Overview of the Baha'í Faith:

The Baha'í Faith is an independent world religion which was founded in 1863 by Baha'u'llah (Arabic title, meaning "The Glory of God"). While the Faith was originally founded in Persia, Abdul-baha, another central figure to the Faith, traveled from Persia to Europe and America; his grandson, Shoghi Effendi, was educated and resided in England.

A religion inherently designed to be world-embracing and openly integrated with all cultures in our present globalizing world, today the Bahá'í Faith enjoys being reported by Encyclopedia Britanncia as composed of 8 million adherents distributed worldwide to form the worlds second most widely-spread religion to date.

Following the death of Shoghi Effendi, the Baha'í Faith is now centrally organized by an elected body of members known as our Universal House of Justice.

Independant Investigation of Truth:

While the Univesal House of Justice offers Bahá'ís an unprecidented level of organizational unity and cohesiveness (there are no significant sects or divisions within the Bahá'í Faith), a primary principle of the Bahá'í Faith stresses the importance of individual responsibility towards searching for Truth and understanding of the Holy Writings.

No individual is born as a Bahá'í, or decided so by their parents. Rather, it is mandated in the Bahá'í writings that anyone past the age of 15 seeking to become a Bahá'í should engage in an exhaustive seach for the truth -- declaring their Faith as a Bahá'í only if they logically accept Baha'u'llah to be of a divine origin. Once a Bahá'í, one has a responsibility to continue individual studying (though often done in groups and practical action, an individual still has responsibility for directing their studies) and refinement of their spiritual knowledge.

The Bahá'í Faith does not have any clergy or spiritually superior individuals other than the original founding figures. While we feel such roles were necessary for the function of earlier societies, Baha'u'llah explained that in this day and age where each individual has at least some capacity to investigate religion for themselves, we are expected to do so:

[insert quote and links on topic]

Furthermore, know ye that God has created in man the power of reason, whereby man is enabled to investigate reality. God has not intended man to imitate blindly his fathers and ancestors. He has endowed him with mind, or the faculty of reasoning, by the exercise of which he is to investigate and discover the truth, and that which he finds real and true he must accept.
`Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 291.

International Cooperation

Two centuries ago, when the world was dominated by a handful of rulers all persuing individual goals of global domination and conquest, Baha'u'llah outlined to the rulers of all the nations of the world the necessity for Universal Peace and Cooperation: [insert quote].
To his followers, he repeatedly admonished them to avoid of the upcoming trends towards nationalism and warfare:

It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.
Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 250. [link to bunch of other quotes from Baha'u'llah on topic]

Following some of the unfortunate consequences of blind nationalism history has provided us, Shoghi Effendi again reminded Bahá'ís of the ultimate vision of the future we are to work towards and provided ceaseless guidence on reaching that vision. Following this, Bahá'ís worldwide took and active stance on many international issues, causing the Baha'í International Community to be granted consultative status within the United Nations, where the Bahá'ís submit recommendations [example] based on the Bahá'í Writings to the U.N.
BIC works actively in establishing foundations Baha'u'llah deemed obligatory for real and lasting peace -- such as the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hauge[make links].

In 1985, the Universal House of Justice released and submitted to the U.N. a document entitled The Promise of World Peace, outlying our goals for the realization of true Peace as prophecized across all religions. This document is carefully studied by the Bahá'í Club here at UCLA to see how we as students can play a role in implementing its vision.

Acceptance of All Religions

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