by splashen » April 5th, 2009, 2:14 am
Hello Larry,
Thank you for your kind response to my post.
Yes, Bahais believe that Baha-ullah, the Bab, Christ, & most of the other great religious Founders of the world were Divine Manifestations of the Almighty.
And clearly, Baha-ullah [i]did[i] see himself as such. He underwent intense persecution for claiming to be a Prophet sent By God, as do many of his followers do right to this very day in Iran. He was imprisoned for many years in Haifa Israel. But, did that mean that he was correct? Or does that simply mean that he was strong in his own religious convictions?
I have been posting on message forums for almost 10 years now, & I remember, way back during my first year of posting, I was reading a correspondence between a Bahai & a Christian on a religious forum, where the Bahai poster used the triple "L" formula(originally used by Mr. Lewis)to prove Baha-ullah's revelation. He spoke of the imprisonment that Baha-ullah endured in Haifa, how the stench of this prison was so great, that birds would literally die in flight, had they flown over the prison, etc, & then concluded his story with the "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic" challenge to the Christian. The Christian poster replied, "Lunatic. I would have said 'misguided,' but, that choice wasn't given to me."
Admittedly, I do think that when we are defending our faith in Christ, we shouldn't simply stick with older arguments, when being challenged. Rather, we should learn from them, & be able to defend our Holy faith in our own words.
You see, by sticking with only the older arguments, we are left with very strong possibility that the opponents probably know of these as well(eg: arguments from writings from the Bible, etc), & will still find a way to refute them.
God Bless,
Carolyn.