Interfaith Committee’s
“Commonality Among Faiths” Project
by Stevie Shaefer
“Someday religionists will get together and actually affect cooperation on the basis of ideals and purposes rather than attempting to do so on the basis of psychological opinions and theological beliefs.” (The Urantia Book, Paper 99.5.7)
The Urantia Book Fellowship Interfaith Committee is participating in an ongoing project entitled “Commonality Among Faiths.” In order to encourage interfaith empathy, understanding and dialogue, we plan to share one to two major faith groups each month, focusing on ideals and purposes as much as possible, while correlating quotes from The Urantia Book for each faith group. We will start with faith groups that harmonize religions in this issue, The Bahai Faith (Progressive Revelation and the Oneness of Religion), and Sufism (A Bridge Between Religions – A Mystical Path Branching from Islam).
Notebook of Major Tenets of Some World Religions
With Comparative Passages from The Urantia Book
BAHA’I – Progressive Revelation and the Oneness of Religion
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MAJOR TENETS OF BAHA’I
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COMPARATIVE PASSAGES FROM
THE URANTIA BOOK
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The Oneness of God/Progressive Revelation:
“The spiritual part [of religion] never changes. All the Manifestations of God and His Prophets have taught the same truths…They all teach the one code of morality. There is no division in truth.”
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“…. Revelation …affirms that this First Cause of science and religion’s God of salvation are one and the same Deity.”
(Paper 101.2.5 - The Real Nature of Religion).
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The Essential Unity of Religion:
“All religions teach that we must do good, that we must be generous, sincere, truthful, law-abiding, and faithful; all this is reasonable and logically the only way in which humanity will progress.”
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“The many religions of Urantia are all good to the extent that they bring man to God and the realization of the Father to man.”
(Paper 92.7.3 – The Later Evolution of Religion).
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The Unity of Mankind
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“All these religions …can never hope to attain a uniformity of creeds, dogmas, and rituals – these are intellectual; but they can, and someday will, realize a unity in true worship of the Father of all, for this is spiritual, and it is forever true, in spirit all men are equal” (Paper 92.7.4 – The Later Evolution of Religion).
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Elimination of all Forms of Prejudice
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“There is not a Urantia religion that could not profitably study and assimilate the best of truths contained in every other faith, for all contain truth. Religions would do better to borrow the best of the truths contained in their neighbors’ living spiritual faith rather than to denounce the worst in their lingering superstitions and outworn Rituals” (Paper 92.7.3- The Further Evolution of Religion).
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The Light of God –
“The Sun has sent forth many rays to illumine human intelligence, the light is always the same.”
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“There really is a true and genuine inner voice, that “true light which lights every man who comes into the world” (Paper 101:0.3 -The Real Nature of Religion).
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Harmony of Religion and Science – “If religion were in harmony with science and they walked together, much of the hatred and bitterness now bringing misery to the human race would be at an end….Religion and science are the two wings upon which man’s intelligence can soar into the heights, with which the human soul can progress. It is not possible to fly with one wing alone!”
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“True science can have no lasting quarrel with true religion”
(Paper 195.7.2).
“The highest attainable philosophy of mortal man must be logically based on the reason of science, the faith of religion, and the truth insight afforded by revelation” (Paper 103.6.15 – The Reality of Religious Experience).
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The three central figures of the Baha’i religion:
1. The Bab (the “gate” or equivalent to John the Baptist).
2. The Founder of the Baha’i Faith Baha’u’llah, a “manifestation of God” (considered to be equivalent to Jesus and other prophets, and
3.Abdu’l-Baha (1844-1921, the eldest son of Baha’u’llah, thought to be the embodiment of “living the teachings”(his writings and talks are regarded as a source of Baha’i sacred literature).
His Paris talks are considered amongst his best lectures and quotes from that are compared to quotes from The Urantia Book above.
Other important Baha'i concepts include:
World peace
Equality of men and women
Independent investigation of truth
The need for universal compulsory education
The need for a universal auxiliary language
Obedience to government and non-involvement in partisan politics
Elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty
