Baha'i Faith

I watched the 15 min video history thing of the cathedral on the US Baha'i website, and I have to say I think it is very cool that the temple has major symbols from the major prophet based religions on it. The over view they gave of the religion in the video highlighted the main views of unity etc. In class it seemed like people felt the Baha'i were trying to in a sense cloak their true message with one of unity and openness similar to that of the unitarians universalists. I mean they felt the Baha'i made it sound like anyone can believe whatever they want, but I disagree. I think the Baha'i use the "it's the same message" as an argument in favor of their religion, and it is like all of the other world religions that believe their way is the right way. If you go to the home of the link on moodle (http://www.bahai.us/), then you will see my point I think. It states "The Essence of all the prophets of God is one and the same". It doesn't state all religions are right, but that at the core, in the beginning the were the same. Also of another cool side note if you put your mouse over the emblems for the different religions a verse written by that religion's prophet will show up and all of the verses from the different prophet have essentially the same message. I don't know if it changes or if it always says the same verses, but right now the message is the golden rule do unto other as you would have them do unto you.

At first glance my thought was wow, this is really tourism oriented then I realized I wasn't at the home page, so just for comparison here is the tourism page of the national cathedral http://www.nationalcathedral.org/visit/. I feel like the Baha'i faith acts the same way all of the other faiths act. The end message and rituals may be slightly different, but they all act towards the outer community from what I've seen in the same way.