Baha’i Rants

Although the film highlights the amateur status (both as documentarians and sleuths) of the producers, the film is fun and and does reveal several important aspects of the Baha'i mindset. Baha'is have argued that the film does not portray the Baha'i faith fairly. I disagree. The film shows that the Baha'is, at least those in official positions, see their faith as centered on administration. This comes through over and over in the interviews with Baha'i officials. The interview with Nigar Bahai Amsalem is important for showing how the designation of Covenant breakers makes the Baha'is appear very cult like. This great grand daughter of Baha'u'llah put it correctly when she refers to the Baha'i position toward her and her family as childish. Mostly, I was taken with the good spirit of the producers and they seemed to be having fun with the Baha'i material.

Steven Scholl begins his comment on Naama Pyritz' "Bahais in My Backyard" with an off-handed, snide remark regarding the producers' "amateurish status," and one needs to ask why? Scholl should otherwise be elated at this long time coming come-uppance, instead he begins his commentary with hubris, and hubris that is typically the sort of hubrism of those otherwise loyal to the Haifan Bahaim organization. Smoke-and-mirrors, sleighting of hands, deception and double-triple blinds, nothing being what it seems - a point underscored by Frederick Glaysher in the documentary. Perhaps Scholl is disappointed and expressing his frustration at the fact that Pyritz nor her other producers deigned to contact him or the other so-called "liberal" posse, but instead, amongst real dissidents, contacted and interviewed Frederick Glaysher and one of the notable modern representatives of the Unitarian Bahais.

Funny, how history unfolds.

Wahid Azal

Nigar Bahai Amsalem

Does anyone have a mailing address for this woman? I'd like to correspond with a Great Granddaughter of Baha'u'llah!

and...as I am also described as a Covenant Breaker by the spurious UHJ...maybe she'd like to correspond with Me as well.

thank you, i was able to watch the video. Michael Z asked a question on 23 July: 'Does anyone have a mailing address for this woman? I’d like to correspond with a Great Granddaughter of Baha’u'llah!' did anyone answer this question? i would also like to get in touch with her.

visitor, your best bet is to contact the film makers and ask them. Or to catch the next El Al flight. Shouldn't be too hard to find her once you're in Haifa.

actually, i found her in the phonebook.

"O my God! O my God!
Unite the hearts of Thy servants
and reveal to them Thy great purpose.
May they follow Thy commandments
and abide in Thy law.
Help them, O God, in their endeavor,
and grant them strength to serve Thee.
O God! Leave them not to themselves
but guide their steps by the light of Thy knowledge
and cheer their hearts by Thy love.
Verily, Thou art their Helper
and their Lord."

- Baha'u'llah
Baha'i Prayers
http://www.reference.bahai.org

ummm, thanks for the prayer. But what are you trying to say?

What a lovely prayer!
What Knowledge are you imoarting?

Fritz

Where is Sumitra now, anyway?

She USED to be my closest ally in my confrontation with all things hypocritical in the "baha'i"over-administration.

I thought Baha'u'llah's Great Grand Daughter came across quite well. I think she has good genes!

This was great!
Watching it I felt like Orwell was writing 1984 again.

Something is wrong we the Faith, smoke and mirrors, hands moving fast.

This movie adds to the group of knowlege.

Loved it

Fritz

Wow!

That was great! Holy Toledo!

When in my life will I ever get to see the underground supermarket or parking? What great shots of the gardens with the gardeners gardening.

The underground tunnel to the UHJ? The Bomb Shelter?

And how about the David Kelly espionage pursuit.
What a great piece of intent and labor!

Even the bits with Baha'u'llah's grand-daughter (no reason to doubt that at all. She's got the pictures) and with Fred Glaysher. They are wonderfully objective and really speak for themselves.

IF this Faith does attain a modicum of millenial endurance - if it does grow as projected - then this film will be eventually seen as an endeavour of utmost importance and value.

thanks for posting it.

Peace,
Brian

>> I thought Baha’u'llah’s Great Grand Daughter came across quite well.

Hmmm, she also is exceedingly proud of being directly related to Mirza Muhammad Ali -- who caused overwhelming problems and pain to Baha'u'llah, Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi. It's like watching the grand daughter of Judas brag about how much he contributed to the growth of Christianity.

...And people wonder why she is not welcomed into the Baha'i Community?

It is very unfair to blame this lady for for liking her father and grandfather. I never know any religion that ex-communicate its members. This sounds more like a cult or at best a political entity than a religion. Wahid Azal has an excellent site exposing the very Mirza Hussein Ali (aka bahaullah).

Hi Glen,

When did Mirza Muhammad Ali cause Baha'u'llah pain in His lifetime? Do you have some inside scholarly information you can post here that nobody else has? Baha'u'llah gave him, as His son along with Abdu'l-Baha, a position in the Faith in His Will and testament upon His passing in 1892 didn't He? Or do I have this wrong? After that is apparently when people seemed to not have good parental supervision or something.

As a Baha'i I believe that Baha'u'llah did receive a tremendous Revelation from the Cosmos and really is the Divine Teacher for this just beginning World Age.

I also believe that, unfortunately, Baha'u'llah received it coming out of the dysfunctional and warped Arab original desert waste primitive North Jersey Sopranos culture of Islam where a man can have multiple wives and this causes way too much eventual psychological baggage in families among full and half siblings.

This is the unfortunate psychological root of the problem of "covenant breakers" in the sad and most unfortunate history of the Baha'i Faith. Too many mommies and too many step siblings and their dysfunctional descendants so people just could not get it together in life as one big happy family like they should have to help the Faith.

It certainly wasn't Baha'u'llah's fault. He was born into that warped culture and in my opinion magnificently transcended this handicap by creating something truly remarkable that still could do quite well if real adults started to appear in it at some point over the next one thousand years.

But this very same societal dysfunctionality plagues us in spades down to this very day. Osama Bin Laden was the 50th child in a psychologically warped family in that same culture. An apparently not too well adjusted guy in life. A guy that should have taken some of his millions and got on the analyst's couch with some ink blots to look at.

Baha'u'llah did channel the Divine Message for this World Age and I for one feel this Mission should be honored by advanced spiritual insight and conduct among the Baha'is.

So I say we should all start to forgive and forget and be loving with all people. I did not detect this "unseeming proudness" in her at all that you mention.

The photos and genealogy "on-camera" riff was just to establish that she really is the Great Grand Daughter of Baha'u'llah. Pretty much Chapter One, Paragraph One, Sentence One at UCLA documentary film school.

The Baha'i Faith may start to advance again in the world in due time when it once again goes into the hands of open, broad minded, spiritually advanced people instead of petty narrow minded followers of blind imitation on their hand-me-down path of life. Fearful people that must keep coloring between the lines in life. I say people should start to lean to paint like Henri Matisse. Learn to paint in the colors of life.

I would be happy to have tea with this woman. I would find it quite interesting. As I said, "good genes" !

1. Bahaullah himself had 3 known wives the youngest married him when she was 8 years old.

2. His claim of prophecy was based on Bab (Ali Muhammad) who first claim to be the gate (bab = gate) to comming Mahdi then he claimed to be the Mahdi himself, then claimed to be a new prophet and eventually the God. In his arabic Bayan Bab says upon becommin powerful his followers should burn all other books except his and says even though the books be printed books and instead an arabic word he says "Wa Lau Cana CHAPA". Chap is a Farsi word that he used in his Arabic writing indicative of his very low knowledge of Arabic. All one has to do is to read his writing to see how illeterate he was. Bab is the base for Bahaullah, when the base is so weak the rest is not much better than that. No wonder after 160 plus years 5 million follow him and mostly those who are sold to the propoganda of this group and it will fade away in time as they did in their original place of Iran.

1. Baha'u'llah's, May peace be with him, wives had 14 children. So how many followed after that maybe many?

2. In Japanese the language is verbal when printed to make to sentence known they use a Chinese character.

In Arabic, the Koran, when hell or as it is also know as that other place, all the words defining it are Arabic. In, the other other place, all the words that define it are Farsi.

Mohammad, May peace be upon him, was unable to read or write, he did alright.
The Bab, May God give him peace, didn't do to bad also.

Dear Craig,

"I also believe that, unfortunately, Baha'u'llah received it coming out of the dysfunctional and warped Arab original desert waste primitive North Jersey Sopranos culture of Islam where a man can have multiple wives and this causes way too much eventual psychological baggage in families among full and half siblings."

Your comments here are utterly racist, disgraceful to the max and off the mark by quantum levels, revealing your own mentality and deeply ingrained ethnocentrism - a trait exhibited by virtually every last self-professed liberal-disenrolled bahai out there, and now you! If you want to open the can of worms regarding cultural dysfunctionalities, I can open several supermarkets regarding the pathological criminal socipathologies of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Western European genocidal cultural impulses historically rooted (the same one that sent you to 'Nam to kill "gooks" and brought you back completely messed up, hence making you soft to being plucked and brainwashed like a chump by a cult such as Bahaim): one deeply ingrained, whose track record is libraries longer than anything remotely exhibited by Muslim, Arab and Persian Islamicate cultures. Fortunately, unlike the sort of WASP racism that seems to animate your cultural lifeworld, Traditional cultures such those in the Mid East have patented cultural codes of respect and protection that your porno-obsessed, female-commodificatory culturally objectifying materially-obsessed pseudo-civilization of destructive demons can only dream about. Obviously your mind is utterly poisoned by the propaganda and sound-bites of the dubious manufactured consent of your racist media culture in AmeriKKKa.

Now the problem with Bahaism, besides the obvious, is not because of us sand-niggers, but arguably because it got contaminated from the get-go by people like you: deeply resentful cultural, neo-colonizing racist wolves masquerading as liberal-open-minded sheep.

You are an utter creep, like the rest of your liberal friends, and everything you have said is tout court invalidated with this luciferian slip!

Get help!

Wahid

I see the gentleness and love that the course of Islam has followed all these years arising in your reply. (excuse the sarcasm)

Please, allow people to expose themselves, they have a right, we have minds that know what is right and wrong, we can figure it out with out insults and personal feelings.

The term; “liberal-disenrolled bahai out there…” means nothing. Believe me we have some very conservative un-enrolled Baha’is out there, it has become to easy to use the word “liberal” to condemn some-one or some-thing.

You choice of words to describe yourself are interesting and the spelling of “AmeriKKKa” tells a lot about you.

You have my love and will not hate you, you’re a creation of God given a soul to care for and not harm.

With the warmness regards
Fritz Gormann a Bahá’i whose is Jewish

It seems obvious that this post preceeding, many of the comments I have read previously in this blog over a number of months, and the assertions of the elderly woman in the video "Bahais In My Backyard", are rooted in some sense of self seeking for attention or status...or retained and well cultivated umbrage.

It is a fairly well known fact among the Bahais in Haifa that there are a number of the members of Baha u llahs family descendents, from those that were at one time expelled, who have been readmitted but whom choose not to have their affiliation with Him known so that they can serve the Cause without undo attention.

I imagine had this been the position taken by this emminent lady that she too might find a greater personal fulfillment in serving selflesslessly rather than hanging on to some hope of recognition.

Wahid!

How nice to hear from you!

Thanks for that tip on R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz! I'm really into his writings now! Very useful insights!

Best regards,

Craig

Choke on the Temple of Man, racist creep!

Wahid

Wahid,

That would make a very good esoteric bumper sticker!

Blessings,

Craig

PS
Aren't you up a bit early down in Australia?

BTW, "Wolfmother" played great at Live Earth!

No, I'm up at the normal hours one should be up at. The clock on your computer - not to mention your brain - is set wrong.

Wahid

Wahid, I've never erased or censored a comment on this blog. Please allow me to continue not to do so.

No problem. I won't post here again. But since you are considering deleting my comments, kindly contemplate the sort of racism that people calling themselves "liberals" are continually articulating in various fora. I noted that this blog, for instance, had an entry about the Arab children of Islamist groups who are brainwashed to hate, but then were completely silent about the fact that during last summer's campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, all major news outlets where reporting as well as showing how Israeli children where being encouraged and taken to sign bombs being attached to F-16s of the IAF that where about to kill Arab Lebanese children and their families. Nada!

The fact is that where the bahai unenrolled-liberals are concerned there is a very decidedly anti-Mid East, anti-Iranian, pro-US, pro-Anglophone and not so tacitly neo-colonial rhetoric that is continually being rhetoricized by them - as if the rest of the world, and especially the Middle East, are little more than beasts requiring edification and education by the more civilized white man (particularly the American) who has a right to do what he pleases with us. They might not articulate it outright or overtly, unless they be Craig, but it is very much a 'presence' a la Derrida animating the entire discourse of this group from start to finish. And that there is not a single Persian amongst this sub-culture, is also quite revealing.

In ant case, I have said all that needs to be said. Craig needed to be firmly put in his place for that utter ignorant nonsense, since he has been saying this kind of thing unchallenged and in other fora for awhile now.

Adieu!

Wahid

Wahid, you're right. As I've said before, both sides need to make changes for there to be peace.

It is your decision to stay or leave. All I ask of you and everyone else who stops by to share their thoughts is that they do so by speaking of ideas and exchanging views. Personal insults are both unnecessary and unhelpful.

Wahid writes:

"The fact is that where the bahai unenrolled-liberals are concerned there is a very decidedly anti-Mid East, anti-Iranian, pro-US, pro-Anglophone and not so tacitly neo-colonial rhetoric that is continually being rhetoricized by them - as if the rest of the world, and especially the Middle East, are little more than beasts requiring edification and education by the more civilized white man (particularly the American) who has a right to do what he pleases with us. They might not articulate it outright or overtly, unless they be Craig, but it is very much a ‘presence’ a la Derrida animating the entire discourse of this group from start to finish. And that there is not a single Persian amongst this sub-culture, is also quite revealing.

In ant case, I have said all that needs to be said. Craig needed to be firmly put in his place for that utter ignorant nonsense, since he has been saying this kind of thing unchallenged and in other fora for awhile now."

I think it is a bit of a stretch to say I said all this! Somebody is surely looking for drive by enemies to attack in in their limited event horizon psyche in such a mindset. Read my posts here and in other forums. I would be the very first to say that present U.S. policy in the Middle East is catastrophic beyond words. Nor have I ever said that military force solves anything. Quite to the contrary! Nor do I speak in ethnic or national terms in any of my analysis of the present human situation on this planet. I speak in an analysis of psychological archetypes. All currently existing nations, cultures, and "religions" have equally plenty of dysfunctional ineptitude and stupidity to go around. Nobody has a monopoly on it! The franchise is everywhere.

Many of the points Wahid made on Western and U.S. culture are quite valid. I'm not defending anything racist at all or the superiority of any one race or culture. I'm just saying that in my own humble opinion having four wives in a family can lead to dysfunctional psychologies in full and half siblings. That is my theory. Maybe someone has studied this and there is a body of literature on it. I'll have to do some research. This thought only came up for me yesterday in my post so I haven't really looked at any scientific or anecdotal studies. My premise is in the realm of psychology not in the realm of making racist statements. Making racist statements are so, well, mid last century. So retro! Let's examine the psychologies involved in things. Dysfunctional families, dysfunctional religions, dysfunctional governments, dysfunctional posts on Internet blogs are everywhere. Let's study the claims people make and examine the issues.

So Wahid felt the duty to "put me in my place". No big wup. Whatever. I hope he feels better now and can enjoy the day down in Australia.

My whole point was that I, for one, would love to take Baha'u'llah's Great Grand Daughter to tea. I would find it interesting. I have been a legally card carrying Baha'i for 36 years and I think the whole "Covenant Breaker" obsession thing is long past it's usefulness. The current organization of the Baha'i Faith has catastrophicly failed so it may be advisable to start some new discussions while playing shuffleboard on the Titanic. That is all I am ever trying to do. Some might even say that the real Covenant Breakers are in plain site. But that argument is even wearisome to me too. I don't care any more. Witch hunts are just too tedious and boring with all the real life and death issues in the great sorrow and monumental incompetence in the world right now. Let the dead bury their dead.

Craig,

One of your own posts which I forwarded to TRB about a year or so ago explicitly fantasized, in print and in public, about murdering Mitchell, a Jamaican-African member of the uhj, i.e. the dream you had with the shot-gun. Nothing about any of the very Anglo members of the uhj. You instanced a black man. Psychological archetypes indeed. If the archetypes you and your friends like Bacquet, the Marshalls and company keep articulating is anything to go by, I think ya'll would be much better served donning white hoods and burning a few crosses on front lawns to get it out of your systems. Also I doubt you are yourself unaware of the ingrained enthnocentricism that trickles out of many of your posts on Talisman9 or ex-bahai from time to time; or that when push comes to shove - whatever principle you claim to profess on a given matter - you pull rank with your "own," as you did on ex-bahai with me (an act of unforgivable but all too typical "liberal" spineless, if there ever was)!

Also, besides the very American-backed and sponsored Wahhabi state of Sa'udi Arabia and the corrupt Gulf Arab sheikhdoms which your country is quite chummy with, how many Muslim socities do you know of first hand where the 4 wives thing is a predominant norm? Thanks to the merciless economic and military imperialism of your country, most people can barely afford to feed themselves, let alone to afford feeding 4 mouths plus the offspring they might produce. Get out of the provincial "white" insularity of middle AmeriKKKa and you'll begin experiencing a different world altogether. And maybe the examples you give in some of your otherwise great posts won't be as ignorant-sounding and ethnocentric as before whenever you instance us sand-negros as your "archetypes" of cultural degradation. And go read Marshall Hodgson to edify your mind a little about Islamicate civilization, and if you have the stomach read some Franz Fanon to boot

Wahid X

Craig,

I just wanted to congratulate you for being so polite. These internet trolls can be very frustrating, but whatever you do, don't get mad. That'a what trolls want. Just try to ignore them and keep providing your insights. Hopefully they will get bored and go away.

As for your comments about family dysfunction, I don't think that you're trying to say that this is limited to any culture. Every culture has presents its own variations, but the theme of messed-up family is universal.

What I don't get is how Glen and Sincere Friend can both pick on this lady. She seems very classy and I don't see how she can be blamed for being proud of her ancestry -- aren't we all?

I certainly don't see any the attention-getting egotism that SF mentions. I admit that I could be plausibly charged with this -- I made a choice to talk about public issues publicly. But this lady didn't choose her ancestors because she liked the attention... That's what life handed her.

Just my two cents. Good to hear from you, as always.

Brendan

>>Craig said: When did Mirza Muhammad Ali cause Baha’u'llah pain in His lifetime? Do you have some inside scholarly information you can post here that nobody else has?

Dear Craig,

In the "Revelation of Baha'u'llah" it indicates that while Baha'u'llah was in Adrianople Mirza Muhammad Ali wrote and distributed writings "...which he claimed were the verses of God and like those of his father, sent down by divine Revelation. In these writings he refers to himself as the revealer of the word of God, he who has ushered in the most great revelation, and through whose words all creation came into being!" "...Baha'u'llah severely rebuked Mirza Muhammad-Ali for his preposterous claims and chastised him with His own hand." Baha'u'llah later wrote a tablet referring specifically to Muhammad Ali which stated that should he for a moment pass out from the shadow of the Cause, he surely shall be brought to naught.
Revelation of Baha'u'llah Vol 2 p.260-261

As far as explaining away Muhammad Ali's behavior simply as the result of a dysfunctional family -- this argument could be used to dismiss any crime that has been committed through the ages. But does this mean that we should overlook the actions of Hitler -- or be charmed by one of his family members who happily displays his paintings in her home?

Here is what Abdu'l-Baha said about her grandfather Mirza Muhammad Ali:

"So grievous the deeds of this iniquitous person became that he struck with his axe at the root of the Blessed Tree, dealt a heavy blow at the Temple of the Cause of God, deluged with tears of blood the eyes of the loved ones of the Blessed Beauty, cheered and encouraged the enemies of the One True God, by his repudiation of the Covenant turned many a seeker after Truth aside from the Cause of God, revived the blighted hopes of Yahyá’s following, made himself detested, caused the enemies of the Greatest Name to become audacious and arrogant, put aside the firm and conclusive verses and sowed the seeds of doubt. Had not the promised aid of the Ancient Beauty been graciously vouchsafed at every moment to this one, unworthy though he be, he surely would have destroyed, nay exterminated the Cause of God and utterly subverted the Divine Edifice."
Will and Testament of Abdu'l-Baha p5-6

and further:

"...A thousand times shun his company. Take heed and be on your guard. Watch and examine; should anyone, openly or privily, have the least connection with him, cast him out from your midst, for he will surely cause disruption and mischief. "
Will and Testament of Abdu'l-Baha p21

So now the question may be: How proud is this granddaughter of her relation to Mirza Muhammad Ali? Personally, I would take her comments as she opened the cabinet that contained the photo of Muhammad Ali and his sons-- as well as her enthusiasm as she displayed the final piece of calligraphy that he had produced (no doubt completed around the same time as he was making false accusations against the Beloved Guardian) -- as evidence enough that she revers and upholds her connection to him.

So, I think it's safe to say that I won't be joining you for tea ;-)

"But does this mean that we should overlook the actions of Hitler — or be charmed by one of his family members who happily displays his paintings in her home?"

Hitler ranks third among the butchers of an unspeakably bloody century. After Mao and Stalin he was responsible for more deaths than anyone else, and that's a lot. He brought ruin to several great nations, including his own, and he came close to extirpating an entire people from much of Europe. Compared to his crimes, any wrongs done by Mirza Muhammed Ali scarely register. On that scale, at least, they're hardly wrongs at all.

And Hitler's crimes are also different in that they are quantifiable -- anyone can count the dead. But the things Mirza Muhammed Ali did are more a matter of opinion. This lady doesn't feel the same way about Shoghi Effendi as you do, or as I do, so her grandfather's actions don't appear in the same light. I'm not saying she's right, but it's important in terms of coming to a considered judgment of her actions. It's important in that she can still be, as she seems, a good and gracious person, while holding these opinions.

Which is all prologue to saying that I would be much more shocked by a relative cherishing one of Hitler's paintings. If you want to equate that with being proud of the photos and caligraphy of one of Baha'u'llah's sons, then you are casting aside all sense of moral proportion. You are diminishing one of the most heinous records of murder in the last century to the point of equivalency, or at least near-equivalency, with a sectarian feud between factions within a religion.

Brendan

Sorry that my reference distracted from the real point of the post. My response was meant to comment on the idea that Muhammad Ali's behavior was simply "dysfunctional". To make this point less complicated, just go back to my original comment about Judas -- or respond to the quotes of Abdu'l-Baha on the actions of Muhammad Ali.

The point is that nearly everyone here is charmed by the 3 minutes of footage that they saw in a video -- and completely ignores the fact that she in no way distances herself from the despicable acts her grandfather committed.

So pick any "iniquitous" person in history that you want -- unless their granddaughter clearly distanced herself from their actions, I certainly wouldn't consider them "classy" or look forward to having tea with them.

Glen,

You apologize for distracting us by mentioning Hitler, but then you tell us to pick any "iniquitous" person and compare him to Abdu'l-Baha's brother Mohammed Ali. Who are we talking about now? Ivan the Terrible? Caligula? Dick Cheney? The real villains of history have the blood of tens of thousands of people on their hands: minimum. Being proud of being descended from them -- I might call that distasteful. But as far as I can tell Mirza Mohammed Ali never ruined a whole country or butchered untold thousands.

You ask me to compare him to Judas, but that's my point exactly. How much of a villain Judas is depends on your religion. For someone who believes Jesus is the Only Begotten Son of God, Judas is one of the greatest traitors in history. But if you don't believe in the divinity of Jesus, Judas is just another sleazy guy who betrayed his friends, and there are a lot of those.

As I see it, it's the same with Mirza Mohammed Ali. I hear he tried to kill his brother, which is pretty awful, but it's not enough for me to hate his granddaughter. She's not a Baha'i, at least not in the sense we use the word, and she doesn't think of him the way Christians think of Judas. She doesn't consider her grandfather evil, and even if she's mistaken about that, I'm not in any rush to condemn her personally. I would be willing to bet that if we did sit down with her for tea, it would be lovely. I would rate the chance of her slipping anyone poison as very low indeed.

Brendan

Don't mean to cause a digression but didn't the Gospel of Judas call into question the perception of Judas as a betrayer?

And regarding tea, I don't believe she has invited either of you (just joking).

;-)

On a more serious note, I wonder about something. What if a descendant of Baha'u'llah's family were to not know of their lineage. Would you have to shun her/him simply because of their family tree? I wonder because Glen mentioned that they would have to distance themselves from their ancestors. What if they have no idea what is what? Should they still be shunned? What if you and a descendant of Baha'u'llah were to meet without either one of you knowing there was a connection between that person and Baha'u'llah... and you happened to say, purchase a refreshing glass of pomegranate juice from them on the street in Akka. Would you have done something wrong in engaging in a transaction and conversation with that person? Why or why not?

Baquia -

re: Judas - Without getting into this in any significant length, the questions that must be asked of the writer of the Gospel of Judas are the same as that which must asked of any writer. Who are you, what are your intentions, and just how honest are you? With two millenia between that person and us, I'll leave that to the scholars.

Baha'is do not judge others by the actions of their forebears. The woman in the video could just as easily take pride in her relationship to 'Abdu'l-Baha, and show by her actions her desire to emulate His example, as Baha'is everywhere are wont to do. Right now, it's apparent this woman is making a different choice. She is free to change, as no person's faith is conditioned by the faith of another, or the faith of their family members.

I would like to add that as far as the Baha'i Faith is concerned today, prophethood, special status, or entitlement to veneration is not passed on biologically. The line of succession in the Faith is the result of specific appointments in the respective Wills of Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha. The Guardianship? If God had wished for there to be more guardians, Shoghi Effendi would have had a child, and that child would have been worthy of the position and the responsibility. He didn't, so he didn't.

Your "prophet" begged to disagree wih you. He very much believed special veneration was biologiocally grounded. Here are his own words on the matter:

Tablet of O Creator of all Creation


O Creator of all that hath been created!

This is that which hath been sent down from the primeval heaven and in it is established the station of excellence wherein is made apparent the beauty of God on the throne of the name of might. And verily he is the Promised One mentioned by every name in all the tablets, if ye be of those who know. In the Bayan he was named He who shall appear and he shall [indeed] be manifested in mustaghath with sovereign distinction. Say, by God, this is the day the like of which hath not been witnessed by the eyes of the unseen, let alone those who are of
the veiled. So praised be to the one who is present on that day between my divine hands with an invulnerable submissiveness and recites this
tablet in front of that throne so that God may hear his melodies which were revealed from before between the heavens and the earths; and, by
this, the name hath been mentioned in the place wherein God hath made holy in all that is mentioned in the worlds. Verily in this tablet we have not desired to mention this but that it is my own self, the protector of the worlds. [And] whosoever anticipates another revelation after me, verily he is of those who have gone astray, for verily he
who shall appear after one-thousand [years], indeed he will speak in my name; and he shall come in mustaghath, testifying in my name in that I
am God, the lord of the heavens and the earths. None hath understood this revelation other than a few, for he is cognizant of all things. Hold fast after me, O people, to the branches which have branched from the ancient root. By them the fragrant scents of my garment are wafted among the worlds, and [none] shall find it except [those who] turn to
the straight [path]. It behoveth thee, O people of Baha', to hold steadfast in the cause of God in your days in every state and [thereby safeguard yourselves] from following every ignorant sinner. And after the branches, for the pious servant present in front of this throne, [we have made] an elevated station. It behoveth thee to account the
family from amongst who the beloved of the worlds appeared with the highest respect: Of those who have believed in God, the dearly precious, the praised. Likewise was it revealed in the Bayan and in this luminous tablet. Whoever turns away from them, verily he is among the infidels and those who associated partners with God and among those
who have lost, unless he turn and repent, for verily he is the forgiver, the merciful.

Brendan -

I think you got it with your own words. If my grandfather or great-grandfather was known to have pretended to reveal the Word of God, was known to have attempted murder, was known to have repeatedly betrayed members of his family, including his own brother before his father's earthly remains had the chance to cool??? You would not find me showing off photos of him and bragging about his calligraphy. I'm just saying.

In my own case, I know my ancestors a couple of centuries back held slaves. I don't have shackles on the mantle to show this off.

When I get to Haifa, I'll be having tea I hope with people a bit more humble and a bit less prideful.

"If my grandfather or great-grandfather was known to have pretended to reveal the Word of God, was known to have attempted murder, was known to have repeatedly betrayed members of his family, including his own brother before his father’s earthly remains had the chance to cool???"

Michael,

This really begs the question, you can only condemn her if you begin by assuming she sees everything the way you do. This lady doesn't *know* that her grandfather *pretended* to be Baha'u'llah's successor. That's an opinion that you have, and even which I have, but which she doesn't necessarily share. She also doesn't *know* that her grandfather betrayed Abdu'l-Baha, she may have been raised to believe it was the other way round.

I'm not saying she's correct, but it matters in terms of understanding where she's coming from. But are you willing to do that? Are you willing to understand, in any situation, how someone can have convictions different from your own? I think that this is the test of our ability to live in a civilized society, to respect convictions we don't share. We all fall short sometimes, but I think we still need to try.

Brendan

Brendan -

To be precise, I did not "condemn" her, and in my post I emphasized Baha'u'llah's teaching that no person's faith may be conditioned by another. Concommitant to that is the importance the Faith places on the individual investigation of spiritual truth. Each of us has our own path, our own challenges, and Baha'u'llah assures us we will not be tested beyond our abilities.

Two words can best describe the documentary Amature and Boring......

P.S. Admin i bet you got all praises for the documentary as thats the whole point of your blog... to bring down the Bahai's

Bored_Guy,
well, everyone is entitled to their personal opinion. Thanks for sharing yours.

As for your bet, I'm afraid it is a losing proposition. I have no interest to "bring down the Baha'is". I am a Baha'i myself after all (or would like to think so since otherwise the UHJ would look silly with me walking around with a Baha'i ID). And as I first mentioned here, how exactly can one mortal "bring down" the Baha'i Faith when:

"The Hand of Omnipotence hath established His Revelation upon an unassailable, an enduring foundation. Storms of human strife are powerless to undermine its basis, nor will men’s fanciful theories succeed in damaging its structure."

If you wish to know why this blog exists, please read the first post I wrote called boringly, Introduction.

Brendan Cook can call me a troll all he likes with impunity when his absolutely disgraceful and duplicitous behavior, publicly displayed by this individual, towards a woman of exceptional integrity, viz. Brid, speaks volumes for itself. Cook is an all too typical example of the sort of double-standards and hypocrisy typified by the so-called "liberal" bahaim sub-culture, not to mention the racism that animates this group of individuals as a whole. If Craig has something to say, let him say it himself, instead of these dubious individuals of the so-called liberal posse coming to pull rank around him.

What are you afraid of?

Wahid

I enjoyed the film, though it did drag a bit (lots of filler). I thought the filmmakers could have done a bit more preparatory research than to just read that one book in Hebrew (by Moshe Sharon), but alas, that seems to be the way of journalists.

When Mr. Smith came in person to break the bad news to one of the producers (was it Naama or Asaf?) about not being able to join, I thought that was a very classy, chivalrous gesture on his part.

I loved the interview with Nigar Bahai Amsalem, and wish some researcher would go do this in-depth for her and the other relatives while they're still around. When the film talked about getting "back on track" I was thinking "what, all this great history and you want to go chasing after underground bunkers?" By the way, does anyone know Ms. Amsalem's religious identity? I assume she identifies as a Muslim, and that her reference to being "Baha'i" was just a turn of phrase. Yes, it does seem "childish" for the Baha'is to shun her, if that is indeed what they are doing. (If she has never been a Baha'i, then they wouldn't have to shun her even according to their own rules, am I right?)

Who do the "conspiracy" people think killed David Kelly? The Baha'is? His own government spooks? And what was their motivation supposed to be? I recall reading someone (Wahid?) suggesting that the Baha'is wanted an Iraq war in order to get their shrines back, so maybe Kelly was supposed to lie to his own government about WMD's...? ("Welcome to the faith! Now there's something we want you to do for us, hardly any trouble at all...") No, I'm not persuaded that the Baha'is did anything, and suspect the "unpublished" testimony involved Kelly and Pederson's private life. Anyway, I feel sorry for Mai Pederson, for having all these people trying to track her down, and am glad the national Baha'is had the presence of mind to refrain from giving out her contact info.

Fredrick Glaysher never got to explain exactly why he was so paranoid. I mean, does he expect the Baha'is to shoot him or what?

I think the Baha'is came out of this okay. Their representatives were polite, professional, and reasonably open, given the tenor of the documentary.

"Dawud" muddying waters, as usual.

Negar Bahai Anselem explicitly identified herself as a Bahai, in fact emphasizing "True Bahai," so whither does the question "does she identify herself as a Muslim," one needs to ask? Seriously.

In every facet, this film makes the Bahais in Haifa and those tied to the Haifan organization look like total NWO cultist creeps. Here is what one recent correspondent wrote (profanities censored):

"yep, scary as ****. barney's a ****** tool, and how'd that ancient couple in no. cal. know not to talk 'beyond a certain point' on the subject of kelly? they're barely cognitive, yet were drilled with some sense of rules.

funny enough, i saw more of that place in said film than when i was over there over a decade ago.

what ******* nonsense."

And here's what another said a few days ago,

"I had never seen this place in Haifa - it's too contrived and the
architecture is austere, foreboding and smacks of wealth, power and
control. There's just a very bad feeling inside the gates (which
incidently are sinsiter in their excessive height). I don't get the
same feeling here about the hammered stone as say Hagia Sophia in
Istanbul, or the Imam Mosque in Isfahan which were labours of love. I
have stood inside both of these and felt perfectly calm - I'm sure I
would tense up completely if I was to enter this Bahai compound. Can
only think of this as a compound, certainly not getting any sense of
the religious here.

The embedded energy in the stone gives me very negative vibes. It's
all too neat, too perfect, too much a statement of materiality. And
it's also a deception, a temporary deception of those poweful within
temporality that they are indeed powerful when in universal terms they
will not be in power for long

bas!"

Do all Bahais have the ID with the barcode?

Thought the most telling parts of this were the woman's face when she
didn't want to comment upon death of David Kelly - her knowing
expression. I personally never ever thought it was suicide.

Also that bit 'permitted to be part of a future world police force' -
that's quite scary

About needing things/items/paraphernalia ...
These people need so much, take away all that they possess in the
Bahai context and they would be little more than affluent clones in
suits. True love of Allah requires nothing doesn't it.

They struck me very much as a cult that draws in people of certain
wealth and position. Can't really imagine down and out types being
welcomed.

What are they planning for? It's just this finite world they can't
overrride what will happen.

Thanks for the link to this
bye for now

PS - Talk about a change of tone, did not expect stiff and stiff to
crop up in the middle of this. We don't have ads quite like that
here"

Either "Dawud" was, as usual, not paying careful attention or watching a completely different film altogether. Of course, I have held for a couple of years now that "Dawud" - claiming to be a non-bahai yet so overly interested in bahaim things, saying he is an academic in Taiwan specializing in Buddhism yet exclusively devoting his under that alias to Bahaim things - is not what he claims to be; this, since as I hold - and as Naama highlighted - the entire Haifan Bahaim organization is crawling with intelligence hacks and Western government intelligence interests and agendas top down.

Watch the film again, "Dawud," if you can bring yourself to do so!

Wahid

Wahid, I suggest that you get one of those little computer-cameras, film your own expose, and put it on You-Tube.

Along the way, be sure to explain what the conspiracy is actually about (I assume a conspiracy will be mentioned), who is in on it, how it works, and what evidence there is for all this, other than people's feelings of uneasiness. After all, we wouldn't want the waters to get muddied.

I look forward to learning my own role in all this. Fortunately my university continues to labor under the delusion that I am teaching for them (fools!) while I secretly...but that would be telling.

No need, when I have conscientious citizens of the state of Israel who are sick to the death of the organization you represent who supports and has propped the Haifan Bahaim cult (as well as other dubious groups or organizations), and has been progressivelu leading Israel and the rest of the Mid East into a path of destruction, doing it for me and as full scale, network prime TV documentaries seen by thousands and millions. But if it's all the same to you, I am curious as heck to know what a "Zlaod Dawud" who claims to be a Buddhologist in Taiwan no one has ever heard of or seen before actually looks like. Have at it, YouTube is all your exclusive disposal.

And just so you know, BAHAIS IN MY BACKYARD was only the first installment in a series building up to a crescendo revealing what is "actually" behind this sinister organization.

Wahid

Oh excellent. (I take it you know these guys, then...?) Do you know when are the next installments coming out, and what will they be about? So I can run and warn my Baha'i masters, you understand...

There's a photo of me on my university website, btw. www.hcu.edu.tw (unfortunately you have to navigate it in Chinese) Handsome devil, ain't I?

Do learn to understand not-so-subtle allusions when they're thrown your way, eh "Zlaod," after all you're supposed to be a tenured Buddhologist at Taiwan University (who no one has ever actually heard of). I never said your specific "masters" were the Haifan Bahaim. I do however believe on firm, solid evidence that the same people who once pulled Mai Pederson's strings, pull yours.

Now I put "Zlaod Dawud" Taiwanese Buddhologist of Tibetan descendent past a few people in Buddhist studies (specifically the Tibetan sub-branch of the field), Robert Thurman amongst them, who are in a position to know these things and know virtually everyone in the field you claim to be a part of. Everyone explicitly said they'd never heard of you and that there is no one as an eminent Buddhologist by that name in Taiwan.

That picture could be anyone. But in the field you claim to represent, the people who actually matter in the field have no idea who you are. Nor would this explain why you have any active interest in Bahaism when you're supposedly a Buddhologist.

Now what were you saying, again, about Madame Negar?

Wahid

From the start of this documentary it appears these film makers thought they would unravel some juicy secrets about the UHJ. I guess in the end they didn't find the "forbidden underground city" they were looking for... LOL

Friends, consider the possibility that maybe the UHJ limits where people can and can't go for harmless reasons, and not because of some weird conspiracy. Maybe those bomb shelters were put up to protect holy documents in case of an emergency, as well as people. I get the vibe that nowadays we're all a bit too skeptical about the world. And who can blame us with all the crazy stuff going on in the world today?

All in all, the Baha'i ideals are centered around world peace and unity. Sounds like a nice idea to me!

John,
I got the sense that it was all tongue in cheek. But then again, I've got my tin foil hat on (just in case).

Wahid, I never claimed to be an "emanent Buddhologist" on the order of "Buddha Bob" Thurman, just an enthusiastic amateur. (Next year I hope to study through the Institutio Lama Tzongkhapa.)

And based on my limited knowledge of the CIA, I doubt they would be interested in your internet activities.

ok guys, please knock it off. This is going off topic and getting personal. thanks

An admission. We've made progress. Good to know that yanky spooks take me seriously. But we already knew that, go ask Uncle Chuckie, he'll tell ya...


As for the comment by "John," the sleight of handing by the Bahaim here is quite hillarious, and being noticed far and wide I might add. The producers of BAHAIS IN MY BACKYARD were deliberately barred from seeing anything other than what the apparatchicks of the WC determined for them to see, in the same manner that, say, a documentary film maker taking footage of the Kremlin in the 1930s would've had their movements controlled and barred from seeing more. That was "evident as the noon day sun." Yet what was shown was an eyeful, enough to demonstrate to objective viewers (no Haifan Bahaim amongst them) that we're dealing with both a quantitatively as well as a qualitatively different sort of organization than what Bahaim propaganda claims regarding itself, and decidedly of the sinister sort: The meglomaniacal architecture aside, open and overt admissions of support for World-Government and International Police force platforms, being one of the countless. I'm sure someone like Alex Jones, for instance, would have an absolute field day with this doco. Hmmmm, now there's an idea......

Wahid

Can anyone upload this again ? The torrent is dead

The torrent is fine. You can also download it from google video, see instructions in post.

THANKS my bad

Never was much of an instruction follower

Wow what a film! An underground library? whoa, this is like the divinci code. Such a professional film, too, and the investigative work! hope the sarcasm is not lost on anyone :)

I admit I am confused, why was David Icke interviewed in this film at that hotel?

hello. i tried to watch the video, however, it does not appear to work. and the google video button only takes me to Google video home page. i looked at the instructions for downloading the video through the 'bit torrent' feature, but it appears both too complicated for me (i am not an advanced computer user) and also a bit unsafe, as i dont want to use file-sharing programmes on my computer.

do i have another option to watch this film? is there another link to google or youtube with it? thank you!

visitor, it will be fixed soon, come back in a day or two.

Well, as a Baha'i I think it was an interesting film, but hardly worth making a fuss over. I think it's long past time to end the feud with Baha'u'llah's family. I would have loved to know what the grand-daughter meant by saying she was a "true Baha'i." In fact I would love to see a film just interviewing her without all the other distractions.

The whole Fred Glaysher thing is scary, shifty eyes and all, what was that supposed to show, and who the heck buys houses from that man?

The Baha'i Technique

"Slanderous Vilification" = The Baha'i Technique - Ad Hominem, Libel,
Slander, Demonize, Scapegoat, Ostracize, Shun, Banish, Backbite,
Defame, Vilify, Discredit, Smear, Revile, Suppress, Attack, Bully,
Intimidate, Threaten, Malign, Blackball, Deceive, Coerce, Silence,
Harass... etc., etc.... CAUTION NON-BAHAIS

Secretary-General (Right Honorable Reverend?) Albert Lincoln stated:

"The Baha'i Faith is the first religion in the history of the world to function without a clergy and on a democratic basis."

Wrong. George Fox and the Quakers (Christian) hold that honor. They still do. There are no Quaker Secretary-Generals either.

"The best way to avoid a dispute is simply not to have a conversation."

Wrong again (so much for the democratic basis). The best way to avoid dispute resolution is simply not to have a conversation.

"The authority of the institutions maintains the unity of the community."

Scary. Very very very scary. A unity maintained by institutional authority is a false unity. Authentic unity cannot be enforced. That is slavery, not unity.

The Archives Building is an exact replica of the Parthenon? Fromage. Hideous architectural monuments. The Baha'i gardens ... "don't touch the rocks, the flowers, the water." Oh, God. These people. Where are they from? Were they cloned from alien eggs? So bizarre. A pristine Disneyland for the anemic soul.

Baha'is have a Baha'i ID number on their cards? Heaven help us. And I thought the ban on practicing homosexuals was the most objectionable thing about the religion. There's a truckload of bizarre elements. Very very bizarre.

Oh. And filtration is spelled FILTRATION not FILTERATION (as in the sign on the FILTERATION ROOM). Those of you who are reading this in the UHJ might want to make note of that.

The Australian commercial for ERECTION PROBLEMS was very funny. And particularly apt.

Baha'i cannot carry arms so Israeli security guards do it for them. Maybe there was a reason why Baha'u'llah forbade the carrying of arms: maybe He didn't believe Baha'i should be erecting monumental religious theme parks that need to be defended by force of arms. Just a thought.

Finally: Nigar Bahai Ansalem, the great-granddaughter of Baha'u'llah.

She seems like a lovely woman. I warmed to her immediately. I'd be happy to have her as my neighbor. I'd like to take her shopping. I don't understand some of the comments I've read that seem to paint her as the bastion of all evil. Crazy people. Religion is like an infection to them.

She said (of her being shunned): "I think personally it's very childish."

I think personally anyone with a shred of sanity would agree with her. Childish and reprehensible.

I think the Baha'i need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They should bring in some Christians to show them how to do it and teach them what "reconciliation" means because clearly they haven't got a clue.

These are just some of the reactions I had while watching this film. The (old) Baha'i in the U.S. who were interviewed seemed really sweet. The ones in Israel seemed really scary. Are they real? Or robots? Like in the film "Westworld." Humans replaced by robots to staff a theme park.

A very illuminating film. I think the people at Baha'i Headquarters in Haifa are living in a (very well subsidized) dreamworld. But dream on, baby, dream on.

Dear reviewers,

It is interesting to watch this film from the Baha'i perspective. For those of you who have watched this film and believe that there is something secret or weird going on in the Baha'i Faith: well you are correct in a certain way.

The reason I say this is that I see several different dynamics at play in this sort-of-documentary style film. I think that the Baha'i Faith is difficult to understand or to familiarize with because it is so different from everything else. It depends on whether we wish to see things with an open eye or if we are always choosing our own presuppositions and prejudices. It is easy, based on personal past experiences, for someone to read into what they see loads of additional stuff that just isn't there.

So I will attempt to shed a little light of my own understanding on a few of those things which seem to be the cause of concern for some people here. For the most part, this includes things that seem to be one thing but are really in fact something else.

Where some might see a set of perfect buildings and nice gardens as material centered, they are in fact meant as a testament to the aesthetic order and beauty of God's creation: that the physical world may become a reflection of the spiritual world. ("...Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven") And cleanliness and the attainment of perfections are Baha'i principles.

I should also say that some of the people interviewed were not Baha'is, and the tour guides of the gardens are not Baha'is either. In my estimation, the tour guide did not want anyone to touch anything because they felt responsible for the actions of their tour group and was probably very proud of the Baha'i Gardens being in her city and did not want to reduce its matchless nature. The gardens and buildings were built by people from many different countries and were the followers of many different religions, including Christians, Jews, and Muslims. It was a labor of love in which everyone prayed together for the success of the projects. It is said that there is an overwhelming spirit of joy, happiness, power, perfection and spirituality in the gardens.

Where some might see underground shelters and grocery stores as secretive post-apocalyptic, they are in fact only a reflection of the terrible conditions of the world coupled with building code (in Israel all major constructions must have bomb shelters...I do recall rocket attacks from Militant organizations raining in on Haifa not too long ago on the news). There is an entire staff of 700 people from over 100 different nations around the world working in there. Having resources ensures an efficient and self-sufficient environment, and bomb protection is safest for their lives and that of priceless tablets and manuscripts.

Where some might see polite and careful representatives of the Baha'i World Centre as robotic and dreamlike, they are in fact very nice and wonderful people who are down to Earth and extremely humble. They are methodical and precise because the Baha'i World Centre is very efficient, but they are also very reserved because much responsibility has been placed on them to keep the Centre running flawlessly. And as a side note: the reason that everyone at the Baha'i World Centre is talking about the administrative component of the Baha'i Faith is because they are being interviewed at the centre of worldwide Baha'i Administration! In other words, they are talking about it because that is what they are being asked about and because it is their job (work in administration and facilitation).

Where some might see the relatives of Baha'u'llah's family as evidence to a childish approach on behalf of Baha'is, in fact is more the reverse. The teachings of Baha'u'llah are very clear in the Holy Text and the actions of their ancestors are clear in history. A conversation where its participants are not united is not considered to be a true conversation. Disunity and division from within the Baha'i Faith are forbidden by Baha'u'llah. Baha'i Institutions and their authority do not engage in forcing unity, only facilitating it. These descendents of the Holy Family are not held to actions or attitudes that they did not do or have, they are welcome to join the Baha'i community anytime and put behind them the actions of their ancestors (in the genuine sense). In fact, I have heard that some of these descendents may have already done so.

Where some might see armed non-Baha'i security as a sign of circumventing Baha'i teachings, in fact is a result of Israeli military and police forces ensuring protection to centers of tourist revenue and spiritual or religious sites with their country. Just because Baha'is do not believe in having or using weapons does not mean that they forced their beliefs upon others. The Baha'i security guards that work there are in fact very young 20 year old youth who volunteer and are armed with nothing much more than a radio or cell phone. Small side note: Baha'u'llah called upon the construction and planning of these gardens, buildings, and Shrines. So why are there 19 terraces of beautiful trees, plants, and flowers set amidst various majestic marble buildings: it is the future spiritual capital of the world!

In any case, it is simple to misread some of the awe and wonderment of these Holy and Spiritual places, not to mention a religion that does not follow the traditions of the past, but with a little research one can come to know the spiritual beauty for what it truly is.

My best,
Wingman9

Thank you, Wingman9, for taking the time to write a thoughtful and polite response! I second everything you wrote. The paranoid and suspicion in the comments here and in the movie are grounded in misunderstanding. We should strive to learn more about each other and see things from another's perspective, rather than assume the worst.

Haifa resident (non-Baha'i)

"That the physical world may become a reflection of the spiritual world."

It already is.

"And cleanliness and the attainment of perfections are Baha’i principles."

It certainly looks clean, in a sterile kind of way.

"A conversation where its participants are not united is not considered to be a true conversation."

This is a concept that is unique to the Haifan Baha'i organization. Conversation does not presume an already established unity; it is meant to build bridges and establish consensus. A conversation in which its participants are not united is precisely the kind of conversation that the Baha'i need to have, but probably never will.

"So why are there 19 terraces of beautiful trees, plants, and flowers set amidst various majestic marble buildings: it is the future spiritual capital of the world!"

Uh-huh. Sure. Of course it is.

Thanking all of you for your comments...

Just a few thoughts: First regarding conversation. I do not feel that conversation presumes unity; I agree that it can help build bridges and understanding. What I said is that the participants need to be united. This is why so many peace talks fail, because there is nothing keeping them at the table, no unity with the others there to sit-it-out until a solution is devised. Yes, in this sense, the Baha'i Faith is very unique. Baha'u'llah even says that the peace and security of the world are unattainable without its unity being first firmly established. When we say conversation, we are not talking about it in the traditional sense. In the Baha'i sense, we are talking about consultation, which is partly democratic and mostly prayerful. Consultation is a decision making process that calls for the clash of various different opinions and ideas and also calls for a close examination of the reality of the problem and the best solution. Its focus is to draw upon the word of God as guidance and the most accurate knowledge of science and other fields as pieces to a solution. Its chief power is prayer: asking the Spiritual Kingdom, asking God to aid the consultation so that the best solution may present itself. There is no debate in consultation, only ideas, and once those ideas leave the vocal chamber of the person who offered them, those ideas are no longer considered his or hers but rather becomes property of the group. It is a humble posture of learning devoid of the fallacies of ego.

Also, regarding the beauty and cleanliness of the gardens and buildings I have said that they need to reflect the divine world. The physical world, in terms of nature, is already reflective of the divine world, on this point I agree. The Baha'i perspective even indicates that they are counterparts or reflection-like in their relationship. What I am referring to, however, are the doings of humanity, their actions and their cities, even their lifestyle: but when we infuse spiritual qualities and true character building in everything that we do, including aesthetics and cleanliness, then we shall ourselves be responsible for a better reflection. Theologically speaking, we are talking about bringing the Kingdom of God on to earth just as it is in the divine realm; by this is meant not only the Kingdom that grows within the individual but also that Kingdom which grows into a very real and solid framework for how we interact and how we devise and build our common civilization.

With love,
Wingman9

The Bahai faith is off track. It would appear that they are hiding something. I hope you will continue to investigate their reasons for such secret dealings in the world. There is a need for transparency and accountability concerning the Universal House of Justice of the Bahai faith.

I think that you are coming to the conclusions that this website wants you to. Every organization or government for that matter has some necessity to function secretly, just as individuals do, and so there should be some degree of privacy and anonymity that is respected, on the other hand there are tendencies in all organizations to adopt practices that are for the survival of the institution above that institutions stated purpose. A mature and critical mind will try to find the distinction between the two when encountering hidden actions.

The UHJ rewrites it's own history and denies academic access to records stored at the library. The Bahais are unaware of manipulation by the UHJ. The UHJ operates like a cult i.e. "good old boys club".

Could you be more specific and give us specific examples of what you say they do?

Perhaps Mary refers to the bowdlerization and selective editing of texts. That I know of, no adequate response has emerged for this serious matter.

That link doesnt work could you be mre specific?

Since the Bahai faith has been subject to three types of ethnic conflicts it maintains a steady state of hegemony by the UHJ and the national spiritual assemblies. These ethnic conflicts start back in Iran towards the Bahai peoples over a 100 years ago.

The conflicts can come into three forms of ethnic discrimination. 1. Elite-level, 2.Mass-level and Structural level. Most Baha'i individuals do not realize the complex interplay of faith's past. Therefore the UHJ has a difficult time relating to world in general and seems very paranoid of it's image. Such an over protected state of being is not healthy. The faith requires a recovery plan but it in the pre-contemplative mind set.

As a result of such a paranoid form of functioning the main body or core of the UHJ may required a shift in it's plans for the faith or face continued outside and inside forces asking of change. The past traumas of the faith will continue to confront the faith and unless a calmer state of being is developed the Bahai world may collapse into on going crisis for funds, new believers, or just difficult times to maintain it's place in the world.

Dr. Mark,

You analysis is spot on, sir. The Baha'i Faith needs real and courageous leadership and continuous, fierce, spiritually uncompromising, and completely free, open, and transparent input from the rank and file of the Faith worldwide at EVERY LEVEL or it is in very real trouble. And I am not talking about top down, psychologically scripted, stage managed Cluster Meetings.

The feet of the current hapless lifetime incumbent leadership must be mercilessly held to the fire for the sake of the future of the Faith and for future Centuries for the good peoples of the Earth. This Faith came for them. Not for a tiny handful of professional lifetime employment cadre.

Everything is failing. People are leaving in droves. 1400 people at the UHJ and NSA levels across the Earth must be voted out of office in every election continuously for the next 30 years their Tablet of the Holy Mariner souls sent into total oblivion.

The rise of the Internet is going to see to this. Real change will eventually come over the next 100 years. The politics of the newly born World Age will now come through the Internet worldwide second by second now and eventually to the very footstep of the Faith. For everyone this process is now "lead, follow, or get out of the way" for the next 100 years.

But can the Faith forestall financial and psychological and spiritual energy collapse in time? Currently there is no indication so far that the race to the bottom can be diminished in any way. The Faith is in very, very big trouble and no one will act at any level.

People can only hope that honor will eventually prevail and the actual individually liberating and empowering original and pristine Teachings of Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha will become central to the practice of the Faith again at every level.

The current stain upon the Faith may never come out now. It has all gone too far maybe even now. The current Administrative Order has issued a lifetime supply of KY jelly to every member of the rank and file. I refuse to give any allegiance to people who have hijacked my once beautiful religion.

This is where we now are as a Faith:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Kznmrc3o4

We have to START to go here worldwide at EVERY LEVEL AND VERY SOON by returning to the Teachings of the Central Figures:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8

To me the US NSA Ridvan 2007 Convention Report being dismissed so smugly and completely out of hand by the UHJ was the final straw and the current Administrative Order is completely beyond the pale.

Counselor Murphy's performance was a disgrace. And I have been a Baha'i for 36 years and served in many dedicated capacities. These people must be held accountable and kicked out of their offices. Every one of them must be taken from having any power at all in the affairs of the Faith at any level forever.

Hi, if the Baha'i faith had more compassion towards Baha'i and non- Baha'i peoples perhaps more individuals would be interested. I.E. show the love. To administer a faith or a religious experience seems cold or a disconnect. Humankind seeks soul, warmth and love from God. Can a administrative UHJ pull the plug on God's wishes?

To micro-manage a beautiful faith seems counter-productive. Haifa-world should try to "play well with others" so to speak.
Dr. Freud wrote a lot concerning the instinct that propels us to become close to others to preserve and conserve to be one with all. The other instinct is one of self destruction. Since there were attacks on the faith early on in it's history it never really believed. Now it's concern is a focus of alienation from the top down. It is not fair to Baha'i people around the world or to the other religions before the Baha'i faith.

A progressive faith in the world requires progressive thoughts and actions? God is progressive so can the UHJ refuse his offer of loving kindness and acceptance of all? A progressive manifest is in the best interest of all Baha'i individuals and is God's will.

Good comments in the main.
The feet which should be held to the fire are mine - and yours! Not the feet of those acting in psychologically predictable manners.

Independent! Immerse! Know of your own mind! Read the words of Baha'u'llah and the prophets before him.

ALL the words written and spoken after Baha'u'llah are merely human thoughts by human beings about the divine revelation. This would include Abdul Baha. "The divines of EVERY age have led the beleivers astray"(paraphrase)

These 'leaders' can't be blamed in this material existence (as opposed to spiritual) for wanting to lay claim to leadership. If all of you people want to follow me and fill my counting chamber with diamonds and cash I won't mind. But I can't do anything for you spiritually. With all the money in the world at my command I could build a pretty lotus temple to stand empty but I couldn't help your soul.

Putting YOUR feet to the fire:
Have you built your personal house of worship? I have. "Build ye houses of worship..."
Have you established your house of justice? "...establish a house of justice in every city..." I have. I guess that covers one city in the world.

My feet don't burn as much as they used too but I'm still walking on coals.

All the Fruedian analogies in the world can't excuse the Baha'i unwillingness to think for themselves. and to DO what Baha'u'llah suggested. It does explain it but it doesn't excuse it.
Remember Jesus? This is a personal saviorship type of stuff. God wants you to save yourself, not me, or him or her. I'm supposed to take care of me, you take care of you. Wean yourself.

My friend I'm getting my feet out of the fire as fast as I can and still it burns!

Robert

All Baha'i paranoid behavior goes way back to the beginning of the faith. This suggest an error in translation from God.

"All Baha'i paranoid behavior" is a confusing phrase to me. Are you talking about all individual Baha'is or all Baha'is collectively or Baha'i instituations?
Paranod behavior is listed in the DSM IV alongside several specific variations of dillusional behavior. Thus "paranoid behavior" is a confusing concept in that posting.
The origin of paranoia is vague in most presentations of the disease.
"paranoid behavior" existed long before Baha'u'llah was born, but it appears that the post was specifically about Baha'is.

The source of any error "...in translation from God." lies with the interpretor, not the originator.

For example. The post above "knew what it meant" The poster was firm in the knowledge being presented. In translation to my mind, I did not understand what was being said. Does that suggest an error in translation on the posters part or more likely on my part?

In any event immersing in the topic with consultation between the poster and me might develop a clear understanding (unity).

All of that assumes that we can muddle through our personal psychomatic swamps in the process.

Robert Clifton

Not all paranoia is paranoia. A lady complained incessantly that her head was being punished with wracking pain by the nail in her head. All the medical tests then available indicated malingering, but she insisted the 'nail' was mean to her. Finally an xray revealed a nail in her head, driven there as a child by her brother.

The UHJ has paranoia and the translations from God were distorted. The UHJ members require medications with D.B.T.

God is not into shunning which is a Godless practice of the Baha'i faith.

Hello Dr. Mark;

Institutional entities might exhibit humanistic traits, but they can hardly be labeled with human disease. The altruistic Bill Gates does not make Microsoft a loving enterprise.
You next drop from the general entitiy to specific members suggesting "D.B.T." Did you mean all members and does all include those as remote as the subcommittees in the LSA's?
Broad statements tend to get shunned.
In the imperfect translations available to me, shunning all writings not directly attributable to Baha'u'llah or the Bab, I find only fourteen times Baha'u'llah used the word shun. Essentially he warns us to shun the negative and forbids us to shun one another.
You and I agree on one thing for certain. The translations from the mind of God into the meager capacity of a human mind (Baha'u'llah) must have resulted in some loss. The translation from Baha'u'llah into the written word most have occassioned more loss. The translation from the original language into my English certainly dropped a lot of information.
The translation of your understanding into my understanding and vice versa further bastardises the original intent of God. So you are right, we do not have perfect translations.
Does that mean we should not consult and try to sort it out?

How do you suppose taking pot shots at the UHJ or the Orthodox or the Tarbiyat or the Christians or the Muslims or others advance the cause of God?

Robert Clifton

The faith has worthy goals but fails to live up to a practice of importance. It lacks a clear path to achieving a worthy religious tradition. This is a result of a pathology linked to the NSA's as well as the UHJ. Pathology is a process that can apply to all humans under all conditions. The Baha'i faith has some serious pathological conditions which requires significant intervention by medical professionals. The faith is a cult and the pathological organization is clearly using abusive tactics to control and use it's believers.


The faith has little insight into it's own pathology and there are deprogramming services available.

Dear Dr. Mark,

What you have stated are your own conclusions. Could you be so kind as to specify exactly what you mean by "pathologies", and site specific examples. Also please describe what kind of intervention you see as necessary by medical professionals.

Thank you.

I have interviewed a significant number of Baha'i individuals and after careful analysis of each case there is only one major conclusion. The faith uses coercion at all levels. Such methods of a religious order are not acceptable because the faith claims many things. I.E. acceptance, tolerance, individual search for truth etc. The faith states core values yet practices under a set of different rules. Compliance without questions. There are clear cult like activities going on.

Therefore these individuals or UHJ mandating such techniques are clearly using the faith to enhance their own psycho-dramas. Hence clear cases of personality disorders. Personality disorders are difficult to treat and required specially trained individuals to provide therapy. The therapy needed is called D.B.T.

All these factors point to the UHJ and they should be held accountable for such unacceptable acts of coercion.

Dear Dr. Mark,

Thank you for your kind response. I read a little bit about D.B.T. Could you describe perhaps in more detail exactly what is the relationship between coercive techniques and the enhancement of psycho-dramas, and how you perceive that the top leadership can perpetuate this through an entire worldwide organization even though they do not have direct contact with all of its members or leaders.

Also could you please describe what would be a healthy organization in you estimation, and how that can be acheived.

I would also be interested to know exactly how many people you have identified who are members of this faith who appear to have this problem.

Thank you.

It seems that the movie is removed from The Pirate Bay. Hey, is it 2007 or it's 1984 again?!

it is still there, no one is "seeding" but who cares? just download it from google video by following the instructions. easy peasy japanesey.

thanks a lot. this film made me more serious to be a good bahai. the film was funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!! may god help the film maker and their supporters. and how poor the channel 8 is, to show these films!!

Isa, glad to hear it (and you're welcome).
The film is funny, it was written as tongue in cheek but I don't think most people get it.
Well, this is the sort of film makers who are making movies about the Faith. I think the UHJ has had Spielberg and Coppola's calls on hold for almost 17 years now ;-)

The image that came to me immediately after the words by the Secretary General of the BHC was the German film "Downfall." That movie showed the Third Reich in its absolute last moment, when the house of cards starts screaming unstoppably down. That image of a huge structure (Baha'i Administration) made bigger than it was ever meant to be and too green to support the swarms of other associations it generated, continued through the movie. The fear and paranoia of the local-level Baha'is went hand in hand with the fancy dancing and paranoia by the Baha' administrators. The more they try to make things look normal, the worse it all appears.

This film is excellent ground for analysis of the subjects by their body language and vocal qualities. For instance, when one of the Baha'i administrators says there is "nothing to hide," his voice shudders. The assurance that the Baha'i Faith is remarkable in that it "has no clergy and runs on democratic principles" is revealing because at that phrase the speaker's eyes move away from the camera. He doesn't believe what he's saying. Observing the men when they are speaking of things they really believe in is in itself revealing, because most of their spiel is in direct opposition to the Writings. Nice talk for a Baha'i working at the world center.

It was wonderful to meet Nigar Bahai Amsalem, Baha'u'llah's great granddaughter. The quality of her voice may have been close to the quality of her grandfather's; often relatives have vocal attributes in common.

The local Baha'i was asked when the world temple will replace the obelisk. "When there's money," she said. Naive, when gazing at the outlays made to adorn Mt. Carmel so far. To put the temple up somebody's going to have to bring Mr.Remey's honor back or find a way to override Shoghi Effendi. Maybe someone's working on it right now.

I wondered where on earth all the money came from to put all that stuff on Mt.Carmel. Five million Baha'is, most in Third-World Countrie, haven't a lot to give. And the stories from the Treasurers' Offices about Little Eva giving two pennies and getting four million back are simply beyond belief. Where did all that money come from ? I'm sure very few Baha'is will ever see those figures.

Baha'i Administration states that Baha'i Administration is the center of unity of the Baha'i Faith. This is the biggest break with the Writings I've ever come across. They certainly value themselves greatly above the masses but history does repeat itself and its going to level that adminstration and anyone who clings to it, flat.

The movie makers did a wonderful job. There was enough in that film to make any watcher see things a little more clearly. You can't fool the camera - that's why people who can truly perform are few and far between and command enormous salaries. Nobody in this film fooled the camera for a moment.

The buildings and gardens are easy to shoot, but bringing in the sky and the air is what separates the men from the boys. It was beautiful. I was there. I felt the breeze on my face and the times of day. Thanks!

This film was a scream. The sinister music, the sense that just around the corner there will be this Great Discovery of what the Baha'i Faith is REALLY about. Then, we are walked through the secret underground tunnel, we're informed about the secret laundromat, shown the secret bomb shelter, the secret parking garage, and the secret book store; and finally, the climactic unveiling of the secret grocery store. Thank God these folks have torn away the veil from this secretive bunch.

Andrew wrote:

>>the Quakers (Christian) hold that honor. They still do. There are no Quaker Secretary-Generals either.>>

There aren't Quaker Secretaries-General, perhaps, because they don't have as much to say to the governments of the world. Mr. Lincoln's role is to supervise the Baha'i UN representatives worldwide, who offer Baha'i solutions to the world's problems. I've been around a lot of Quakers, and they're really fine and principled people; but in some ways they're very Zen in the sparseness of what they offer as far as practical solutions.

>> The Archives Building is an exact replica of the Parthenon? Fromage. Hideous architectural monuments.>>

I think, more accurately, Mr. Giachery, who assisted in the construction of the Archives building, wrote of the design: "It represented, in a general manner, a Greek temple reminiscent of the Parthenon, and also of temples in Paestum near Salerno, Italy, and in Agrigento in Sicily. The style was Ionic and showed a monumental and spacious building." "The substantial difference, however, consisted in the fact that the Parthenon was built in Doric style, while Shoghi Effendi had selected for the Archives the Ionic order." ("Shoghi Effendi - Recollections" pages 151 and 158) He picked the design because it was classical and would stand the test of time. If you want to see what Baha'i architects are capable of, look at the designs for the Temples in Wilmette and Chile. Shoghi Effendi had to use the resources he had at hand; and Mason Remey was capable, with some hand-holding, of designing a building that was reminiscent of the Parthenon, which would at least be a befitting place for the personal effects and writings of the founders of the Baha'i Faith.

>>The Baha'i gardens ... "don't touch the rocks, the flowers, the water." Oh, God. These people. Where are they from?>>

First of all, that lady and the male guide in sunglasses were not Baha'is. They are Israelis who are good enough to volunteer their services as guides on the terraces. Since the number of Baha'is who work in Haifa is insufficient to meet the demands of the residents of the Holy Land who want to visit, there is an organization for friendship between Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Haifa, which has its center not far from the house of Abdul Baha. Its members who volunteer are given a brief training program, and they go out, incorrect information and all, and do their very best to guide people. I have heard stories that some of them have said that Shoghi Effendi is buried in the Shrine of the Bab. They make mistakes. Anyway, as time goes on they get it better. And as far as not touching things, I don't know if the lady was quoting Baha'i policy or not. There is a natural tendency in people to take souvenirs, and if everyone took a flower or a stone, in a few months the place would be a shambles. So, rather than saying to everybody, "Help Yourself," maybe they have decided to ask people to not take things. That keeps it nice for the next person.

>>Baha'is have a Baha'i ID number on their cards? Heaven help us.>>

How else do you expect the Baha'is to keep track of people's name changes and address changes in their computer system? It's a very practical thing, and not at all inconsistent with spontaneity and spirituality. The human body is divine and magnificent, and highly ordered. Nothing wrong with order.

>>Baha'i cannot carry arms so Israeli security guards do it for them. Maybe there was a reason why Baha'u'llah forbade the carrying of arms>>

Every public place in Israel where people congregate is a potential target for terrorists. People are inspected when they go into supermarkets, basketball games, and hospitals. The Baha'i "search" is minimally intrusive and done at least as politely as it is done anywhere else in that troubled country. There is an entire security department at the Bahai Center, but I think they only carry radios. I would not be surprised if the Israeli government requires that the Baha'i security guards can't carry weapons, only Israelis can. I do know that there are Baha'i police officers in several countries in the west, so there is no provision in the Baha'i Writings that Baha'is are absolutely forbidden to carry weapons. Mr. Lincoln even spoke about future service in a military that would be involved in international law enforcement, and that Baha'is could carry weapons in such a military force. So the movie got this distorted.

>>The (old) Baha'is in the U.S. who were interviewed seemed really sweet.>>

Yes, you would find that to be typical. And if the movie makers had been sincere, when they found out that David Kelly had become a Baha'i in their living room, they would have questioned them about this, to see if Kelly's becoming a Baha'i was sincere. But they preferred the sinister scenario, dreamed up out of thin air, by the Israeli "investigative journalist" who said, without a shred of proof, that he thought Mr. Kelly became a Baha'i to be closer to his translator, with whom, he dreamed out of thin air, he was having an affair.

It's best to be fair.

Mr. Insaf

"There aren’t Quaker Secretaries-General, perhaps, because they don’t have as much to say to the governments of the world."

Too funny! LOL! As William Sperry, the former Dean of the Harvard Divinity School, has written: "Quakers have had and still have an influence out of all proportion to their numbers." Anyone who knows anything of substance about the Quakers can see how ridiculous your statement truly is.

"How else do you expect the Baha’is to keep track of people’s name changes and address changes in their computer system?"

Too funny! This is why Catholics have ID cards too, right? LOL!

"It’s best to be fair."

Well, Baha'i apologists would know about that! LOL!

It's sad there has to be so many unanswerable questions surrounding such a beautiful religion such as why Baha'u'llah had to be a polygamist when he set a standard and made it law in his own "Most Holy Book" that polygamy was impossible to achieve successful marriage? The only biological desceendants such as that great granddaughter are all descended from Baha'u'llah's 2nd and 3rd wives. It's a very horrible legacy of jealousy that really never made any sense for someone who is suppose to be "The Glory of God"

Or Why David Kelly isn't considered a Bahai martyr assassinated for his honesty?

The Bahai community should have an agenda to investigate and prove the Hutton report false, just as they would if an Iranian Bahai was killed under weird circumstances.

A Bahai who is persecuted in Iran is usually considered a victim of injustice by the Iranian government, yet when corporate oil interests and Western governments bump off someone who indirectly maintains Bahai integrity, it's as though the Bahais have no dispute whatsoever.

[quote comment=""]It's sad there has to be so many unanswerable questions surrounding such a beautiful religion such as why Baha'u'llah had to be a polygamist when he set a standard and made it law in his own "Most Holy Book" that polygamy was impossible to achieve successful marriage?[/quote]

Who says it's "unanswerable"? Just because *you* think it's not answered? I think it is.

Let's look at a comparison. The Gospel (Matthew Chap. 26) records that one day the disciples were with Jesus Christ. A woman approached, and lavished a full jar of costly ointment on the person of Christ. Its value was a man's entire annual wage in those days. The disciples asked Christ, why hadn't he instead sold the ointment and given the money to the poor? He said that the poor would always be with them; but he would not, and he praised the woman's deed. He did *not* say, "And all of you follow this example."

Notice: He did not say that placing costly ointment on one another was a sacrament to be followed by all of his disciples. He said this act was special, for him alone, the "bridegroom". This was not a common activity on his part, but it is true. In like manner, not everything Baha'u'llah did was as an example to his followers; some things were unique to him. All of the Manifestations have things like that.

[quote comment=""]The only biological desceendants such as that great granddaughter are all descended from Baha'u'llah's 2nd and 3rd wives. It's a very horrible legacy of jealousy that really never made any sense for someone who is suppose to be "The Glory of God"[/quote]

And *their* jealousy is *his* fault? He even, at the end of his life, had Navvab and her children remain in Akka, and his other two wives and their children got the nice residence, surrounded by verdure, out in the countryside. But nothing could allay their jealousy.

The jealousy of Joseph's brothers does not darken the radiant beauty of Joseph.

The treachery of Judas does not place a speck of unworthiness on Jesus Christ.

Baha'u'llah has already addressed this question:

"Is it proper," the Commandant of the city [Akka], turning to Bahá'u'lláh, after He had arrived at the Governorate, boldly inquired, "that some of your followers should act in such a manner?" "If one of your soldiers," was the swift rejoinder, "were to commit a reprehensible act, would you be held responsible, and be punished in his place?" (God Passes By, p. 190)

All of the Manifestations leave turmoil behind them. That is a sign of their greatness, not of their weakness. To properly judge them, look to their greatest followers, not their weakest. Judge Baha'u'llah by the character and deeds of Abdul Baha, not by the treacherous deeds of Muhammad Ali and his progeny. How foolish!

Mr I. Insaf

Mr. I. Insaf,

You're not addressing the obvious. Polygamy is wrong. Even for Baha'u'llah it was wrong. You can say that he was just going by the standards and customs of being born into the snobby Persian/Muslim heirarchy of 19th century, or he was a polygamist before he declared his mission, or that he had no choice because the world wasn't ready for monogamy, or since he had the royalty superior breeding sperm to be the sugar daddy for not 1 but 2 other wives, all you want, --- but the fact of the matter is there is an attention disparity to have to share a spouse. His first wife was his priority, the other 2 were charity marriages. In this case the legacy lasts today where there is a rift in his descendants who woudn't accept the son of his first wife Navab as their rightful "Master" Abdu'l-Baha. You Bahais say the latest greatest manifestation of God is Baha'u'llah while (Jesus, Christ, Muhammad, Zoroaster, Abraham, Adam, Buddha, Krishna, as well as some Hindu God are part of the same succession of monotheism but now they are defunct) Yet you worship someone who lived a life of defunctness as a polygamist Muslim. Muhammad Ali was a wicked son of a bitch, but what wickedness happened first? The son or the the bitchy resentment of being an inferior wife?

[quote post="382"]You’re not addressing the obvious. Polygamy is wrong. Even for Baha’u'llah it was wrong. You can say that he was just going by the standards and customs of being born into the snobby Persian/Muslim heirarchy of 19th century, or he was a polygamist before he declared his mission, or that he had no choice because the world wasn’t ready for monogamy, or since he had the royalty superior breeding sperm to be the sugar daddy for not 1 but 2 other wives, all you want, — but the fact of the matter is there is an attention disparity to have to share a spouse. [/quote]
Very well-stated. Bahá'ís suffer from the same philosophical shortcoming from which all religious people suffer: Divine command. They believe that the will of their lord is ultimately what determines right and wrong, which essentially makes morality something completely arbitrary. If it was discovered that Bahá'u'lláh had had sex with prostitutes, that would also be deemed acceptable by the Bahá'í community (although they would at first try to deny that it happened, since they realize deep-down that it's wrong). This is the disease of authoritarianism. When it's the will of your leader (and not your own inner conscience) that ultimately decides what is right and what is wrong, there is no accountability. With God, everything is permitted.

Mavaddat-

"When it’s the will of your leader (and not your own inner conscience) that ultimately decides what is right and what is wrong, there is no accountability. With God, everything is permitted."

I agree entirely. And Thank G-d I broke through the glass ceiling to see G-d. btw- loving Judaism. Just call me a Child of Noah, why not? Were children of someone. Much love... Bird

[quote comment=""]Bahá’ís suffer from the same philosophical shortcoming from which all religious people suffer: Divine command. They believe that the will of their lord is ultimately what determines right and wrong, which essentially makes morality something completely arbitrary. If it was discovered that Bahá’u'lláh had had sex with prostitutes, that would also be deemed acceptable by the Bahá’í community (although they would at first try to deny that it happened, since they realize deep-down that it’s wrong). This is the disease of authoritarianism. When it’s the will of your leader (and not your own inner conscience) that ultimately decides what is right and what is wrong, there is no accountability. With God, everything is permitted.[/quote]

I think in the Baha'i Faith, it is fair to say that the development of a more sensitive conscience is a sign that a person is maturing as a Baha'i and as a human being. And one can certainly show that when a religious leader imposes his will on people in moral matters, and particularly when he manipulates people to violate their conscience for his own selfish interests, it is a sign of a cult. But you can't show any such misconduct in the Baha'i Faith--not for Baha'u'llah, not for Abdul Baha, not for Shoghi Effendi. 180 degrees the opposite is true: Baha'is who have followed the guidance of these three, have elevated their conduct, and there is absolutely zero evidence any of them abused their position in such a way.

However, if a person lacks fair-mindedness, he doesn't need any such evidence. We have to avoid the situation where a person just manufactures evidence. That's what you have done in saying, "It's just as if he went to prostitutes." He didn't. He didn't authorize any such thing, and the fact is that Baha'is who commit such open immorality lose their administrative rights. There are no examples of when Baha'is have followed the Baha'i teachings, and committed immorality. That's a sign that this is a revelation from God.

It's quite a remarkable thing, looking at the high moral standards inculcated by the Baha'i writings, and claiming that a personal sense of morality is higher. I would just say, go for the highest moral standard you can. I've just never found a higher one than in the Baha'i teachings, and in fact, I've seen times when people did not want to live by the Baha'i moral teachings, but they hid their rejection of the moral standards, under a purported disagreement with something else in the teachings.

To clarify another matter from a posting above. Where do you have one word of historical evidence that Baha'u'llah's second or third wife was jealous of his first wife? Or are you manufacturing that out of thin air, too?

Rather, the jealousy was leadership jealousy on the part of their children, because of the high position given to Abdul Baha after the death of Baha'u'llah. Then the mothers stood by their children.

There is another inaccuracy in some of the above postings, and that is the impression that the second and third wives of Baha'u'llah and their progeny were the unfaithful ones, and that the progeny of Navvab were all faithful. In fact, once the generation of Shoghi Effendi was reached, as was explained in detail in the book Child of the Covenant, all of Shoghi Effendi's cousins broke the Covenant; I am speaking of the other great-grandchildren of Baha'u'llah and Navvab. It is true that most, if not all, of the family of the second and third wives of Baha'u'llah broke the Covenant during the lifetime of Abdu'l-Baha. That was explained by Shoghi Effendi 60 years ago:

"Far from being allayed by the provisions of a Will which had elevated him to the second-highest position within the ranks of the faithful, the fire of unquenchable animosity that glowed in the breast of Mirza Muhammad-'Ali burned even more fiercely as soon as he came to realize the full implications of that Document. All that 'Abdu'l-Bahá could do, during a period of four distressful years, His incessant exhortations, His earnest pleadings, the favors and kindnesses He showered upon him, the admonitions and warnings He uttered, even His voluntary withdrawal in the hope of averting the threatening storm, proved to be of no avail. Gradually and with unyielding persistence, through lies, half-truths, calumnies and gross exaggerations, this "Prime Mover of sedition" succeeded in ranging on his side almost the entire family of Bahá'u'lláh, as well as a considerable number of those who had formed his immediate entourage. Bahá'u'lláh's two surviving wives, His two sons, the vacillating Mirza Diya'u'llah and the treacherous Mirza Badi'u'llah, with their sister and half-sister and their husbands, one of them the infamous Siyyid Ali, a kinsman of the Báb, the other the crafty Mirza Majdi'd-Din, together with his sister and half-brothers -- the children of the noble, the faithful and now deceased Aqay-i-Kalim -- all united in a determined effort to subvert the foundations of the Covenant which the newly proclaimed Will had laid.....

Forsaken, betrayed, assaulted by almost the entire body of His relatives, now congregated in the Mansion and the neighboring houses clustering around the most Holy Tomb, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, already bereft of both His mother and His sons, and without any support at all save that of an unmarried sister, His four unmarried daughters, His wife and His uncle (a half-brother of Bahá'u'lláh), was left alone to bear, in the face of a multitude of enemies arrayed against Him from within and from without, the full brunt of the terrific responsibilities which His exalted office had laid upon Him."
(Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 247)

The unmarried sister was his sister Bahiyyih. The half-brother of Baha'u'llah was Muhammad Quli.

The family did not obey a simple, clear directive: Avoid the Covenant-breakers. Thinking themselves above this guidance, they walked into dangerous situations and did not spiritually survive.

I. Insaf

Mavaddat, you write
"Bahais suffer from the same philosophical shortcoming from which all religious people suffer: Divine command. They believe that the will of their lord is ultimately what determines right and wrong, which essentially makes morality something completely arbitrary."

Mavaddat, On what basis do you accept Morality? On an inborn sence of right and wrong?

Then what do we do if different persons have different "inborn" principles, on what basis do you explain to some tribal communities that incest, gender and child abuse are wrong when their inborn convictions say they are traditionally right?

What made the savage Arab tribes in the days of Muhammad change their minds, accept that women had a soul, that female infants were not to be buried alive at birth, that women could not be exchanged as slaves or animals, that a marriage was to be established and limited to 4, when over population of women through death of males in wars made an unmarried women helpless victim and a man affording to do so and not offering his protection to several women as a selfish person?

On what basis do you establish what is wrong or right?

Do you know of a thriving society that has not been established on "revealed" moral laws?

Mr Insaf,

Thank you for your knowledgeable exposition;

you write:
"Rather, the jealousy was leadership jealousy on the part of their children, because of the high position given to Abdul Baha after the death of Baha'u'llah."

I agree that this is the crux of the matter. I am certain that if the members of the Holy Family now asked to become Baha'is, they would be accepted as such, just like the Afnan family. They would ofcourse have to leave the Holy Land, which they might not wish to do.

The ambitions of honors and leadership is going to be a difficult flaw to extirpate after centuries of priestcraft. This talk of Abdu'l-Baha in Mahmouds Diary insisting on humility and servitude is precious to me:

Tuesday, April 2, 1912 [aboard the Cedric]

The Master again spoke on the subject of the spiritual illness and self-serving motives of the heads of various religions. One of the friends asked Him about the leaders and Hands of the Cause in this Dispensation. He said:

The Blessed Perfection has extirpated superstitions, root and branch. The Hands of the Cause in this dispensation are not heirs to any name or title; rather, they are sanctified souls, the rays of whose holiness and spirituality throw light on the hearts of all. Hearts are attracted by the beauty of their morals, the sincerity of their intentions, and their sense of equity and justice. Souls are involuntarily enamored of their praiseworthy morals and laudable attributes. Faces turn in spontaneous attraction to their outstanding qualities and actions. `Hand of the Cause' is not a title that may be awarded to whomever it may please to have it, nor is it a chair of honor upon which whoever wishes may sit. The Hands of the Cause are the hands of God. Therefore, whomsoever is the servant and promoter of the Word of God, he is the hand of God. The object is a matter of the spirit and not one of letters or words. The more self-effacing one is, the more assisted he is in the Cause of God; and the more meek and humble, the nearer he is to God."

Warmest

Farhan

I.Insaf wrote:

"And one can certainly show that when a religious leader imposes his will on people in moral matters, and particularly when he manipulates people to violate their conscience for his own selfish interests, it is a sign of a cult. But you can’t show any such misconduct in the Baha’i Faith–not for Baha’u'llah, not for Abdul Baha, not for Shoghi Effendi. 180 degrees the opposite is true: Baha’is who have followed the guidance of these three, have elevated their conduct, and there is absolutely zero evidence any of them abused their position in such a way."

Thank you for this! It was just the chuckle I needed to get back to work!

F. Yazdani wrote:

"On what basis do you establish what is wrong or right?"

Situation ethics has one single maxim: unconditional or agape love. Not love understood as an emotion but a more objective, unconditional, what-is-best-for-the-other-person kind of love. Justice is "love distributed."

Situation ethics is a strong rejection of legalism but also of antinomianism: it acts as a compromise between the two but counts as a relative approach. Legalism leads people to do the "righ"’ thing regardless of the consequences and goes against Jesus' command to show compassion. There are three approaches to moral decision making: the legalistic way, the antinomian way, and the situational way. Situation ethics advocates the latter.

Jesus showed mercy to the woman in adultery instead of stoning her, and ate from a cornfield on the Sabbath when it was necessary. The two greatest commandments are based on love: love God and love thy neighbour. Christians aspire to Jesus and it could be argued that Jesus practiced situation ethics.

"Do you know of a thriving society that has not been established on 'revealed' moral laws?"

The doctrinal part of REVEALED RELIGION consists of a series of REVEALED LAWS.

A revealed religion is one based on an allegedly divine revelation to particular persons at a particular time, e.g., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Unlike, for example, the native religions of aboriginal societies.

The ancient polytheistic religions, like that of Sumer, were not revealed religions. They didn’t have a clear starting point or a prophetic founder. They evolved over time from the religion of the earliest human settlements in a given area.

Neither Hinduism nor Buddhism are revealed religions with revealed laws:

"Briefly, here are the five basic features of Hindusim: 1) It has no historical beginning. The Rig Veda, the oldest of the Hindu scriptures, is stated to be eternal and to have always existed. Unlike Christianity and Islam, which are historical religions, we cannot find a specific date or even a century or millennium when Hinduism began. 2) It is not a revealed religion. It has no single authority or book. It is not a theology or a belief system that everyone is required to acknowledge. A Hindu is free to question any or all of the scriptures. He does not cease being a Hindu for doing so. Hindu scripture is meant to be a guide. 3) Hinduism recognizes no prophet as having exclusive claim over religious truth. This is undoubtedly the greatest difference between Hinduism and revealed religions. A Hindu who believes in the existence of God (or Gods) is not required to acknowledge an intermediary as a prophet or as the chosen agent of God. Every Hindu man, woman and child has the same direct access to God through his or her own efforts. 4) Hinduism does not recognize claims of exclusivity or a clergy. Exclusivity divides the world into believers and nonbelievers, which Hinduism does not. As a result, Hinduism has no clergy to monitor and enforce belief. 5) The only 'dogma' of Hinduism is freedom of choice and conscience. Hindu religious literature is concerned mainly with the knowledge and method necessary to learn the truth about God. Any accommodation of a belief system that denies one's freedom of choice and conscience is fundamentally incompatible with Hinduism. It is our duty to defend this precious freedom and preserve and pass it on to future generations." -- Navaratna Rajaram

Buddhism as a religion has no definite concept of God: it is not a revealed religion with revealed laws either.

Since aboriginal societies, Hindu societies, and Buddhist societies have not been established on revealed moral laws, but nonetheless continue to thrive, this refutes the premise underlying your question. The morality of obedience to universalizable rules for the purposes of normalizing populations does not apply to these societies.

However, Baha'i apologists have a way of spinning the unspinable in ways that non-Baha'is would never recognize. I'm sure you'll do likewise! Have fun!

[quote comment="45781"]

Mr. Insaf wrote:

"And one can certainly show that when a religious leader imposes his will on people in moral matters, and particularly when he manipulates
people to violate their conscience for his own selfish interests, it is a sign of a cult. But you can’t show any such misconduct in the Baha’i Faith–not for Baha’u'llah, not for Abdul Baha, not for Shoghi Effendi. 180 degrees the opposite is true: Baha’is who have followed the guidance of these three, have elevated their conduct, and there is absolutely zero evidence any of them abused their position in such a way."
[/quote]

Mr. Insaf,

I fuly agree that at least Baha'u'llah, Abdu'l-Baha, and Shoghi Effendi as far as I know taught the sanctity of the sacred individual human conscience. One need only search on "Conscience" in Ocean and will find many, many quotes that support this fact.

So HOW do you explain this below quote in the "NEW" top down lifetime incumbent professional theorist class of the Baha'i Faith?

"We have inherited a dangerous delusion from Christianity that our
individual conscience is supreme. This is not a Baha'i belief. In the
end, in the context of both our role in the community and our role in
the greater world, we must be prepared to sacrifice our personal
convictions or opinions. The belief that individual conscience is
supreme is equivalent to 'taking partners with God' which is abhorrent to the Teachings of the Faith."
- Douglas Martin Former Member of the Universal House of Justice Baha'i Faith

Let's hear what you have to say regarding Douglas Martin's quote in light of your above post?

And while we are on the topic of the sacred individual human conscience here in cyber space at this moment, since yesterday (March 16th, 2008) was the 40th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre (March 16th, 1968) let's throw in another of the now well known quotes of the "NEW" top down lifetime incumbent professional theorist class of the Baha'i Faith:

"You'll recall that the U.S. was 'dragged' into WWII with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Our boys were sleeping off Saturday night while the enemy schemed -- but America soon woke up. So when you see the U.S. in Cambodia or in Vietnam -- or when you see America's young men in
Lebanon, or knocking around in the Balkans -- 'please, will you be quiet and let God do His work!'"
- Glenford Mitchell Current Member of the Universal House of Justice
Baha'i Faith

Here was the article on My Lai on the CNN web site yesterday:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/16/vie...

Here was the testimony of CWO Hugh Thompson (the U.S. Army helicopter pilot who put his helicopter on the ground between Lt. Calley and the Vietnamese with his door gunners training their weapons on Lt. Calley to shoot to kill unless he stopped in his tracks) at a University symposium in 1994.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrial...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson,_Jr.

Here is the testimony of the Vietnam Veteran Ron Ridenhour who went out of his way to bring a Congressional inquiry into what happened that day after he got out of the U.S. Army and returned to the United States:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Ridenhour

Tell me, WHO showed a more refined human conscience? Hugh Thompson, Ron Ridenhour, or a person that would follow the top down organizational counsel of professional lifetime incumbent Baha'i UHJ member Glenford Mitchell who is saying to "be quiet and let God do His work"? A counsel that I say advises Baha'is "firm in the Covenant" to just stand by and let Lt. Calley mow old men, women, and children down?

Let's hear what you have to say?

And know this as you formulate your reply: I met Hugh Thompson back in 1998 where we were both speakers at a weekend event. I talked to him at length about what happened that day. His story was the lead segment on CBS's "Sixty Minutes" in August of 1998. He had only recently come back from visiting My Lai with Mike Wallace and a CBS film crew as he met with the now grown-up men and women that he had rescued that day as children from being shot to death in a ditch. After 30 years the U.S. Army had finally given him a medal for his actions which he did not accept for himself, but for his crew. He was a very fine person. The whole experience that day greatly affected his life. If you are not familiar with the events of that day I suggest you read "Four Hours at My Lai" by the two British journalists Michael Bilton and Kevin Sim.

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Hours-Lai-Michael-Bi...

Let's hear what you have to say about "Conscience" as taught in the now top down "infallibly professionally managed" "Ruhiized AO" Baha'i Faith?

I say if you don't think there is misconduct along these lines as set forth in your above post, think again.

I, for one, am NOT turning my personal individual human conscience over to ANY other person or ANY organization in the entire known or unknown Universe/Multiverse to do my thinking for me. And anyone who
counsels that I should turn my individual conscience over to them can go to hell.

I say the entire infinite Cosmos is about ready to fall on these people who have set themselves up as lifetime incumbents who have gamed the electoral process at the top of the Baha'i Faith. I say it will come drop by drop over the Internet for the next five hundred years. And eventually ALL of these theorist usurpers will be SEEN FOR WHAT THEY ARE as spiritual archetypes and the personal catastrophic damage they did to the Faith, and they, their wives, their children, and their grandchildren will ALL have to be eventually buried in unmarked graves to protect them from the wrath of the Baha'is of the future.

"They desired to ascend to a station that God ordained to be above their ranks, when the luminous comet expelled them from among the inhabitants of the kingdom of his presence."
- Baha'u'llah - Tablet of the Holy Mariner

It is all very Sufi. It is all about Archetypal Divine Judgment in the passage of World Ages. It will not be pretty.

What goes around comes around.

Ronald Ridenhour died in 1998. Hugh Thompson died in 2006. I say both of these men now sit on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. I say the current members of the Universal House of Justice of the Baha'i Faith having lived their entire lives safe in their little incestuous cult bubble never having faced anything like what these two men faced, will never reach that realm in the Worlds Beyond. EVER.

So let's hear what you or anyone else here has to say about "Conscience" in the new "top down Men in Brooks Brothers Suits - All Highest - Baha'i faith"?

Craig writes,
[quote post="382"]Mr. Insaf,

I fuly agree that at least Baha’u'llah, Abdu’l-Baha, and Shoghi Effendi as far as I know taught the sanctity of the sacred individual human conscience. One need only search on “Conscience” in Ocean and will find many, many quotes that support this fact.[/quote]
Craig, I cannot believe you are not joking. The sanctity of individual human conscience? Preached by Bahá'u'lláh or 'Abdu'l-Bahá?
[quote]In short, the meaning of "He doeth whatsoever He willeth" is that if the Manifestation says something, or gives a command, or performs an action, and believers do not understand its wisdom, they still ought not to oppose it by a single thought, seeking to know why He spoke so, or why He did such a thing. The other souls who are under the shadow of the supreme Manifestations are submissive to the commandments of the Law of God, and are not to deviate as much as a hairsbreadth from it; they must conform their acts and words to the Law of God. If they do deviate from it, they will be held responsible and reproved in the presence of God. It is certain that they have no share in the permission "He doeth whatsoever He willeth," for this condition is peculiar to the supreme Manifestations.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 173)[/quote][quote]Your sciences shall not profit you in this day, nor your arts, nor your treasures, nor your glory. Cast them all behind your backs, and set your faces towards the Most Sublime Word...
(Baha'u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 97)[/quote][quote]Assist Thou Thy servants, O my God, ...Guard their faces, O my God, from turning to any one save Thee, and their ears from hearkening unto the sayings of all such as have turned away from Thy beauty and repudiated Thy signs. (Baha'u'llah)[/quote][quote]Blessed are they that stand firm and immovable as the rock, and brave the storm and stress of this tempestuous hour.
('Abdu'l-Bahá)[quote][/quote]Blessed are the steadfast; blessed are they that stand firm in His Faith. Bahá'u'lláh[/quote][quote]Be ye as firmly settled as the immovable mountain in the Cause of your Lord, the Mighty, the Loving.
Bahá'u'lláh[/quote][quote]Were He to decree as lawful the thing which from time immemorial had been forbidden, and forbid that which had, at all times, been regarded as lawful, to none is given the right to question His authority. Whoso will hesitate, though it be for less than a moment, should be regarded as a transgressor.

(Bahá'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 77)[/quote][quote]Whenever My laws appear like the sun in the heaven of Mine utterance, they must be faithfully obeyed by all, though My decree be such as to cause the heaven of every religion to be cleft asunder. He doth what He pleaseth. He chooseth; and none may question His choice.

(Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 333)[/quote][quote]Blessed is the man that hath acknowledged his belief in God and in His signs, and recognized that ‘He shall not be asked of His doings’. Such a recognition hath been made by God the ornament of every belief and its very foundation. Upon it must depend the acceptance of every goodly deed. Fasten your eyes upon it, that haply the whisperings of the rebellious may not cause you to slip. (Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 77). [/quote][quote]O SON OF BEING! With the hands of power I made thee and with the fingers of strength I created thee; and within thee have I placed the essence of My light. Be thou content with it and seek naught else, for My work is perfect and My command is binding. Question it not, nor have a doubt thereof. (Bahá'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words)[/quote][quote]Consider, if one does not partake of the bounty of Meeting or the knowledge of the Manifestations of God, how can he be truly called learned, although he may have studied a thousand years, and possess all the limited and outward sciences. It is plainly evident that he cannot be said to possess knowledge. But if one hath not seen a single letter of learning, and hath attained to this mighty honor, he is undoubtedly accounted one of the divine men of learning, for he hath reached the furthermost point of knowledge and its highest degree.

(Compilations, Bahá'í Scriptures, p. 38)[/quote]
Please, please tell me you jest, Craig. Surely you see from the above that the Bahá'í Faith is authoritarian through-and-through?

Douglas Martin was absolutely 100% right in his assesment of the Bahá'í Faith. Independent thought is precluded as a matter of necessity to be a Bahá'í. The only sanctioned use of individual conscience is for that individual to freely and autonomously submit to every wish and command of his lord. Come on, Craig. You cannot possibly think it is the AO's fault. They are in closer harmony with Bahá'u'lláh's ideals than either of us, my brother...

And here's some Shoghi Effendi-style dogmatism and authoritarianism for you: [quote]Is not faith but another word for implicit obedience, whole-hearted allegiance, uncompromising adherence to that which we believe is the revealed and express will of God, however perplexing it might first appear, however at variance with the shadowy views, the impotent doctrines, the crude theories, the idle imaginings, the fashionable conceptions of a transient and troublous age?

(Shoghi Effendi, Bahá'í Administration, p. 62)[/quote][quote]To follow Bahá'u'lláh does not mean accepting some of His teachings and rejecting the rest. Allegiance to His Cause must be uncompromising and whole-hearted.

(Shoghi Effendi, Directives from the Guardian, p. 64)[/quote][quote]You see our whole approach to each matter is based on the belief that God sends us divinely inspired Educators; what they tell us is fundamentally true, what science tells us today is true; tomorrow may be entirely changed to better explain a new set of facts.

(Shoghi Effendi, Arohanui - Letters to New Zealand, p. 85)[/quote]

Mr Insaf & Farhan YAZDANI,

Mr Insaf writes:

“To clarify another matter from a posting above. Where do you have one word of historical evidence that Baha’u'llah’s second or third wife was jealous of his first wife? Or are you manufacturing that out of thin air, too?

Rather, the jealousy was leadership jealousy on the part of their children, because of the high position given to Abdul Baha after the death of Baha’u'llah. Then the mothers stood by their children."
----------------------------------------

About the "thin air" of jealousy the later wives of Baha'u'llah had (for both Navab and Navab's children) and instilled upon their children. Do you know anything about sibling rivalry or cousin rivalry or were you an only child living a sheltered life homeschooled with a Nanny?

Let's think about what polygamy = the right to multiple sexual partners = the entitlement to mulitple breeding partners = a privilage to further offspring by having sex with multiple partners. Polygamy is adultry, promiscuity, and infidelity in spite of all the weird laws of muslim governments and traditional mormons in America that say it's not. Legal or not it's wrong. You should know something about the history of Iran's government issuing "temporary marriage licenses" to clients brothels. A whorehouse is a whorehouse by any other name. Quit mincing words.

Polygamy is harem mongering. It's what you muslim style people like to worship. The stud Sultan, Shah, or ayatollah with the royalty to have multiple women to have sex with is who you follow like sheep-- the stud alpha male. I get it quite clearly. It's the life you look up to as your spiritual leaders. It's the life you aspire to achieve, especially if you are still a muslim man or some weird fundamental mormon christian. It's the promise behind all your suicide missions. "7 virgins"?

And yet now you have the Bahai religion, the next religion after the Muslim polygamy religion, dedicated to "the advancement of women" "the equality of the sexes?"

Polygamy is an ancient survival pedigree scheme in situations where males are killed off in war, so multiple female sexual partners become necessary for survival of the species in those dire circumstances.

I get it quite clearly. The stud chief gets the spoils of multiple wives? Baha'u'llah is your patriarch stud who lived the traditions of elitist persian muslims.

You want to tell me there was no jealousy no fear, and no resentment from Fátimih Khánum that Abdu'l-Baha was favored over Mirza Muhammad-Ali, with no correlation to the tensions of having to share with the other 2 wives Navab and Gawhar Khánum? You expect people to believe there wasn't some kind of rivalry going on that would have easily been prevented if Baha'u'llah would have stayed monogomous?

B.S. !

Reference:

http://bahai-library.com/uhj/wives.bahaullah.html

The three wives of Bahá'u'lláh were:

" Nawáb (Asíyih Khánum): married some time between 24 September and 22 October 1835; died 1886; seven children.

Mahd-i-'Ulyá (Fátimih Khánum): born 1828; married 1849; died 1904; six children. She broke the Covenant after the Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh as did all her children. See God Passes By (Wilmette: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1987), chapter 15.

" Gawhar Khánum: married in Baghdád; died during the Ministry of 'Abdu'l-Bahá; one child. She and her daughter both broke the Covenant after the Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh. See God Passes By, chapter 15.

Good Lord. We acknowledge that Universal Mind is superior to our finite mind; and now we're lumped together with the Mai Lai massacre. That's quite a leap! Especially since there is not *one iota* of substantiation for Baha'is not following their conscience. Such a baseless accusation is remote from the reality of the Baha'i Teaching, found in these statements from the Guardian:

"no power on earth, neither the arts of the most insidious adversary nor the bloody weapons of the most tyrannical oppressor, can ever succeed in extorting from them a word or deed that might tend to stifle the voice of their conscience or tarnish the purity of their faith."

"Regarding your question about military service, the Guardian sees no reason why the Bahá'í in question should not bring a test case, and press the matter. It is now, since he has become a follower of Bahá'u'lláh, against his conscience to kill his fellow-men; and he should have the right to explain his position and ask to be exempted from combatant service."

Again, the Baha'i teachings state that the human being is like a drop, and the Deity and the Manifestation, like the Ocean. We human beings possess compassion, and it is but a dim reflection of the source of that virtue -- the Deity and the Manifestation.

It is not that we kill our conscience, and substitute something mean and base for it. It is that we refine and sensitize our conscience, and also acknowledge humbly that there is Mind that is greater than our own. We puny mortals are incapable of setting standards for our fellow men-- but the Prophet does exactly that, as Shoghi Effendi writes here:

"He (the Guardian) was very sorry to hear that ... has left the Cause, and suggests that you point out to her, and to any other of the friends who are confused and upset over this matter, that the Manifestation of God only gives us teachings and instructions designed for our good and protection, and that if each person reserves the right to obey his own conscience, the logical conclusion is we don't need any spiritual authority to guide and protect us, the authority of our own consciences is sufficient!"

And that's all that Mr. Martin was saying.

To view this as a quashing of the conscience is to distort the Baha'i teaching, which explicitly states that it is through adherence to the Universal Manifestation that the conscience is rescued:

"No wonder, therefore, that when, as a result of human perversity, the light of religion is quenched in men's hearts, and the divinely appointed Robe, designed to adorn the human temple, is deliberately discarded, a deplorable decline in the fortunes of humanity immediately sets in, bringing in its wake all the evils which a wayward soul is capable of revealing. The perversion of human nature, the degradation of human conduct, the corruption and dissolution of human institutions, reveal themselves, under such circumstances, in their worst and most revolting aspects. Human character is debased, confidence is shaken, the nerves of discipline are relaxed, the voice of human conscience is stilled, the sense of decency and shame is obscured, conceptions of duty, of solidarity, of reciprocity and loyalty are distorted, and the very feeling of peacefulness, of joy and of hope is gradually extinguished."

Find one Baha'i (or former Baha'i) who says that by following the Baha'i teachings, his or her conscience was weakened. A single one!

Baha'is are called on to decrease our fear of other human beings, but to cultivate the "fear of God." That Fear is a different reality. It lends itself to our independence of spirit. We strive to break away from imitation of others, to free ourselves from the imposition of will by others. Yet, to the sincere seeker, it is through submission of the will to the Will of God, that the person finds his or her true nature:

"Wert thou to ponder in thine heart, from now until the end that hath no end, and with all the concentrated intelligence and understanding which the greatest minds have attained in the past or will attain in the future, this divinely ordained and subtle Reality, this sign of the revelation of the All-Abiding, All-Glorious God, thou wilt fail to comprehend its mystery or to appraise its virtue. Having recognized thy powerlessness to attain to an adequate understanding of that Reality which abideth within thee, thou wilt readily admit the futility of such efforts as may be attempted by thee, or by any of the created things, to fathom the mystery of the Living God, the Day Star of unfading glory, the Ancient of everlasting days. This confession of helplessness which mature contemplation must eventually impel every mind to make is in itself the acme of human understanding, and marketh the culmination of man's development."

The whole point of Baha'u'llah's Revelation is to aid us to become what we potentially can be. The Manifestation claims to be able to take us where we want to go.

We have to get beyond the superficial level, where language can tie us up. These spiritual realities cannot be attained from the armchair. The only way to test the soundness of Baha'u'llah's teachings is to wholeheartedly observe them. You have to take the medicine to know for sure if the doctor is knowledgeable. This isn't for chickens; that's what Baha'u'llah says in his Book:

"This is not a Cause which may be made a plaything for your idle fancies, nor is it a field for the foolish and faint of heart. By God, this is the arena of insight and detachment, of vision and upliftment, where none may spur on their chargers save the valiant
horsemen of the Merciful, who have severed all attachment to the world of being. These, truly, are they that render God victorious on earth, and are the dawning-places of His sovereign might amidst mankind."

Jinabi Irfan

I'm not trying to stick up for polygamy, much less adultery.

I observe the sanctity of the Teachings of Baha'u'llah. If they were marred by inequities, or irrationality, or moral decay, that would have been pointed out for the past century.

But when a moral code is perfect from every respect, then the only criticism of it that a critic can muster, is to say "It's idealistic."

Having failed to find a flaw; the nonexistence of a flaw will do, for the one whose sole motive is criticism.

A Baha'i will yield the virtue in a person who, though a non-believer, strives to raise the moral standards of humanity; or promotes peace; or seeks to help people to fulfill their potential.

Cannot the critic of the Baha'i Faith, instead of this unfair and complete rejection, do the same? And acknowledge the merits of this Faith?

Sure, if the critic wishes to criticize the Prophet for having three wives, he can claim that the principle of equality of the sexes isn't followed. But show me, on the entire face of the earth, a movement of any kind, that reaches into cities in Japan, and into village huts in New Guinea, and into refugee tents in Zaire -- into cultures where men dominate women utterly; and changes men's attitudes.

Don't look for reasons to criticize.

Look fairly. Look at the good this Faith and this community is doing.

Mr Irfan

KVL,
re the whole question of polygamy, monogamy, etc. you may be interested in this little known fact

Craig writes:
"Let's hear what you have to say regarding Douglas Martin's quote in light of your above post? "

Craig,
we can compare the spiritual laws to traffic rules established for our collective safety. These rules do not apply if we want to live solitary, but do apply if we wish to live in a society with other drivers.

We have a certain degree of liberty allowed by these rules, but some set rules are "inviolable" and will lead to sanctions if we transgress. You cannot "prefer" to drive on the right if you live in the UK, even though it might not be worse than driving on the right as in teh US. Traffic rules do not replace or exclude courtesy, mindfulness, even the necessity to adapt to specific and exceptionnal circumstances: snow, land-slides, traffic jams ... but we cannot just presume that we can always apply our own rules whenever we wish.

In the same way, we have a certain degree of personnal judgment related to personnal issues, and set laws beyond these issues.

Baquia,
you write:
"It's sad there has to be so many unanswerable questions surrounding such a beautiful religion such as why Baha'u'llah had to be a polygamist when he set a standard and made it law in his own "Most Holy Book" that polygamy was impossible to achieve successful marriage? "

The understanding that Baha'u'llah provides us with is that religious truth is relative and not absolute; what is appropriate is relative to a time and a context. What was appropriate at the time of Baha'u'llah was for men that could afford it to offet their wealth and protection to as many women as possible. It was considered as lacking generosity to only marry one women. Baha'u'llah says that the sun rises progressivelt to allow all things to adapt to it's light; if it were to appear too fast, nature would be damaged.

My personal understanding is that pending the election of the UHJ some laws had to be provided for the early believers; these laws were to be applicable by them, in their day and age and social surroundings, and adapted later on to the needs of each day and age by the UHJ.

For exemple, the believers in Akka would observe the Moslem fast and Abdu'l-Baha would go to the mosque on Fridays, so that the transition with their social environment would not be sudden. Shoghi Effendi discontinued these practices, much to the surprise of His relatives. Hence alcohol and polygamy are being progressively eliminated and are still being marginally tolerated, for example in some communities where new believers already have several wives.

Abdu'l-Baha would have submitted law making to teh UHJ during His lifetime, had he been able to have this body elected during His lifetime. I would imagine that Baha'u'llah would have done the same, in the unlikely case of the world leaders accepting His message during His life-time.

We also know that Baha'u'llah submits acts of worship according to the Aqdas, and affairs of state to the UHJ.

The message of God does not aim at making of us automatic machines, but aims at educating us progressively, with love and consideration; this is why revelations are progressive, and within this revelation, law making has also been made progressive.

In matters of ethics, the UHJ clearly submits the "areas of grey" to the individual conscience of the believers, assisted by appropriate expert attention. This "area of grey" is whatever is between the bounds of what has been revealed and legislated upon by the UHJ, just like there is an area of freedom between the limits of traffic regulations imposed upon us, in the interest of "the common good".

Mvaddat,
you quote:
"To follow Bahá'u'lláh does not mean accepting some of His teachings and rejecting the rest. Allegiance to His Cause must be uncompromising and whole-hearted."

And one of Baha'u'llahs laws is that religious truth is relative and not absolute, and that the UHJ is to legislate according to the needs and requirements of each day and age.

Baha'u'llah does not say the believers can adapt laws to their particular needs an tastes, but that the laws that bind all humanity will be adapted by the UHJ to the specific needs.

Shoghieffendi writes:
Such is the immutability of His revealed Word. Such is the elasticity which characterises the functions of His appointed ministers. The first preserves the identity of His Faith, and guards the integrity of His law. The second enables it, even as a living organism, to expand and adapt itself to the needs and requirements of an ever-changing society.
(Shoghi Effendi: World Order of Baha'u'llah, p 23)

The UHJ continues in this line:
"...an area of the application of the laws is intentionally left to the conscience of each individual believer.

This is the age in which mankind must attain maturity, and one aspect of this is the assumption by individuals of the responsibility for deciding, with the assistance of consultation, their own course of action in areas which are left open by the Law of God. (UHJ, 14 November 1986)

Craig, you quote :

“You’ll recall that the U.S. was ‘dragged’ into WWII with the attack on Pearl Harbor (..)‘please, will you be quiet and let God do His work!’” - Glenford Mitchell Current Member of the Universal House of Justice Baha’i Faith"

Craig, What Mitchell might have said here is being quoted out of context. I disagree with what I read, not because of its specific political implications, but because as Baha'is we are supposed to concentrate on the spiritual upraising of humanity, without interfereing with political issues. We know that none of these issues will find a sustainable solution until and unless humanity is spiritually reformed.

I guess his idea within the context of his speech that day was to say that Baha'is should not make statements or waste their time on political issues and concentrate on their job of helping humanity towards spiritualisation, the only foundation on which global security was at all possible. Perhaps he meant that we should do what is accessible to us, and not try to take things out of God's hands.

This being said, we know that any individual, whatever his position, is entitled to a give an unathoritative personnal opinion, which in no way is binding on any elected institution.

But let us admit that Glenford Mitchell made a big, big mistake that day, and got carried off by his personnal rants... Who doesn't make mistakes?

And in what way would a personnal mistake from a member of a Divine Institution that Baha'u'llah has established as the law giver, tarnish the reputation of that Institution? Would you require that Mitchel should be expelled from the UHJ for that mistake?

The Baha'i Faith is providing spiritual food for a hungering humanity and you are saying watch out, there is a crack in the plate on which it is being served. Is that the only service you have to offer to humanity?

Or are you offering other services to humanity? If so, suggest them, share your good ideas with us, perhaps we would be tempted to adopt some of your ideas in favour of humanity.

My gosh, I heard that a House of Justice member wore wrinkled clothing with spots on his shirt. I guess the House of Justice isn't such a clean and elegant institution, after all.

And I heard a House of Justice member tell a joke that implied that men were smarter than women. I guess that gives the lie to all of that money from the Baha'i Fund being spent by the House of Justice in developing countries around the world in SED projects to elevate women; this is the REAL House of Justice.

Good Lord, if there's one thing these quotes from individual House members shows, it's how far some people are willing to reach, to find some way, any way, to criticize the Universal House of Justice.

The problem with that attack approach is that these quotes are just a small square, and they won't stretch to make the tent you want. Quoting them shows a desperation.

As far as Mr Mitchell saying to be quiet about America's military involvements, Baha'is are supposed to be quiet about *all* governments' military involvements, so Mr. Mitchell's advice stands. Baha'is do not take positions on wars, for or against. We should not be praising America's military involvements, nor criticizing them. These are clearly political matters. Some people have a hair trigger response to learning that America's soldiers are abroad; they instantly criticize. Others immediately praise. Baha'is retain neutrality.

There is one, and only one, exception I know of in recent years, and that is that the Universal House of Justice praised the international coalition of governments that worked through the UN for the prosecution of the first war in Kuwait and southern Iraq; because it was a step towards the collective security recommendations outlined in the House of Justice letter, "The Promise of World Peace."

Mr Insaf

Andrew,

I agree with many points.

However, i have some comments; you write:
"The doctrinal part of REVEALED RELIGION consists of a series of REVEALED LAWS."

To an extent, yes, but revealed spiritual laws alos inspire the secular laws. Socrates carried some of the Jewish laws into Greek thought. Her is how Abdu'l-Baha explains this:

"Each divine revelation is divided into two parts. The first part is essential... It is the exposition of significances and realities. It is the expression of the love of God, the knowledge of God. This is one in all the religions, unchangeable and immutable…

The second part is inessential. It belongs to practical life, to transactions and business, and changes according to the requirements… These moral laws are the reflections on this plane of the divine laws, and they become the medium for transmuting the thought of man into his reality. The moral laws change as the horizon of man extends.
(Adu'l-Baha on Christ and Christianity : An interview with Pasteur Monnier , Paris, 17 February 1917)

You write:
"A revealed religion is one based on an allegedly divine revelation to particular persons at a particular time, e.g., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.(...) The ancient polytheistic religions, like that of Sumer, were not revealed religions.(...) Neither Hinduism nor Buddhism are revealed religions with revealed laws:"

Fair enough, as far as we can prove historically, yes, although some even doubt about the historical existence of Moses and Jesus. Arnold Toynbee defends the idea of civilisation being absed on revealed moral laws. We could also interpret the creation of Adam and Eve as being the allegoric creation of consciousness in humans that the Bible intitially announces as being already created male and female, before the incident about the rib (word also linguistically meaning "the side" and "the life"

You write:
"However, Baha'i apologists have a way of spinning the unspinable in ways that non-Baha'is would never recognize."

Even though this idea of revealed nature of ancient religions is not provable scientifically (for the moment), it is a possible interpretation, and an interpretation that contributes towards a greater reconciliation of the greatest masses of human populations; even if it were a lie, does that lie contribute to welfare, love and unity, or does it contribute to alienation ans strife?

What is wrong in telling millions of Muslims and Hindus that they come from a common spiritual origin, fruits of the same tree, inviting them to reconcile, collaborate, love each other?

Is it so much smarter to tell them that they are from a good and bad tree, inviting them to fight and eliminate each other mutually... ?

You write:
"I'm sure you'll do likewise! Have fun!"

Sure Andrew, I would have much more fun reconciling people than separating them, fanning the flames of hatred. I never lie to my patients; even in cases of malpractice, everyone is better off by apologizing and telling the truth, but if I feel that witholding some information is in their interest, helps them get better, I dont hesitate, I avoid being outspoken.

You write:
"Rants has the full version of the documentary in My Backyard"

Thanks, I have watched and appreciated seeing it.

Mavaddat,
you write:
"And here’s some Shoghi Effendi-style dogmatism and authoritarianism for you"

Yes, you are right, our outlook on ethics is different; Marxists also believe thet thare is an inborn sense of good and bad they call "natural law". They imagined that by eliminating selfish people the good ones would remain As a Baha'i I believe that this sense of right and wrong is acquired by "osmosis" in each society, reactivated and promoted by revelations. Even if some of us do have an inborn sense, educating further will make us even better.

Ultimately, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Meanwhile, we can agree to disagree on some points and perhaps even collaborate towards the common good in areas where we agree. :-)

[quote comment="45830"]And here's some Shoghi Effendi-style dogmatism and authoritarianism for you: quote]

Mavaddat,

For someone who has repeatedly stressed the importance of linguistic clarity you have a puzzling way of utilizing quotations to prove your points. You quote the Guardian's statements about faith as being demonstrative of his "dogmatism" and "authoritarianism" and yet the Guardian is merely stating what is widely accepted as the definition of faith.

Consider how closely this Mirriam-Webster definition of faith is in harmony with the Guardian's statements:" 1 a: allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1): fidelity to one's promises (2): sincerity of intentions 2 a (1): belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2): belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust 3: something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs <the Protestant faith." http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith

It is very surprizing to learn that the Guardian's statements re the obvious automatically make him guilty of being dogmatic and authoritarian.

Peter S

[quote comment="45854"]Craig writes:
"Let's hear what you have to say regarding Douglas Martin's quote in light of your above post? "

Craig,
we can compare the spiritual laws to traffic rules established for our collective safety. These rules do not apply if we want to live solitary, but do apply if we wish to live in a society with other drivers.

We have a certain degree of liberty allowed by these rules, but some set rules are "inviolable" and will lead to sanctions if we transgress. You cannot "prefer" to drive on the right if you live in the UK, even though it might not be worse than driving on the right as in teh US. Traffic rules do not replace or exclude courtesy, mindfulness, even the necessity to adapt to specific and exceptionnal circumstances: snow, land-slides, traffic jams ... but we cannot just presume that we can always apply our own rules whenever we wish.

In the same way, we have a certain degree of personnal judgment related to personnal issues, and set laws beyond these issues.[/quote]
[quote comment=""][...] Rants has the full version of the documentary “Baha’is in My Backyard” up for those interested in seeing [...][/quote]

Farhan,

I NEVER said what you say here isn't true. For MY personal conscience and it's ethical development all my life I consult the Law of Moses (which are really Egyptian as a system of thought - but plagarism apparently wasn't considered "stealing" in the Ten Commandments), the profound and very cosmicly deep ethical teachings of Jesus, the counsels of Mohammad, the life of the Bab, and the Writings of Baha'u'llah among others. I counsult Hindu, Buddhist, and Zoroasterian thought. I also consult the writings of Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut.

I am saying that the current lifetime incumbent usurper hacks on the Universal House of Justice are asking Baha'is -and THE ENTIRE WORLD - to turn over the individual personal conscience of their soul to THEM and THEIR RULINGS and what THEY THINK about everything under the Sun ON EARTH as THE NINE INFALLIBLE WORLD EXECUTIVES!!! This is how I read what Little Lord Fonteroy Douglas Martin is saying.

The Central Figures of the Baha'i Faith do NOT teach this! Baha'u'llah, Abdu'l-Baha, and Shoghi Effendi all say the individual conscience belongs to the individual person and their personal conscience alone.

I have molded my conscience mostly by the teachings of Jesus because I was raised a Christian. I joined the Baha'i Faith in 1971 precisely because I wanted to be a Christian in practice on a planetray level in the newly born World Age with it's new scale for the application of moral conscience.

People are to form a conscience influenced by the teachings of the Avatars and all advanced thinkers, writers, dramatists, and poets. Not by submitting their souls to a Hitler, a Stalin, a Politburo, or a UHJ, or any other human person or organization of human persons on Earth. For me, especially a UHJ run by nine men who have accomplished absolutely nothing in their soft cult bubble protected lives. These men have never faced anything in their soft and sheltered Momma's Boy lives what soldiers have faced.

You have not answered my question at all.

What would you do if the UHJ said all Baha'is must now kill their non-Baha'i parents if they have not taken Ruhi Book One? Would you do it because you have turned your personal conscience over to the INFALLIBLE NINE WORLD EXECUTIVES? I also say it is not in their sphere of operation (their "JOB DESCRIPTION") to tell any one to kill or not kill their parents. PERIOD. Nor is it in their "job description" to interpret one line of Baha'i scripture for anyone on Earth. PERIOD.

And still you have not answered my question:

According to Glenford Mitchell's statement WHO was "doing God's work" on March 16th, 1968 in the hamlet of My Lai ? CWO Hugh Thompson or Lieutenant Calley. Let's hear it?

Glenford Mitchell's quote implies that it is the Armed Forces of the United States that "DO GOD'S WORK" in the world and everyone MUST NOT PROTEST anything, but MUST BE SILENT IN THEIR OPINIONS (like him ... wha ... huh ???) and ACCEPT whatever the Armed Forces of the United States do in the world. OK. If that is what you believe then fine then. But if that is the case, I say every Baha'i as a moral standard in sharing in the SACRIFICE OF WAR MUST SERVE in the front line units there at this very moment to kill or be killed.

You are a medical doctor, by this standard of UHJ member Glenford Mitchell's you say you accept, WHY aren't you in Iraq RIGHT NOW serving in the Armed Forces of the United States "DOING GOD'S WORK"? I am sure they can use your services. I say if you accept this quote as a Baha'i and you AREN'T there, YOU are living off of the blood and sacrifice of others. That makes you a spiritual vampire. You can't have it both ways. If what Glenford Mitchell says as a UHJ member is the standard of Baha'i Belief, in his "personal elucidation" every Baha'i should be fighting and dying in Iraq as front line soldiers as the only moral thing to do. I already did my time serving in the Armed Forces of the United States so at least I have some moral credibility in the "new" and "improved" "straight talk elucidation express" Baha'i Faith. You don't if you accept what Glenford Mitchell says but have never served.

Furthermore, your daughters should be there now too if they are Baha'is. Front line. Soldier to soldier. M-16's locked and loaded. Kill or be killed. Same with Mr. Insaf and his entire family as good Baha'is carrying their full share. Let's go. I'll drive you both to the recruit station.

Both of you appear to have Iranian names. I am sure your Shia and Sunni bretheran would love to capture you in battle where you would then go to a horrible certain death by 7th Century decapitation in the name of God by people also thinking they are "DOING GOD'S WORK" in ending your life so painfully.

Instead some American soldier caught up in the poverty draft is there facing death daily IN YOUR PLACE as a Baha'i.

How moral is that?

Let's hear it Mr. Yazdani and Mr. Insaf! Let's hear what you have to say about the fate of those sent to "DO GOD'S WORK" in your place while you and your families sleep safe in your beds at night?

What is your "traffic rule" on that?

I say the entire Baha'i Faith under the leadership of this effete unaccountable boys club is spiritually driving on the wrong side of the road and everyone is going to be killed when they hit the next oncoming bus head on somewhere down the road over the next hill.

I have been a Baha'i for 36 years and still am a BIGS. I was totally dedicated up until 4 years ago. I taught the Faith to thousands of people over almost four decades. I served in many different capacities and did many important projects for my nearest Local Spiritual Assembly. And I now say vote these people currently leading the Baha'i Faith at every level from the stage of history and into total oblivion.

Peter writes,
[quote post="382"]For someone who has repeatedly stressed the importance of linguistic clarity you have a puzzling way of utilizing quotations to prove your points. You quote the Guardian’s statements about faith as being demonstrative of his “dogmatism” and “authoritarianism” and yet the Guardian is merely stating what is widely accepted as the definition of faith.

Consider how closely this Mirriam-Webster definition of faith is in harmony with the Guardian’s statements:...[/quote]
Peter, thanks for your inquiry. I appreciate being held to my own standards of clarity and rigour.

I must admit, however, that I'm surprised that you were puzzled by that quotation being used as evidence of Shoghi Effendi's hankering for authoritarianism. I agree that Shoghi Effendi was semantically on the money -- but surely you don't think he was merely providing an accurate definition of "faith," do you? In the context of what he wrote, it's clear (to me at least) that he is admonishing us not to subject the Bahá'í Faith to any kind of human accountability. Look at his word immediately preceding the quotation I provided:[quote]But one word of warning must be uttered in this connection. Let us be on our guard lest we measure too strictly the Divine Plan with the standard of men. I am not prepared to state that it agrees in principle or in method with the prevailing notions now uppermost in men's minds, nor that it should conform with those imperfect, precarious, and expedient measures feverishly resorted to by agitated humanity. Are we to doubt that the ways of God are not necessarily the ways of man?

(Shoghi Effendi, Baha'i Administration, p. 62)[/quote]Does this not smack of utter, unadulterated dogmatism to you? Anyone who believes that we cannot subject the "Word of God" to the "standards of men" is implicitly arguing that God makes his imperatives merely by commanding them. This kind of backwards reasoning is apparent in everything I quoted from the Bahá'í writings. It's clear that Bahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and Shoghi Effendi believed that God could command absolutely anything, and its mere uttering forth from the mouth of God would make that command imperative for us. Well, I'm sorry, but this is dogmatism at its finest. If God's command is not moral, then it cannot be imperative. God too must be subject to objective morality. He doesn't get to "make up the rules" just because he is the most powerful, or most knowing. To argue otherwise is to confuse might with right and thus usher-in complete moral tyranny.

So I hope it makes sense why I see the Guardian's quotation as indicative of dogmatism and authoritarianism. I hope you can see why I think that Craig is so wrong about his faith in Bahá'u'lláh's support for individual conscience. The dogmatist always wants his philosophy to be exempt from "human" criticism, and it's clear that Bahá'u'lláh fits this mold. The humanist, on the other hand, is always wanting to make it all the more subject to that very criticism, which is what my extremely qualified colleagues, Craig and Baquia and Andrew, are doing, (although I'm not sure they all realize it).

[quote post="382"]Anyone who believes that we cannot subject the “Word of God” to the “standards of men” is implicitly arguing that God makes his imperatives merely by commanding them.[/quote]
Oops. I meant, "...that God makes his imperatives good merely by commanding them."

[quote post="382"]I am saying that the current lifetime incumbent usurper hacks on the Universal House of Justice are asking Baha’is -and THE ENTIRE WORLD - to turn over the individual personal conscience of their soul to THEM and THEIR RULINGS and what THEY THINK about everything under the Sun ON EARTH as THE NINE INFALLIBLE WORLD EXECUTIVES!!! This is how I read what Little Lord Fonteroy Douglas Martin is saying.

The Central Figures of the Baha’i Faith do NOT teach this! Baha’u'llah, Abdu’l-Baha, and Shoghi Effendi all say the individual conscience belongs to the individual person and their personal conscience alone.[/quote]
Craig, it seems pretty clear from the quotations I provided that the submission of the individual's conscience to the Universal House of Justice is precisely what the "Central Figures" expected of the believers. Why do you refuse to address this? Your qualm isn't with the AO. It's with BA.

F. Yazdani wrote:

"Even if it were a LIE, does that LIE contribute to welfare, love and unity, or does it contribute to alienation and strife? ... I never LIE to my patients ... BUT if I feel that withholding some information is in their interest, helps them get better, I DON'T HESITATE..."

Thank you, sir. I have nothing more to add.

"the submission of the individual’s conscience to the Universal House of Justice is precisely what the “Central Figures” expected of the believers"

This is just plain silly.
Lots of bluster about nothing at all to do with the Baha'i Faith.
Period.

Mr. Insaf wrote,[quote post="382"]“the submission of the individual’s conscience to the Universal House of Justice is precisely what the “Central Figures” expected of the believers”

This is just plain silly.
Lots of bluster about nothing at all to do with the Baha’i Faith.
Period.[/quote]
I agree it is silly... only if you choose to ignore all the evidence I've given. If you ignore all the writings that say that individuals have no right to question, criticize, or denounce the imperatives commanded by Bahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi, and the Universal House of Justice, then it is silly. You have to ignore alot, but I'm sure you're up to it.

[quote post="382"]F. Yazdani wrote:

“Even if it were a LIE, does that LIE contribute to welfare, love and unity, or does it contribute to alienation and strife? … I never LIE to my patients … BUT if I feel that withholding some information is in their interest, helps them get better, I DON’T HESITATE…”

Thank you, sir. I have nothing more to add.[/quote]
The man who uses deceit as a medicine for the healing of those he deems ill will not hesitate to turn his medicine on you when it is convenient for him to heal you. Farhan's Machiavellian hypocrisy is self-defeating.

Mavaddat wrote: " Anyone who believes that we cannot subject the “Word of God” to the “standards of men” is implicitly arguing that God makes his imperatives merely by commanding them. This kind of backwards reasoning is apparent in everything I quoted from the Bahá’í writings. It’s clear that Bahá’u'lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and Shoghi Effendi believed that God could command absolutely anything, and its mere uttering forth from the mouth of God would make that command imperative for us. Well, I’m sorry, but this is dogmatism at its finest."

Well, that would be your position from your perspective as an atheist. However, it happens to be the case that members of various religions - not only Baha'is - believe that God can command absolutely anything. They don't only believe this about God but also about the legitimate Head of their Faith (e.g. Catholics who completely accept papal authority). There is no reason to suggest the Baha'i Faith is unique in this regard. It may seem dogmatic and authoritarian in your view because you do not have faith and cannot accept it but it doesn't mean you are right.

The "standards of men" have proven to be faulty throughout history. The failed belief in and implementation of Communism is one of many examples I could cite. My Marxist (scientific socialist) peers at university believed, as an article of faith, that religion was the opiate of the people. Their fervour was such that it seemed to me to demonstrate the truth of the countervailing comment that "Communism is the opiate of the intellectuals..." Where is Communism now compared to its heydey?

What has seemed to be absolutely true from the perspective of prevailing scientific beliefs in various disciplines to many generations has often been discarded by subsequent ones. This illustrates the truth of Shoghi Effendi's statement which you quoted that "what science tells us today is true; tomorrow may be entirely changed to better explain a new set of facts." Indeed, scientific discoveries have often been greeted with disdain by an often dogmatic and authoritarian scientific establishment which you ignore in your focus on religion. Nobel Laureates Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who claimed that peptic ulcers and gastritis were an infectious disease could tell you a thing or two about dogmatism in the scientific and medical communities! I certainly hope that you do not think that reason and scientific research and publications (Richard Dawkins?) are somehow immune from dogmatic thinking and behaviour?

Your own thinking is influenced by past thinkers and current analysis in such a manner as to make it very difficult for you to attain any kind of ideal pure rational truth that is completley independent of your education and socialization. Your judgement of religion from your Western 21st century perspective does not make you immune from the examples of erroneous thinking one can cite from previous decades and centuries. You should be open to the possibility that you could be wrong about the Baha'i Faith, religion and God in much the same way that you could be wrong, for example, about philosophical beliefs. Until the philospher Charles Mills' published his highly acclaimed The Racial Contract (see also his Blackness Visible and recent Contract and Domination with Carole Patemen) in 1997, for example, white philosphers remained blissfully unaware of the "...unacknowledged racial presuppositions of the entire social contract tradition, which is to say all of liberal political theory for the past four centuries" as one reviewer eloquently put it. Yet, if one had suggested this possibility of racism even as recently as the 1980s it would have been rejected as completely false by philophers.

I think these caveats are equally applicable to some other posters. The enormous focus on male membership of the UHJ (if I may digress) ignores the fact that millions in numerous countries will find it very difficult to accept the participation of women in Baha'i local and national spiritual Assemblies or their roles as assistants, Board members, Counsellors and members of the ITC. I find the failure to recognize just how revolutionary this is for some cultures rather sad in the sense that it mirrors a very narrow approach in thinking that devalues the effect of the Baha'i Faith on the rights of women globally by ignoring all of this simply because of a preoccupation with the sole issue of UHJ membership. It underestimates the extent to which some people believe that their understanding and activism re this issue is something that is applicable to all people in all countries and cultures. Undoubtedly, some in other countries and cultures will do the opposite by criticizing the Faith just as vehemently for uplifting the status of women by allowing them to play such an important role!

Peter S,

Perhaps you are unaware of the concept of "selectivity" when it comes to communication. It means, that when making a point, you cannot possibly include everything you know, believe, or feel, and must make choices as to what to communicate based on the topic at hand and what is relevent. To characterize the voicing of the apparently RADICAL idea that women should be enfranchised throughout the world, meaning no longer subserviant to the rule of men, but equal partners in that rule (HOW RADICAL!!!!!!)as "ignoring" other issues is groundless. Arguing a thesis does not prelude the importance of other theses. Your argument that men couldn't handle the full and equal participation of women at every level of government is a sad statement of your opinion of men. It is also irrelevent to the cause of justice. White Americans in the South were not ready for slavery to end. They were not ready for the civil rights movement, or for lynching to stop. Boo-freaking hoo for them. Justice is more important than the comfort level of any oppressor. Name ONE rational argument against the full enfranchisement of women and you will have my attention.

Frankly, I do not care if men are not ready for justice. It is no longer their decision to make. Women are ready for justice, and we will have it with or without your comfortable aquiescence.

Your statement that God and religious authorities can command whatever they want, without regard to the morality of that command, is the clearest support I have read so far of Mavaddats argument that the Baha'i Faith is authoritarian and dogmatic. And going back to "selectivity," he never said dogma was the exclusive domain of religion. Of course any human pursuit can fall prey to dogma.

Mavaddat,

I couldn't resist posting this excerpt from the Nobel website: "This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who with tenacity and a prepared mind challenged prevailing DOGMAS (my emphasis).

In 1982, when this bacterium was discovered by Marshall and Warren, stress and lifestyle were considered the major causes of peptic ulcer disease."

Both men were assailed and ostracised for a considerable period by their peers. There are numerous other examples of scientific belief which were dogmatic although their proponents held them to be based on rigorous rational/scientific methodology. The same applies to many other academic fields of endeavour throughout the centuries. Yet Baha'is are singled out as some sort of weird exception and the sole keepers of the temple of dogma and authoritarianism!

If you really want to explore dogmatism and authoritarian behaviour in a more balanced way I suggest you take a thorough look at the history of science and not just confine yourself to religion. You might also want to look at contemporary medical research and the revealing and somewhat alarming studies done re the skewed positive correlation between the findings published in many academic journals and the pharmaceutical companies which funded the research.

I am bemused by scientists and philosophers who rail against God and religion while ignoring the reality of the changing truths which indicate their views could be ultimately proved erroneus as is so eloquently described by Shoghi Effendi. However, I do not wish to focus on this excessively.

Religion and faith, as much as you may despise it, has contributed tremendously to the enrichment of human life. Science has done so as well. A fire can burn your house down. It can also warm you when you are cold and help you to read a good book at night. Some have used religion, figuratively speaking, to burn other people's houses down and some have been motivated by it to help warm and enlighten others. The same applies to science and other academic fields. Man's reason has been applied to the creation of tools which build and tools which destroy. Reason alone is as limited and circumscribed as faith but that is a complex discussion which would require at least one book (copiously annotated with innumerable footnotes in deference to linguistic philosophy).

everyone...pardon my mispellings - I'm aware of them but it's very late here and I'm typing my posts half asleep and now I'm off to bed!

Amanda, Just noticed your post as I was going to sleep. Okay, so I see you agree that ALL religions whose believers have faith that God commands as He wishes (an intrinsic attribute of an all powerful Being) would have to be characterized as authoritarian and dogmatic including Catholics.

I am very much aware of selectivity which is why I wanted to point out that many societies would be far more resistant to having women on even local institutions much less the UHJ and that excessive focus on the sole isssue of the UHJ as is exemplified in your selectivity ignores the enormously positive contribution of the Baha'i Faith to women's rights throughout the world.

I was merely stating an obvious fact about patriarchal societies throughout the world and their resistance to the wonderful changes that the Baha'i Faith is bringing about among the men who dominate them. The fact that the Faith has been able to engender so much change in their thinking is a testimony to my confidence in its redemptiive power and not to what you wrongly attribute as my lack of faith in men's ability to change. If I didn't think they could change I wouldn't attest to the Faith's profound effect on such societies (which obviously engenders opposition of some men). Cheers!

Peter S. wrote:

"However, it happens to be the case that members of various religions - not only Baha’is - believe that God can command absolutely anything."

It also happens to be the case that members of many other religions do not believe that God can command absolutely anything. Certain Jewish and Catholic theologians believe that God is "limited in being" and limited in how he can act. Many theologians believe that God cannot (for example) command evil to be committed by anyone.

"They don’t only believe this about God but also about the legitimate Head of their Faith (e.g. Catholics who completely accept papal authority)."

The Pope cannot command anything he wants. There are strict limits on the teaching ministry of the Pope just as there are different levels of "assent" expected of the Catholic laity. The situation is a bit more sophisticated than you present it, and certainly much more so than in the matter of simple obedience to the dictates of the UHJ.

"There is no reason to suggest the Baha’i Faith is unique in this regard. It may seem dogmatic and authoritarian in your view because you do not have faith and cannot accept it but it doesn’t mean you are right."

Nor does it mean that he is wrong!

"The 'standards of men' have proven to be faulty throughout history."

As have the so-called standards of God as proclaimed by men (since God is clearly incapable of speaking on his own behalf).

"Where is Communism now compared to its heydey?"

One might just as well ask the same question about any movement, religious or secular. Communism, like religious fundamentalism, will be with us always.

"What has seemed to be absolutely true from the perspective of prevailing scientific beliefs in various disciplines to many generations has often been discarded by subsequent ones."

And just as often not.

"This illustrates the truth of Shoghi Effendi’s statement which you quoted that 'what science tells us today is true; tomorrow may be entirely changed to better explain a new set of facts.'"

It illustrates nothing of the sort. One does not necessarily follow from the other.

"You should be open to the possibility that you could be wrong about the Baha’i Faith, religion and God in much the same way that you could be wrong, for example, about philosophical beliefs."

Are Baha'is open to the possibility that they might be wrong about the Baha'i faith?

"Yet, if one had suggested this possibility of racism even as recently as the 1980s it would have been rejected as completely false by philosophers."

This is a supposition that is not supported by your statement. In fact, Mills' work has been criticized on precisely this premise.

"Millions in numerous countries will find it very difficult to accept the participation of women in Baha’i local and national spiritual Assemblies or their roles as assistants, Board members, Counsellors and members of the ITC."

I submit that millions of people in numerous countries would willingly burn other people at the stake if it were perceived to be in their best interests to do so. Female genital mutilation is also very popular in certain cultures.

Hi Peter,

As much as I hate doing this, I'm going to do a line-by-line response, because it takes time that I don't have to organize a completely structured response (which is what I would like to do).

In response to my attempt to expose of the Faith's dogmatism, you write:[quote]Well, that would be your position from your perspective as an atheist. However, it happens to be the case that members of various religions - not only Baha’is - believe that God can command absolutely anything. They don’t only believe this about God but also about the legitimate Head of their Faith (e.g. Catholics who completely accept papal authority). There is no reason to suggest the Baha’i Faith is unique in this regard. It may seem dogmatic and authoritarian in your view because you do not have faith and cannot accept it but it doesn’t mean you are right.[/quote]This response is a classic example of three ubiquitous fallacies. And I hate to argue against you this way, because it is so formulaic... But your points are such a classic examples of muddled thinking. Seriously, look it up: Every single point you made is a textbook fallacy. It amounts to the assertion that A) you don't need to take my opinion seriously because I don't believe in your God, B) one should not especially criticize the Bahá'í view since the majority of religious people are also authoritarian dogmatists, and that C) there must be something legitimate about this way of thinking if the majority of religious people think this way. The first point falls under the category of genetic fallacy. Your second point is a two wrongs make a right fallacy. And your third is a classic case of the ad populum fallacy. It's literally like you pulled every rejoinder out of a book on logic, except specifically from the section entitled "How Not To Argue". No need to dwell on these. Let's move on...

You write,[quote]The “standards of men” have proven to be faulty throughout history.[/quote]
Hmm, you do have a point. Maybe we should listen to the standards of women once in a while, eh? Maybe there's something to this whole "stop and ask for directions" business!

Seriously though. Your point is exactly right. Human standards are fallible, transient and subject to change based on failure, experimentation and new discoveries. But who was arguing any differently? You seem to think that I believed that human standards are infallible. I don't. How dangerously ambitious! No no, that is their whole virtue: human standards take up no pretense of infallibility. Human standards are humble, open to revision, and provisional -- the very opposite of "God's standards." Of course, there aren't really any God's standards, since it is always humanity's standards that decide what gets to count as God's standards in the first place. Thus, humanity is fooling itself by merely exalting its own standards to the throne of an imaginary God in the hopes that they may be thereby made more permanent, and in the fear there we really are the only enforces of justice in the world. The invocation of God is the beginning of hubris, and the recognition of its ephemeral nature is the beginning of true humility. In its whole being, true humility is opposed to the necessarily false humility of those who believe they know the mind or will of God.

You write,
[quote]I certainly hope that you do not think that reason and scientific research and publications (Richard Dawkins?) are somehow immune from dogmatic thinking and behaviour?[/quote]This is another red herring. Of course scientists can be dogmatic! They often are. But here is the difference: Scientists are ashamed when they are called dogmatic. Religious people revel in dogmatism. It is their badge of honour. The sign of their faith and certitude:[quote]Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29 - NIV)[/quote][quote]
Blessed is the man that hath acknowledged his belief in God and in His signs, and recognized that ‘He shall not be asked of His doings’. Such a recognition hath been made by God the ornament of every belief and its very foundation. Upon it must depend the acceptance of every goodly deed. Fasten your eyes upon it, that haply the whisperings of the rebellious may not cause you to slip. (Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 77).
[/quote] How juvenile. How infantile. How terrified of truth!

Peter writes,[quote]If you really want to explore dogmatism and authoritarian behaviour in a more balanced way I suggest you take a thorough look at the history of science and not just confine yourself to religion.[/quote]Peter, you are in no position to tell me where to look or what to criticize. Shuffling around in his chains, the enslaved man shall not instruct birds on the subtleties of flying. The fact is that I am worried about and recognize scientific dogmatism as much as religious dogmatism. The fact also is that religion celebrates dogmatism in a perverse way that science shrinks from. The whole philosophy and ideal of science is against dogmatism, even though it may creep up here and there. And please do recognize that this is a forum for "Bahá'í Rants," not "Rants on All the Problems of Humanity." If we can cure the Faith of its dogmatism, we may be one step closer to the humility, fallibilism, and open-mindedness that is fully imagined by humanism, but only lamely gestured at by the Bahá'í writings.

Mavaddat writes:

"Thank you, sir. I have nothing more to add.[/quote]
The man who uses deceit as a medicine for the healing of those he deems ill will not hesitate to turn his medicine on you when it is convenient for him to heal you. Farhan's Machiavellian hypocrisy is self-defeating."

Well Mavaddat, if you feel that healing and comforting those who suffer is "deceit", and "Machiavellian hypocrisy", and that agitaion of theories and thirst for personnal recognition, using human suffering as a tool for advancing personnal ambition is true service to humanity, I feel that you should advance your programme and the UHJ will advance their programme and we will see in the end who has most rendered service to humanity. History will record it.

Here we are with thousands and soon millions of Baha'i youth learning talents for serving others through the Institute Process, dozens entering the Faith in Europe, with communities already equipped for welcoming them, children's classes, devotionnals, deepenings and study circles, SED programmes flourishing every where, and you sit back and fix your eyes on your screen, churning words and quotes as if you were playing scrabble with your own destiny.

If you looked closer you would see God's Love beaming forth from the Divine Institution you are desperately and hopelessly trying to belittle, biting the loving hand that is offering us food.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating and what you are serving here has no nourishment to offer any one. The suffering patients I speak about are just arguments to advance your cynical ambitions.

You have nothing to add; that is the sad part of it for you. Is that the only fruit of the tree you claim to come from? Nothing constructive, loving, compassionate to offer?

If so, the tree you claim to come from will end up in compost and it's residus will nourish the tree of God.

Amanda writes:

"Frankly, I do not care if men are not ready for justice. It is no longer their decision to make. Women are ready for justice, and we will have it with or without your comfortable aquiescence."

Here we go again Amanda: dualistic thoughts: men vs women, cowbys vs Indians, blacks vs whites, BIGS vs unenrolled..., how about trying reconciliation, harmony and collaboration, ..???

Peace upon you young lady, PEACE

[quote post="382"]I feel that you should advance your programme and the UHJ will advance their programme and we will see in the end who has most rendered service to humanity. History will record it.[/quote]
Farhan, is this all you have to offer? Competition between opposing ideologies? Mine versus the Universal House of Justice's? One against many? Up versus down? Truth versus truthiness? Pitchers versus batters?

Why don't you try to heal divisions instead of fostering them, Farhan? Honestly. I'm disappointed in you. For shame, man. For shame.

Andrew you quote me saying:
"Even if it were a LIE, does that LIE contribute to welfare, love and unity, or does it contribute to alienation and strife? ... I never LIE to my patients ... BUT if I feel that withholding some information is in their interest, helps them get better, I DON'T HESITATE..."

You reply:
"Thank you, sir. I have nothing more to add.[/quote]"

Pity you have nothing to add; you might have commented on the need for love and compassion and not throwing about words and concepts with the only purpose of advancing personnal ambitions. If I let you get at my patients a few hours, they would all be asking for euthanasia.

Of course your only puropose is to establish ascendancy in words, and not provide compassion and service in acts; What are you exactly offering the suffering masses on this planet? An encouragement to self destruction???

In any case, you can now invite every one to this discussion to show them how a sentence extracted from the context can prove that Baha'is are liars; Yes, go tell humanity that they are starving spiritually, invite them all to them taste of the fruits of this tree that you are announcing as poisonous; they will decide for themselves; In fact you can even tell them that Abdu'l-Baha in person encouraged us to become liars. Show them this:

"Consider that the worst of qualities and most odious of attributes, which is the foundation of all evil, is lying. No worse or more blameworthy quality than this can be imagined to exist; it is the destroyer of all human perfections and the cause of innumerable vices. There is no worse characteristic than this; it is the foundation of all evils. Notwithstanding all this, if a doctor consoles a sick man by saying, "Thank God you are better, and there is hope of your recovery," though these words are contrary to the truth, yet they may become the consolation of the patient and the turning point of the illness. This is not blameworthy." (Abud'l-Baha, Some answered questions IV:57)

Dear Mavaddat,

I just wanted to write to tell you how much I genuinely appreciated the following comment you made today:

"Hmm, you do have a point. Maybe we should listen to the standards of women once in a while, eh? Maybe there’s something to this whole “stop and ask for directions” business!"

Thanks, Man. It's hard for a girl to get a leg up around here sometimes. I also really appreciate the way you seem to genuinely welcome the input of women, as do quite a few of the other male commenters here. It may be hard to imagine, but sometimes a girl has a hard day when people are always blocking her every move for self-actualization and yearnings for global justice and peace. It's almost like they think, if things get better for women, then they will get WORSE for men! Isn't that crazy? The way I figure, "If momma ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy." But if "momma" is happy, well then maybe "daddy" will be happier, too.

The worst is when people just TOTALLY cling onto and twist every thing a girl says about women's rights to make her out as a man hater. It's an obvious ploy and everything, and quite puerile, actually. But just to be sure I thought I'd reality test. You seem brutally honest... (I mean that as a compliment)..do YOU think I'm a man hater? I mean, have my words here ever made you feel like it was me versus you as a man, or like "cowboys and Indians" or anything like that? Because, wow. That would be really horrible. Maybe I'll ask Craig and Andrew and Frank and Baquia, too.

See, I know you'll be honest because you know that truth is the best medicine. The last thing you'd do is answer in some kind of Machiavellian thirst for personnal recognition, using human suffering as a tool for advancing personnal ambition. Your honesty is a true service to humanity. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and what you are serving here has so much nourishment to offer anyone. Especially me, if you'd give me an honest reply. You won't hurt my feelings, be honest. I think you have something to add.

If so, the tree you claim to come from will end up...I don't know. Helping a girl out, or something.

Thanks!
Amanda

Peter wrote:
"In 1982, when this bacterium was discovered by Marshall and Warren, stress and lifestyle were considered the major causes of peptic ulcer disease."

Thanks for reminding us of this beautiful story of the discovery of helicobacter pylorii. We now suspect that stress and lifestyle probably promote the development of this bacteria.

We can also add the beautiful story of Ignace Semmelweiss who discovered that hundreds of women dying from puerperal fever were in fact infected by the medical staff, wheras those examined by the midwives didn't get the disease. Women were prefering giving birth in the streets, rather than having labor in the hospital. He was ostracized for asking his collegues to wash their hands before examining the future mothers and ended up in a psychatric ward.

Couldn't resist adding a word to yours.

Amanda writes:
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating and what you are serving here has so much nourishment to offer anyone. Especially me, if you’d give me an honest reply."

Well Amanda, when I see how well you fit together, I wonder what are you all waiting for to show the world your example of truthfull and constructive world order? Why waste your time criticizing what you consider as a lost cause?

The world is suffering in need of harmony and unity; why not suggest your programme? Let us hear you suggestions, instead of just pointing out to what is wrong in the Baha'i Faith. Expose, suggest, promote something constructive.

Mavaddat wrote:
"Farhan, is this all you have to offer? Competition between opposing ideologies? Mine versus the Universal House of Justice’s?"

No Mavaddat, this is not all. I am saying thet we have spiritual laws to nourish our hearts and minds, and a large area of liberty, and some areas of responsibility where we have to abide by laws necessary for our collective harmony. A system of arbitration, impire, referee, as you wish. You repeatedly say you do not accepte the arbitration of the UHJ for our spiritual lives. For the moment weare all bound by the civil laws of the countries where we reside.

The choice is yours, not mine. If you have suggestions, you can offer to improve the functionning of that institution, go ahead, suggest. If you feel that this institution is hopelessly flawed, you will have to find another system of arbitration or else play around by yourself.

I have chosen this body of arbitration and I am happy with it. Want to join us? Wonderful, you are welcome; if not how can I oblige you to collaborate with us? No one is rejecting you. You are separating yourself from our game by rejecting the referee.

Abdu'l-Baha says this:

"This is a goodly temple and congregation, for--praise be to God!--this is a house of worship [Central Congregational Church in Brooklyn on 16 June 1912] wherein conscientious opinion has free sway. Every religion and every religious aspiration may be freely voiced and expressed here.

Just as in the world of politics there is need for free thought,
likewise in the world of religion there should be the right of
unrestricted individual belief.

Consider what a vast difference exists between modern democracy and the old forms of despotism.

Under an autocratic government the opinions of men are not free, and development is stifled, whereas in a democracy, because thought and speech are not restricted, the greatest progress is witnessed. It is likewise true in the world of religion.

When freedom of conscience, liberty of thought and right of speech prevail--that is to say, when every man according to his own idealization may give expression to his beliefs--development and growth are inevitable.

Therefore, this is a blessed church because its pulpit is open to every religion, the ideals of which may be set forth with openness and freedom."
-Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, 197.

This is what a fomer member of the Universal house of Justice says:

"We have inherited a dangerous delusion from Christianity that our
individual conscience is supreme. This is not a Baha'i belief. In the end, in the context of both our role in the community and our role in the greater world, we must be prepared to sacrifice our personal convictions or opinions. The belief that individual conscience is supreme is equivalent to 'taking partners with God' which is abhorrent to the Teachings of the Faith."
- Douglas Martin
Former Member of the Universal House of Justice
Baha'i Faith

So Mr. Yazdani and Mr. Insaf please set me straight on this. As a Baha'i WHO'S guidance do I follow on matters of personal conscience - Abdu'l-Baha (a Central Figure of the Faith) or Douglas Martin?

Let's hear it.

"Maybe I'll ask Craig and Andrew and Frank and Baquia, too."

No, Amanda, I don't think you're a man-hater.

And you're definitely not a sectarian wanker.

Nor an over-the-top RDQ (religious drama queen).

As always, you're arguing sanity with lunatics; a dubious strategy in the real world, even more dubious in the wake of thousands, and soon millions, nay billions, nay trillions upon trillions, of Baha’i youth.

Abdu’l-Baha says this:

"But when they removed these differences, persecution, and bigotries out of their midst, and proclaimed the equal rights of all subjects and the liberty of men's consciences, the lights of glory and power arose and shone from the horizons of that kingdom in such wise that those countries made progress in every direction; and whereas the mightiest monarchy of Europe had been servile to and abased before the smallest government of Asia, now the great states of Asia are unable to oppose the small states of Europe.

These are effectual and sufficient proofs that the conscience of man is sacred and to be respected; and that liberty thereof produces widening of ideas, amendment of morals, improvement of conduct, disclosure of the secrets of creation, and manifestation of the hidden verities of the contingent world.

Moreover, if interrogation of conscience, which is one of the private possessions of the heart and the soul, take place in this world, what further recompense remains for man in the court of divine justice at the day of general resurrection?

Convictions and ideas are within the scope of the comprehension of the King of kings, not of kings; and soul and conscience are between the fingers of control of the Lord of hearts, not of [His] servants. So in the world of existence two persons unanimous in all grades [of
thought] and all beliefs cannot be found.

(Abdu'l-Baha, A Traveller's Narrative, p. 91)

This is what a former member of the Universal house of Justice says:

“We have inherited a dangerous delusion from Christianity that our
individual conscience is supreme. This is not a Baha’i belief. In the end, in the context of both our role in the community and our role in the greater world, we must be prepared to sacrifice our personal convictions or opinions. The belief that individual conscience is supreme is equivalent to ‘taking partners with God’ which is abhorrent to the Teachings of the Faith.”
- Douglas Martin
Former Member of the Universal House of Justice
Baha’i Faith

So Mr. Yazdani and Mr. Insaf please set me straight on this. As a Baha’i WHO’S guidance do I follow on matters of personal conscience - Abdu’l-Baha (a Central Figure of the Faith) or Douglas Martin?

Let’s hear it.

Baha'u'llah - Founder of the Baha'i Faith wrote this:

"They desired to ascend to a station that God ordained to be above their ranks, when the luminous comet expelled them from among the inhabitants of the kingdom of his presence."
- Baha'u'llah - Tablet of the Holy Mariner

So Mr. Yazdani and Mr. Insaf please set me straight on this. WHO do you think Baha'u'llah is talking about here?

Let’s hear it.

[quote comment="45971"]"Maybe I'll ask Craig and Andrew and Frank and Baquia, too."

Andrew wrote:

No, Amanda, I don't think you're a man-hater.

And you're definitely not a sectarian wanker.

Nor an over-the-top RDQ (religious drama queen).

As always, you're arguing sanity with lunatics; a dubious strategy in the real world, even more dubious in the wake of thousands, and soon millions, nay billions, nay trillions upon trillions, of Baha’i youth.[/quote]

Neither do I think you are a man-hater, Amanda.

I know some people here may have a very negative opinion of you because you are not a member of "Baha'i Jungend" and are not in lock step with the new masses. You will miss the Party rallies and you will be alone.

But there is a place for you at the camp fire out here with the "marginals" - the free thinker outcasts out in the wasteland beyond the walled cities. Sit up here at the camp fire with me as we discuss spirituality in the soul. Get something warm to drink. We are after all souls. I am a soul in a male body. You are a soul in a female body. Ain't the Universe/Multiverse great!

Craig, you write:

"but plagarism apparently wasn't considered "stealing"(...)

God's revelation is a « free-ware » offered to all mankind ; it is private property for none. It inspires all social laws and civilisations. New revelations come to upgrade the message, express it in a language better adapted to a nwe age and add some social laws.

« I am saying that the current lifetime incumbent usurper hacks on the Universal House of Justice are asking Baha'is -and THE ENTIRE WORLD - to turn over the individual personal conscience of their soul to THEM (...) »

Craig,
Baha'u'llah clearly tells us to see the Aqdas for spiritual laws, and to refer to the UHJ for evolving laws adapted to the neds of each day and age. The central figures of our Faith clearly ask us to submit to these laws as a source of unity. I hav provided several quotes here on this subject. I can post them again to your personnal address if you wish. These social laws for the moment are only binding on those who wish to join in with the Baha'i community for elaborating a prototype of a world community. The Baha'is believe it to be the embryonnic form of a future civilisation. Any civilisation needs social laws otherwise we would evolve to chaos. These social laws do not replace the spiritual laws, but complement them.

You know that the election of the UHJ is considered by Baha'is as a spiritual process. If you doubt of the procedure of election, if you doubt that the UHJ is under the protection of God, if beyond a request for enlightenment and suggestions you feel the need to petition the UHJ, lobby the UHJ, or to oppose the UHJ, you are saying that the Baha'i Faith is just like any other human enterprise. You have perfectly the right to hold that view, a view that is held by most of my best friends who do not believe in the Divine origin of the Baha'i Faith, but I am not sure that in your place I would feel myself as a Baha’i.

The choice is yours ;

For me, especially a UHJ run by nine men who have accomplished absolutely nothing in their soft cult bubble protected lives.

Again as I have wrtitten here before, being elected to the UHJ is not a reward, a merit, an honour or a privilege. It is a mandate, a load theses members never applied or volonteered for. They accepted this load that the delegates placed on their shoulders. 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, piles of files and problems to work on. Someone asked about Martha Root and her place there. I sure would not have voted for that heroine as a member of the UHJ. It would have killed her : that intrepid soul was created for roaming around in the arena of service and not for toiling behind a closed office door.

You write :
« You have not answered my question at all. What would you do if the UHJ said all Baha'is must now kill their non-Baha'i parents if they have not taken Ruhi Book One? » I would say that April fool’s day is only in two weeks ;-) and I would of course disobey to that stupid idea.


As for Glenford Mitchell’s statement, if I disagreed with him, after looking closely at the context of his talk, I would write to him and ask him to explain his view, and if necessary to apologise for his mistake.

You write :
« If what Glenford Mitchell says as a UHJ member is the standard of Baha'i Belief,… »

What any individual Baha’i says is his own opinion. What institutions say is the view of that institution

warm Baha'i love

Farhan

Craig, you write:
"So Mr. Yazdani and Mr. Insaf please set me straight on this. As a Baha'i WHO'S guidance do I follow on matters of personal conscience - Abdu'l-Baha (a Central Figure of the Faith) or Douglas Martin?"

Craig, I would follow the spiritual teachings of the Central Figures, and get inspiration for a critical decision from whatever my fellow Baha'is and other authors would suggest. For social laws and elucidations I would follow the UHJ (and not any one member)

warmest

Farhan

Craig, you quote:
"They desired to ascend to a station that God ordained to be above their ranks, when the luminous comet expelled them from among the inhabitants of the kingdom of his presence."
- Baha'u'llah - Tablet of the Holy Mariner

Craig, I expect that Baha'u'llah would be speaking about _individuals_ who try to take things into their own hands, and not of a divinely ordained institutions clearly designed as a continuation of the Aqdas in the domaine of law-making.

If you feel that you do not understand some of the laws of the UHj, we can discuss them here and even submit them to the Supreme Body for clarification.

warmest

Farhan

Amanda,

I just discovered and lost a very sweet posting I had missed before in the maze of virtual pages. it made my day!

Thanks for the challenging issues you bring up and my best wishes in return!

warmest

Farhan

Thanks, Andrew & Craig. ;)

Farhan wrote,[quote post="382"]No Mavaddat, this is not all. I am saying thet we have spiritual laws to nourish our hearts and minds...
The choice is yours, not mine. ... I have chosen this body of arbitration and I am happy with it. Want to join us?[/quote]There you go again, Farhan. "We" have spiritual laws, and "you" don't. "Join us" or "be alone". Us against them. Left versus right. Separation. Distinction. Division. Disunity. Destruction.

Why can you not be be a uniter in your thoughts, Farhan? Why must you always be divisive? Bring people together! Add to the temple of humanity instead of tearing it down, Farhan. It will be better for you, my little boy. But I have hope in you. You will learn all these things as you mature.

“You’ll recall that the U.S. was ‘dragged’ into WWII with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Our boys were sleeping off Saturday night while the enemy schemed — but America soon woke up. So when you see the U.S. in Cambodia or in Vietnam — or when you see America’s young men in
Lebanon, or knocking around in the Balkans — ‘please, will you be quiet and let God do His work!’”

- Glenford Mitchell
Current Member of the Universal House of Justice
Baha’i Faith

Farhan wrote:

"Craig, What Mitchell might have said here is being quoted out of context. I disagree with what I read, not because of its specific political implications, but because as Baha’is we are supposed to concentrate on the spiritual upraising of humanity, without interfereing with political issues. We know that none of these issues will find a sustainable solution until and unless humanity is spiritually reformed."

So since people are sent to fight and die on behalf of the Baha'is in "doing God's work" what is the moral duty of the Baha'is toward people who have had to bear the ordeal of battle while the Baha'is are safe in their beds:

What is the daily moral duty of the Baha'is to a person like this?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/19/women.veterans...

Let's hear it anyone?

Eight million men were killed in WWI just on the Western front alone.

Where were the Baha'is?

In the aftermath, why didn't the Baha'is of Germany get to the beer halls first before that Bavarian corporal did?

Why didn't the American Baha'is get to the returning veterans before the VFW and the Amvets did to try to help them from their ordeal?

In WWII one hundred million people were slaughtered on 100,000 battlefields.

Where were the Baha'is?

No one learned a thing.

If you read the Baha'i "administrative" messages in Ocean from 1945, 1946, and 1947 it is absolutely embarrassing.

Just stunning.

The whole world was in utter ruins and both Shoghi Effendi and the entire Administrative Order were functioning at the level of a firehall social club in Des Moines, Iowa.

Where was courage? Where was intelligence and acumen to reach soldiers, sailoers, airmen, and marined who had suffered the experience of brutal war?

I did my best for 32 straight years to change the incredible Baha'i AO DO NOTHING culture of 87 years and counting to reach people outside of the hapless Petite Bourgeoisie bubble. For the last 4 years I cannot sit in the same room with these people even if they are old friends. I have to find people now who are actually functioning in the world doing something constructive, effective, and actually useful instead of pretending they are functioning before I die. People of deeds NOT words who don't spend all of their times sitting in a circle parroting top down words written for them to say from big red workbooks written by people that want to control other people's hearts and minds as their 24/7/365 ever recurring obsessive-compulsive psychological transaction in every human encounter.

BTW, my Father was involved in the battle of Tarawa in the Pacific in WWII and I don't think he would have much liked being flippantly called a "boy" by some thoughtless, insensitive, lifetime incumbent theorist suit who only read about war in books. My Father said that experience in November 1943 was absolutely horrible beyond words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tarawa

Glenford Mitchell has lived too long inside the incestuous cult bubble like so many other people who have wasted the precious moments of their lives to actually do something useful in the world and for the world. Sounds like he has just watched one too many Frank Capra "Why We Fight" movie. Yep. Our "boys" were certainly "killing Japs" in WWII. God "really loved" that because everything Shoghi Effendi ever wrote MUST be proven and validated in this man's psyche stuck in 1938 by the carnage of WWII. Everyone in the world must kill each other so Shoghi Effendi can be the Supreme Manifestation of God for this World Age.

1500 million metric tons of concrete and steel had just fallen on over 3,000 human beings on 9/11. Some souls to escape burning to death had to jump and fall a quarter of a mile to the ground to their deaths. The Baha'is to my knowledge never even said a prayer for the dead at that meeting where Glenford Mitchell said these completely insensitive words to people who have suffered the horrors of war.

All he did was shamelessly use this horrible event to pimp for his strange psychological God - Shoghi Effendi.

I will never sit in the same room ever again with people who will accept this kind of mentality in their religion.

Hi, Craig.

I just wanted to say that your comments are always well written, thought provoking, and often heartrending. You speak very clearly and eloquently about the effects of war, and that takes alot of courage. Thank you.

On a day like today (The U.S. has spent 5 years in Iraq) this question really is important, "What is the daily moral duty of the Baha’is to a person like this?" As I am no longer a Baha'i, I think about it from the angle of what is the daily moral duty of any person with a conscience, but it's the same question. It's easy for people to stay in their "comfort zones" about issues they THINK don't effect them personally. But it's wrong. There are so many people suffering in conflict zones and we have to take responsibility for the atrocities being done both by and to the soldiers. War is an evil game.

I don't have anything articulate to say in response to your post. Just that I am grateful you speak your truth and that your pain and the pain of all of these soldiers (and civilians) registers very deeply in my heart, as well.

Peace,
Amanda

Craig, you write:

"1500 million metric tons of concrete and steel had just fallen on over 3,000 human beings on 9/11. Some souls to escape burning to death had to jump and fall a quarter of a mile to the ground to their deaths. The Baha’is to my knowledge never even said a prayer for the dead at that meeting where Glenford Mitchell said these completely insensitive words to people who have suffered the horrors of war.

All he did was shamelessly use this horrible event to pimp for his strange psychological God - Shoghi Effendi.

I will never sit in the same room ever again with people who will accept this kind of mentality in their religion."

Boy Craig did that post hit a nerve. I remember 9/11 so vividly only from my television as I am thousands of miles from where it actually happened. I WILL NEVER FORGET MEETING AN LSA MEMBER THAT AFTERNOON WHO STATED, “ THEY ALL DESERVED IT, EVERYONE OF THEM!”. He went on with his arrogant rant about his position while I cried uncontrollably and the people in the coffee house sat back in awe that he could be so insensitive and I could be so sensitive about lives of people that neither of us knew personally. I still reflect in anguish of those horrible words he spoke and his position that the Twin Towers housed the evil in America, all the “scum sucking bankers were finally taken out” He is a white American. I considered him a sanctimonious prick and still do, the BF considers him a Ruhi Teacher & a BIGS.

I was so angry I contacted the LSA and wanted an immediate meeting to discuss what occurred, especially in light of the small town I live in and those who knew he and I were both of the Bahà’í Faith in the café that day and witnessed the disunity of our conversation, which got pretty loud.

In the meeting with the LSA, all sat and listened with blank faces and he did apologize by agreeing it insensitive statement as well as “ill-timed” I looked him directly in the eyes enraged and told him he didn’t owe me an apology he owed his country and his fellow man an apology. I insisted we put a flag at half mass to pay tribute to our fallen brothers and sisters outside our Center. NO ONE agreed to show a morsel of support or even for that matter had any real sympathy for my feelings or the feeling of those who did actually loose their beloved family members and friends and lived through such horror. “We don’t support flags” they stated in unison. I countered with a quote from Baha’u’llah that “flags” will remain in this world. In fact I felt I was speaking to a wall. I was so angry and I guess I still am. I was counseled to forgive and forget for it is Divine and I should become “inactive” if it would help not create more “disunity” or draw attention over the subject within the community.

You can bet your pants that being a local business owner I showed support by what little I could do by placing a flag at half mass for over two years, collecting donations for the Firefights families and I wore black in mourning for my brothers and sisters who died as martyrs of the great cause of liberty.

That prick stayed on the LSA until his wife moved for a separation 6 years later and he moved last year. He is well on his way to working for a seat on the NSA I am sure having learned from him his the formula for being elected to the LSA is in Ruhi training as he has done all 7 and attending all the Feast & functions so people know your name. And having genitals, he is also qualified to be “invited” to the UHJ.

For the record I was never elected to the LSA, I never finished Book 1 as my position was then and now that in ones life time they could study the basics of Book 1 and it was not material that could be really learned pushing through it in a few weeks. I sat through 14 elections in my community to see the same people vote for the same people and continue to get the same results. It never made sense to me as each year I voted for an all new LSA but never voted for myself as I often thought I should.

The BF never wanted anyone like me, nor did the AO. I would never sit idly back and support or ignore injustice. Not only that, I am a results orientated individual, another concept that is unwelcome / foreign in the BF.

I too will NEVER sit in the same room with people who accept this kind of mentality in their religion and unlike you my dear new friend Craig, nor will I call myself one of them.

And if by some chance some BIGS is readying this wondering why I have anything to say of the subject of the BF, being that I have un enrolled, it’s because I can and because I care.

Correction:
"NO ONE agreed to show a morsel of support or even for that matter had any real sympathy for my feelings or the feeling of those who did actually loose their beloved family members and friends and lived through such horror."

There was a special prayer day set up a week later for people who wanted to say prayers. I forgot as I did not attend in the best interest of the community not to create disunity... even a week later I was still pissed at Mr. Prick.

When and if someday I get that chance to talk to the Mr. UHJ's, I would tell them I left to preserve the unity that I never really felt apart of in real life, as I did on paper.

Baquia
THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS MOVIE. YOU ROCK!

If anyone wants this movie, I have the whole thing. I'm not sure if it's still up on BitTorrent. Let me know if you want it.

Mavaddat, the movie can be downloaded from Google Video following the instructions in the main post above.

[quote comment="46071"]If anyone wants this movie, I have the whole thing. I'm not sure if it's still up on BitTorrent. Let me know if you want it.[/quote]

You're very welcome :-)

[quote comment="46069"]Baquia
THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS MOVIE. YOU ROCK![/quote]

Oh, oops. I didn't see that the first time I visited this page (which was admittedly a long time ago). Sorry!

Craig wrote:
"So since people are sent to fight and die on behalf of the Baha'is in "doing God's work" what is the moral duty of the Baha'is toward people who have had to bear the ordeal of battle while the Baha'is are safe in their beds:

What is the daily moral duty of the Baha'is to a person like this? "

Craig, I dont think any one is sent to fight "on bahalf of Baha'is". Strife and warfare have always existed, and should now cease. Baha'u'llah wrote to the leaders of His time inviting them to harmonise and build a peaceful society. They did not react and He then invited them to accept at least the "Lesser Peace";

Baha'is are trying to build such a society on spiritual basis; "spiritual" looks like empty air, but is made of feelings of love and respect, compassion and harmony without which no society will ever survive on a peaceful basis. Those who do not accept this peace making will fight on.

They will be doing God's will as well. Some are busy building a new world order, while others ar tearing down the old ones. Some are planting trees and flowers, others are preparing manure. We are all doing God's work, but we choose waher we want to work. As Christ says (paraphrasing) scandals will come, but woe unto him by whom scandals arrive.

The word "escandalun" in Greek means obstacles, stumbing blocs. Some throw around stumbling blocs here and there. somme will fall, others will use the stumbling blocs as stepping stones. We needed Judas to perform what would accomplish the writings. We also needed St Pater to die as a martyr. Each disciple chose the role he wanted to play in that divine drama.

The majority of French citizens have deep gratitude for the US for saving democracy in Europe. The German Baha'is ended up in concentration camps. Thed Russian Baha'is were tortured to death. During this time the Baha'is in the free world were busy preparing the way for a future world society based on spiritual values.

warmest

Farhan

Correction:
"NO ONE agreed to show a morsel of support or even for that matter had any real sympathy for my feelings or the feeling of those who did actually loose their beloved family members and friends and lived through such horror."

Bird, please accept my sincere sympathy, and horror at what Mr Prick and others like him did and are now doing.

I understand your move, and at the same time, I know that I would find no community in which such pricks are not at all present.

I compromise by holding on to a community where I feel that such Mr Pricks are more random and where there is at least an ideal that pulls people upwards. This doesnt prevent me from collaborating with you towards the same ideal.

loving greetings

Farhan

Craig, I dont think any one is sent to fight "on bahalf of Baha'is".

Well, maybe they are sent to fight and die for the rapidly increasing bad karma of the Baha'is then through 87 years of mind bending incompetence and spectacular completely lost and harebrained mismanaged opportunities?

When Glenford Mitchell, member of the Universal House of Justice of the Baha'i Faith says "...when you see the U.S. in Cambodia or in Vietnam — or when you see America’s young men in Lebanon, or knocking around in the Balkans —‘please, will you be quiet and let God do His work!’" I take that to mean that all Baha'is must be "quiet" and accept the use of American military forces for any reason anywhere in the world for all time. He is clearly saying that the use of American military force is "God's work" and, in the context of the speech, further implies that the use of America military force is essentially, therefore, "God's plan" for humanity. Read the speech on the link I posted. The context was the catastrophe of 9/11 implying that all violence and destruction is the Divine Plan at work 24/7/365. This apparently is God's MO Big Time. Many archetypal Mohammad Atta's at the controls of airliners everywhere in the world, smashing people into tiny bits of flesh, and really getting those 72 virgins and then really sitting at the Right Hand of Almighty God as His employee of the month.

OK. Fine. If this is the standard of the current people leading the Baha'i Faith and the latest revelation of the Divine Plan in Glenford Mitchell's mind amid the continuous voices of Shoghi Effendi, then:

(1) Why aren't all Baha'is of military age now serving in the Armed Forces of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan?

(2) Why aren't you, as a Baha'i with medical skills, now serving in the Armed Forces of the United States in Irag and Afghanistan? If they have too many doctors you can at least carry a rifle or learn how to set up bracketing mortars and pre-zeroed artillery fire on night positions as I once learned how to do. Throw in blind machine gun sweep pegging on those positions too. Let's get out there and do at least some of "God's work" as your fair share.

(3) There are female soldier there and many have been sent into combat. Why are't your daughters there "doing God's work"? I am sure we will take female French citizens. Your daughters can serve as a show of gratitude for D-Day in liberating France from the Germans. We have nice uniforms for them waiting.

(4) If the Baha'is don't choose to serve because they "have more important things to do" (to use the words of Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney when asked why he took 5 college deferments to avoid service in the Vietnam War) then what is the obligation of the worldwide Baha'i "community" to those who actually HAVE been sent to "do God's work" in their place? Should the Baha'is contribute money for medical treatment for the maimed and wounded? Should the Baha'is offer rehibilation services? Should the Baha'is say prayers for the dead and seek to comfort those that mourn by at least mowing their lawns and helping out carrying groceries? How many Baha'is are visiting VA hospitals in the U.S. right now to help?

(5) If the Baha'is are exempt from any real concern about these issues because they are just too darn busy taking the "Ruhi Full Sequence of Courses" (in some cases the same people taking the courses over and over) so that they can "teach the Faith" then what is the point of any of this "training"? What is the point if it doesn't do anything to actually help anyone other than to seek to "convert" people to the Faith so the lifetime employment cadre at the top can feel good about their service as another bar graph grows in a Power Point presentation somewhere on Earth before they face their Maker at death?

You write:

"Baha'is are trying to build such a society on spiritual basis; "spiritual" looks like empty air, but is made of feelings of love and respect, compassion and harmony without which no society will ever survive on a peaceful basis. Those who do not accept this peace making will fight on.

They will be doing God's will as well. Some are busy building a new world order, while others ar tearing down the old ones. Some are planting trees and flowers, others are preparing manure. We are all doing God's work, but we choose waher we want to work. As Christ says (paraphrasing) scandals will come, but woe unto him by whom scandals arrive."

The Administrative Order of the Baha'i Faith could not run a shift at McDonalds.

The blood of every soldier of every nation sent into battle for the last hundred years is upon the heads of every person who ever served in it including me. Complete mind boggling incompetent idiots.

Craig

"The Administrative Order of the Baha’i Faith could not run a shift at McDonalds."

Now that is funny.

If no one has told you they LOVE you today, please allow me to say, wow, I love you man, ( and I am not looking for you to give me a beer)

Bird

[quote comment="46133"]

If no one has told you they LOVE you today, please allow me to say, wow, I love you man, ( and I am not looking for you to give me a beer)

Bird[/quote]

Bird,

How nice of you to say this! Thanks! I could use some love this week! My work load has been very great at work of late. But I am so blessed to be working with absolutely wonderful REAL people from EVERY kind of background and spiritual and un-spiritual path in life! These are lovely TRUE GRIT people. I love them! I was discussing Governor Spitzer's taste in women yesterday with the boss's wife. A delightful woman. We both agreed that President Bush would say the U.S. economy is doing just great because American hookers have work rather than some outsourced foreigner. The main thing we all have in common where I work is that we are all people that are ACTUALLY GOOD AT SOMETHING - software engineering. Our programs control millions of dollars and have to be right on the money. We have to be able to do research and communicate. So everyone has precision of mind as they attempt to solve a very difficult processing rule problems in our field. I also had the most wonderful talk with the janitor the other night when I was working late. A truly enjoyable man. There is life all around. The Baha'is need to get out of their anguished and painful cult bubble and take a breath. Get out to dinner and a movie. It's a big world out there. Amazing Cosmic truths comes to a person every day of their life minute by minute if they will open their eyes outside of some one else's top down ideological feeding frenzy.

Last night I stopped in the Jewish District on my way home and had an absolutely fantastic Corned Beef on Rye sandwich while I watched the NCAA basketball tournament on TV in the bar. Psychopathic and sociopathic ideologues have the U.S. military in a disaster in Iraq. Psychopathic and sociopathic ideologues have the U.S. Baha'i budget in a $10 million dollar shortfall (as a BIGS I just got the US NSA letter) because people are now leaving in droves and will not give a single penny ever again to support the top down groupthink disaster that the Faith has become. I have a very close friend in another part of the world who once gave $40,000 to the Faith over two or three years. Both she and her husband had been devoted Baha'is for decades. They have both now left the Faith in disgust. They knew an elderly Knight of Baha'u'llah in their country who became very close friends with them who was absolutely disgusted several years ago right before he died at what has happened to the Faith. It is all men in suits now running an organization. This man was a quite good poet. My friend has sent me some of his works.

God, that sandwich was good! And Duke really had a close call in that game.

We all don’t know each other personally but I know I am growing an affinity for some of the minds and hearts in here.

My dearest Bahà’í friend who passed away a few years ago once shared in an intimate moment, just the two of us, battling bit by bit the fierce struggles over what I thought the whole AO of the BF is and what I read it is and what I felt it meant in my heart doesn’t mesh WHATSOEVER, the endless oxymoron’s that tangle it all and everything in it…

“ Bird, if even a small coal, naked to any man’s eye including your own, stays lit in your heart about the core and simplest messages of the BR (Bahà’í Revelation), uninterrupted by any man, even the prophets and leaders themselves, you can rekindle the flame when the world is ready to be lit. It's getting ready. Don’t let anything extinguish the flame, it may become be hardest battle you'll have fight”.

Obviously he was like no other Bahà’í I ever met until maybe until now.

Thanks for putting a coal on the smoldering flame of the BR really introduced to my heart so simply through the most wonderful soul that day.

Here is an Irish toast:

To the kindred spirit(s) who reminded of his "two cents worth".

Craig,

you write:
"Well, maybe they are sent to fight and die for the rapidly increasing bad karma of the Baha'is"

I think thety are sent to fight by political leaders in spite of the invitation of Baha'u'llah to unite their efforts towards peace. The European Union has and succeeded in applying those pronciples after having suffered two WW.

You write:
"I take that to mean that all Baha'is must be "quiet" and accept the use of American military forces"

Baha'is believe that it is by laying a spiritual foundation to start with that world peace can be attained. No degree of competent administration can replace that spiritual basis for society. When you want to build a house, you start with the foundations, and not with the roof, otherwise in the end all your efforts will be wasted.

"He is clearly saying that the use of American military force is "God's work" and,

I cannot speak for Mitchell; in the context of the speech I would understand that through their mistakes, nations will ultimately comme to the lesser peace. This is very clear in the Peace Message adressd by the UHJ to all world leaders. It has nothing to do with what one member of the UHJ might have said. The choice is ours: either we work directly towards world peace, or else we will suffer until we understand. We can say that the two WW, the holocaust and the sufferings of the Eastern bloc for 70 years was the result of humanity neglecting God's invitation. This suffering has led Europe to understand. Those who disobeyed God's commands made us understand why we need to follow those commands. In an indirect way they actually helped us understand, and Europe has understood by establishing God's prescriptions.

My understanding is that we should plod on establishing the spiritual basis on which a world order can be established; both those who obey and disobey are ultimately doing God's work: some directly, others indirectly by teaching us what not to do. Peace keeping does need some force of peace keeping. We cannot be imagine that in the near future day everyone will be spiritually advanced to the point that violence will completely disappear. We will still need a peace-keeping force to maintain peace if tyrans arise.

Craig, you write:
"Why aren't all Baha'is of military age now serving in the Armed Forces of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

Baha'is believe that teir role is to establish the spiritual basis on which world peace can be established. They will serve by obedience if required by the laws of their country to do so.

Craig, you write:
"Why aren't you, as a Baha'i with medical skills, now serving in the Armed Forces of the United States in Irag and Afghanistan?"

Do you seriously believe that I would be more useful to humanity there in the war? or do you imply that I believe that?

You write:
"what is the obligation of the worldwide Baha'i "community" to those who actually HAVE been sent to "do God's work" in their place?"

I would be intereseted to see your reply to that. Have you expressed your disapproval to Mitchell for his words?

You write:
"If the Baha'is are exempt from any real concern about these issues because they are just too darn busy taking the "Ruhi Full Sequence of Courses"

Not all Baha'is are required to take Ruhi courses, but only those who wish to improve their participation in the acts of service. I know that some that the UHJ calls "zealots" overdid things in their enthousiasme for directing other Baha'is, but it is very clear from the abundant messages of the UHJ that only a significant number of Baha'is were necessary for those goals and that the others should continue the work they were already doing.

Craig, you write:
"What is the point if it doesn't do anything to actually help anyone other than to seek to "convert" people"

The whole point in those courses is to train us into acts of service to humanity, although some participants thought that it was a way showing themselves as smart.

Craig, You write:
"The Administrative Order of the Baha'i Faith could not run a shift at McDonalds."

You could be right in some cases. Baha'is are not necessarily competent in all walks fo life. We have some highly competent people around us who are constructing a society without spiritual foundations and this results in chaos. We have administratively incompetent people trying to build the spiritual foundations of a world order. These two categories are complementary if they collaborate.

warmest greetings

Farhan

HAPPY NAW RUZ 165 : Tahirih celebrates life and renewal

Sleeper!

Sleeper! Wake up now! Your lover is here!
Get up, and brush the cobwebs off your hair.
Now your sweet love has come with love for you.
Wake up, dead lover! Your loved one is here.
The doctor of mercy stands by your bed.
Get up! Get up! No more grief, no more tears!
You - still cold from your long separation -
will now embrace your love! That much is clear!
So wan,
so worn,
and wasted by the Fall...
Get up! Get up! At last the Spring is here.
It's New Year's Day.
Life is calling for you.
Rise up, you corpse of every dead, past year!

(- trans. by Amin Banani and Anthony A. Lee, published in the book Tahirih: A Portrait in Poetry, http://www.kalimat.com)

Baquia,

I thoroughly enjoyed the film with it's humorist tone of a spy investigation. I enjoyed seeing the nice lady; Iam sure that if she wished register as a Baha'i (and leave her home in the Holy Land), she would have no claim to a station of prophet hood and would be welcomed by the Baha'i communities.

My clear understanding is that the deep attachment of some Baha'is (especially Iranians) to hereditary attributes, rights and privileges is destined to disappear. These two quotes from Abdu'l-Baha illustrate this point. The first concerns the claims of the son of Muhammad-Ali who was Abdu'l-Baha's half brother; I only have the second quote in French. I would be grateful to have it's English version. The quotes are:

Mahmoud's Diary, Sunday, October 20, 1912 [Los Angeles]
When the fame of the Center of the Covenant spread through the city, Shu`á`u'lláh spoke about Bahá'u'lláh and his blood relationship with Him. He persuaded a newspaper editor to write two misleading articles in which he tried to show that because of his biological relationship, he was bound to inherit the station of the Prophets. The Master paid no attention to such nonsensical writings and attached no importance to Shu`á's pretensions. When a newspaper editor asked the Master about this man's relationship, He said:
I will tell you one thing and it will suffice once and for all. Beyond this neither question me nor will I reply. And that is the words of Christ when told that `your brothers have come to see you'. He said, `They are not my brethren but you are my brethren and kindred.(Luke 8:20-1, Mat 12:48-50) Christ attached no importance to the original relationship with His brethren. Notwithstanding this, my house is open to all. He who wishes may enter and he who wishes to go out may leave. The editor published the Master's exact words in his newspaper.

This quote insists on the fact that hereditary attributes are unimportant and Abdu'l-Baha states:

"Le vrai matin se lève de la profondeur d'une nuit sombre,.... La fleur enchanteresse bourgeonne sur une branche d'épines.... le fruit délicieux jaillit d'un morceau de bois....Il est clair que la paternité physique et la filiation ne sont pas des facteurs de véritable importance. Canaan était le fils de Noé, et Abraham le fils de Adhar. Le premier était un prophète, mais son fils fut répudié et coupé de lui; l'autre père était un idolâtre, mais son fils était le grand et exalté Ami (de Dieu) "(Tablettes d'Abdu'l-Bahá, Compilation de la Maison Universelle de Justice)

[quote comment="46267"] Farhan wrote:

My clear understanding is that the deep attachment of some Baha'is (especially Iranians) to hereditary attributes, rights and privileges is destined to disappear...

..."When a newspaper editor asked the Master about this man's relationship, He said:

I will tell you one thing and it will suffice once and for all. Beyond this neither question me nor will I reply. And that is the words of Christ when told that `your brothers have come to see you'.
He said, `They are not my brethren but you are my brethren and kindred.(Luke 8:20-1, Mat 12:48-50) Christ attached no importance to the original relationship with His brethren. Notwithstanding this,
my house is open to all. He who wishes may enter and he who wishes to go out may leave. The editor published the Master's exact words in his newspaper."[/quote]

I one hundred and ten percent agree.

The Eternal Divine Cosmic Drama in the Heart of Man ("the Kingdom of Heaven IS WITHIN YOU" as Jesus taught) is ALL about Archetypal "Eternal Return". It has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the level of
human family and particular human circumstances of the OUTER WORLD. Apparently the entire family of Baha'u'llah except for Abdu'l-Baha missed that Sunday School lesson. Duh! The Kitab-I-Iqan to me is
an absolutely brilliant book of profound Cosmic Sufi insight of World Age Passage spiritual dynamics.

The religion of the Spirit comes from the Cosmos.

It manifests in the Heart of Man on the inner limitless Cosmic horizon.

It is NOT an organization in the OUTER WORLD of incredibly weak borderline personalities in Brooks Brothers suits addicted to their personal life long neurotic psychological system of self identity
from unhappy childhoods.

The dynamics of the sea of COSMIC INNER and COSMIC OUTER are much, much bigger than that.

The Cosmic Spiritual energy unleashed in the Heart of Man by the "Maid of Heaven" Symbolic Cosmic Power from the higher planes of the Cosmos by Baha'u'llah for the Aquarius World Age Cycle AND The
Cosmic Spiritual energy unleashed in the Heart of Man by the "Dove" Symbolic Cosmic Power from the higher planes of the Cosmos by Jesus for the Pisces World Age Cycle are all unleashed "WITHIN YOU".

It is about the INDIVIDUAL'S connection with COSMIC SOURCE *** FIRST *** that then ONLY manifests in progress in the collective outer world *** SECOND ***. This is very ancient knowledge that is BEHIND
ALL of the religions of the Middle East. They are ALL "star clock" religions about the appearance of Divine Attributes in the human heart. It is all about the cycles of planting and harvest of Divine
Attributes from the planes of the Cosmos in the human heart from World Age to World Age.

http://phoenixandturtle.net/excerptmill/santill...
http://www.robertschoch.net/The%20Temple%20of%2...
http://www.amazon.com/Egyptian-Miracle-Introduc...

The people now leading the Baha'i Faith at EVERY INCREDIBLY DYSFUNCTIONAL LEVEL no longer have ANY knowledge of this Cosmic primary spiritual insight. No persons who understood this Cosmic primary spiritual insight would EVER shackle and put into a straight jacket individual insight and individual initiative in the progress of the Greater World Age in the World as these people have now
done.

Abdu'l-Baha's answer shows that he was absolutely conscious of this level of insight BEHIND "religion". The Baha'i Faith at present has lost this level of insight in everyday affairs at every level. It has become a Cult of Personality about Shoghi Effendi as the Supreme Manifestation of God for this World Age and consequently is now a mere organizational system of impotent spiritual idolatry. The MEANS to an end as Shoghi Effendi himself REPEATEDLY warned has now become THE END in itself. Nothing even remotely original here! Read the entire Old Testament! The Prophets railed about this corruption of archetypal energies over and over in the basic object lesson to the human race of the history of ancient Israel. But, of course, all the current "Baha'is" apparently missed that basic Sunday School class too. Again, Duh!

I appreciate your reply to me this morning. You are getting better in your replies. Baha'i platitudes no longer work on me at all after 36 years in the Faith. I have heard it all before. To me it is all now about deeds not words. But I do very much salute your goodwill and I appreciate it.

You are Iranian. Your nation invented crucifixion as a means of execution to enforce the fearful human power of psychopathic and sociopathic rulers and their state. The Romans just borrowed it. My
nation, of course, despite Jesus's "End of the World Age" Cosmic Warning that "he who lives by the sword (ie. people who base their national economy at the End of the Age on making the weapons of war) dies by the sword" has blindly built the "flying nails" of nuclear tipped missiles to carry out the Crucifixion of Man on a much bigger macro expanded Cosmic scale 2,000 years later and counting.

So we both have some very heavy-duty karma going down. So despite us both being Baha'is we can both be sure we can visit each other in hell in the next world. Everyone else will be there too. It should be quite crowded.

But this definitely IS the COSMIC THIRD DAY (the Third Thousand Year Interval) after the Crucifixion of Christ and the attributes of the Spirit Jesus planted in the human heart will now be Resurrected
by the Cosmos from the inner plane to the outer plane. But the people who manifest that resurrection won't be called Christians. And right now it looks like they won't be called Baha'is either.

Right now the attributes of the Divine Cosmic Spirit that causes actual spiritual growth in civilization and actual hands on improvement in human conscience and conduct are being manifested by the benign and non-militant humanistic atheists! Deeds NOT words! The atheists are writing advanced spiritual books while the Muslims are mindlessly rote memorizing the Koran and blowing themselves up in spasms of self destructive hatred and the Baha'is are rote memorizing Ruhi Book One over and over in endless OCD mental illness repetition and doing absolutely nothing effective while young men and women are sent to their death as soldiers in YEAR FIVE of the just starting endless HUNDRED YEAR WAR. The future will belong to who saves those men and women from being killed and maimed. It will
not be the DO NOTHING decade after decade, incredibly hapless and mindlessly ineffective Baha'is of every nation who are now completely out of the game, off the field, and out of the stadium under this current cult bubble of lifetime incumbent leadership.

But the Spirit of the World Age WILL go on. It is all esoteric. It is all Cosmic knowledge. It is all there in the Kitab-I-Iqan for daily insight and daily action. But it is no longer in the suffocating "official" Baha'i Faith which is now being taken to very harsh Divine Judgment as was all foretold by Baha'u'llah in the Cosmic knowledge contained in the Tablet of the Holy Mariner.

The spiritual Cosmic Archetype of the Chief Priests, Scribes, and Pharisees is now going to be dealt with BIG TIME in this version of the Archetypal Eternal Return as was foretold by BOTH Baha'u'llah
and Jesus.

The current members of the Universal House of Justice of the Baha'i Faith now have some really tough days coming which they have earned. What you sow you reap. 87 years and counting of zero spirituality in the Baha'i "organization" of the Administrative Order. They had all better now think twice before they open their mouths as individual's seeking individual psychotherapy from captive audiences in the Internet Age.

The endless Johnny-One-Note musings of the lifetime incumbent cult bubble theorist class of the Baha'i Faith:

http://bahai-library.com/talks/mitchell.watson....
http://bahai-library.com/talks/martin.watson.html
http://bahai-library.com/talks/khan.nz.html
http://bahai-library.com/talks/mental.tests.html

If they think it is still 1994 when this all started, each and every one of them had better think again.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah in words that are just their own lifetime incumbency pet personal opinions and theories that have never been challenged by anybody and that have no life whatsoever and should not be shamelessly inflicted upon the rank and file.

How do their own wives and children stand it?

It just goes endlessly on and on ad nauseum.

"We have inherited a dangerous delusion from Christianity that our
individual conscience is supreme. This is not a Baha'i belief. In the end, in the context of both our role in the community and our role in the greater world, we must be prepared to sacrifice our personal convictions or opinions. The belief that individual conscience is supreme is equivalent to 'taking partners with God' which is abhorrent to the Teachings of the Faith."
- Douglas Martin
Former Member of the Universal House of Justice
Baha'i Faith

"The experience of the Ruhi Institute has shown that we do not suppress the imagination or the personality of the participants when we refrain from posing questions such as, 'What does this mean to you?'; on the contrary, we are helping to nurture the development of communities which look first to the Writings as the principal basis of consultation whenever they are faced with a question.

We believe that the habit of thinking about the implications of the
Writings with the minimum of personal interpretation would eliminate a great share of the disagreements which afflict consultation in many communities, and would make the activities of our communities more effective."
-"TO THE COLLABORATORS" - Ruhi Book One

But I deeply believe what Baha'u'llah actually taught because it truly IS Cosmic Knowledge to teach us something useful about the Universe/Multiverse and how human insight works.

"The Sun of Truth is the Word of God upon which dependeth the education of those who are endowed with the power of understanding and of utterance. It is the true spirit and the heavenly water, through whose aid and gracious providence all things have been and will be quickened. Its appearance in every mirror is conditioned by the colour of that mirror. For instance, when its light is cast upon the mirrors of the hearts of the wise, it bringeth forth wisdom. In like manner when it manifesteth itself in the mirrors of the hearts of craftsmen, it unfoldeth new and unique arts, and when reflected in the hearts of those that apprehend the truth it revealeth wondrous tokens of true knowledge and discloseth the verities of God's utterance."
(Translated from the Persian)
-(Compilations, The Importance of the Arts in Promoting the Faith)

This reflection is NOT groupthink. It is completely individual and completely without coercion. Read what Baha'u'llah says!

But apparently when it manifests in the "mirror" of the (gasp) hearts of professional high school secondary school teachers who have never had an ORIGINAL IDEA in their limited intellectual lives
(30% of the first followers of Adolph Hitler were German high school secondary school teachers!) (or in Ruhi speak: 30% of the _____ _______ of Adolph Hitler were German _____ _____ _____ school teachers!) but just parrot other people's original thinking, you get the Ruhi Full Sequence of Course as the (gasp) New Top Down "Baha'i Jungend" NEW IMPROVED "Religion of God" where personal individual insight of ANY KIND IN ONE'S OWN SOUL is NOW COMPLETELY FORBIDDEN!

Heaven help us!

So it goes.

But, anyway, Happy Easter and Happy Naw Ruz!

I wrote:

"Apparently the entire family of Baha’u'llah except for Abdu’l-Baha missed that Sunday School lesson. Duh!"

In all fairness, The Greatest Holy Leaf seemed to have understood the concept too and soldiered on doing a steadfast job. I guess 2 out of 14 ain't bad.

My memory is kicking back in as I remember I studied the genealogy of Baha'u'llah on the wall chart in Haifa at one of His houses. As I remember all of the children of His first wife (seven) remained faithful to the Covenant. All of the children of His second wife (six) and His third wife (one) did not. Does anyone here know if this is correct? This is seven out of fourteen. So at least seven had a bigger and perhaps cosmic or esoteric understanding of the event in their family. So seven out of fourteen is pretty good and I stand corrected. I am trying to be fair and accurate to the true history. Does anyone here know how many people from his own family Shoghi Effendi declared CB's? How many brothers did he have that could have been the Guardian and carried on down to the present day if he had not declared them CB's?

Craig, you wrote: "How many brothers did he have that could have been the Guardian and carried on down to the present day if he had not declared them CB’s?"

Or sisters. Just making a point.

Amanda
[quote comment="46320"]Craig, you wrote: "How many brothers did he have that could have been the Guardian and carried on down to the present day if he had not declared them CB’s?"

Or sisters. Just making a point.[/quote]
[quote comment=""][...] Rants has the full version of the documentary “Baha’is in My Backyard” up for those interested in seeing [...][/quote]

.. and a good point at that ;)

Thanks, Bird.

Women get written out of so many arenas just based on habit and assumption. Then when we actually EXAMINE the habits and assumptions, they are not so "natural" or innocuous.

I wonder if men realize how it feels to have to constantly assert your right to be who you are (and voice it) in every context of your life. To have every act of self-determination, authority, conscience or disclosure be going against the grain of what is expected from you in private or public relationships. Add to that that the perspectives of women have been SO absent/silenced historically, that it doesn't matter what the topic of conversation is, you are likely going to have a weighty bit of learning to drop on it that may or may not be welcome. Every conversation becomes a decision, "Will I address the great toxic void, or no?"

Not that I've had a bad day, or anything. ;)

But we all harbor these assumptions and habits, both men and women. I've been talking and thinking alot lately with friends about what gets left unsaid in conversations because women are self-censoring. We may know things, have wildly specific and important feedback, but don't say it because there is a cultural glass ceiling on how much a woman can really make her point or her presence known before getting backlash. Blogging recently, it has become apparent to me that relationally, at the end of the day, women are expected to give up their opinions and agree with whoever they are talking to. When we refuse, friends and family can actually feel BETRAYED because we are not mirroring them or mimicking them. It's like how in the AO, we can only have a say up to a point, and then that's that.

U.S. law used to require the testimony of 3 women to equal the weight of 1 man's testimony. When we talk about how history gets re-written and politicized to reflect the dominant story and not necessarily the truth, that's where it begins. At the individual level, within the privacy of the psyche. Do we regard our take on things as being as "admissible" as a mans? As carrying the same weight? When I was a Baha'i I facilitated this great game called Barnga as a learning tool, and we used it to train BYSC volunteers to cross-culturally adapt. The gist of it is, no one is allowed to talk or use language, and when they enter the room several tables have been prepared with playing cards and written instructions. The instructions are removd, each table plays silently, and at the end of each hand the winners move up to the next table and the losers stay put or move backwards. All of this with NO talking. The punchline is there is no universal "trump:" the "highest card" at each table is different and the players don't know that. So who moves up as a "winner" and who stays back or falls behind is determined entirely by perception. Unfailingly, all of the little Baha'i girls would wind up at the losers table, and the winners table was full of the most dominant, aggressive men. After the game, we would dialogue about it, and often people hadn't figured it out even after several hands. The men ASSUMED they were right about the rules and which card was trump, and then asserted and insisted on it through behavior. The women assumed they were either wrong, stupid, or crazy and didn't know what was going on. They would say, "Well, I just assumed I had misunderstood the rules, and that's why they were all so confident."

That's not why they're so confident, honey.

And it's not just our entering into traditionally "masculine" arenas where this happens. It is everywhere. The things that have been traditionally associated with the "feminine" are so devalued that we actually think it's logical to compare, "Working mothers," to "Not-working mothers," as if stay-at-home moms aren't WORKING. We don't value women's work with pay (this is obvious throughout the female dominated professions.) In true dualistic form, we don't think the bodily, sensual, emotional, etc carry as much weight as whatever has been deemed masculine and authoritative and right.

It's exhausting.

How's that for a rant?

Craig –

"Mírzá Hádí Shírází was an Afnán, a grandson of Hájí Mírzá Abu'l-Qásim, who was a cousin of the mother of the Báb and a brother of His wife." (Ibid.) Mírzá Hádí Shírází married the eldest daughter of `Abdu'l-Bahá, Díyá'íyyih Khánum. From this union Shoghi Effendi was born on 1 March 1897 in the house of `Abdu'l-Bahá in `Akká. The other children were ( 2 sons) Husayn, Riáz, (2 daughter) Rúhangíz and Mehrangíz. Their family name was Rabbání, a name given to them by `Abdu'l-Bahá." (Ibid.)

Mírzá Muhsin, an Afnán. (Afnán's are descendents of the Báb "The Gate".) `Abdu'l-Bahá's second oldest daughter, Túbá Khánum, "married Mírzá Muhsin, an Afnán, a son of Hájí Mírzá Siyyid Hasan (the Great Afnán); the brother of the wife of the Báb. They had three sons: Rúhí, Suhayl, and Fuád, and one daughter, Thurayyá. Their family name was Afnán." (p.358 "The Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh") Mírzá Muhsin died in 1927. "Shoghi Effendi described him as the beloved son-in-law of the Master and distinguished servant of His Cause." (Ibid, p.360) "His wife and all of his children were declared Covenant-breakers." (Ibid.)

That amounts to his own parents, his aunts & uncles, (The Master’s own daughters & son-in-laws) his two brothers, his two sisters and his (4) 1st cousins, something to that effect, the ENTIRE family. Hope that answers your question.

Amanda

By all means let it out. I sure have and I am feeling way better. I think Baquia is really an awesome individual to provide this passionate forum for free thought and somewhat private rants… I have found a life saving kindle in here for the fire smoldering in my heart.

We may need to take up a collection for Baquia to assist in any expense to add more space to this site. :)

Amanda, you write:

"Women get written out of so many arenas just based on habit and assumption."

You are right; it might take some generations to get over this. When I started my medicall studies only some 20% of medical students were female and they were told that their place was with their kids. We now have more than 50%

You write:

"I wonder if men realize how it feels to have to constantly assert your right to be who you are (and voice it) in every context of your life."

It must be something like living in a colony under British apartheid or studying in France as a foreign student.

You write:

"The men ASSUMED they were right about the rules and which card was trump, and then asserted and insisted on it through behavior. "

You must be living in a very sexist society.

You write:

"The things that have been traditionally associated with the "feminine" are so devalued that we actually think it's logical to compare, "Working mothers," to "Not-working mothers," as if stay-at-home moms aren't WORKING."

In fact a working mother has less time with her kids, but the time available to a mother that is socially integrated is more valuable to the kids than the more abundant time of a frustrated mother.

you write:
"It's exhausting.

Yes, whenever we try to change the society we live in it is exhausting and dangerous.

warmest

Farhan

Farhan writes,[quote post="382"]You write:

“The men ASSUMED they were right about the rules and which card was trump, and then asserted and insisted on it through behavior. ”

You must be living in a very sexist society.[/quote]
Yes, Farhan. Very astute observation. And where is this "very sexist society"? You might be wondering. It is called Earth, my friend. You might want to take your head out of the heavens and return to it once in a while. Check it out. Things aren't going so well down here.

Can you guess in which country women could not vote until after WWII? I'm sure you were far too blind to gender to have taken notice, but it was France.

According to The Canadian Encyclopedia:[quote]Women were 45% of the work force in Canada by the mid 1980's, but full-time female employees still earned only 72% of that earned by men. Sixty percent of workers earning less than $10 000 a year were women.

In 25% of families women earned more than their husbands, more than double the number in 1970. In one out of 5 couples the woman was the breadwinner, up from one in 50 in 1967, but her salary averaged out at 30% less than that of her unemployed husband (1995).

In 1991, 68% of mothers with children under 6 were in the labour force, up from 52% in 1981. Only 10% of children whose mothers worked full-time were in subsidized licensed day care (1991). Even in dual earner families women spent an average of 14 hours a day on paid and unpaid work. For the first time in the history of Canada, unwaged work, performed mostly by women in the home, was counted in the census.[/quote]

Farhan goes on:[quote]you write:
“It’s exhausting.

Yes, whenever we try to change the society we live in it is exhausting and dangerous.[/quote]
Ho ho! This is rich. This coming from the man who wants gay people to wait for equality because the rest of the world isn't ready yet. This coming from the man who thinks that women's exclusion from religious institutions is fair and in line with God's will for humanity. That's rich!!

Farhan, come off it. You are a zealot for the status quo, not for change. Give us a break.

Craig, you write:

"Apparently the entire family of Baha’u'llah except for Abdu’l-Baha missed that Sunday School lesson. Duh!"

Craig, the tablet of Ridvan, also called the tablet of Job defines our situation in this new dispensation: that of servitude and not that of ambition. As in the story of Job who was victimised by Satan who made a bet with God on Job's fortitude under afflictions, Baha'u'llah forbids the "rule of the sword" and tells us we are more advanced as victims than as offenders.

In the consumer society, the more we consume, the better we are; in the Kingdom of God, he who has rendered most service, who has consumed less and offered more is the winner. The first will be the last and the last the first; the exalted will be abased and the humble exalted.

This spiritual outlook of life that considers material life as a precious tool and not as a purpose in itself is difficult to understand.

Baha'u'llah describes this "great reversal" promised in the scriptures as one of the signs of maturity of humanity; The other sign which is similar is that when the crown of kingship is placed in the public place and none would accept to place it on his head.

We are far from that maturity; wheras Abdu'l-baha sought how to best serve humanity, members of his family sought how they could best be served.

The whole of the Baha'i revelation is to be understood in the light of this concept. Baha'u'llah extends his revelation to those who believe that they come to this Faith to give. Those who come to get honours and privileges, to advance their own purposes will leave disappointed.

Here is Abdu’l-baha’s definition of a true Baha’i ; being an outstanding member of an institution is not part of that definition :

He is a true Baha’i who strives by day and by night to progress and advance along the path of human endeavour, whose cherished desire is so to live and act as to enrich and illumine the world; whose source of inspiration is the Essence of Divine perfection; whose aim in life is so to conduct himself so as to be the cause of infinite progress. Only when he attains unto such perfect gifts can it be said of him that he is a Baha’i. Abdul-Baha, Baha’i Revelation, p 285

Farhan

You remember Mr. Sanctimonious Prick? With your responses in here to some of the participants I wonder if the two of you are related or if it is your desire to emulate such an insensitive creature ranting and mincing without concern for the feelings or regard of the participants you are dicing up. But hey, that’s your right, free speech and you’re a doctor with the job to conduct IME’s. Slice & dice is all a part of your gig.

Here is some free speech for you, no roses, just thorns.

Maybe I will just knick name you “Boy” because you really show your age in here is that of an arrogant bully, sugar coating yourself with the sweet label Bahà’í.

Where is the person you claim to strive to attain? Reading your post it is difficult to locate. Where is your cherish desires to enrich and illumine the world? Do you think your posts will be the cause of infinite progress? Do you think you are winning hearts?

Why not get in the ring with me Boy? I'll tit for tat with you till one of us is taken out on a stretcher and Boy- it's not going to be me on the bus. I hope you are wearing clean underwear.

Your genitals may give you the right to be “invited” into the All Glorious & Infallible UHJ’s house but your attitude will not find you invited into the homes of the “real” Bahà’í’s, the humble servants who to keep a roof over thier heads, prepare their meals and clean their toilets.

I am tired of keeping my mouth shut in the interest of “unity”. 14 years I suppressed my real thoughts and walked away from injustices within the Cause. Not any more and btw- Boy, thanks for throwing water of the fresh kindling.

Farhan

My last post was really out of my real life character. It was not kind it was actually quite insulting and I feel ashamed I am reaching such a level of more and more less self control in my expressing myself in the frustration I feel with the people, principles and AO of the BF, which has not vacated my heart. (Not sure if it is A--, Gras-, or Gas yet CP but is still being fueled) And not to draw attention to the poor example, it was in fact a look at how people who don’t know one another, “stereo type” and take out and express fear & hate.

I liked being a Bahà’í in respects to the spirit of closeness the “concepts” to peace in my heart. I frankly never felt it was a burden but rather an ocean of words never to unravel in one lifetime. How exciting to learn what I was directed to. But then, with the advent of the internet I could read all published works and see the mysteries are too complex for my simple mind.

I think I feel an added burden of leaving a small community but the truth is they NEVER had me past the first time I asked a question and was told in the interest of UNITY I must not question, but OBEY, so I did not.

Not until I with drew. Now I got lots of questions, especially in respects to this video and the Will of Baha’u’llah on how his family are to be treated.

I will promise to me respectful even when we disagree but it would be interesting to discover if such a topic exists were we all agree to some degree.

It is quite clear that this movie was not made by Bahá’ís. Therefore, I am quite critical as to believing everything that is shown in this video. Were the references and sources for this video checked before it was posted up?

I'm not trying to be critical, but it just seems a bit sketchy to me, especially since it's a home video about Bahá’ís in somebody else's "backyard."

Shani, did you actually watch the movie? if so, then you would know that the movie was made by non-Baha'i Israelis and they made that clear. If you bothered to watch it you would also know that it is a documentary, not a "home movie". You're fee to like it or dislike it, approve or disapprove. However, your comments border on the bizarre and imply that you either didn't watch the movie or English is not your strong suit (or both).

hi everyone.

umm i dont know really what to say except that im amazed ya'll can blog on about something for so long.... lol

could it be 'perhaps' that there is more interest in ones own interpretations and suggestions here amongst nearly all entrants, rather than just being a true bahai and getting along to work towards the New World Order; something i gather most of you believe in.
i think maybe the word is sacrifice and service maybe we should all try it lol starting with me.

Unity.... if what we do does not promote this then hmmmm somethings wrong no? ... oh and for the really clever ones please consider the following: concern yourself with your own growth and development for you are responsible for only your own soul... in short: dont cover and justify your own actions by busying yourself with others shortcomings.

God bless you all, for ye are the flowers of one garden, and unto Him shall we all return for our appointment lol.

[quote comment="53365"]... oh and for the really clever ones please consider the following: concern yourself with your own growth and development for you are responsible for only your own soul...[/quote]

Hi Jon,

I agree with your sentiment, but I think your homily is misplaced. I think you'll find that many of us who are supportive of Baquia have a long history of being self-starters, have worked positively within the Baha'i system, are quite capable of managing our own spiritual journey, live moral and law-abiding lives, and don't need to be told what to do. If we'd been left alone to look after our own growth and development -- or, better still, been given encouragement and assistance, then I think things would now be a lot more positive.

Perhaps you could consider delivering your homily to those who don't leave us free to get on with our own growth and development.

ka kite
Steve

Love

As an Orthodox Baha'i, devoted to the Third Guardian, I would like to contact the Holy Family.
Does anyone have addresses for this lady, or others?

I think that it is important for all to watch till the end, because it reveals the ONLY 100% certainty in the entire film, that there is no conspiracy beneath the Bahai Gardens. They saw all which was outlined in the architectural sketches, none of which was suspicious, in any way, shape or form. As for the Archives building, it is filled only with artifacts and memories of the Bahai Faith (i.e. clothing that belonged to Abdul Baha', the son of Baha'u'llah)... as a child it was my favorite part of my Bahai pilgrimage to Haifa.

Why has this movie been taken from the internet? Is there something wrong with a difference in opinion? I should hope not. What is understanding if not viewed from many different points of view?
So this movie has been stripped from the internet...and so the cycle of sweeping corruption under the carpet continues. Taking this footage away from public view only makes you look like you have something to hide...So what are you guys hiding? If nothing why remove the footage? If you were innocent You would have left it up. I'd like to watch this kind of thing so whoever stripped it, 'would you kindly' LEAVE ANY FUTURE UPLOADS ONLINE. Thank-you.

[quote comment="59327"]Why has this movie been taken from the internet?[/quote]

It hasn't been removed, but if it had, then the reason might be that it's been pirated. The video is the intellectual property of independent Israeli film maker, Naama Pyritz.

ka kite,
Steve

Hi Ben - There are probably hands behind the scene. Quest Media Productions has put out a DVD movie for sale on the net called "The Wayfarer". They write as part of the PR: "The Wayfarer" is the first international documentary of its kind to objectively investigate this rapidly expanding religion (Bahai Faith)." The promotional trailer makes the BF seem like paradise on global earth, even though the filmmakers are not Baha'is.

When I read on their site:

http://www.questmediaproductions.co.uk/About%20...

that Jess Firth and Alex Hedley set up Quest Media Productions with venture capital from a third party I couldn't help but think, "well that is a clever way of advertising the Faith by getting non-Bahais to make it, while at the same time side-steping the Baha'i review policy." Of course we don't know the source of their third party venture capitol.

Let's face it, Baha'is like Jack Lenz aren't free to make unbiased historical movies which involves the BF without sticking to what is allowed as it would jeopardize standing in the community.

For example, Did you listen to the radio interview about Tahirih? I especially object to people like the interviewee (unenrolled Baha'i) saying that Tahirih was a Baha'i even though she was martyred long before the BF began. To do so is misleading and conceals Her independent mission. If the interviewee didn't keep saying Tahirih was a Baha'i and maintaining the Baha'i bias I would have been more trusting of his translations of her work.

This kind of reporting makes you think the invisible hands behind the scene are at work again and that some unenrolled Baha'is are good targets for the invisible hand to reach out to when there is an agenda that needs to side-step rules. OTOH the Interviewee did hit 'some' exceptional esoteric understandings in his interview/translations in my opinion.

You say 'if I had scores of Baha'is in my backyard every year I'd investigate...'. I don't think there is much out there which shows operations below the surface PR.

free-zepher.blogspot.com


[quote comment=""][...] Understandably, the second spot goes to Israel, at a respectable 67. I don’t know about you, but I would be a tiny bit interested to learn more about this “Baha’i” thing if I had scores of Baha’is in my backyard every year. [...][/quote]

Free-Zephyr wrote:
“well that is a clever way of advertising the Faith by getting non-Bahais to make it, while at the same time side-steping the Baha’i review policy.”

Free, we have long left the "proclammation" stage of the Baha'i Faith when the aim was to tell the world the that Baha'i teachings exist, and we have entered a phase of application of our teachings.

In a religion wich has no clergy, we are supposed to build up human ressources that can help bring the teachings to those in their close vincinity, be they Baha'i's or not, who want to apply them in their daily lives, rather than just advertising and enrolling supporters as in some commercial enterprise.

I think we should abandon "marketing" considerations and apply ourselves to whatever can better the conditions of humanity.

I was hoping I could get some straight answers on some of the statements given in the movie.

1: "We ask Baha'i's to avoid military involvement - military service.....But do permit them to be part of a future world police force..."

Why would you need a police force in a totaly peacefull world? and lets not get away from the whole concept of a 'World Police Force'. Is there currently a World Government being planed that you have knoledge of? A World Government that you need a World Police Force for?

And

2: "Where we are at right now is, we are at an age of transition. We are removing society based on nation states, to a global identity. Nations will eventually give up (He almost sais 'succum to' It almost slipps out...it's kind of worrying) their sovereignty and turn it over to a One World Government.

They are two statements that are very alarming.

I would love a explanation

I love this movie. I think it's about time the non-Bahais put out something objective about certain questionable aspects of the Bahai Faith. Especially the Israelis.

I wish I had a picture of me playing with a woman's tit in front of the Bahai Gardens at age 13 (screenshot 5:12)

When are they going to make a sequel to this featuring some of the cast of "Don't Mess with Zohan" where Adam Sandlers opens a hair salon for BWC staff featuring Universal House of J Wives?

Hi Ben,

[quote post="382"]Why would you need a police force in a totaly peacefull world? and lets not get away from the whole concept of a ‘World Police Force’. Is there currently a World Government being planed that you have knoledge of? A World Government that you need a World Police Force for?[/quote]

Ideally no, but there will always be states, countries, groups that need some kind of control because of human right abuses etc. The closest to a world government is the UN and the world police force the UN peace force. Pretty toothless at the moment, but maybe one day.

[quote post="382"]“Where we are at right now is, we are at an age of transition. We are removing society based on nation states, to a global identity. Nations will eventually give up (He almost sais ’succum to’ It almost slipps out…it’s kind of worrying) their sovereignty and turn it over to a One World Government. [/quote]

That is what worries me, particularly if the current brand of Baha'i Faith is in control (lets hope to God that it is not). I wouldn't be too worried if the world government was secular and backed by scientific and social thought. An idealist or religious government is dangerous and usually blinkered. I'm not sure if countries should give up their sovereignty though. They should have the freedom to decide whether or not they wish to be part of a world collective (sounds like the borg) without sanctions etc, decide their own laws, etc etc etc. The current economic problems shows how dependent countries have become on one another. I don't think we'll get a world unity through religion, but through where it really hurts, the wallet and all the material things we love to have and would like more of. Economic instability is bad for all of that. Kind of ironic really. The Baha'i Faith came along to stamp out materialism, but its probably materialism that brings the world together in one happy family.

I would like a Baha'i to answer my above questions.

Ben Wells asked:

Why would you need a police force in a totaly peacefull world? and lets not get away from the whole concept of a 'World Police Force'. Is there currently a World Government being planed that you have knoledge of? A World Government that you need a World Police Force for?
"Where we are at right now is, we are at an age of transition. We are removing society based on nation states, to a global identity. Nations will eventually give up (He almost sais 'succum to' It almost slipps out...it's kind of worrying) their sovereignty and turn it over to a One World Government.

Ben, as a Baha’i, my present understanding of the evolution of mankind is that the process of moving from a present structure to that of a “Golden Age” is one that will take perhaps several centuries. We advance by steps. Hence the world vision of Baha’u’llah will require successive plans and projects. The disintegration of outdated institutions and the elaboration of new institutions are simultaneous processes. The major plan of God is associated with the indirect response of humanity to the revelation given to the world some 150 years ago. The minor plan of God is the direct elaboration of the Baha’i institutions that will dispense the spiritual inspiration necessary for that change.

These twin processes will lead to a “Lesser Peace” which will be the political process outcome of the new structures, but not true peace, as long as humanity will not have evolved spiritually. We will need police forces to maintain peace. Baha’u’llah clearly mandates states to intervene by military force to subdue aggressors.

With the spiritualisation of humanity, a change in heart and mind, we will eventually come to a “Greater Peace” with a new world order upheld by a “Super State”. After some centuries, perhaps, this will evolve into the “Most Great Peace” upheld by a Baha’i World Commonwealth.

How fast we get there, and how much we suffer in the process, depends on our efforts towards that ideal.

As far as we can extrapolate, this is the programme as explained by Ali Nakhjavani, a former member of the UHJ. I will be happy to provide documents and links I required.

Awww Ben, what gave it away? Mostly devoid of jargon? Practical? Pragmatic? Virtues that are a complete anathema to any good Baha'i. For your information, I am a lapsed Baha'i, I haven't had my voting rights removed or been unenrolled. I haven't resigned either (not yet anyway).

great doco of book of amos chapter 9 verse 3 God will melt Mt Carmal antichrists headquaters lyal.