Monthly Archives: January 2009

Baha’is on Both Sides of Docket: US & Egypt

Posted on by
61

judge-gavelThe Baha’i community is receiving some good news from Egypt. In case you’re not familiar with the situation there, it involves the right of Egyptian Baha’is to have government issued ID cards. You can read more about it on Wikipedia.

According to the Muslim Network for Baha’i Rights, there ruling will probably come in a few days and it will most probably be favorable for the Baha’is. I hope it will put an end to this and the Egyptian Baha’is can live in peace.

Meanwhile, over in the US the Baha’is are also involved in a court case but they are acting as the plaintiffs rather than defendants. The case involves the Orthodox Baha’is and their use of Baha’i names, symbols and trademarks. You can read about it to get some background information. The US NSA was trying to enforce a crazy 1966 ruling against Mason Remey and his organization for infringing on Baha’i copyright.

The NSA of the Baha’is of the United States lost the case last year when the presiding judge ruled that there was no “substantial continuity between the NSA-UHG and the PNBC”. What she meant was that the 1966 ruling was enforceable on Remey’s organization but the current Orthodox Baha’i group has little if any resemblance to it.

Unfortunately the NSA of the Baha’is of the US decided to appeal this ruling. The case will come before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and be argued before a panel of judges on February 20th, 2009.

It is sad to see the NSA spend so much time and the precious resources of the Faith to engage in a legal wrangle of this sort. It is especially lamentable when you consider that it is all based on a flimsy ruling which will not stand up to the most superficial scrutiny.

Would any legal minds reading this care to offer their opinion as to why the Orthodox Baha’is haven’t simply attacked the trademark basis of the 1966 ruling? After all, the word “Baha’i” can not be owned by any one organization, just as the term Christian doesn’t belong to only the Catholic Church.

“Let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind”

Posted on by
111

one-world-one-people

Recently I wrote a comment here which was censored.

I’ll leave it for others to ponder the irony of a website that bemoans the ill treatment of Baha’is in Iran and has as its purpose the protection of their basic human rights… and then uses tactics which the IRI has used against Baha’is to silence them.

Basically the comment was that while what this fellow Baha’i was going through was horrible, illegal, and reprehensible; his pride in being Iranian (which he repeats several times in strong language) is in conflict with what Baha’u'llah said about not glorying in being a citizen of a specific country but being a member of humanity.

These arbitrary line we draw on maps mean nothing. We are one people, one creation, with one God. That is the animating force behind the Baha’i revelation. It is the single most powerful message that we as Baha’is have to convey.

But sadly, I’ve noticed this tendency in other Baha’is from Iran to boast about being Iranian.

It is almost as if they are overcompensating for the false accusations lobbed against them by the IRI. Accusations of being spies or agents of a foreign power. They so wish to show their pride at being Iranian and of loving their “homeland” that they are blinded to one of the most powerful teachings of their own Faith.

It might also be that they take pride in being Iranian because Iran is the “Cradle of the Faith” and is promised a glorious future in Baha’i Writings.

So what? So is the USA. Equally blessed is every country and place “where mention of God is made and His praise glorified”. To single out one country and to say that it is hallowed above others is in direct conflict with Baha’i teachings. And it is a very dumb reason for Baha’is who are persecuted to decide to remain in Iran to continue to be persecuted when they have the ability to simply leave and lead free, productive lives elsewhere.

Even if the future of Iran is indeed glorious, why would any rational human being decide to keep themselves and their family in harms way? of what possible value is self inflicted martyrdom and suffering? where does the line blur between persecution and a victim mentality?

If your hand is in the fire, would you keep it there because you know that eventually the fire will burn itself out and be later replaced by flowers many months from now?

How utterly ignorant and lamentable to mistake self-flagellation for piety, to mistake self chosen suffering for God’s teachings of love and oneness.

Guy Consolmagno: Religion & Science

Posted on by
11

Fascinating talk by Guy Consolmagno, Vatican astronomer, discussing science and religion:

Click here for the full hour long program.

Guy Consolmagno believes that science and religion should work together rather than against one another. In a 2006 interview he said:

“Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism – it’s turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do.”

Hmmm, that is a clunky version of what Abdu’l-Baha eloquently said many years ago:

Religion and science are the two wings upon which man’s intelligence can soar into the heights, with which the human soul can progress. It is not possible to fly with one wing alone! Should a man try to fly with the wing of religion alone he would quickly fall into the quagmire of superstition, whilst on the other hand, with the wing of science alone he would also make no progress, but fall into the despairing slough of materialism.

Is it possible Guy Consolmagno has read Abdu’l-Baha?