butterflybeatles Baha'i Faith = World Government? That's news to me, having been Baha'i for 22 years so far. World government doesn't come up very much; almost never in fact. This type of conversation which Tom Price is giving is about 99.9% of what I hear hence there is nothing misleading in the title; what seems to be misleading is/was your erstwhile understanding of what the Baha'i Faith is.

butterflybeatles no he is a bahai

butterflybeatles One thing that I've never seen in any Baha'i gathering is dogma or ritual; the closest thing we have to what is called dogma in other religions is/are the Writings themselves and we are all called upon to go back to the Writings when we have a question and Tom Price quoted from the Writings at least a dozen times in this talk (mostly in Part I, of course). When a Christian talks about dogma (and I was born a Christian), they tend to be talking about new incontrovertible truths laid down by a church authority SINCE Christ (such as creeds and other decisions from ecumenical councils and papal decrees) emphasizing one part or another part of the Bible or whatnot, usually to define how their sect of Christianity differs from other sects of Christianity in the interpretation of one passage or another. For Baha'is, the Writings are the Writings are the Writings. We have no clergy; as erudite and amazing as Tom Price is, he is a Baha'i equal in rank to every other Baha'i. He is not a priest or a dean or a deacon or a pastor or a bishop as we have no such things; he is a regular every-day Baha'i, responsible, as every one of us is, to go to the Writings and read them for ourselves. It's always interesting to hear other people's thoughts and approaches from Fireside talks such as this but we are all free to form our own thoughts and opinions and give our own Fireside talks: the free exchange of ideas within the framework of studying and deepening on the Writings. To be a Baha'i is to start and end each day in what a Christian might call "Bible Study" (as we are to read some passage of the Writings every morn and eve) and to live in a prayerful attitude. The concept that there was nothing in this talk that could separate a Catholic from a Baha'i is, coincidentally enough, a major point of the Baha'i Faith: "this is the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past; eternal in the future." (qv. reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/PB/pb-63.html) And just as an aside: the concept of "one world" has nothing to do with political aspirations. Absolutely zero. It has to do much more with world peace and an ever-advancing civilisation (reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/GWB/gwb-109.html) of better and better individuals, constantly striving to improve themselves day after day after day with "each morn being better than its eve." (qv. reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/TB/tb-10.html, paragraph 4)

Iain Murray Traditional Catholic Theology has to do with the individual walk toward Heaven. We don't talk about an ever-advancing civilization because we know that man is flawed and such a structure can fall just as easily as it was constructed. Our home is in Heaven - not in this ever-changing world which can never bring satisfaction. From what I know of Baha'is the reference to an eternal destiny is never mentioned or, perhaps, only in passing. If Baha'i has any dogma it is contained in the word, "one". There is one world, one country, one government, one monetary system, one race, one language, one educational system, one army, one religion and, most significantly, one leader, whom many religions who have an eschatological belief system are calling the anti-Christ.

"Our Father who art in heaven; hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." On earth. Thy Kingdom come & Thy will be done on earth. So ... you don't believe in the Jewish and Christian prophecies of the future Golden Age or that that will ever arrive and we should not look for its arrival with anticipation? It will always only be an individual struggle and that is the end of Christian teachings? The Baha'i Faith will never have one single leader at the top ever again; not since 1957 when Shoghi Effendi passed on. Since this is the most significant for you, I'm glad that you can be relieved of this worry. Regarding your mention of "one," you're referring to something often referred to in talking ABOUT the Faith ("one God, one religion, one humanity" being a common teaching phrase), not about the PRACTICE of the Faith. Is the concept of unity bad for starters? I look at the European Union and pray for the European Union because, to me, it is representative of the future and quite a few of those "ones" that you just mentioned. It is evidence of the turbulence of the dawn (as the winds at dawn are almost always turbulent) of the Golden Age. I pray for the European Union often and its increasing "one country"ness day-by-day. The concept of "one religion" does not mean that the Baha'i Faith is that one religion per se; it means that Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Islam, the Baha'i Faith and others are all ASPECTS of the one religion of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future. "One humanity" does NOT mean that we believe in one race but rather in unity in diversity; we celebrate diversity and equality of all peoples and races and creeds. We do NOT believe in one language; we believe in one universal AUXILIARY language so that no matter where one goes, there is a language that can be resorted to; the de facto language for the moment and probably for the future is English. We don't believe in causing the death of all the other local languages. These beliefs and/or prophecies are already happening REGARDLESS of what we as Baha'is do. The inexorable movement towards world unity will happen even if Baha'is do nothing about it. It will happen because it is supposed to happen. We do NOT believe in one educational system. We believe that education is a right and that it is more important to educate girls than boys. We do NOT believe in one army; we believe that if one country rises up against another that it is the responsibility of the world to defend the invaded country; absent influence from the Baha'is, the world is already advancing towards the concept of protecting countries as an ends instead of a means to an end. It's slow; 99% of the protection of countries so far have had ulterior motives if not 100% of them but there are indications that it's moving slowly but surely towards an altruistic reasoning for protecting and standing up for invaded countries. Sometimes the world is scared to stand up depending on which country it is (i.e. people are generally scared to stand up to the U.S., China and Russia) but that will slowly disappear. This principle is reflected in the Baha'i excitement over the United Nations and our desire for that institution to become more and more prominent and useful in the world. The way one talks about one's religion to others though is not the dogma of the religion; dogma is part of the practice of the religion. Were you to identify what are the closest things Baha'is have to dogma or more particularly ritual (and it barely qualifies as that), it would probably be that we have daily obligatory prayers, an obligation to read the Writings morning and evening and fasting for 19 days each year in March. As for dogma, the entire ocean of the Writings is our "dogma" as it is all important; we do not cherry-pick the Writings and emphasise some parts more than others in the PRACTICE of the religion (though we do have a tendency to do that in the TEACHING of the religion as you noted). Every single word in our Holy Books is our "dogma." We don't talk so much about rewards in heaven because one of the teachings about that very concept is that we are to be DETACHED from reward; we are not to do good for the reward of heaven or for the belief that our reward will be larger than someone else's. Just as Christ washed the feet of his disciples, we are called to be humble and to assume an attitude of servitude. Who knows what our reward will be? I know that there are millions or billions who are better than me and they are members of all religions and people of the past, present and future and those souls yet to be born are likely to be better than me on the average as civilisation has been progressing and will ever continue, on the average, to progress. We are to obey God for the love of God and the love of obeying His commandments, not for the fear of hell or the expectation of heaven as either of those motivations takes away somewhat from the deed in our belief. As regards the after life, we view the concept of heaven & hell as an infinite continuum, not as a binary or even a trinary concept but as a concept with an infinite number of values; the greatest person living today (whoever that is) is infinitely poorer than the greatest potentiality that mankind can reach. There will never be a time when we will not have improvement that we can do on an individual level; it is at the core of Baha'i belief that we have to improve ourselves and make ourselves better each day than we were the previous day and we are called to bring ourselves account each day ere we are brought to a reckoning for death, unheralded, will come upon us and we will be called upon to give account for our deeds. [Paraphrasing of a Hidden Word; i believe Tom Price quoted that one in this video too but I can't remember now] I suppose you could add that to a list of Baha'i dogma (though we don't think it in such a way naturally): "Bring Thyself to account each day" and "Make each morn better than its eve." We believe that in addition to existing in the spiritual world from the time of our conception, we also exist in this material world and that in this material world we should do as much as we can to make it better; the fact that the spiritual world is the more important and more real existence does not mean that this world is not important and that we can be justified in ignoring everything about it; it is important too. As the Saviour taught us to pray so long ago, the will of God must be done on earth AS IN HEAVEN and the Kingdom of God must come to earth as also foretold in the Revelation of St. John the Divine. No Baha'i will ever say "Join the Baha'i Faith in order to be saved." It is more likely that we would say "Join the Baha'i Faith and help us save the world" and "vie with each other in servitude." We're called upon to do the saving to whatever humble level we can, not to get saved per se though, God willing, if we are pure in our thoughts and motives, our souls will advance to higher and higher levels but the moment that we are attached to that, it all comes to naught. It is a high thing to be called to and I doubt that there is anyone who is perfect at it; wrestling with our egos is a lifelong struggle.

Iain Murray "Each time we pray the Our Father we are asking for the Kingdom of God, not a masonic democracy. Heaven is a Monarchy, so, too, should be the kingdoms of Earth". (not my quote). In any case, if you have any religious instinct, your concern should be for attaining eternal life. . . The Jewish Golden Age is this earth. The Christian Golden Age is in Heaven. What side is Baha'i on? - Heaven or the World? . . . . You, Iain Murray, pray for the European Union. Christians pray for union with God in Heaven.