Comments on Rise of Apostasies from Baha’i Faith!!

By: NEMO

Greetings,

I have noticed for the past few years on the Internet the rise in the number of people leaving bahaism.  I have seen about 30 people since 1998 leave bahaism , not including the manmore people who left bahaism I came across on the Internet.

I would like for ex bahais to explain why they left the bahai cult and what they believe is the future of bahaism.

First Comment :

I became a Baha’i while in college.  My roommate was a member and I was always impressed with his demeanor.  I began participating in the community and learned the Faith’s basic principles – the basics about the Bab, Bahau’llah, Abdul Baha, the Guardianship, equality between men and women, unity of religion, etc. – before I declared.

Shortly after I declared, I noticed that there was a lot of “interest” or “emphasis” or “pressure” to teach.  This rubbed me the wrong way for two reasons: first, I wanted to build a personal relationship with God.  If the focus is placed on teaching and on the administrative side of the Faith, there was no time (given the usually small size of the Baha’i communities)to study texts and for deepening.

The second reason is somewhat related to the first: I did not feel I knew enough about the Faith to go out and “teach.”  I am a firm believer in learning as much as you can about a topic if you want to talk about it and be credible.  In hindsight, I am convinced I’m correct about this.
Many of the questions I was asked about the Faith after I dropped out I would not have been able to answer beyond “Huh? HEEEEELP!!!”
Questions like “how come women cannot be members of the UHJ?” or “where’s your Guardian?  Isn’t it strange that one of the two central structures your prophets and divinely-inspired leaders put forth is moot because there’s no Guardian?”  or “how do you reconcile the Baha’i Faith’s goal of establishing a federation of nations with the spiritual nature of Christ’s kingdom (“my kingdom is not of this earth”)?

Less than a year after I declared, I graduated from college and moved away.  Far away.  The Baha’i community I joined was also very “interested” in teaching.  That, and the fact that I no longer had any of the familiar faces around me eventually made me lose interest in participating.

That’s why I left.  Here’s why I chose not to return.

Imagine my shock and surprise when I started seeing on the Internet the reports about Bahai’s being driven out of the Faith under alleged threats of being declared Covenant Breakers(I will use “alleged” because there appears to be only a he-said-he-said record of the things that transpired). Thanks to the ‘net, I discovered that an innocent e-mail (the infamous Majnun post) triggerd the irrational ire and fury of the powers that were.  Thanks to the ‘net, I found “A Modest Proposal,” and to this day I do not know what about that document was so controversial that drove many to rebuke and condemn it instead of opening a discussion with its authors.  And I also learned of others who, like me, dropped out because Baha’i life did not satisfy them spiritually.

What does the future hold for the Baha’i Faith?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that most people don’t join a religion because they want to be engaged doing material things like temples and arches, but to find a way to connect with God.  Until the Baha’i Faith understands that, it will be a steady-state religion, with new converts taking the place of dissilutioned ones.

El Loco

Second Comment :

I left it because I realized it is indeed a *cult* for the reasons stated here over the past three and a half years. As for its future: at this rate it has none other than how long its elite “investors” and financial benefactors decide to prolong its existence. Among its core constituency, many children of Iranian Baha’is are walking away completely from it in droves, and not just in the West, because it really does not have much to offer anyone anymore other family ties and the like. In terms of new enrollments it is completely stagnant.In a hundred years time or less, other than a footnote to history, unless there are radical internal reforms within (which seem unlikely, as the religion has completely straitjacketed itself doctrinally going back to its founders), baha’ism will in all likelihood disappear from the stage of history, just as Manichaeanism did before it. In short, I believe baha’ism is well into its process of implosion.

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