Why I left the Baha'i Faith?

I was a Baha'i for about thirty years prior to the year 2000. We were led to believe that "entry by troops" and the "lesser peace" would happen by the year 2000, meaning that there would be a political peace in the world, and many, many thousands of people would be lining up to join the Baha'i religion.... and in fact, we were encouraged to donate to the building of the Baha'i World Center buildings in Haifa, Israel, because the buildings would be needed to handle the "entry by troops" that was about to happen.

Well, the year 2000 rolled around without any sign of mass conversions, and I finally realized that the people of the world weren't likely to ever convert to Baha'i 'en masse' because it is a repressive, guilt-tripping religion with many laws most people are not interested in signing up to follow. I weaned myself off the Baha'i belief system. It took over ten years to recover from the brainwashing I'd been through.

The Baha'i religion is very paranoid and fearful about their reputation because they want people to join the religion. Unfortunately for them, the internet was invented and knowledge of their imperfection has spread. They even have a "protection" arm of the religion with people appointed to go to communities to warn them about outsiders (mainly former Baha'is) who are dangerous to the religion. Baha'is were encouraged to avoid reading anything they wrote and instructed to entirely shun them. This is only one of many aspects of "information control" - a well-known sign of cult mind control, per many websites and books that expose cult methodology.

The list of principles of the Baha'i religion is a carefully crafted marketing plan to make the religion appeal to people in western countries such as the USA and Europe. Not everything they say is realistic, good, or in line even with the statements of their founders. For example, they have the principle of the equality of men and women but have different inheritance laws for each and don't allow women on the House of Justice (governing body) ... and they say they have a principle of the unity of religions but that doesn't mean that they respect people of all religions so much as it means that people of all religions can join Baha'i, give up their own religion, and then be united as a Baha'i community.

Baha'is want to say they are "the most wide-spread religion" so they force members in the USA (not sure about other countries) to have a "community" in each and every locality even if it is only two people... for example, say there are 11 people living in a city and 9 people living just outside the city limits. The 9 people living outside the city limits have to form their own "community" and must hold their "19 Day Feast" meetings separately from the 11 people living within the city limits. This is utterly ridiculous, but this way the national Baha'i center can count that as 2 communities or localities where Baha'is reside, rather than just one.

I could go on all day... writing about stupid things about the Baha'i religion. I'm so glad I made that mental break from the religion 18 years ago!