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Core values
Bahá’u’lláh (1817–92), Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, calls people to remember God and to act for good in the world. We know of God, who is utterly beyond our understanding, and of His attributes only through the lives and teachings of the great Messengers of God (such as Abraham, the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Zoroaster, and others). Bahá’u’lláh refers to these messengers as ‘Manifestations of God’ – they make God’s will open and knowable to us.
Bahá’u’lláh places great emphasis on the importance of human oneness (while welcoming diversity) love, compassion, courtesy, trustworthiness, and being of service to others.
Core beliefs
The key message for this time in human life is that ‘The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens’. Bahá’u’lláh refers to humanity as ‘leaves of one branch’, and as ‘waves of one sea’.
Bahá’u’lláh gives new laws and concepts so that human consciousness can be freed from traditional patterns of response, and the foundations of a global civilization can be erected.
One of Bahá’u’lláh’s key teachings is usually known as ‘Progressive Revelation’. God has sent his Messengers throughout history. Each one adds to the sum of humanity’s spiritual knowledge. Bahá’u’lláh is the latest of these Teachers, but not the last. For Bahá’ís, the story of humankind’s spiritual development – past present and future – is a single story.
Grounds for believing
Belief in Bahá’u’lláh and what He says are based on faith, logic and evidence. Scientific research demonstrates the oneness of humankind, but we need spiritual motivation and ethical teachings to treat others as part of our own family. If humankind is one, then God’s relationship with humankind is also one, although expressed in diverse ways. If a person’s inner being is touched by compassion for humankind and by the divine love that Bahá’u’lláh evidently showed, then Bahá’u’lláh’s life and teachings call for a response from each of us.
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