At the Speed of Light Part 2

On to the Baha'i temple. Haifa is the location of the shrine to the founder of the Baha'a religion. Never heard of it? Well, that is OK. There is supposed to be about 6 million followers of the Baha'i religion. It began with a man who wanted to make the Muslim religion more tolerant. In the process, Muslims killed him because he watered down the faith too much. Well, his followers - 18 in all at the time - built this shrine and spread his teaching. To give you a comparison of what the Baha'i faith is like, think of what Unitarian Universalist's say about Christianity (everyone is saved, don't worry about salvation) and you have about what the Baha'i believers  say about the Muslim faith.

The Bah'ai' gardens. Meticulously taken care of. 

After Baha'i' it was off for lunch - falafel - fried chick peas in a pita - good stuff. From there we went to Muraqa where Elijah slew the prophets of Baal and Asheroth. See 1 Kings 18-19 - yes, both chapters. Here we celebrated mass in a beautiful Discalced Carmelite Church. Here we also had a beautiful view of the Jezreel Valley. 

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid - Elijah is filled with Zeal for God

Nice View!

Down below is where Elijah actually slew the prophets of Ball after winning the contest. 

And last of all, we went to Acko, Acco, Acre, well - it was one of those. (It actually goes by all those names.) It was a crusader city. 

During our time in these Crusader halls, Tal destroyed some people's romantic views that all Crusaders were chivalrous Knights by helping us to see that they were detestable criminals, thieves, murderers, mercenaries - basically the worst of the worst - who were no longer in the streets of France, England, Spain, or Italy but for sure didn't make the Holy Land a more holy place! Down below is evidence that they had restrooms in ancient times - even terrible crusaders had a little bit of sanitation.

Tomorrow - Megiddo, Nazareth, Cana, and more...