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For the Dud(e), De-Mahn:
The proof of any religion after the Founder has died, is that if it be of God then the revealed Words of the Founder contain the Holy Spirit. It is obvious that the few Words we have revealed by Christ though translated, mistranslated, sparse, and possibly not even written by those who heard Him speak, were Words of God, because a civilization rose around those Words and new values became institutionalized. However if one was pure and "saw" Christ there was a chance one would have recognized Him by His person, because He was the Word made flesh. We believe after the passing of a Manifestation of God that those revealed Words are the proof. Words of God foster faith and change in an individual by which volitional nor moral efforts won't work.

We can discuss issues and argue points, but without one looking at Baha'u'llah's Writings it is like talking about a cake and not eating it. (Didn't that just happen at a couple of the recent expensive weddings? $100,000 cakes that weren't eaten, and will be displayed. At least make them in clay or porcelain, sheesh.)

Here is a link to probably the most loved and well known of those Writings, THE HIDDEN WORRDS:

http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/HW/hw-1.html


At that same site you can see most of the works that are in English. It is remarkable that there was so little printed until the 1980's. The earliest American believers had very, very little to examine, but THE HIDDEN WORDS were of the very first. America was visited by Abdul'baha in 1912 who turned down offered passage on The Titanic. (Phoebe Hearst was an early believer who later withdrew, but her chaffeur, Robert Turner, was the first African American Baha'i. She was in a group of Americans who visited Adbul'baha in the Holy Land in 1898.) Abdul'baha's arrival was eclipsed by news of The Titanic's sinking. In the early 1960's there were something like only 15-20,000 Baha'is, then by the mid 1970's there were 75,000. We have had to work hard to consolidate and understand ourselves and what we are.Since then we achieved the preservation of the House of Worship in Illinois, an incredible ediface, and building of the Arc (of the admininstrative bldgs) and terraced slopes of Mt Carmel in Haifa which was a world not American effort, though with the damage to the Persian believers stability starting in 1980, American Baha'is became the most affluent community. And the publication of translated works and other wonderful lieterature. We continue to grow and learn, an organic process that resembles the growth of Christianity.

Baha'i World Centre images - Google Search

baha'i house of worship wilmette - Google Search

I highly recc'd the book, THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY, by Rodney Stark when one can get to it. It is the work of sociological examination of early Christianity, who converts to a new religion, and the effects of faith on people. I have read it 6 times. According to his research someone like Phoebe Hearst was exactly the type of person to join a new religion and that this happened in Rome as well, and shows insights in to why this is believeable. Why would a bishop write congregants in Rome NOT to interfere with his martyrdom if they did not have the ability to do so? Good point! Huh?) Now think about this: There were no Bibles for early Christianity, yet it grew and flourished. How can one account for this if not for the Holy Spirit? or simple faith? If what one believes in is false, then what are the results?

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Baha'is had in ignorance separated races when meeting which had been very painful for early believer, Louis Gregory. However upon the arrival of Abdul'baha in America that mistake was rectified.