serve by teaching when people ask me about my Faith of their own free will, I serve my local community through volunteering and helping my neighbors when they need help with kids or food or rides to healthcare. I don’t often remember my daily prayers and I definitely need to get back into giving to the Fund.

My apologies for not using the word cluster – I couldn’t remember it as I have been inactive for some time so used the next best word choice to describe the smaller communities in a large city. Our local clusters have LSA’s. Maybe not in the cities you have lived in or visited, my birth city only has one LSA, but where I currently live, yes, that’s how it is.

I’m not trying to attack the Faith. I am trying to find someone, anyone to talk to that isn’t going to tell me to pray my struggles away. Your response makes me feel more isolated, more alone, as though as a Baha’i I am not allowed to show any weakness in my Faith. If you are so offended by my struggles, please just don’t respond.

He ignored her pleas and kept attacking her, prompting me and others to confront him.

Later:

Warnings regarding Baha’i Covenant Breaking and Covenant Breakers on this Forum
by inFreeSpeechBahai

Of course, this prompted another battle. And then…..

 
Any-Part4466

Free speech that promotes disinformation and is just hatred and insults is not worthwhile. It is just sick and degrading.

____________

TrwyAdenauerReloaded

So you believe in worthwhile (as judged by you) speech and reserve the right to deem others as sick much like DBO. You don’t believe in or support free speech.

________________

DavidbinOwen
 

I don’t know exactly what DBO believes. I’m not DBO as you have imagined and demonized him.

You can’t complain about free speech and then participate in a subreddit that purports to have no rules, does not apply the rules of reddit consistently, and regularly blocks and bans free speech when the mods don’t like what is being said. Two of the three mods on the exbahai subreddit do not tolerate free speech because they have banned numerous persons there over time, most on false pretenses because they committed far fewer offenses than the exbahais regularly commit. So, the whole subreddit is basically a sh$$ show, hypocrisy, and a lie and has gotten worse over time in that regard.

As a Baha’i, Baha’u’llah warned against an excess of speech and clearly indicated some speech is not worthy. That does not mean that I believe in strict censorship, just that a lot of what is said is really offensive and disrespectful and disinformation. We should regulate what we say. Sometimes, I push the limits myself admittedly.

Whoops, he made a boo boo!!!! LOL! DavidBinOwen (aka Any-Part4466) was sockpuppeting, no doubt to get around that so many of us had blocked him!

Which led to this post:

DBO forgets to switch from alt account
by inexbahai

And of course, even after being exposed, the idiot kept on lying.

Any-Part4466

I hope you realize that your post about DBO’s post was bait by him. It just drew attention to my posts and his. It does not really serve you very well in the end. It only exposes further the hypocrisy and inconsistencies on the exbahai forum which bans such content. Also, to the extent a number of the individuals on the exbahai subreddit use multiple accounts at times (and they do), they are being silly.

All the chest beating and bragging is also a riot. Now I’m laughing.

No more needs to be said!

History Repeats Itself in the ExBaha’i Subreddit

Posted on by

Take a look at this:

Measures to Restore Civility
byu/samanwilson inexbahai

That was over two years ago. I was reminded of this incident by a fellow member of r/exbahai here:

Baha’i eschatology
byu/S1r0n inexbahai

Where he and I said:

Seeker_Alpha1701
The reddit Baha’is often spy on us and in the past even tried to disrupt our community outright.

Here are some stories of their works:

https://dalehusband.com/2018/04/08/treachery-of-bahais-reddit/

https://dalehusband.com/2018/07/04/muslim-bashing-and-libel-against-ex-bahais-in-reddit/

​ https://dalehusband.com/2020/07/12/another-fight-with-davidbinowen-in-reddit/

https://dalehusband.com/2020/08/26/another-victory-over-the-bahai-faith-and-one-of-its-bigoted-hypocrites/

______________

Divan001

I can second that. I’ve even had some of the Azali losers message me after I hurt their little feelings lmao

________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

Yeah, they were a threat to us a couple of years ago after their ringleader was banned from here for telling outright lies about us to make himself look like a genius who alone knew the truth about how the world works, but eventually he was totally discredited and his followers quit coming around here.

_________________

Divan001

He legit started messaging me when someone mentioned him on the sub and I commented that his beliefs (a cross between Marxism and babies) sounded contradictory. One of the dumbest convos I ever engaged in where he accused me of being a crypto-Baha’i. They’re like Baha’is with crack head energy.

__________

“a cross between Marxism and babies”! What a nice PUNishment for Wahid Asshole, eh?

For the sake of clarity, these are the exact statements that got that dingbat tossed out of r/exbahai forever.

Answering Investigator919’s disinfo (Part 1)
by inexbahai

https://www.reveddit.com/v/exbahai/comments/cxdsax/answering_investigator919s_disinfo_part_1/

بِسم الله الكاشف الغطاء

Investigator919 has a huge bee in their bonnet regarding the Bayān, and has demonstrated this bias time again. But it is one of those typical woolly biases that one sees amongst liberal Muslims living in the West who are schizophrenic to the core over the Baha’i issue while then parrot fashion regurgitating the uncritical tripe of some of their more reactionary brethren. Now, it is no secret that both the supporters of the liberal faction of the Islamic Republic of Iran congregating around Hasan Rouhani and the supporters of the Rafsanjani mafia (to which Investigator919 as well as the chief moderator of this subreddit are linked) and the Haifan Baha’is are in an open alliance (which I wrote about publicly here in 2016, https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/25/behind-the-politics-of-a-current-brouhaha-in-iran-an-ex-president-ayatollahs-daughter-and-the-bahais/). One of the biggest threats this alliance of convenience perceives — just as the Haifan Baha’is and the Khomeinists of the pre-1979 era did as well — are the Bayāni community. At the time SAVAK, which the Baha’is controlled via its deputy chief Parviz Sabeti (a Sangasari Baha’i), and the hawza realized that Ali Shariati (d. 1977) was in fact a Bayānī and was actually promoting the Bayān via his ideas of revolutionary Islam sans the clericocracy wherein ‘Black Shi’ism‘ indeed represents the hawza and the reactionary mullahs with ‘Red Shi’ism’ standing in for the Bāb and the religion of the Bayān. That certain factions of the IRI and the Haifan Baha’is are in bed together and are protecting each others interests is no longer just a mere theory, and so these two together will pull rank against the Bayān while wheeling in dubious paid trolls to muddy waters even further. On this subreddit we have seen this happen time and again especially when the moderators were openly pulling rank behind DavidbenOwen.

Now, Investigator919 regularly cherry-picks from the Bayān. Yet their technical grasp of both Arabic and Persian as well as the writings of the Bāb in general are quite limited (although that doesn’t seem to matter to those ex-Baha’is passive-aggressively promoting the interests of the church and Evangelical Christianity in the guise of ex-Bahais), so let’s look at what they instanced. Their translation is bolded in quotation marks. First the original text is offered and then my translation follows it with the chapter number bolded with the chapter heading italicized.

“Chapter six of the sixth unit which is about destroying all books but those that have been written or will be written about this Order (meaning the Bab’s creed). (The Bāb, Farsi Bayān, unit 6, chap. 6.)”

الباب السّادس مِن الواحد السّادس في حُكم مَحوْ كلّ الكُتب كُلّها إلّا ما انشئتْ أوْ تنشئ في ذلك الأمر

The sixth gate of the Sixth Unity. Regarding the ordinance [ḥukm] of the erasure [maḥw] of all books, all of them, except what has emerged or will arise in this Cause.

Commentary: The translation offered by Investigator919 is off by miles. First, neither the words هدم or دمر have been used here, both meaning ‘to [physically] destroy‘ something. The word used instead is محو [maḥw] which has a specific context in none other than the ḥadīth kumaylhttp://wahidazal.blogspot.com/2011/07/hadith-kumayl-or-hadith-al-haqiqa-of.html to which the Primal Point constantly made reference and wherein each of the six years of His Manifestation is supposed to correspond to each of its six theophanic sequences. محو [maḥw] occurs in the second theophanic sequence of the ḥadīth kumayl:

محو الموهوم و صحو المعلوم

The erasure/negation of conjecture and the realization of the known.

The nuance is immediately apparent to anyone who actually understands the High Imamology animating the writings of the Primal Point throughout and that He is not actually saying to physically destroy any book but to erase the primacy (i.e. influence) of all books (such as, for instance, the industry of tragicomical nonsense produced by the mullahs for centuries in the corpus of fiqh/jurisprudence, i.e. the same industry of jurisprudential nonsense that produced the wilayat al-faqih and clerical rule in Iran over the past 40 years to which people such as Ali Shariati were sworn enemies because Khomeini and his Guardianship of the Jurisprudent is precisely the consummation of the Black Shi’ism that both Shariati and the the Primal Point unequivocally denounced and tried to prevent).

​

Continued in Part 2.

________________________________

wahidazal66
 

Let me put you straight, Investigator919. I don’t give a flying monkey’s backside about your power trip or Saman Wilson’s or your territoriality over this subreddit. I have already put the word out far and wide all over the internet about what manner of scum actually manage this place and what dirty politics underlies it all. You, Saman Wilson and whoever yanks your chains belong to the faction of the IRI who are deep in bed with these cultists and you, Wilson and MirzaJan are gatekeping and managing this place on behalf of the Haifans. This nonsense is also going on inside Iran itself as we speak where innocent people who are merely criticizing Bahaism in social media all of a sudden find themselves hauled before Ettela’at (the intelligence ministry) inside Iran itself; and the reason is simple, because scum such as Wilson and yourself (who are more than likely card-carrying Baha’is) are under Rouhani helping the Baha’is within the system. Fortunately there is a long track record for this kind of duplicity by both the Haifans and you Green-Rouhani-Rafsanjani-Ahmadinejad-criminal mafia punks. You can block me from this place. It won’t change the fact that you, your duplicity and that of Wison’s have already been outed publicly, which is why the traffic to this place is daily coming to a grinding halt. Ban me, and, one way or another, I will have this entire subreddit shut down and publicize your real identity, Saman Wilson’s as well as MirzaJan’s all over the internet for the trouble.

You have been warned, and you should know by now that I am not one to be trifled with.

________________

wahidazal66
 

Onlyoneatall Also note that for all their crying and carrying on about doxxing, the corrupt and hypocrital moderators of this subreddit who are in the pocket of your “institutions” have no problems in a non-intervention policy where the doxxing and defaming has me as its target. Anyone else, and they jump up and down becoming sticklers for rules — trigger happy with the banning — which they won’t implement in other cases. This has been the case from the beginning here, especially as you all already know that I am the real enemy of your cult while others are merely playing, so you may want to tell your Baha’i Internet Agency that the double-standard behavior of the mods makes things more than a little obvious and confirms everything I say about how these people roll and who the real identities behind the moderators actually are.

Also, that two defamation posts by the paid troll have been left without intervention also proves what I say about the troll: that this individual has been put up to what they are doing and are paid to do so by the BIA, who actually controls this subreddit with the mods as their gatekeepers, particularly given that the well known racist troll doing the doxxing actually needs the money per their own 2012 article.

https://www.wweek.com/portland/article-19620-notes-from-a-newbie-homeless-portlander.html

______________

He got banned at that point, only to return with another account with which he said:

NWahid_Azal
 

The truth has already shown itself, and on multiple occasions. Last year in 2018 DavidBenOwen went on a defamation and doxxing spree right here on this subreddit. The mod did nothing. I complained about it, and this individual banned me instead while DavidBinOwen continued to run riot. DavidBenOwn was only recently banned after years of abuse in this place. This has all been a consistent pattern and I have documented it all. Any court that reviewed the situation from beginning to end with the evidence I have would immediately see what I claim, that the moderator of this subreddit consistently rewards perpetrators and punishes the victims of these perpetrators whenever they complain or put up a fight. In other words, the moderators here do what Baha’is have always done best: gaslight since this is a consistent Baha’i modus operandi literally everywhere, not to mention historically located, and the behavior of “Saman Wilson” (not to mention his two dubious sidekicks) only reinforces what I say, i.e. that this subreddit is gatekept and its mods are gatekeepers for the interests of Haifan Bahaism against its actual enemies.

Also, the slap in the face Investigator919 got in the rejoinder here means this individual doesn’t wish to be further humiliated intellectually by me over issues they have no clue about and are actually misinforming the public regarding. But that suits the Baha’is just fine since they have profited for over a century in any skewed presentation of the Bayan — or whenever the Bab has been labeled insane and mentally ill — and it will be damned if anyone who knows what they are talking about sets these cultists and their hangers on straight with actual textual evidence, proper contextualization and analysis. That is the bottom line and why “Saman Wilson” and the BIA see me as a threat because they know that I am committed to ending their proverbial “party” and exposing every last one of their deceptions once and for all.

 
WHAT A FUKED UP SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT! The rules of reddit itself say:
 
Reminder from the Reddit staff: If you use another account to circumvent this subreddit ban, that will be considered a violation of the Content Policy and can result in your account being suspended from the site as a whole.
 

So why was I EVER friends with this sick bastard?

Well, it appears about eight or nine months ago he came back yet again with a new account, named Naw-Cryptographer49. At first, he fooled everyone, even me, but eventually I figured him out. And he and I had a final showdown here six months ago:

Post a youtube video quoting ‘Abdu’l-Baha on black Africans
byu/olivercowdery2021 inexbahai

Where I started to warn others about his intentions:

Seeker_Alpha1701
Because he is a troll who seeks to disrupt this subreddit using abusive attacks on others disguised as criticism.

Just do what I did when he did it to me: BLOCK AND IGNORE HIM FROM NOW ON.

________________

That set him off, just as I intended!

Naw-Cryptographer49

Speak for yourself. One of the biggest trolls on the scene, bar none, who thinks he owns this place while incessantly pushing the UU cult and his own blog of inane drivel and who doesn’t even know what a hagiography is. Pathetic.

________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

Naw-Cryptographer49 vomited:

Speak for yourself. One of the biggest trolls on the scene, bar none, who thinks he owns this place while incessantly pushing the UU cult and his own blog of inane drivel and who doesn’t even know what a hagiography is. Pathetic.

You know, you are not very good at hiding your true self even when you repeatedly use sockpuppets to get around being banned from this subreddit!

__________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

That con artist also said this to me a while ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/comments/m9u6yb/divine_manifestations_according_to_the_bab_and/grw6jyl/

You are a know-nothing fanatic, not to mention a head case, no better than the Baha’is you decry. I am trying to get you to spell out your philosophical position, but you seem not to have one and are merely operating by some pseudo-intellectual remote control of rehashed sound bites and one liners, which makes you as dangerous as any braindead RUHIfied Baha’i. The way you talk when challenged on your BS reveals you to be just another basket case chump circumambulating the trauma around their experience with authoritarian cults like Baha’i. Get over yourself already!

Which only confirmed what I said to him first, which was:

Now that I see you are willing to LIE OUTRIGHT to throw out talking points at me even after I try to end our debate on a positive note, I will have no more to do with you. Once a liar, always to be distrusted from now on!

And of course, stating MORE outright lies at me after I decided to shun him only makes him look more ridiculous.

_________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

The bigot also outed himself as a “Bayani” fanatic here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OnThisDateInBahai/comments/m7ul78/march_19_on_this_date_in_1850_the_báb_began_to/

As far as I am concerned, anyone who is a follower of the Bab, who was killed by a firing squad in 1850, is as much of an idiot as any Baha’i. Reason: the Bab’s claim to be the promised one of Shia Islam was forever debunked by his death, and no amount of phony rhetoric, not from Baha’u’llah or even from any Bayani apologist today, will EVER restore the Bab’s credibility.

I like Messengers of God who do not get slaughtered, imprisoned, exiled or exposed as frauds, thank you very much!

_____________

And like the idiot he always has been, Wahid Azal went INSANE at being exposed!

Naw-Cryptographer49

What are you babbling about, you deranged lunatic? Go take your meds and while you do keep your hands off other people’s kids, silly sicko fuck!

____________________

Naw-Cryptographer49

The biggest con artist hereabouts is the 50+ year old INCEL guy with a psychotic sense of entitlement to a subreddit, not to mention a chip on his shoulder the size of Mt Rushmore, who literally has nothing to contribute but the same old, same old rehashes from a stupid blog where he once wrote up embarrassing sicko fantasy blog posts; gets dumped by the very people who tried to rally behind him after they found out about it; deletes the posts on his blog, and then tries to kill himself with the stove! The STOVE! Yeah, everyone knows that story because the moron blabbered it out himself…

You are the greatest clown EVER! This lady said it best: https://groups.google.com/g/talk.religion.bahai/c/pydVNFD3l-Y

_____________________

Of course, I reported all his crap to the mods of the subreddit and they banned him…..AGAIN!  And I gave him a final shot even as I was LMAO:

Seeker_Alpha1701

 

 
Message to Naw-Cryptographer49:

Wow! It seems that deja vu is a bitch, isn’t it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/comments/cxhzog/measures_to_restore_civility/

And just because I have written about the ugly issue of pedophilia on my blog doesn’t mean I AM a pedophile, you lying sack of crap!

https://dalehusband.com/2019/05/12/biblical-genocide-and-pedophilia/

https://dalehusband.com/2021/04/02/rape-apologists-round-two/

And stop making up rumors about me. No doubt, you HOPED I would have committed suicide by now after you made up so many ridiculous lies about me that some people started to believe your bullshit (the “if there is smoke, there must be fire” fallacy), but suicide is nothing to joke about and you claiming that about me too is only more proof of your degenerate nature!

Baha’is on Facebook make fools of themselves!

Posted on by

Back in 2019, a Baha’i on “The Largest Bahá’í Facebook Group Ever” made this statement:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2209644753/permalink/10156990348534754/

Ashkon Rowhani Ashraf

Allah’u’abha all!
Just a small reminder of what the House wants each and every single one of us to do NOW:
1. Become friends with all of your neighbours on your street and in your neighborhood. Invite them over to cups of tea and get to know them and go and visit them in their house. Take them a food to enjoy together with your cup of tea.
2. Host a children’s class in your house and invite your neighbours children to all attend. You do not have to run it, u just have to host it.
3. Host a REGULAR devotional gathering in your house. Invite your neighbours and their kids. Share prayers together from the Faith and from other sacred traditions to make it even more amazing. Try and get chants, kids prayer songs etc
4. Help enthusiastic attendees setup regular devotional gatherings in their own homes AND accompany them in this. Help your friend to help their friends to run regular devotional meetings in their house. This process will multiply until the whole world is in a devotional gathering.
4. Host a Junior Youth Class in your House. Invite the neighbours JYs. Once you are friends with neighbours you can tell them about the JY programme.
4. Once the children and and JY start coming then offer to train their parents to become Childrens class teachers and JY animators.
5. Train the new teachers and animators and help them start a childrens class and JY in their own home (if they are far away enough in the neighborhood).
6. Accompany the new teachers and animators on their path of service towards spiritualising our new generation. Help them to do everything you just did i.e. to get them to eventually also train children class teachers and JY animators AND to accompany their new teachers and animators to setup JY programme and childrens classes in THEIR own homes. This process is now growing exponentially.
7. Repeat Cycle.
This is all we have to do. This is all the house wants us to d0. If we do this the whole world will become involved in a core activity. World peace will finally come. The words of God do the work for us. All we have to do is the logistics.
The time is now. Get up stand up for your right to live in a world which is at peace. We can have world peace in ONE generation. How exciting! Are not proud to be blessed with a concrete plan on how world peace can be achieved!? Nobody else is doing this! Only us! So time to get up and stand up for YOUR RIGHT to live in a world at peace.
Allah’u’abha all and may we fill our cups with the blessings which rain down~
What an incompetent list! Note that the writer repeated the number 4 THREE TIMES….the last number on the list should have been 9, not 7. Of course, the number nine is one Baha’is are obsessed with, so that makes the error of the writer even more obvious!
And not all Baha’is who read it were positive in their responses to it.
Richard Genobles

 

We have been doing this for years.Is it working?
__________________

Ashkon Rowhani Ashraf

Hi Richard yes it is most definately working, Rome was not built in a day and the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven is no different. Ours is the opportunity to build it! 😮 😮
______________
Richard Genobles

 

These things are happening but no one is coming to them. Do you know the 50% of the people who declare become inactive the first year and since the beginning of Entry by troops the membership in the faith has fallen 17% based on world census.How you ever seen an invitation to a total stranger and have you ever thought there might be better ways.. Dr Peter Kahn said “we are looking for people who make mistakes that way we know you are doing something.” What we need, first, is a solid community foundation. And one of the aspects of teaching is “Proclamation,” that’s letting the people know we ar here. The above comes under “Expansion” but the two, plus “Consolidation” the must work together.
_________________
Ashkon Rowhani Ashraf

 

yes that is exactly right! That is why we must first become FRIENDS with all of our neighbors, then introduce them to the core activities and then invite bless. Blessings~
This reminds me of something I read in the exbahai subreddit a year ago:
She wasn’t fooled and lots of others likely were not either!
Speaking of that subreddit:
Where these comments were made:
Amir_Raddsh

The man called “Richard Genobles” firmly contested this BS above, and I realized he is no longer on that Facebook group. It would be nice to know if he withdrew from Faith and joined us here on r/exbahai LOL

_____________

TrwyAdenauerReloaded
 

Often it’s the most superactive Ruhiites who end up the most bitter (because they actually believe that stuff is going to imminently change society so it’s a hard fall when they experience how little anyone gives a stuff about it).

I sometimes think the Baha’is are like Daleks who are so incompetent that they can’t even shoot straight and therefore can’t EXTERMINATE anyone!

Susan Maneck, Baha’i apologist (and IDIOT)

Posted on by

A long time ago, a certain Baha’i scholar (I use that term quite loosely) began posting comments on my blog in response to my criticisms of the Baha’i Faith. Eventually, this person, Susan Maneck, waged a long running battle on one of my blog entries:

Baha’is must reject the Guardianship!

I tolerated her shit for a while but finally had enough of her arrogance and banned her.

Well, she has struck again! Take a look at this video about her:

The very first comment on it was mine.

Dale Husband

Susan Maneck is one of the biggest hypocrites I ever had the misfortune of dealing with. She is really a blindly obedient Baha’i dogmatist. The comments below this blog entry show her true character: https://dalehusband.com/2010/03/21/bahais-must-reject-the-guardianship/

________________

 
That was four years ago. Then three months ago:
 
 
I then replied on this month:
 
 
_________________
 
 
Of course she does! How else could she have posted her comments on YouTube? You can have a channel even if there is no content on it. And why doesn’t she bother to make her own videos? Anyway, here is her channel:
 
 
So her first outright lie is debunked.
 
 
 
Then I waited for her to respond. After a while, I made another comment, to prove my point about her cowardice.
 

Dale Husband

Nevermind, I will do it for you!

https://bahai-library.com/uhj_access_sources

{{{Date sent: Tue, 11 May 99
To: Susan Maneck
Subject: Access to materials at the Bahá’í World Centre
From: Bahá’í World Centre 4 May 1999
Transmitted by email to Dr. Susan Maneck, U.S.A.
Dear Bahá’í Friend,
The Universal House of Justice has received your email of 30 December 1998 requesting clarification of the policies governing access to sources at the Bahá’í World Centre and regarding publication of primary source material available to people through other avenues. It welcomes the opportunity to provide further information on these issues and has instructed us to send you the following reply.
 
Your questions have to be considered in the context of the range of the work and responsibilities of the Universal House of Justice. One of the most important functions of the Head of the Cause is to guide the faithful to the tasks which need to be performed at each stage in its progress. It must allocate the resources of the Faith and point out those areas on which attention should be focused. Naturally, each individual tends to see the importance of his or her special interests or to focus on needs which are immediately apparent. All these have their own validity, but it is the Universal House of Justice which sees the whole picture and can guide the process. The friends must have faith in this, otherwise their efforts will be dissipated and even mutually conflicting.
 
The question of providing access to primary source materials is but one of the matters which must occupy the attention and consume the resources of the Cause. The written material of this Dispensation is incomparably rich and varied, and we now stand only a century and a half from the day on which the Bab announced His Mission to Mulla Husayn in Shiraz.
 
Access to source documents relating to the Bahá’í Faith which are held in libraries in different parts of the world, or are in the hands of individuals, is open to anyone who wishes to consult them, dependent only on the permission of the institution or individual in whose possession the documents are held. A major service which a number of Bahá’í scholars have rendered to the Faith is in tracing such deposits and, where possible, obtaining archival quality photocopies for the World Centre Archives and Library.
 
As for source documents at the World Centre itself: these are held by the Universal House of Justice in trust for the entire Bahá’í world and ultimately for the whole of humankind, of both present and future generations. There is tremendous work to be accomplished in sorting, identifying and cataloguing such documents so that they can be effectively studied without either damaging them or losing vital information by disturbing their inter- relationships. As far as the urgent needs of the Faith are concerned, the primary work in this respect must be devoted to the Sacred Texts rather than to documents of historical interest, although the latter are by no means ignored. It would be irresponsible for the House of Justice, without itself first being fully informed of what is in the Archives, to consider opening them to individual scholars for the pursuit of purely personal interests.
 
Far from allowing anyone to tamper with the historical records, the Universal House of Justice has the obligation to preserve the integrity, not only of the Sacred Texts, but of all the historical documents in its possession. It has, moreover, a responsibility for arranging their publication for the scholarly world in a coherent manner that will not give a misleading impression of events as a result of the mere choice of the items and the order in which they are made public. Undoubtedly, in due course, it will be possible to publish editions of historical documents in facsimile accompanied, in the case of each document, by a printed transcription, and supplemented by necessary commentaries and notes. It is with such thoughts in mind that the House of Justice feels that a certain discipline is required of those individual believers who decide, for their own purposes, to publish or translate documents which they have at hand.
 
This entire process is made the more delicate by past experience with those who, pursuing unacknowledged agendas of their own, have wished to publish certain documents for ulterior motives, or with others who have lacked the good sense and breadth of vision to act responsibly.
 
You refer to the principle of the unfettered search after truth. This is certainly upheld, but it cannot imply that the institutions of the Faith have a duty to make available to each enquirer every piece of information he or she requests. We are faced here, not with wisdom prevailing over the search for truth, but with a process of organic growth, both in the world and, commensurate with it, at the World Centre of the Faith.
 
The Universal House of Justice has asked us to assure you of its prayers on your behalf in the Holy Shrines for the reinforcement of your devoted endeavours to advance the interests of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh.
With loving Bahá’í greetings,
Department of the Secretariat
cc: International Teaching Centre}}}
 
News flash: Anyone who followed the link provided by the original video poster could have seen that response. Susan Maneck made an issue out of nothing!
 
_______________
 
This seemed to cause her to become unhinged.
 
 
So she thought I had made the video? I didn’t and in any case she was lying, since I had actually just posted the entire response by the Universal House of Justice as a comment…..and in any case, a person still could have looked up the response by following the original link in the video’s description. And the real point of not bothering to include the reply in the original video was that Ms. Maneck was an idiot to make such a lame inquiry to begin with! Any objective non-Baha’i would have already figured out that the Universal House of Justice was running a scam…..why couldn’t she see it?!
 
Then she started a rant at me:
 
Then how would she explain the case of John Wycliffe, who translated the Vulgate into English and was condemned by the Catholic Church for doing that, among other things that challenged its dogmas?
 
 

In keeping with Wycliffe’s belief that scripture was the only authoritative reliable guide to the truth about God, he became involved in efforts to translate the Bible into English. While Wycliffe is credited, it is not possible exactly to define his part in the translation, which was based on the Vulgate.[30] There is no doubt that it was his initiative, and that the success of the project was due to his leadership. From him comes the translation of the New Testament, which was smoother, clearer, and more readable than the rendering of the Old Testament by his friend Nicholas of Hereford. The whole was revised by Wycliffe’s younger contemporary John Purvey in 1388.

There still exist about 150 manuscripts, complete or partial, containing the translation in its revised form. From this, one may easily infer how widely diffused it was in the 15th century. For this reason the Wycliffites in England were often designated by their opponents as “Bible men”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe#Declared_a_heretic

The Council of Constance declared Wycliffe a heretic on 4 May 1415, and banned his writings, effectively both excommunicating him retroactively and making him an early forerunner of Protestantism. The Council decreed that Wycliffe’s works should be burned and his bodily remains removed from consecrated ground. This order, confirmed by Pope Martin V, was carried out in 1428.[9] Wycliffe’s corpse was exhumed and burned and the ashes cast into the River Swift, which flows through Lutterworth.

Indeed, Wycliffe was part of the growing trend of dissenting from Catholic dogma and practice that finally enabled Martin Luther to actually start the Protestant Reformation. One of Luther’s most famous works was his translating the Bible into German. That could have been done centuries earlier.

The assertion by Maneck that “Latin was the only language of literacy” for centuries doesn’t address WHY that was so, nor why literacy in general was so limited in most of Europe. It was limited by DESIGN!

Europe in the Middle Ages was dominated by a political and economic system known as feudalism, which was characterized by a strict social hierarchy.  At the top were the monarchs, including kings and emperors who ruled their lands with absolute power. Below them was the nobility and the clergy who had most of the wealth and exercised power of their own over the lower classes. The next level below was the peasants who were free but were also poor. And finally in some countries there was an even lower class known as serfs, who were slaves bound to the land and forced to work on farms for little or no pay. It was in the interest of the upper classes to keep the peasants and serfs uneducated, since an educated population would be more likely to question authority and tradition and demand better lives for themselves.

Here’s an illustration of how that hierarchy may have functioned (indeed, modern capitalism is directly descended from feudalism):

Anti-capitalism_color

You’d think that Ms. Maneck, who is supposed to be a historian, would know that!

Repeating a point of hers:

The letter from the House merely says they don’t have the resources to make their sources available to everyone and points out that most of them are available elsewhere.

First, what resources would the House of Justice need? And how exactly did the House of Justice come to this conclusion?

Second, even in the House of Justice’s response  to Maneck it did not specify examples of such outside sources.

Indeed, the very idea that historical documents relating to the early times of the Bab and Baha’u’llah are not suitable for exposure to the public smacks of a lack of transparency that one would only expect from scammers and tyrants, not credible leaders!

 

Silencing the truth is unacceptable, from ANYONE!

Posted on by

A reddit user named MacPark711 tried to bring up a painful topic in the Bahai subreddit. You can guess how far he got with it.

Dealing With Some Criticisms and why people are leaving. #1 Shoghi and the UHJ
by inbahai
Sorry, this post has been removed by the moderators of r/bahai.
Moderators remove posts from feeds for a variety of reasons, including keeping communities safe, civil, and true to their purpose.

__________

t0lk
 

Hi MacPark711,

I’m not going to approve this post. It would take a long time for contributors here to address all the specific points you raised. It’s sort of like if you were trying to learn about vaccines and you spent hours and hours on anti-vax videos and forums, and then wanted other people to address/dispel all the misinformation you learned. Here are the books you’ll need to read.

  1. The Kitáb-i-Íqán. This book covers the basic principles and lays the foundation for the teachings/revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. It states God continually provides mankind with revelation direct from God for our education and upliftment. After reading this you should decide if you think Bahá’u’lláh is a messenger of God or not. If you think a possibility exists, you can continue into history:

  2. The Dawn-Breakers for the context and early history of the Faith, centered on the life of the Bab but it does carry forward to some events in the life of Bahá’u’lláh.

After those two works you should have a good idea about the character and purpose of the life and mission of the Bab and an understanding of the place held by Bahá’u’lláh. After that if you still want answers to your specific questions, turn to the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and read it carefully. From it you will get an idea about what was acceptable behavior and what was not and you can judge the behavior of those close to Shoghi Effendi, who was following the Will and who was not?

In Summons of the Lord of Hosts you’ll find this passage: “This is the Day that shall not be followed by night, nor shall it be bounded by any praise, would that ye might understand!”

This is a significant promise written in 1868, because the only way to avoid the ‘night’ humanity has always seen following a religious dispensation is for the religious community Bahá’u’lláh has created to remain unified and under a control everyone accepts. You can almost bypass every concern listed simply by asking yourself, is it unified today? Is it under stable leadership?

But, going the long route, you can look next to histories centered on the life and teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi. There are very lengthy books about each.

Like The Covenant of Baha’u’llah by Adib Taherzadeh, perhaps?

MacPark711
 

This books do not answer questions regarding the issues I have brought up. I am trying to do a service to the Bahai faith which is clearly falling part online. Just searching Bahai faith in google or you to leads to many negative pages and videos that need addressing You are contributing to sweeping issues under the rug. The debate over the will of Abdul needs talking about due to some evidence that it was forged. Just “reading” it carefully isnt the answer. I have read it as well as talks about it. I am well versed in it. The issues is the handwriting analyses that was done on it which claims it was alerted. I cant debunk this without being able to find people and information that discredits this. If you think just “reading” the Will will answer peoples questions who want to know if it was forged due to the many many pages and videos online saying it was forced, then you have your head in the clouds. I feel you are helping to hold back the faith. In an online world most new people will look up bahai, see these issues and then just go no further. You need to tackle the big issues as hard as they are. By keeping to put your head in the sand will help nothing. You cant just ask a casual perspective new member to “go read Kitáb-i-Íqán and the dawn breakers”. I myself have read all these books and many many more. Probably more Bahai books and scripture than most active bahais. By not approving this post you will be contributing to holding back growth of the faith as it will hinder my ability to answer tough questions and make good reports and videos on them. I have faced the same issues in bahai groups on facebbook. No one wants to answer the tough questions. Its a shame. I was ready to open some very good discourse on this reddit. Your vaccine analogy is ridiculous. If people were finding out anti vax issues and you were able to ask people info about correct info to dispel these falsehoods would not tackling the incorrect issues be smarter? You seem to think the issues would just go away. Trust me the anti bahai info online is getting huge. Its going to hinder the growth of the faith as these questions are not being answered. Almost 100% of perspective new members will go online for Bahai info. Many will leave. I did and then decided to come back and tackle these issues head on but as always just keep hitting brickwalls. Is this because in people hearts they know these issues are real?

I guess you have had your mind made. Just know I am going to give up my defense of the bahai faith. I am over it. I keep coming across people like you wishing to just “hope it away”. Its not going away unless someone tackles the anti bahai brigade. I hope in your own heart you realize the mistake you are making. I was going to do a full website and youtube giving great debunks to anti bahai issues that are all over the net. These videos and website could have saved potentially thousands of people from walking away of moving on. Its 2021. You cant just tell people to “read the book”. This thinking will kill the Bahai faith…

So MacPark711 went to the ExBahai subreddit instead:

Post Denied in /Bahai so posting here.
by inexbahai

Where I had this to say to him:

Seeker_Alpha1701

I have written much about Shoghi Effendi and how he totally messed up the religion founded by his great-grandfather Baha’u’llah.

https://dalehusband.com/2008/09/07/the-fatal-flaw-in-bahai-authority/

https://dalehusband.com/2017/06/28/facts-worth-repeating-about-shoghi-effendi/

https://dalehusband.com/2019/09/23/damage-control-by-shoghi-effendi/

Also see this:

https://bahai-writings-criticism.blogspot.com/2018/04/a-critical-analysis-of-will-and.html

And I just posted this too:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/comments/n5be3j/shoghi_effendi_contradicts_abdulbaha/

If you want more proof that ppl like t0lk are a total disgrace to the Faith, read these:

https://dalehusband.com/2018/04/08/treachery-of-bahais-reddit/

https://dalehusband.com/2018/07/04/muslim-bashing-and-libel-against-ex-bahais-in-reddit/

https://dalehusband.com/2020/07/12/a-massive-fight-with-davidbinowen-in-reddit/

https://dalehusband.com/2020/08/26/another-victory-over-the-bahai-faith-and-one-of-its-bigoted-hypocrites/

 

He answered:

MacPark711
 

Thanks. I am on the fence Bahai and trying to make sense of it all. But people like t0lk are simply gatekeeping on a huge public forum and doing a disservice to the faith. Its 2021. People cant hide behind just covering things up and pushing under the rug anymore. Everything is out there online. I can see you are obviously anti Bahai. And thats totally fine. You have that right. I am at least open to some dialogue and now I just wish some Bahais would have the guts to come and tackle the negative Bahai posts online or at least help me in what I wish to do. I dont have enough info or knowledge to do this. Thats why I was hoping to get some Bahais onboard to help me but as you can see everyone just hides and blocks everything. Even worse they couldn’t even reply to my follow up explaining their reasons. t0lk just hides.

“Independent investigation of truth” means “just read and agree to what our books say”. by the sounds of it.

This is all really irritating me.

___________________

olivercowdery2021
 

The Baha’is will NEVER allow you to ask such questions, not in any Baha’i Community, not in any Baha’i meeting, not at the Baha’i World Centre. You will be asked to leave. Your Membership in the Faith will be removed.

Was S.E. a closet homosexual? Probably so. The witnesses are many. Are they ALL lying? If you believe current Baha’i apologists, yes. I don’t think they were all lying.

Was S.E. lazy and went on 4 month long trips to Switzerland (without his wife) every year? He went on such trips, yearly. Without his wife. Was he lazy? He spent most days writing letters and translating. Why did he go to Switzerland for four months a year? Some say to get away from his wife. Others say to meet his lover, George Townsend. Others say, to get away from the hot Palestine Summers. Maybe the answer is “All of the above”. No way to be SURE unless one finds a letter written by Townsend or Effendi, that is a love letter. No such letter has been found.

Was S.E. a tyrant who excommunicated his relatives over the smallest of things? Answer: THEY thought so. He demanded absolute control over every decision of their lives, including whom they could marry and not marry, where they could go on trips, etc. If they “defied” him, he excommunicated them: including their children.

Did the wife of ‘Abdu’l-Baha forge part of the Will and Testament, making S.E. Guardian? Answer: the evidence is that part of the Will and Testament was NOT written by ‘Abdu’l-Baha. That much is known. Some think ‘Abdu’l-Baha dictated it to his wife or some scribe. Others think it was forged after AB died. Nobody saw the Will and Testament BEFORE AB died except AB and his wife. All we know for SURE is that the section where AB appoints SE as Guardian, is NOT in the handwriting of AB, but the rest of the W&T is in the handwriting of AB.

How can these issues be resolved? Answer: they won’t be. Either way, they won’t be. You have to decide “if” you want to be a Baha’i, and promote the Baha’i Faith, or not. These questions will always be unresolved. You have to choose.

Much to my annoyance, MacPark711 chose……to run away from the discussion by deleting his own post. But the neat thing about reddit is that you can still look up and restore some deleted material. Also, I found that Naser Emtesali had already copied the statement MacPark711 deleted here.

So…….I proceeded to put it ALL back on r/exbahai !

Restoring a deleted discussion about reddit Baha’i cancel culture
by inexbahai

It worked!

Done_being_Shunned
 

Thank you for the restoration. Interesting read as I hit my 1-year anniversary of formal resignation.

(Have not regretted the decision one iota; only sorry I hadn’t done it a few decades earlier.)

May I highlight the staunch baha’i’s, named t0lk, typical and expected reply (in my own words): “read these (excruciatingly) lengthy books–hopefully your brain will be numbed to a level that will keep your critical thinking muscles QUIET.”

_______________

Seeker_Alpha1701
 

I am actually more upset at MacPark711 for deleting the original post here than at t0lk. I am USED to t0lk being a lying, backstabbing asshole.

MacPark711 needs to wake the hell up! I can state for the record that even if I was still a Baha’i in 2018 (the year I first joined reddit), by now I would have resigned from the Faith because of all the crap I have clearly seen from the reddit Baha’is. They are mostly hypocrites because their Faith makes them so by DESIGN. You can’t save it……..you just have to…….LET IT GO!!!!!

 

Why do religions produce so many hypocrites?

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I used to think that hypocrisy in religious communities was exceptional and could be easily dealt with once discovered. Now I’m not so sure.

Look at this discussion:

Ex Bahai need advice
by inexbahai

I need some advice. My family has strong roots to the bahai religion . Both my mom and dad left Iran at a young age during the iranian revolution to practice their religion in America . My dad is part of the spiritual assembly. My parents hosts allot of feasts at our house and are well known in the community. As a kid I was made to go to Sunday school allot and made to attend some of those bahai youth camps . At the age of 15 I had to sign a bahai card in front of everyone at the feast because If I didn’t my parents would be embarrassed and be sad so I signed it . After that day I signed my card I told my dad I really don’t believe in this faith. I could never wrap my head around why Baháʼu’lláh had three wives and women not being able to serve in the universal house of justice. One of the main reasons that turned me off about the faith was the constant discussion of how to get more new followers . Every feast I attended we literally talked about how to get new members and discussing different ways to teach the faith to non believers. In Sunday’s school and in youth camps , this was always the topic for the most part . In spite of all of this I made an agreement with my parents not to officially make myself not a bahai but I let them know I don’t believe in any of this this . The reason I did this is because my parents would really be sad and it would be an embarrassing situation for my dad because he is part of the spiritually assembly . If I wanted to withdraw from the Bahai faith it would be brought up in one of his spiritual assembly meetings. Everyone in the spiritual assembly is my dads close friends and they always go over to each others houses . I’ve been trying to talk to my parents about leaving the faith and I always bring up really good points of why to leave it but they always are in denial and never give me answers to my questions . One day I asked my dad what makes you so sure about this faith and he said my great grandmother met Baháʼu’lláh. They get really emotional after I question the faith in front of them,sometimes angry at me or sometimes sad . They’re in there late 50s right now . My question is do you think it’s too late for them to leave the faith . Do you think they’re too far in it ? I really feel like they’re brain washed . They were taught about the faith at a very young age . Everything around them and all there friends were Bahai. Bahai everything . Do I continue question their faith in front of them or just let them be? Sorry for the bad grammar.

 

I offered some advice, but it is more interesting what others said there.

Toivonen889

Wow, okay there is a lot to un-box here. Regarding your parents, yes from what you’ve shared it does seem they’re fully entrenched in their belief system. For you however, you need to ask yourself some questions.

  1. Is it safe to leave?

I don’t know what the finer details your situation are, but I have seen Persian Baha’i parents shun and disown their teenage sons and daughters over this issue. It’s truly heartbreaking. You would have to estimate how they would react to you rejecting their worldview openly, and what the fallout from that might look like. I understand reputation is of importance in Persian culture, and you’re worried what this might do to your father’s reputation. You will need to carefully consider that too when trying to predict how he will react.

2. Is it healthy for you to stay?

On the other hand, you need to consider the toll that living a life that is inauthentic will have on your mental health. I did that for years before I left and I still get emotional when I think of the regrets I have. Mainly regretting going through the motions to maintain an appearance of engagement in something I was starting to have profound disagreements with.

I really hope you’re able to make the right decision for yourself, whatever that may be. While many of us on this sub have differering affiliations now, we all went through difficulties when we started to move away from the faith. Best of luck to you!

Then a Baha’i barged in. A bit of background: This particular Baha’i was so much a contrarian that he was actually banned from the Bahai subreddit, so he went to the exBahai subreddit instead, where oddly enough, the mods there almost never took action against him. The reason for that will become clear soon.

trident765

I will defend the Faith a bit:

I could never wrap my head around why Baháʼu’lláh had three wives and women not being able to serve in the universal house of justice.

About the three wives, my view is that a prophet is above his laws. The religious book is there to help guide people to doing good. But if you can communicate directly with God, you do not need to observe what is in the book to do what is good.

As for women on the UHJ, my view is that women are just unfit to be in the highest position of authority. It is in women’s nature to follow whatever is the dominant trend, and this is not good for leading a religion. All moral laws would be compromised if they conflict with trends. For example, if women were on the UHJ, there is no question they would have already declared gay marriage to be permissible in the Bahai Faith.

One of the main reasons that turned me off about the faith was the constant discussion of how to get more new followers . Every feast I attended we literally talked about how to get new members and discussing different ways to teach the faith to non believers.

I think you are perfectly justified in being turned off by these people. But it is not Bahaullah’s writings that tell them to do this, but an insane proselytism culture that now dominates the Bahai community, which views converting others as being the main if not only goal of the Bahai Faith. If you read Bahaullah’s writings, you will find that this culture in no way stems from him. There are some passages where Bahaullah encourages teaching, but there are also passages where he discourages it in some cases. For example, Bahaullah says that you should teach yourself before teaching others. He also says that it is not acceptable for people who are not firm believers to teach. This is the exact opposite of what the Baha’i community does – for example, the entire goal of Ruhi is to trick non-believers into acting as missionaries for the Bahai Faith.

So we went after him!

shessolucky

Pretty sure you are alone in your views on this subreddit

“The prophet is above his laws?” “Women are unfit to be in a high position of authority,” but women and men are also equal? The mental gymnastics you have to do in order to believe what you said is astounding.

I do not think Jesus Christ or Moses would ever believe they were above the Ten Commandments or the Gospel.

You’re telling this to a teen who is about to leave this religion as soon as they can. You’re definitely not encouraging this person to stay in your faith.

Then he said:

trident765

I do not think Jesus Christ or Moses would ever believe they were above the Ten Commandments or the Gospel.

One of the commandments is “Thou shalt not kill” and Moses killed people on multiple occasions. Prophets do not follow their own rules for the same reason that a dog owner might make a rule for his dog that he does not follow himself.

Higher beings require less rules. The highest being, God, does not need to follow any rules.

Then I decided to nail him to the wall!

Seeker_Alpha1701

“Rules for thee, not for me” is the very definition of hypocrisy, which Jesus actually condemned.

And since you opened the door for this…..

https://dalehusband.com/2019/05/12/biblical-genocide-and-pedophilia/

https://dalehusband.com/2018/02/24/god-was-a-hypocrite/

When God (and his Messengers) do not follow their own rules, they open the door for rules to not matter at all. For anyone.

And that is why I, as a highly ethical ATHEIST and Unitarian Universalist, don’t need your kind of god-centered religion at all. I DO have strict rules and principles and I seek to obey them in all ways.

https://dalehusband.com/about-the-author/an-honorable-skeptic/

https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-believe/principles

A critical analysis of a Muslim to Baha’i testimony

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Today, I can celebrate, as Joe Biden finally takes his rightful place as the new President of the United States. I really hope Donald Trump fades away into the void like the degenerate scumbag he always was.

Meanwhile, I am still dealing with religious issues in reddit. Take a look at this:

From shia ex-muslim to bahai
by inbahai

https://www.removeddit.com/r/bahai/comments/l189z7/from_shia_exmuslim_to_bahai/

they_marked_me

I grew up in a strict Iraqi Shia family. I always had a place for God in my heart but I could never reconcile with the teachings of the Quran and the effects Islam had on the Muslim communities around me, shia, sunni, moderate and others. I saw sexism, homophobia, gossip, emotional isolation and of course violent enforcement of religious teachings. When I was finally old enough to legally leave my family home I did. I left religion, my hijab and the community behind. I needed to finally breathe.

10 years passed and I noticed that God’s place in my heart was getting smaller and smaller. There was even a point where I doubted my belief. Why was there so much hatred in his communities? Why was so much pain caused by his believers? Their worship and and words were so different that they might as well be descended from different Gods. I resented that I was told to believe in a God that promised nothing but horror, torture and hell fire. There was no compassion for Gods creatures, no pleasure in bowing down for him, no inspiration in their teachings and no guidance for my modern life. Deep down I knew of God and his true nature. His compassion, his beauty, his love for us. I couldn’t follow any religion or book that besmirched his name like that.

I wasn’t approached by any Bahai. I never saw any of their online work. I just searched for an answer. I refused to believe that God would let us rot in this horribly defect world we created. I believed that he must have thought of us and sent us guidance. I just needed to find it. It didn’t take long. When I learned about the Bab and his story it all clicked into place. The Shia teachings that I learned about in madrassa allowed me to recognize the Bab’s truth.

I’m only in the learning stages and I have no Bahai communities near me. But I call myself a Bahai because now I know that the God I have in my heart has never abandoned us.

Let’s do an examination of this testimony.

I always had a place for God in my heart but I could never reconcile with the teachings of the Quran and the effects Islam had on the Muslim communities around me, shia, sunni, moderate and others.

Millions of moderate and progressive Muslims can do just that. Indeed, there are subreddits of such Muslims, like this one:

https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive_islam/

I saw sexism, homophobia, gossip, emotional isolation and of course violent enforcement of religious teachings.

There is sexism and homophobia in the Baha’i Faith, even while the Faith’s leaders lie about believing in equality of men and women and claim they reject prejudice against gays. 

Why was there so much hatred in his communities? Why was so much pain caused by his believers? Their worship and and words were so different that they might as well be descended from different Gods. I resented that I was told to believe in a God that promised nothing but horror, torture and hell fire. There was no compassion for Gods creatures, no pleasure in bowing down for him, no inspiration in their teachings and no guidance for my modern life.

Those are exactly the sort of issues that lead many people to become atheists. And yet…..

Deep down I knew of God and his true nature. His compassion, his beauty, his love for us. I couldn’t follow any religion or book that besmirched his name like that.

Then why not embrace a form of Universalism?

I wasn’t approached by any Bahai. I never saw any of their online work. I just searched for an answer.

If you haven’t dealt directly with Baha’is, then you know nothing about how their religion works in terms of community. You just saw an abstraction. Religion is only useful in terms of its people.

I refused to believe that God would let us rot in this horribly defect world we created.

Ironically, atheism, so reviled by followers of Abrahamic religions, actually lets God off the hook; you can’t blame God for anything if he doesn’t exist.

I believed that he must have thought of us and sent us guidance. I just needed to find it.

I had the same assumptions in the mid 1990s, so I too became a Baha’i.

When I learned about the Bab and his story it all clicked into place. The Shia teachings that I learned about in madrassa allowed me to recognize the Bab’s truth.

Bullshit! The Bab claimed to be the Mahdi, a Messianic figure in Shiite Islam much like Jesus was supposed to be in Christianity. The Bab was expected to overthrow the evil rulers of the world and bring about a new age, but his being killed in 1850 by a firing squad should have discredited him and his movement forever. That didn’t happen because only a few years later, Baha’u’llah revived the Babi community and then claimed that he was “He Who God Will Make Manifest” that the Bab foretold. Most of the Babis, desperate to retain their faith, accepted Baha’u’llah and became Baha’is. To me, this would be an example of the sunk cost fallacy; the Babis and later Baha’is had suffered so much for their beliefs that they couldn’t bring themselves to admit they had been duped and their leadership had failed. This irrational view has kept the Baha’i Faith going to this day!

It is interesting that she is more interested in the Bab than Baha’u’llah. Could she become a Bayani/Azali if she discovers propaganda discrediting Baha’u’llah? But that movement is even less successful than the Baha’i one!

It is possible that the real reason she rejected Islam is that it does not fit her Spiritual Orientation. Could the Baha’i Faith be better for her? Then she should read this:

https://dalehusband.com/2018/05/04/if-your-spiritual-orientation-is-bahai/

And for clarity, she should also see this:

https://dalehusband.com/2018/04/24/if-your-spiritual-orientation-is-muslim/

She should also see THIS about a girl raised Muslim:

https://dalehusband.com/2019/06/16/a-conversion-to-unitarian-universalism/

There are SO MANY options they_marked_me can look up and consider before she goes off the deep end and wastes her time and life serving the cult of the So-Called Baha’i Faith (SCBF)!

 

 

Bigotry in Religion

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When I rejected the Baha’i Faith in 2004, I also rejected theism itself, reasoning that if any God-centered religion could have been true, the Baha’i Faith was because it was the newest and most progressive in nature. So I could not revert to any older faith, not even the Christianity I had been raised in. They had already failed, and once I understood that the Baha’i Faith was also a failure, I couldn’t believe in God at all.

Most followers of the Abrahamic religions regard non-theists with contempt, and they are encouraged to have this bigoted attitude by the scriptures of their religions. Here are some noteworthy examples.

The first is from the Bible.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+14&version=NIV

Psalm 14

For the director of music. Of David.

1 The fool says in his heart,
    “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
    there is no one who does good.

2 The Lord looks down from heaven
    on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
    any who seek God.
3 All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
    there is no one who does good,
    not even one.

4 Do all these evildoers know nothing?

They devour my people as though eating bread;
    they never call on the Lord.
5 But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,
    for God is present in the company of the righteous.
6 You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
    but the Lord is their refuge.

7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When the Lord restores his people,
let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!

From the Quran we have this:

2: The Cow

6 As for the Disbelievers, Whether thou warn them or thou warn them not it is all one for them; they believe not.
7 Allah hath sealed their hearing and their hearts, and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be an awful doom.
8 And of mankind are some who say: We believe in Allah and the Last Day, when they believe not.
9 They think to beguile Allah and those who believe, and they beguile none save themselves; but they perceive not.
10 In their hearts is a disease, and Allah increaseth their disease. A painful doom is theirs because they lie.
11 And when it is said unto them: Make not mischief in the earth, they say: We are peacemakers only.
12 Are not they indeed the mischief-makers ? But they perceive not.
13 And when it is said unto them: believe as the people believe, they say: shall we believe as the foolish believe ? are not they indeed the foolish ? But they know not.

Here’s another example from the Gleanings of the Writings of Baha’u’llah:

www.bahai.org/r/207266714

CXIV (that’s Roman numerals, it would be 114 in Arabic numerals)

Know thou for a certainty that whoso disbelieveth in God is neither trustworthy nor truthful. This, indeed, is the truth, the undoubted truth. He that acteth treacherously towards God will, also, act treacherously towards his king. Nothing whatever can deter such a man from evil, nothing can hinder him from betraying his neighbor, nothing can induce him to walk uprightly.

As a non-theist who has personally known many other honorable non-theists, these passages show the writers of these scriptures to be as ignorant as it gets when it comes to the true character of atheists and agnostics.

My strict ethical standards are defined here:

https://dalehusband.com/about-the-author/an-honorable-skeptic/

I have seen plenty of examples of treacherous and dishonest behavior from people who profess to believe in God.

Atheists do not reject theism because they are corrupt (though to be fair, some are). They cannot behave treacherously towards one they do not believe exists. To disbelieve in God is not evil, merely a different point of view. Saying otherwise is hate propaganda.

Ethical standards only make sense if they come from reality and are applied to reality. People are real. God(s) may not be. And if your only source of ethics is religion, what happens if a religious leader commands you to commit mass murder and rape?

This attitude of bigotry towards non-theists was used to justify the nonsense written by Hugh Ross, as recorded here:

Insulting and Libeling Unbelievers

And we simply shouldn’t accept that anymore.

Why I Rejected the Baha’i Faith, 4th Edition

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The three previous accounts of my defection from the Baha’i Faith are as follows:

https://dalehusband.com/2007/10/19/why-i-quit-the-baha%e2%80%99i-faith/

https://dalehusband.com/2011/02/22/my-resignation-from-the-bahai-faith/

https://dalehusband.com/2017/01/22/why-i-abandoned-the-haifan-bahai-faith/

Here is the newest, most updated edition.

From 1995 to 2004, I was a member of a religion known as the Baha’i Faith. This religion teaches that God is called by various names but is still the same all over the world, that all religions teach the same basic message, and that humanity is actually one race and is destined to unite under the banner of the Baha’i Faith in a new age of peace and unity.

I was eager to see and to achieve the highest goodness in my life and in the world, so this was a Godsend to me! I embraced the faith after attending firesides about it in Bedford, Texas and became an active teacher of it, even attempting to convert others to it. I had been a Christian, specifically a Southern Baptist, in my teens, but had become disgusted with Christianity and left that faith in my early 20s because I saw the errors, contradictions, and failures of it. The Baha’i Faith explained that away by claiming that while Jesus was indeed a Messenger (or Manifestation) of God, His faith had become corrupted over time and thus most Christians were not truly following him, but the doctrines of men. In joining the Baha’i community, I thought I was seeing what the early Christians in the Roman Empire were like, except that unlike them the Baha’is would not split into competing sects and engage in wars against each other. If only everyone in the world became Baha’i, I was told, we would be at peace and prosperity forever.

What a wonderful vision! But human nature will NEVER allow for it! The reason is that the leadership of the Baha’i Faith, from its founder, Baha’u’llah, to the Universal House of Justice today, claims to be infallible because it is guided by God. Yet we know that Baha’u’llah, his son Abdu’l-Baha, Abdu’l-Baha’s grandson Shoghi Effendi (the Guardian of the Faith), and the members of the Universal House of Justice were/are all HUMAN BEINGS. What evidence do we have that ANY of them are infallible? NONE! And if you cannot question the will of a leadership, what do you in fact have? Tyranny! And what does tyranny always lead to, according to history? Corruption and injustice! And that, in turn results in the system breaking down over time. Indeed, the very idea that any human being, human run institution, or human product is infallible is sheer nonsense. It is the most dangerous idea in the world!

Religious fundamentalism is blasphemy!

Also, I finally began to see that the Baha’i Faith also has errors, contradictions, and failures of its own, despite being less than 200 years old. It was my coming to understand this that finally led me to leave the Faith with a heavy heart. The truth about the Faith, as revealed over the years by my research, is shown in these blog entries, among many others I have made:

The Fatal Flaw in Baha’i Authority

Baha’i Scandals

FIVE Ways to Create a Religion of Hypocrites

So at the end of 2004, realizing that I had to remove myself from that community outright as a matter of honor, I wrote the following to the National Spiritual Assembly (NSA) of the Baha’is of the United States:

After years of investigation and soul-searching, I have finally come to the sad understanding that I can no longer bring myself to believe in Baha’u’llah or any of the institutions established in His name, including the Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice. I am totally convinced that the Baha’i Faith is doomed to fail in its mission to bring peace, unity, and a Golden Age to humanity and I therefore resign from my past membership in the Faith. Goodbye.
Regretfully,
Dale Husband

I composed that letter on my computer and then mailed it in January of 2005. A few weeks later, the NSA replied that they had accepted my resignation and expressed hope that I would one day decide to return. That looked like denial to me, so I dismissed it and threw away the letter. Then I cut completely all personal ties to the Baha’is in the Fort Worth area. Despite this, I stayed silent about my defection from the Baha’i Faith until October 19, 2007, when I posted my first blog entry attacking it. Encouraged by the feedback I got as a result, I stepped up my efforts until I found myself in battle over the years with various members of my former religion, all of whom only showed me why I had no reason for being among them anymore! They were not nearly as good or as intelligent as I thought originally.

Baha’is must reject the Guardianship!

My Battle on Amazon with a Haifan Baha’i

Another Battle with a Haifan Baha’i, this time on Blogspot
Another Baha’i picks a fight with me on YouTube
Confronting Scott Hakala on Quora

I have joined the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and found its principles to be far more enlightened than those of the Haifan Baha’is. And better still, they truly LIVE those principles too!

1st Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
2nd Principle: Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
3rd Principle: Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
4th Principle: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
5th Principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
6th Principle: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
7th Principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Despite my rejection of most Baha’i teachings, I later supported my friend Eric Stetson’s effort to establish a new Unitarian Baha’i (UB) community, blending Baha’i and Unitarian Universalist ideas. We thought it was the only way to save the Baha’i Faith itself from continuing to degenerate into a destructive cult. But the UBs remain an online community of only a few dozen members and even Stetson left it to return to liberal forms of Christianity.

In 2018, I joined Reddit and a subreddit for former Baha’is and have been mostly focused on discrediting the Baha’i Faith and promoting Unitarian Universalism there. This led me into more battles with Baha’is and increased my determination to see the Baha’i Faith crash and burn into total oblivion.

Treachery of Baha’is @ reddit
Muslim-bashing and Libel Against Ex-Baha’is in Reddit
Is the Baha’i community disintegrating?
Another victory over the Baha’i Faith and one of its bigoted hypocrites

I am a non-theist now, worshipping no God and refusing to adhere to any other religion than that of the UUA. And I do not foresee myself being anything else. The Baha’i Faith was the last chance I was willing to give for a God centered religion to rule my life….and now I know that none ever will.

Historical narratives in religion

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_history

Narrative history is the practice of writing history in a story-based form. It tends to entail history-writing based on reconstructing series of short-term events, and ever since the influential work of Leopold von Ranke on professionalising history-writing in the nineteenth century has been associated with empiricism. The term narrative history thus overlaps with the term histoire événementielle (‘event-history’) coined by Fernand Braudel in the early twentieth century, as he promoted forms of history-writing analysing much longer-term trends (what he called the longue durée).[1]

Though history is considered a social science, the story-based nature of history allows for the inclusion of a greater or lesser degree of narration in addition to an analytical or interpretative exposition of historical knowledge. It can be divided into two subgenres: the traditional narrative and the modern narrative.

Traditional narrative focuses on the chronological order of history. It is event driven and tends to center upon individuals, action, and intention. For example, in regard to the French Revolution, an historian who works with the traditional narrative might be more interested in the revolution as a single entity (one revolution), centre it in Paris, and rely heavily upon major figures such as Maximilien Robespierre.

Conversely, modern narrative typically focuses on structures and general trends. A modern narrative would break from rigid chronology if the historian felt it explained the concept better. In terms of the French Revolution, an historian working with the modern narrative might show general traits that were shared by revolutionaries across France but would also illustrate regional variations from those general trends (many confluent revolutions). Also this type of historian might use different sociological factors to show why different types of people supported the general revolution.

Historians who use the modern narrative might say that the traditional narrative focuses too much on what happened and not enough on why and causation. Also, that this form of narrative reduces history into neat boxes and thereby does an injustice to history. J H Hexter characterized such historians as “lumpers”. In an essay on Christopher Hill, he remarked that “lumpers do not like accidents: they would prefer them vanish…The lumping historian wants to put all of the past into boxes..and then to tie all the boxes together into one nice shapely bundle.”

Historians who use traditional narrative might say that the modern narrative overburdens the reader with trivial data that had no significant effect on the progression of history. They believe that the historian needs to stress what is consequential in history, as otherwise the reader might believe that minor trivial events were more important than they were.

Virtually all the “history” you read in the Bible is this type of narrative.

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What is a “true” religion?

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It is no secret that as a non-theist I personally reject ALL God centered religions. That stems from my desire to avoid all double standards in my life; if I can no longer accept Baha’u’llah as a Messenger of God because his writings and character were flawed, by what standard can I accept any previous Messenger, such as Moses, Jesus, or Muhammad? Didn’t they ALL have failings and flaws from present day and secular standards? My desire for perfection in religion made me reject all of them…….but I must also recognize that my own religion, Unitarian Universalism, is also less than perfect. The reason is simple: ALL religions are run by humans, and humans are not perfect.

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The Desperation of the Baha’is as the 100th Anniversary of the Death of Abdu’l-Baha Approaches

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Today, the Universal House of Justice has released yet another long-winded and ultimately pointless statement. It is indeed notorious for such things, as this earlier blog entry showed:

The Universal House of Empty Rhetoric

So what did they say this time?

https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/the-universal-house-of-justice/messages/20201125_001/1#300076430

The Universal House of Justice

25 November 2020

To the Bahá’ís of the World

Dearly loved Friends,

We greet you with immense affection on this special day, an occasion for calling to mind the power of the Covenant, that power which “pulsateth in the body of the contingent world” and forges enduring bonds of love among the believers. In the months since Riḍván, we have seen the evidences of this dynamic power in the unified activity of Bahá’u’lláh’s followers, led so ably by the institutions of the Cause in each continent and country, as the friends everywhere have sought with characteristic creativity and determination to minister to the needs of an ailing world. Your resilience and your unwavering commitment to the well-being of those around you, persistent through all difficulties, have filled us with tremendous hope. But it is no wonder that, in some other quarters, hope has become a depleted resource. There is a mounting realization on the part of the world’s people that the decades ahead are set to bring with them challenges among the most daunting that the human family has ever had to face. The current global health crisis is but one such challenge, the ultimate severity of whose cost, both to lives and livelihoods, is yet unknown; your efforts to succour and support one another as well as your sisters and brothers in society at large will certainly need to be sustained, and in places expanded.

It is against this background of furious storms lashing humanity that the ark of the Cause is about to embark upon a series of Plans that will carry it into the third century of the Bahá’í Era and significantly strengthen the Bahá’í community’s capacity for realizing the society-building powers of the Faith. As you are aware, the first Plan to commence this new series will last but one year. In places where circumstances prevent national communities from establishing as many intensive programmes of growth before Riḍván 2021 as they intended, these twelve months will extend the time available to them to do so. Meanwhile, wherever the process of growth has already been intensified, the year will be an opportunity to consolidate the achievements made during the current Plan, while cultivating the conditions necessary for welcoming larger and larger numbers of souls into the embrace of a community recognized for its fortitude and outward-looking orientation. At the national, regional, and cluster levels, we look to communities of proven strength to help those in which less experience has accrued. In this year-long effort, every community must draw on whatever untapped potential it may possess and seek to overcome any obstacles that are impeding its growth, thereby preparing it for the demands to come. For it is within the context of a flourishing community, especially a centre of intense activity in a village or neighbourhood, and when each element of the Plan’s framework is given the attention it requires, that those elements most visibly cohere and connect, multiplying the community’s powers in the field of action.

Besides providing for advances within clusters everywhere, the coming Plan will be a year for profound reflection on the life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the strength of the Covenant of which He was the Centre, as the community prepares to commemorate the centenary of His Ascension. The observance of this anniversary will undoubtedly prompt individuals and communities alike to contemplate the significance of that infinitely poignant moment when He Who was the Mystery of God departed from this world. His passing took from the Bahá’ís of that era a Figure Who was the object of their ardent love and loyalty; to the faithful of this age, He remains without parallel: a perfect embodiment in word and deed of all that His Father taught, the One through Whom the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh was “proclaimed, championed and vindicated”. We are conscious that the coming year will also mark a century since His Will and Testament—that “momentous”, “historic”, “immortal” Document—“called into being, outlined the features and set in motion the processes” of the Administrative Order, “the very pattern of that divine civilization which the almighty Law of Bahá’u’lláh is designed to establish upon earth”. This “unique” and “divinely-conceived” Order, this “mighty administrative structure”, had been fashioned by its Architect to perpetuate the Covenant and channel the spiritual powers of the Cause. It will be apparent, then, that the Day of the Covenant next year, exactly twelve months from now, will be especially meaningful. We ask National Spiritual Assemblies to determine how these two dates, occurring so close together, may each be observed, taking into account prevailing conditions in their countries.

All the while, earnest preparations continue to be made in the Holy Land for the commemoration of the centenary of the Ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at a gathering at which, it is hoped, representatives of National Spiritual Assemblies and Regional Bahá’í Councils will be present. Similarly, plans are already being made for the conference of the Continental Boards of Counsellors and Auxiliary Board members, which will coincide, in January 2022, with the lapse of one hundred years since the first public reading of the Will and Testament of the Master. Conditions in the world may, of course, require the plans being made for these gatherings at the Bahá’í World Centre to change. But come what may, we have no doubt that the efforts made in local communities worldwide to befittingly commemorate the Ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and to honour the Day of the Covenant in this coming centennial year will provide the impetus needed to launch the succeeding stage in God’s Minor Plan, even as Providence propels the unfoldment of His Major Plan in accordance with His incontestable decree.

Well, that’s not the complete statement, but that’s all of it I can stand to read.

The references to Abdu’l-Baha clearly tie in with the construction of the Shrine that is to be dedicated to him:

https://news.bahai.org/story/1353/

They are taking a HUGE and desperate gamble with this construction. They have been doing construction project after construction project at the   Baha’i World Center, but this one is especially noteworthy because it is happening while the Covid-19 pandemic continues to ravage the world!

A popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and hoping for a different result than before. So since the results of  past construction projects have failed to attract more people to join the Baha’i Faith, why would they think this new one might do the trick? I guess the UHJ must indeed suffer from a type of collective insanity, a extreme form of “groupthink”.

When this shrine is completed and then entry by troops STILL does not occur over the next decade or so, they will probably end up in such debt that they may face BANKRUPTCY! I can hardly wait to see them FAIL!

Translating “The Fatal Flaw in Baha’i Authority” into Persian and Arabic

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I have decided to try to increase the impact of my criticism of the Baha’i Faith by translating my most powerful blog entry against it into the two languages most closely associated with its original Writings, Persian and Arabic. So I used Google Translate for this purpose. I hope the automated translations are accurate enough, but this sort of thing was done before to one of my works and the results were less than satisfying.

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A Damning Case of Anti-Baha’i Plagiarism

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A new book has been offered for sale on Amazon that is supposed to be highly critical of the Baha’i Faith.
https://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Bahai-Faith-Shocking-ebook/dp/B08H3HV77S#

The Truth About the Baha’i Faith: A Shocking Expose’

Kindle Edition

Who is this Darrick Evenson, and why would he have “the Unitarian Baha’is” listed as a co-author? Who could that refer to?
Looking through the text of the book, I find something strangely familiar about it. Especially after the part that is titled:

Part II

The Bab (Gate)

The First Vision of Muhammad (2.1)
Then I remember why. I look up a website that was also critical of the Baha’i Faith, but it is gone. Then I remember the Wayback Machine…..and find a snapshot of that missing website there!
And scroll down to this section:

The First Vision of Muhammad (pbuh)

And there it is, the text of the book. The book was COPIED from the website! The original author of the text was actually Daniel Kayse.

About 610 A.D. a man named Muhammad (pbuh), a trader, was meditating in a cave near his home of Mecca, in the country of Higaz, in what is now Saudi Arabia. A man appeared in the cave without calling out first, and said to Muhammad (pbug) “RECITE!” Muhammad (pbuh) said “I can’t even read!” but the man said “Recite!” two more times. Muhammad (pbuh) ran out of the cave in fright, and the “man” was standing in the air, telling him to “recite” in the Name of Allah certain Verses he (the man standing in the air) would tell him to recite. And so it began. The Apostle of God was taught 114 poems by the Angel Jibril (Gabriel) over a period of fourteen years, and the Apostle of God would recite these to people who were willing to listen to him. After the death of the Apostle of God, some followed Abu Baker as “Kawleef” (Successor) but others followed Ali ibn Abu Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad (pbuh) as “Imaam” (Arabic: “Leader”). Those that followed Ali were called “Shee-ah” (Arabic: “Partisans”). The eldest male descendants of Ali became the “Imaams” of Shi’a Islaam; which is found mostly in Iran, southern Iraq, and parts of Lebanon, Pakistan, and India. The last “Imaam” was Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Mehdi, who was just a small boy when he “disappeared”. Nobody knows what happened to him. But not long afterwards a Shi’ite arose claiming to be the spokesman, or “Gate” of the “Hidden Imaam”; claiming that Allah took the Imaam into a place of hiding, or “occultation”, until the Last Days, when the Hidden Imaam will return as a grown man, and establish the rule of Shi’ite Islaam everywhere, and establish peace and justice everywhere. Jesus will come with him, and kill the swine and break the crosses and kill the Anti-Christ named al-Dijjal (Arabic: “The Liar”). Three more “Gates” (deputies) of the Hidden Imaam arose, but after the Fourth Gate, that ceased.

The 12 Imaams of Shi’ite Islaam were:

Imam Ali
Imam Hassan
Imam Hussain
Imam Zain ul abedeen
Imam Mohammad al-Baqr
Imam Jafaar as Saadiq
Imam Musa Qazim
Imam Ali Raza
Imam Ali Naqi
Imam Hassan Askari
Imam Mohammad Mahdi

In 874 A.D. (260 A.H.) the Imaam Mohammad Mahdi, a boy of 7, goes missing. Shi’ites believe that he went down in a cave under a Masjid (Mosque) in Samarra, Iran. They believe God is keeping the boy alive all this time, and he will come forth in the last days, as a man, leading an Army of Shi’ites to final victory over all opposing forces in the world, and will rule the world for several years, until Jesus returns. This “hiding” of the Imaam Mehdi by God in a secret underground cavern is called the “Occultation” (Latin: “hiding”). It is divided into the “Greater Occultation” and the “Lesser Occultation”.

The Greater Occultation occurs to the “Hidden Imaam” who does not communicate with the Shi’ite Muslims. The Lesser Occultation refers to the Hidden Imaam communicating to the Shi’ite Muslims, and thus “guiding” them, via deputies, or channelers, called the “Abvab” (Arabic: “Gates”). Shi’ite Islaam recognizes four “Abvab” or “Gates” who were the legitimate deputies/representatives of the Hidden Imaam (Mehdi). Each deputy was called “al-Bab” (“The Gate”) to the Hidden Imaam; meaning his representative, or, what we would say in the West, the “channeler” of the Hidden Imaam.

Four Shi’ites arose after the boy went missing, one after another, claiming to be the Gate (al-Bab) of the Hidden Imaam, his representatives. They were:

Uthman Al-Amir
Abu Jafaar Muhammad ibn Uthman
Abu l Qasim Husayn ibn Ruh al Nawbakhti
Abu`I Husayn Ali ibn Muhammad as Sammari

Word for word, the two works are IDENTICAL, even containing the same error. Both works refer to TWELVE Imams, but list only ELEVEN names.

Darrick Evenson has committed plagiarism and his book should be removed from Amazon immediately!

Another victory over the Baha’i Faith and one of its bigoted hypocrites

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Two days ago, a seeker (a Baha’i term for a person investigating the Baha’i Faith) came to the Baha’i subreddit to ask questions about it.

I’m Considering Becoming a Baha’i
byu/imfinnacry inbahai

And among those who tried to offer answers and advice was:

DavidbinOwen

One of the things I would encourage is really taking the time to understand who Baha’u’llah is and what He taught. We all come with different backgrounds and experiences, but the concept in the Baha’i Faith of the Messenger of God as the representative of God and reflection of the Holy Spirit is at the core of our theology.

-It is difficult to understand and conceive of God. On one level, God and the spirit emanating from God is in all things; but, at another level, God is independent, unknowable, and one in the Baha’i Faith.

Meanwhile, I was in a state of rage, after learning this same DavidBinOwen had stalked and attacked me in another subreddit where I had made a statement against the Baha’i Faith. And I was damn tired of being one of his favorite prey items! So I proceeded to rant about it in the exBaha’i subreddit.

DavidBinOwen won’t stop cyberstalking me
by inexbahai

And the seeker SAW that! So he contacted me.

imfinnacry

Hey, Sorry to bother you but I would like to be very open with you. I’m a person in search of my religious beliefs. One that best reflects my spiritual beliefs and welcomes my choice of practice. I’ve found Unitarian Universalist, Baha’i Faith, and Advaita Vedanta Hinduism as my primary choices. I also have Islam and returning back to hinduism in the back of my head as far off options for me.

I come to you because I recently joined the Baha’i subreddit and asked them a couple of questions regarding mysticism, divination, and my Pantheist views.

Before converting I did more research that led me to this subreddit and your most recent post about a member of the baha’i subreddit DavidBinOwen. Your post shocked me because it comes off the complete opposite to what I have come to know learning about the Baha’i believers.

I wish to know what do you know about the Baha’i faith from your experience. Why did you decide Baha’i wasn’t for you and what do you not like about it. I want to use what you may know as a warning or caution for what I might be getting myself into.

 

I decided that to be diplomatic was the best option, so…..

Seeker_Alpha1701

To be fair, I should note that DavidBinOwen is not really a typical Baha’i. Most Baha’is I used to know were genuinely loving and honorable people…..at least they seemed to be. Here is one of my most powerful statements against the Baha’i Faith. If you want anything more, contact me later.

https://dalehusband.com/2008/09/07/the-fatal-flaw-in-bahai-authority/

The next day:

imfinnacry

I do have a question for you

I read what you’ve sent me and I’ve also read the blogs you’ve referenced in this particular post you’ve made as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/comments/idqjpp/a_conversation_about_religion/

________________

Seeker_Alpha1701

What is your question?

____________________

imfinnacry

I’m honestly quite disheartened. It felt like I’ve finally found a faith that was pretty much as close to what I’ve wanted out of a religious institution with it’s progressive and liberal values, inclusion of other religious faiths and so on.

As a pantheist first, a fan of rational minded educators, Baruch Spinoza, Einstein, and simply logic I can’t bring myself to subscribing to the Baha’i Faith like I once wanted to after reading your posts that pointed out so many fallacies and inconsistencies in the faith.

My question to you is, I did come across one blog while scouring your website. It was the blog about you and your friend presenting the idea of a Unitarian Baha’i Faith. Do you think that’s possible to achieve? Or would you suggest simply looking into UU instead?

I am guessing he saw this:

https://dalehusband.com/2010/04/05/why-we-need-a-unitarian-bahai-faith/

Seeker_Alpha1701

To make a long story short, Eric Stetson eventually dropped out of the Unitarian Baha’i movement, and all that’s left of it is a few websites and a Facebook group. Based on your various comments, you might be best joining a UU church, where you may always be free to explore different theologies and beliefs while still being part of a community that won’t judge you for questioning things most other religions take for granted.

To help you sort things out, please read all these essays: https://dalehusband.com/spiritual-orientation-series/

I won’t tell you what to believe, but I want to give you the tools to find out what is truly best for you. That sets me, and most UUs, apart from most Baha’is, Christians, and other dogmatic religions that seek converts.

____________

imfinnacry

Thank you, I appreciate it Dale.

For DavidBinOwen, this is a clear case of:

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/hoisted+by+their+own+petard

hoist by/with (one’s) own petard

To be injured, ruined, or defeated by one’s own action, device, or plot that was intended to harm another; to have fallen victim to one’s own trap or schemes.

Unitarian Baha’is

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Over the past 30 years, I have gone from being a member of a Unitarian Universalist church, to being a member of the Haifa based Baha’i Faith, to returning to the Unitarian Universalist church. Since 2010, it seems there has been found a way to merge the two religions and to use the internet to break the power of the “mainstream” Baha’i Faith and allow religious freedom to be a genuine concept for Baha’is to embrace among themselves.

Introducing the Unitarian Baha’is:

http://unitarianbahais.org/

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