The Baha'i Studies Listserv On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Tim Nolan <tnola...@yahoo.com> wrote: > The Baha'i Studies Listserv >>how should a non-Bahai refer to the various >>groups which all claim to be Bahais and follow the teachings of >>Bahaullah? > > I'm noty interested in telling other people what words to use.
But that's what you did when you said "Haifan Bahai" is a misnomer. > The best thing to do is look at the *evidence* and to ignore > claims that have no foundation in fact. Right. The fact is there are real-live flesh and blood people who call themselves Bahai, who believe that the Bab and Bahaullah are Manifestations, who believe Abdul-Baha was the rightful successor to Bahaullah and who believe Shoghi Effendi was the first Guardian of the Bahai faith. I understand that from your perspective you may have a narrow definition but from an outsider's perspective it seems weird to call them non-Bahais. Just as from an outsider's perspective it is weird to call Mormons non-Christians or to call the Ahmadiyya non-Muslims. In general, an "insider" will tend to have a specifc (dogmatic) definition of who is in or out of their particular religious group. But very often the subtle details won't seem all that relevant to an "outsider". Especially since courtesy and tolerance would probably suggest letting people name themselves. (I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, but that would be the general rule unless there was good reason). -G __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:arch...@mail-archive.com Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:leave-526567-27401.54f46e81b66496c9909bcdc2f7987...@list.jccc.edu Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to ly...@list.jccc.edu Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:bahai-st@list.jccc.edu Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/bahai...@list.jccc.net New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/bahai-st@list.jccc.edu
