Assess Your Emotional Investment in the Baha’i Faith

The degree to which you are emotionally invested in the Baha’i Faith determines your ability and willingness to justify Baha’i ideas that don’t fit into a broader spectrum of reality. You may feel cognitive dissonance – which is mental stress from having two or more contrary beliefs, but chances are, if you’re strongly emotionally invested in Baha’i Faith beliefs, you will choose Baha’i ideas over what your heart or common sense are telling you.

I’m addressing this condition because many devoted Baha’is who encounter information on this blog dismiss it because they are emotionally invested in what the Baha’is Faith means in their lives. They may have been in the Baha’i Faith many years, possibly even from birth, so they formed their entire worldview on the basis of what they’ve been taught as Baha’is. That becomes the lens through which they see the world, and in fact, becomes the most important thing about their lives.

Baha’i Emotional Investment and Self-Identification

If you’ve been calling yourself “a Baha’i” for many years, you are deeply enmeshed with that measure of self-identification. Most likely you are accustomed to a lot of self-sacrifice in serving your religion, the Baha’i Faith. You give your time, your money, and your loyalty.

Because you give so much – you are deeply emotionally invested, and want only the best for your religion. You feel distress when any information is given that does not reflect positively on the reputation of your religion. You have been concerned about the protection of the Baha’i Faith for years. It is a real issue in the Baha’i Faith – you support the work of specially appointed Counsellors and Auxiliary Board Members for the Protection of the Faith.

The more loyal and devoted you are to the Baha’i Faith, the deeper your personal emotional commitment. That makes you likely to black out any information contrary to the best interests of promotion for the Baha’i Faith. If you encounter information that conclusively proves that there are flaws in your religion, your mind experiences cognitive dissonance. It cannot process this information. You seek to justify and explain away that new information any way you can.

You are a Baha’i, and cannot imagine yourself being anything but a devoted, self-sacrificing, involved, loyal member of the Baha’i Faith.

Exerpt from: “Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion”, Volume 22
edited by Ralph L. Piedmont, Andrew Village

Your Baha’i Emotional Investment and Self-Esteem

When a person is emotionally invested in the Baha’i Faith, it constitutes the greatest measure and aspect of your self-esteem. You have seen the results of schisms and have decried the lack of loyalty shown by those who have been named covenant breakers. You look sadly on those who mindlessly break the strict Baha’i laws. You don’t want to be like them.

You are a good, dignified, loving person. A Baha’i. You believe what ‘Abdu’l-Baha said: “To be a Bahá’í simply means to love all the world; to love humanity and try to serve it; to work for universal peace and universal brotherhood.” That’s your self-image and your self-esteem rides on your acceptance of Baha’i principles and teachings.

What would you be, without the Baha’i Faith? Would you believe different things about racism or the equality of men and women? Probably not. You would still have the same ethical principals and beliefs. You are who you are. You are a good and decent person with or without the belief that Baha’u’llah is a messenger of God. Possibly you listened to Baha’is and became one because you already believed a lot of what Baha’is were talking about.

Your Baha’i Rose-Colored Glasses

Baha’is look at the world from a Baha’i perspective. They interpret the Bible as symbolic from a Baha’i perspective. They have a specific worldview that doesn’t match the worldview of people who are not involved in the Baha’i Faith. This is why I, as a Christian (former Baha’i) can repeat the same things to you multiple times without you really understanding what I’m talking about.

For example, I can try to explain why Baha’i is a legalistic religion and Christianity is not, but the information doesn’t manage to sink in. You still think Baha’i legalism is good even though the Bible calls it a “fall from grace.”

Let’s continue. I can try to show you how improbable it is that everyone in the world will ever convert to be Baha’is, but you still think you’re capable of making that happen.

Please take off the rose-colored glasses and have a new look at reality.

Most people are not interested in becoming Baha’i.

You may think some terrible disaster will come along and make everyone run to the Universal House of Justice for help, but it isn’t going to happen. Did you see hundreds or even just dozens of people in Thailand or Japan seeking Baha’i membership after disastrous tsunamis hit their countries? No… didn’t happen. Disasters don’t make people want to become Baha’is.

If there’s one thing I could wish for Baha’is (and for excommunicated Baha’is who are still clinging to a Baha’i worldview) it is that you will see the world situation with clarity and be able to analyze the position of Baha’i in the world accurately.

From your early Baha’i days you’ve been inundated with photographs of the very few Baha’i Houses of Worship and World Center buildings. Your mind reacts to these photographs with awe and thinks this means the Baha’i religion is a really big thing when in reality, it is not. It is a miniscule religion… very, very small. It is smaller than Christian cults like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and Mormons – all of which are very legalistic, just like Baha’i. True Christianity is not legalistic and does not rely on any extra books, aside from the Holy Bible.

I do hope you’ll take off the rose colored glasses and quit looking at the world through the lens of Baha’i thinking. Then you’ll be able to see why the masses aren’t converting to your religion. Clarity of mind is a good thing… independent investigation of truth is good too… please do that.

About christianexbahai

I'm a former Baha'i; now a Christian.

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Independent Investigation of Truth for People Raised as Baha’is ›

Tagged with: Cogitive Dissonance, Emotions, Error, Independent Thinking, Justifications, Misperceptions, Perception, Reality, Self-Esteem, Worldview
Posted in Critical Thinking