Which Religion is the One True Religion?

Readers now have two of my posts in response to the initial question that got this thread going some ten years ago. Go back and read my first post in April 2012, some 10 posts above this one on the thread; then read the post immediately above this post. I shall return at some future time, all being well, to see how this thread is developing. I may add some more at a future time.-Ron Price, Australia

The one true religion? That's easy, it's the one with the Son of God himself as its front man..

Jesus said - "I've beaten the world" (John 16:33)

So you're not interested in dialogue. You leave your casserole in the oven and wait for . .. . What?

I have always been impressed by the professed peacefulness of the Baha'i faith and distressed by their unjustified persecution. The teachings of the Baha'ullah, however, are opposed to Jesus' principle of the narrow road. Not all religions are acceptable to Jehovah. Many teach God dishonoring doctrines such as trinity, reincarnation, and reprobation, to name a few. How do you answer Jesus' admonition of Matthew, Chapter 6 to revere God's name? What is the kingdom to which Jesus refers?

I will not wait for others, but will respond to your post, neologist, with the following:
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"As to the position of Christianity, let it be stated without any hesitation or equivocation that its divine origin is unconditionally acknowledged, that the Sonship and Divinity of Jesus Christ are fearlessly asserted, that the divine inspiration of the Gospel is fully recognized, that the reality of the mystery of the Immaculacy of the Virgin Mary is confessed, and the primacy of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, is upheld and defended.

"The Founder of the Christian Faith is designated by Baha'u'llah as the "Spirit of God," is proclaimed as the One Who "appeared out of the breath of the Holy Ghost," and is even extolled as the "Essence of the Spirit." His mother is described as "that veiled and immortal, that most beauteous, countenance," and the station of her Son eulogized as a "station which hath been exalted above the imaginings of all that dwell on earth," whilst Peter is recognized as one whom God has caused "the mysteries of wisdom and of utterance to flow out of his mouth."

For more of a Baha'i view of Christianity go to: http://www.bahai.us/welcome/spiritual-concepts/oneness-of-religion-2/christianity/

According to Wiki, the Bahai faith regards Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, and others as equal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1'%C3%AD_Faith

In other words it's a "mixed bag" faith that relegates Jesus (the Son of God himself) to being just one of a bunch of messengers all of equal rank.
But as Jesus often had drastically differing teachings from the others, how can he possibly be lumped in with them?

Don't you think that the evolutionary success of Christianity is the measure?

Nice slice of pie anyone?..



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Biggest game on the park..

OK.
But if you don't follow him (Jesus), he disowns you.

Must I CONSTANTLY repeat myself? The true religion is Quinneyism. If it's good for the Quinneys it's good, otherwise not so much. Join the one true Church and sleep well at night. My only commandment is "Thou shalt Tithe". PM me your credit card number and with a recurring monthly debit from your account all your sins past present and future will be absolved.

I tried that and it works without tithing.
No, I am not sending you back payments, either

I'm sorry neologist, but I have removed you from the protected list.

I am glad you started this topic off in the manner you did, because this could easily lead into an argument about points of view and who is right or wrong. My opinion, and the way in which I see it is that the core essence of almost all of the mainstream religions is love. Treat others with 100% compassion, love, and selflessness. If everyone did nothing but give, no person would ever be hungry or without anything. The answer I would recommend to you is to try various religions on. Don't close yourself off to anything. You may find everything you need in Buddhism, or you may find that you hate the idea and that Christianity fits you better.

EEK!
Me and my big mouth.

I've just been informed of an interesting sect called Frisbeeterian. They believe that when you die your soul goes on the roof and never comes down.

Christianity is not designed to fit anybody better. It is designed to fit everybody as well as maybe in all the circumstances.

How can it fit anybody when it condemns all the things we like best?

Thanks for reminding me of extra medium. He was an interesting poster and then he just vanished.

Since this thread has taken-on a quite varied mix, I'll post one of my recent prose-poems some readers here might like. Of course, one can not please all of the people all of the time.-Ron Price, Australia
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ELIOT, AUDEN, GOD AND ME

Part 1:

The famous poet T.S. Eliot(1888-1965) thought of religion as “the still point in the turning world,” “the heart of light,” “the crowned knot of fire,” “the door we never opened”—something that remained inaccessible, perfect, and eternal, whether or not he or anyone else cared about it, something absolutely unlike the sordid transience of human life. From my perspective Eliot’s view of religion was its essential mystical quality, dealing as it does with the Unknown Reality which the wisdom of the wise and the learning of the learned will never comprehend. Such a view is at the centre of my belief system as a Baha’i.

The poet W.H. Auden(1907-1973) thought of religion as derived from the commandment: “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”—an obligation to other human beings despite all their imperfections and in spite of his own. It was an obligation that takes place in the inescapable reality of this world, not in a visionary, an inaccessible world that might or might not exist somewhere else. Auden’s view also reflects my Baha’i ethical and moral beliefs at the core of the Abrahamic religions.

Part 2:

The religious and philosophical views of poets inevitably shape their poetry. Auden’s Christianity shaped the tone and content of his poems and was, for most of his life, the central focus of his art and thought. This is, without question, true of the shaping of my poetry by the Baha’i Faith.

This aspect of Auden’s life and work seems to have been the least understood by his readers and friends, partly because he sometimes talked about it in suspiciously frivolous terms, and partly because he used Christian vocabulary in ways that, a few centuries earlier, might have attracted the Inquisitor’s attention---according to Edward Mendelson,1 a professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. I hope that readers do not have trouble understanding my Baha’i beliefs as expressed in my poetry. I try to go out of my way to be clear and overt, explicit and serious.

Auden’s version of Christianity was more or less incomprehensible to anyone who thought religion was about formal institutions, supernatural beliefs, ancestral identities, moral prohibitions, doctrinal orthodoxies, sectarian arguments, religious emotions, spiritual aspirations, scriptural authority, or any other conventional aspect of personal or organized religion.

Part 3:

Auden took seriously his membership in the Anglican Church and derived many of his moral and aesthetic ideas from Christian doctrines developed over two millennia, but he valued his church and its doctrines only to the degree that they helped to make it possible to love one’s neighbour as oneself. To the extent that they became ends in themselves, or made it easier for a believer to isolate or elevate himself, they became—in the word Auden used about most aspects of Christendom—unchristian. Church doctrines, like all human creations, were subject to judgment.

He made it clear that he understood perfectly well that any belief he might have in the personal God of the monotheist religions was a product of the anthropomorphic language in which human beings think. –Ron Price with thanks to 1Edward Mendelson, “Auden and God,” a review of Arthur Kirsch’s Auden and Christianity in The New York Review of Books, 6/12/’07.

We come close, here, W.H.,
you and I, but in this era of
1000 Christianities and the
troublesome historicity that
makes belief in Abrahamic
religions and all those smelly
little orthodoxies difficult, &
as George Orwell said were
contending for our souls,1….
I must side with Henry Miller,2
and his company of romantics
with their vitalistic & visionary
intensities seeing as they did
through their own eyes & not
through the eyes of others and
portraying our culture, and its
consumerist quagmire with its
soporific effect on men’s souls.3

1 George Orwell in The Phoenix and the Ashes, Geoffrey Nash, George Ronald, 1984, p.40.
2 American novelist and painter Henry Miller(1891-1980) held the view that the Baha’i Faith would “outlast all the other religious organizations in North America,” op. cit., p.56.
3 ibid.,p.55.

Ron Price
21/12/’11

I may be sad, but that is the funniest thing I have heard in forever.

If it were possible for the soul to exist separate from the body, it would be caught and chewed by my dog Tobias Fleabitis.

Beautiful poetry and inspirational prose are noteworthy, of course. But the Bible was written so the unlettered could understand the reason we suffer and die. It contains helpful direction for the simplest of us in areas of daily life, work, marriage, and family.

Additionally, it lays out plainly the fundamental issue of the universe, God's sovereignty, and the steps he has taken to assert it. We ignore such texts at our peril.

All the great religions with their 100s of millions of followers have unlettered followers as well as the educated and the erudite. Indeed, even the atheists and agnostics have lettered and unlettered people in their midst. The truth of a religion, it seems to me anyway, is not found in the members. As the Founder of the Baha'i Faith has written:

The essence of these words is this: they that tread the path of faith, they that thirst for the wine of certitude, must cleanse themselves of all that is earthly—their ears from idle talk, their minds from vain imaginings, their hearts from worldly affections, their eyes from that which perisheth. They should put their trust in God, and, holding fast unto Him, follow in His way.

Then will they be made worthy of the effulgent glories of the sun of divine knowledge and understanding, and become the recipients of a grace that is infinite and unseen, inasmuch as man can never hope to attain unto the knowledge of the All-Glorious, can never quaff from the stream of divine knowledge and wisdom, can never enter the abode of immortality, nor partake of the cup of divine nearness and favour, unless and until he ceases to regard the words and deeds of mortal men as a standard for the true understanding and recognition of God and His Prophets.