/ Humanism / Religion / Values /

"At the core of the Bahá'í teachings is the acceptance of the oneness of mankind, oneness of religion and oneness of God. The faith, founded in Iran by Bahá'u'lláh (Glory of God), raises worship above ritualistic and communal forms. It advocates an unfettered search after truth, condemns superstition and prejudice, teaches that the fundamental purpose of religion is to promote concord and harmony hand-in-hand with science. It inculcates the principle of equal opportunity, rights and privileges for both sexes, advocates compulsory education and exalts work performed in the spirit of service to the rank of worship. It recommends the adoption of an auxiliary international language and provides for the necessary agencies for the establishment and safeguarding of a permanent universal peace."

from An Architectural Marvel

. . . communities are day and night occupied in making penal laws, and in preparing and organizing instruments and means of punishment. They build prisons, make chains and fetters, arrange places of exile and banishment, and different kinds of hardships and tortures, and think by these means to discipline criminals, whereas, in reality, they are causing destruction of morals and perversion of characters. The community, on the contrary, ought day and night to strive and endeavour with the utmost zeal and effort to accomplish the education of men, to cause them day by day to progress and to increase in science and knowledge, to acquire virtues, to gain good morals and to avoid vices, so that crimes may not occur . . ."

`Abdu'l-Bahá
Some Answered Questions pp. 268-71.
quoted here

Well, if I weren't an atheist I might very well be a Baha'i

Though their beliefs are unfortunately (in my opinion) couched in a theistic metaphysics,
they have an admirable program of liberal values and goals.

(with some serious flaws - see "Freedom of Expression within the Bahá'í Faith" on this page )

• All people are equal. Prejudice and discrimination are without foundation and are unnacceptable.
  All persons have the right to respect and to basic human rights and freedoms.
  
  
• This is especially recognized to apply to the societal roles of men and women.
  
  
• Education is of paramount importance.
  
  
• War and violence are an offense against the most basic standards of decency
  
  
• Poverty must be eliminated, and an adequate and dignified means of livelihood made available to every person.
  
  
• There are no conflicts between religion and the discoveries of science and aspirations of technology
  
  
• A unified non-exploitative world economy.
  
  
• A unified federated world government and justice system is the natural and desired outcome of historical progress.
  
  
• A universal adjunct language would be a useful tool to promote intercourse between people of different backgrounds.

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In editing this page I've referred to these sites

• The Bahá'í World
  
  (Very nice site, but I've had some slight trouble with it. It works better for me with Java and JavaScript disabled on my browser.
  You might have to try a couple different things to get pages to load correctly. Seems to be a minor problem though.)
  The more I look at this site the more I like it -
  
  
• The Bahá'í Faith entry at the wonderful Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance / OCRT
  
  
• SOCIETY
  
  
• GLOBAL CONCERNS
  
  
• FACT
  
  
• Basic Facts
  
  

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• Bahai Computer Communication Association
  
  
• Bahai
  
  
• Bahai
  
  
• Baha'i Architecture
  
  
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• Earth Charter -- suggestions for the proposed "Earth Charter," originally presented by the Bahá'í International Community to the Preparatory Committee of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)