http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/world/asia/20afghan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

What do you have if you have a world without individual conscience? History has shown that world sinks into deranged brain chemistry barbarism very, very fast. I will never support such a top down groupthink teaching.

excerpt:
The rational structure is known for its extremes as evidenced in various “nothing but…” statements. Extreme materialism claims that “everything is nothing but matter — atoms”. Philosophy, the love of wisdom, is replaced with instrumental reason, the ability “to make”. Contemplation—looking inward—is devalued in relation to what one “can do”. “Wise men” fall out of favor and are replaced by the “man of action.” Successes in technologically re-shaping matter offer solutions to some problems but also give rise to problems of their own making. Mechanized slaughter of two world wars and the new atomic weapons exemplified and symbolized the expression of the ontology of the rational/mental structure. Living becomes hard to bear in such a consciousness structure.

Some saw the cause of this despair as a lack of values or ethics. Gebser saw that it is the very consciousness structure itself which has played out to its inherent end. He saw that its metaphysical presumptions necessarily led to this ethical dead end. A “value-free” ontology like materialism leads of necessity to living “without value”. Any attempt to remedy the situation by a return to “values” would ultimately fail. But it was through this very quagmire of “the decline of the West” that Gebser saw the emergence of a new structure of consciousness which he termed the integral.
…
—end excerpts—

Comments:

I fully support Andrew’s endorsement of sonja for membership on the (haifan) universal house of justice. as soon as the ban on electioneering and women’s “participation” is overturned, and as long as sonja lives another 1,000 years, everything is good.

I’m not sure what Baquia intends by recruiting sonja. perhaps he can comment. if the concern is that the bahai rants blog is turning into a venue for people like me to argue that others should abandon bahai as a ridiculous and silly religion, he has a legitimate worry. certainly his life will be made more complicated if bahai administration (or his peers) pressure him to clamp down on people like me that they think are encouraging others to leave bahai.

I do not know if sonja can define a viable alternative to my perspective, but it will be interesting to see how the discussion develops.

re: style & tone

…..sorry for any confusion. this blog is not an academic journal (thank goddess), and I’m personally not particularly disciplined (and don’t care about “style” or “tone” or “who might be offended”, or if people “don’t like rambling, disorganized thoughts”, etc.), so I tend to just throw out some random stuff to see what reaction it gets. most of what I’ve said in this thread I’ve already said in many other posts on this blog (in more detail), so I tend to assume that the “usual suspects” here already know the general contours of my thinking, which is basically subversive and anti-establishment towards both the “far left” and “far right”.

the unfortunate reality is that after 30+ years of observation, most of the evidence I’ve seen is that bahai culture is in a deeply dysfunctional pattern (as can be predicted by the same patterns in the rest of the world, as observed by a large number of academics, theorists, consultants, practitioners in private and public organizations, etc.). the scriptures and governance mechanisms laid out in bahai scripture have been INADEQUATE to stop the slide into widespread dysfunctionality since the 1920s.

at least in the usa and iran, the slide into dysfunctionality paralleled the process in which elitists, snobs, racists and fundamentalists consolidated their power over bahai governance. the pattern of abuses of authority is very telling.

I have not had time to read up on sonja’s comment on habermas (the “delegitimization” of “institutions” and “colonization of lifeworld by systems”), but will do so as soon as possible. I’ll also look at the full video that sonja posted at the beginning of this thread and attempt to summarize the themes in it to make sure I haven’t missed something obvious.

As an Integralist I do not agree that knowledge and/or science can be separated from religion or spirituality. Period.

Integralism is about a holistic view of “all quadrants, all lines” (AQAL) of consciousness.

http://integralwiki.net/index.php?title=AQAL
-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/slark/44612365/sizes/o/

This is where Integralism completely departs from modernism and postmodernism: postmodernists “collect the dots” and integralists “connect the dots”.

Integralism seeks a higher pattern in consciousness. This sets off all sorts of red flags, flashing lights and alarms for modernists and postmodernists since it (superficially) “sounds” like the same thing that various medieval scholars tried to do.

(see ken wilber’s “pre-trans fallacy”
http://www.integralworld.net/fallacy.html )

additional background:: http://www.spiraldynamics.org/Graves/meme.html

“cultural evolution” is about “memes” and similar constructs.

a typical “system theory” approach to social change that includes “paradigm shift”:

“Leverage points: places to intervene in a system”

http://www.sustainer.org/pubs/Leverage_Points.pdf
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points#1._The_power_to_transcend_paradigms

the medival scholars were, like bahai, trying to shove rationalism into a rigid spiritual framework. integralists are trying to “rescue” the legitimate aspects of spirituality from the eroding, “colonizing” forces of modernism that want to completely throw all spirituality out the window as “superstition” (etc.)

(In the political world, see Paul Turner and George Lakoff on the need for a more holistic, transcendant way to understand ideology and paradigms. http://markturner.org/cdss.html

“In this provocative and beautifully written book, Mark Turner describes conceptual integration, a.k.a. blending, as the basic mental operation that distinguishes cognitively modern humans from all other animals. He proposes a unification of the social sciences based on conceptual integration, showing that it is an essential part of either what we (interpretive) social scientists study or how we (qualitative) social scientists study what we study. The book is brimming with intriguing examples of conceptual blends from an incredible variety of domains. This is possible, of course, because conceptual integration is an absolutely ubiquitous form of cognition.

—end excerpt—)

personal side note: long long ago in a far distant galaxy I was an anthropology student. I grew up with buddhist and mennonite influences, in several countries. The Whole Earth Catalog was a far more important source of meaning to me growing up than the Bible. I spent 10 years fairly deep in west coast usa counterculture “lifestyle” when I was younger (poverty). So, I have no attachments to any particular metaphysical system except a vague one to buddhist-yogic thought (Dali Lama, Sri Aurobindo), but I do think there is a lot of valuable material in almost all the traditions that can allow a student of a given “spiritual” tradition to discover “mind maps” to higher consciousness (yoga is far more successul in the usa than anything else, except possibly evangelical christianity, which has slim pickins for anyone that is a critical thinker). unfortunately the ancient “mind maps” are mixed in with elitism and complex elements of culture that were designed to allow a small class of illuminati to explore and refine spirituality in premodern (slave) societies.

From a sociological perspective:

THE ANCIENT SPIRITUAL SYSTEMS ARE NOT, AND NEVER WILL BE “POPULIST”.

This is the basic problem with bahai liberalism and related “reform” tendencies and movements. They are all full of this basic contradiction: they intend to align bahai with populist liberation movements, but fall back on “spiritual” ideas that are rooted in structures that ASSUME that spirituality is an elite activity (which rests of a slave system, serfdom, class exploitation).

the cultural “center of gavity” in bahai will always support and protect the assumptions that are rooted in the elite power of an illuminati, and populism will only be paid lip service to and tolerated to the extent that it AVOIDS CHALLENGING the status quo of power arrangements.

unless reformers transform into illuminati (and call for “purification”), they will be marginalized.

Sen violated the unstated rule, and was invited to leave. As will all “populist” nonconformists, critics and dissidents from now to eternity.

So, the spiritual traditions are deeply historically root in rigidly hierarchical cultures containing patterns of resistance to change that are imbedded in the “cultural DNA” of the people that follow those traditions. This is why Integralists constantly warn about the problem of “paradigm regression” () and the “reanimation of mythic/tribal” impulses and archetypal images.

the whole idea that “administration” (ecclesiastics/law) is “bound up” in the core of bahai mysticism (and the “declaration of belief” - a bizarre holdover from islam) is another basic flaw in bahai theology/scripture/belief. it is as if bahai is oblivious to 400 years of history that utterly rejected theocracy and all its “cultural DNA”: its causes, underpinnings, assumptions, etc.

sen’s excellent dissent about church/state is, unfortunately, a good example of how the “cherry picking” debate that was ventilated on this blog several months ago plays out in the real world. it is certainly possible to find modernist and postmodernist elements in bahai scripture. the question is: “how do they fit into a coherent whole?”.

In spite of various strained attempts by progressive/reformist scholars over the last 25 years (which I have both cheered and cajoled variously), I personally do not think that they can be made coherent.

Most liberals that stay in bahai simply decide to get on with their lives and ignore the problem. they either compartmentalize the bad stuff in bahai, and go into denial mode, or they just remove themselves - as much as possible - from the bad stuff, and align their values with a generalized form of universalized mystical experience that isn’t actually anchored in any particular practice. the few people that do pursue such “particulars” are either absorbed into the evil “borg” through conformism (this happened to a large number of counterculture converts about 8 years ago in northern california, so it is a “real” issue), or are chewed up and spit out (Omaha and the other examples of the “Mashriq” movement).

anyways, all the “spiritual” traditions abhor the “mechanized” nature of modern, scientific, technological, democratic capitalism and its industrialized system of mass production assembly lines that erode “authentic” “hand made” values.

unfortunately it is exactly all those things (machines, industry) that liberated humanity from slavery. NOT TRADITIONAL SPIRITUALITY.

Please note that traditional spirituality was “reinvented” by the Radical Whigs, and by Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr., for socio-economic/political purposes, but only AFTER it became obvious that modernism was the “leading edge” of cultural evolution (and not religion). Once modernism freed culture from the rigid constraints of religion, culture could revision religion for “higher purposes” (mass liberation,self-actualization).

so, the big question is “how to rescue spirituality from its discredited state”.

if spirituality can’t survive the test of rational, scientific inquiry (and “liberal” politics - and postmodern deconstruction), it simply can’t contribute to an “ever advancing civilization”. it will stay a backwater, unable to contribute *as it needs to, and has to* to efforts to increase social-economic justice, environmental sanity, disarmament, and so forth.

(as far as I can tell, the only “solution” is to reframe the issues in terms of holism, cognitive-linguistic theory, brain science, system theory, consciousness studies, etc. - NONE OF WHICH EXIST IN BAHAI IN EXPLICIT FORM)

So, spirituality became discredited in the modern world during (and repeatedly after) the enlightenment when ALL forms of traditional authority were thrown out (were no longer the “dominant value system”). tradtional authority was rejected for mostly very good reasons. in that sense I’m fully “libertarian” (”natural law” is far superior to the “divine right of kings”). in the post-enlightenment context, democracy is far superior to aristocracy and power by ecclesiastic elites.

the first “specific” reason that evolution and/or developmental theory (and the lack of such in bahai) is A CRITICAL ISSUE is that one of the “basic principles” of bahai, as stated by its founders, is the “harmony of science and religion” (etc.) - “SciRel” - Science and Religion.

side note: I did spend many years attempting to “grok” what went on in the ABS-NA SciReg group, and to a lesser extent the european bahai scholarship groups. I know several of the people working at the leading edge of SciRel in the US bahai community. The situation can be summed up as follows:

common attitudes of bahais about evolution is appalling and fundamentalist.

the legitimate scholars think (but would never say publicly) bahai administration is profoundly evil. the only discussion (well hidden from public view) is about what concessions are needed for short-term gains, alliances of convenience, etc.

the bahai leadership elites, to the extent that they might even see this as a problem, have done NOTHING to stop the spread of backwardness. (this is a repeated pattern that can be seen virtually EVERYWHERE in bahai, including amongst the “liberal, progressive, leftist” elements, the bahai bohemian/counterculture, and so forth.

bahai culture, and as you say “practice”, is adrift and disconnected, “etherealized”, “style over substance” stuff.

I met many “seasoned” “veteran” bahai SED practitioners in the 1990s that said that the pragmatic aspects of SED were gutted in favor of doing “PR spin” and bahai “diversity photo ops” to make the bahai bureaucracy “look good” on a superficial level. eventually the massive level of corrupt, dysfunctionality becomes glaringly obvious. given the lack of pragmatic practice and the “instrumentalization” of SED, bahai rhetoric about social justice and equality is so vacuous as to be appalling.)

fwiw - the fundamentalist rejection of evolutionary theory by most bahais is about the same for the general population in the USA.

if bahai can’t reverse such a trend, then one has to wonder what good the religion actually is. in sonja’s formulation, this is “merely” a matter of “practice”. one of two basic approaches arises from that analysis:

1) purification and a return to the “real” principles, which are about tolerance, flexibility, etc.

2) adoption of solutions and ideas that are from outside bahai.

both approaches are problematic. the first solution won’t work for reasons I state further above.

if the second solution works, then people will eventually have to ask themselves why they even need bahai if “real” solutions have to be found elsewhere.

sorry if I failed to remember to touch on any of the themes sonja mentions. please remind me of any specifics that I’ve failed to respond to.

last note: if bahai was made up of people like sen and sonja and terry and juan and tony and allison and baquia and craig and nima (and many others), it would (mostly) be a wonderful thing. if I thought they had a snowball’s chance in hell of eventually prevailing, I would have seriously considered staying in the religion. it might even have been “fulfilling” to do so if a viable reform movement was possible. sadly, such reform just doesn’t seem to be possible.

EP, as I still don’t quite get why you say the following:

As I mentioned, evolution is probably the biggest problem: bahai lacks a solid, scientific, developmental theory. such as something based on brain science, or cognitive linguistics.

But seriously … these are very astute observations, Sonja. I always appreciate your basic sanity.

As I mentioned, evolution is probably the biggest problem: bahai lacks a solid, scientific, developmental theory. such as something based on brain science, or cognitive linguistics.

Here’s my take on this from the viewpoint of a Bahai who does not have any problems with Darwinism, (and has never been in any contact with Bahais who do, so it has never been an issue for me) but view this in the way I approach any knowledge system, that it is just that, and has its use for its particular field. So I see the Bahai writings as being for morals, spiritual stuff, which as individuals we use for guidance, rather than as a set of scientific views we believe in. In fact, personally, I wouldn’t think it very useful for a religion to have a set of scientific views because 1) sooner or later it would be out of date, 2) sooner or later we would have a situation of some people insisting on how one can interpret knowledge (my criticism of Ruhi, which takes this approach).

I haven’t read Keven Brown’s Evolution Bahai Belief, (another Kalimat Publication) and as good as the book looks, there’s no way that I have time to read this in the next week or so, and given the nature of blogging, I thought I should just respond without referring to this book. EP, I will go and read it and so feel free to bring up points in the book; besides, others who read this blog might have responses / opinions, etc.

It seems that the main thrust of the book is to show that Abdul-Baha is speaking of platonic categories in Some Answered Questions, etc, and not about physical biological categories. For me, that argument seems clear. EP have you come across Bahais who reject Darwnism? But if Darwinsim isn’t the issue for you here, we can drop this.

For me there are two approaches here: one from scripture and one from practice. EP as I interpret it, your approach is that you see bad practice in the Bahai community (and I wouldn’t disagree with your examples, I’ve plenty of my own), and attribute this to it being a fault in the scripture. For me I see things like, the censorship of Kalimat Press by various NSAs, the fear Bahais seem to have towards discussing issues of justice when it concerns Bahai administration and so on, as being a problem in community practice. But yes, it is healthy, I think, to then look into the scripture to see if it is embedded there, however your final comment:

there is nothing that bahais do that is outside of what is known to organizational theorists.

which I agree with, is only an issue if Bahais go around saying the Bahai Faith has all the answers. I am a Bahai I don’t go around doing this. I see no conflict with believing in the truths of the Bahai writings and seeing that the Bahai community in practice and in general, at the moment is not a place that encourages open dialogue and inquiring minds. However as an individual, being a Bahai has stretched me and continues to challenge me. So far, I think this is a good thing.
Yet, I see more and more that society around me seems to be doing things that seem more progressive than the Bahais. So if we are talking about practice, in general, I agree. If we are talking about scripture, then I don’t (unless you can show me how it is faulty).

Your comment:

instead, it has “progressive revelation” (universalized sufism/prophetology/revelationology, whatever technical term fits), which is a “middle man scam”: discredited premodern metaphysics that block access to transcendence for political/organizational/administrative reasons: to create a “submissive” class of serfs, peasants. this is an old game that goes back to the beginning of irrigation agriculture 5,000 years ago. equate “god” with “following the rules” with “obey the police (priests/ecclesiastic elites)”. let the rich people (priests) have all/most of the water so that they (or, their slaves) can grow enough crops to get more rich and powerful.

is unclear to me except that you are saying it is a bad thing for people to use “belief” as a form of submission. I agree. If what you mean is as Grover expressed it is:

The concept of progressive revelation potentially limits any increase in religious understanding because we have to wait every 10-1000 years for a new messenger of God (a middle man as EP puts it) to come along with a new (or old) grab bag of religious knowledge for humanity to assimilate (or reassimilate).

Then I can respond. Thanks Grover for your clear post. I’m sorry EP, I still find it hard to understand what you are angry about. Injustice, yes, of course, that is clear, but I mean such as the piece I quoted from your post above. That’s what I meant by ‘ranting’ – not that you shouldn’t rant, just that I can’t follow what you are saying.

So I’ll assume that Grover’s summary is what you mean and respond to his posting and if there’s something missed, you can bring it up. For me, this is about discussing perspectives, not about denying anyone’s viewpoint, OK?

OK – progressive revelation used as something to limit understanding. Well, my take on this is that the world does continually develop and the quotation I used in reference to postmodernism from Abdul-Baha supports this approach. I’m sure quotations could be found such as we need utter faith in scripture, etc, and then individuals interpret these as meaning we should not think for ourselves nor be involved in the evolving world/s of ideas + practice and evolve along with it. I beg to differ, and I can back up my perspective from scripture.
However, I’m not sure EP + Grover, if either of you find issue with this. I assume it is more the general attitude of Bahai culture not being very open to new ideas or open dialogue. Unfortunately a character of any organisation, and I would agree,
for a religion which prides itself on being for this day and age, this isn’t healthy.

An example is a recent media + technology conference I was at: the business world is still dominated by males, but there was a day session focussed on women for women. I got much much more out of this, than I ever have in a Bahai context. Mainly because I was mixing with other women who work, women who want to make some sort of change in today’s world, women who say what they think. My gripe with Bahais on the issue of gender equality is that there is little place for open discussion. The women who were dominant in the Dutch women’s forum in the early 1990’s were primarily housewives with husbands on high salaries. Nothing wrong with this, but the first coffee morning they organised was enough to scare me away for life. I’ve never seen any evidence that this has changed, so I’ve never been back.

So, yes, Grover + EP, I would agree with you both, it seems that the Bahai Faith, on the issue of gender equality, in my experience of living in the Netherlands, might be a cause for limitation. I don’t know. All I know is that there seems to be no discourse. And when you have no discourse, it’s hard to have development.

This week in the city-run giveaway paper, the front page featured ‘abandoning extremes of poverty’, ‘equality for girls and boys’ and ‘equal educational opportunities for all’ – then the city government proceeded to give a list of actions it was taking to work towards this, including the involvement of primary schools. As I read it, I thought, yes, the Bahais do seem to be redundant, because here this is being put into practice and “practice” is at the hard of the problem of Bahai community life as I see it. If there is no freedom to express and explore new interpretations, ideas, approaches, then “practice” is just form. My solution, so far, is to look for alternatives, but I see it as a ‘creative’ approach to how I choose to define myself as a Bahai, rather than as something deviant.

Oh foolish mortal! Know you not that the Mighty Overlord Baha’u'llah ibn Zetta Vinks was sired from the Holy Divine and Immortal Sacred Seed of His Imperial Highness Xum Xum Vinks and His Eternal Infinite Maiden Beauteous Zoh Zoh Ginks in the Inviolable Seed-Transfer Space/Craft Ritual/Feast of Kezhako Dado Lhorosaph on the Forbidden Planet Ephe Fuch?!? All the worlds shall bow before His Splendiferous Phosphoresence of Essence when the World Order of Baha’u'llah is accepted with open Hearts and blovoid Minds in the Special Place Vortex of Mount Carmel! They shall see the Special Signs of Him in the Sky! All humankind will acknowledge the Revelation of Baha’u’llah and his invisible lieutenant Phuyado Fasha Zhagamod III, who maketh the grass to be like unto grass, and the flowers like unto flowers, and so on, and so forth, may the Especial Unitive Blessings of the Queen Mother Aqi Nob be upon us all, ahem, amen, ahem, etc.

The concept of progressive revelation potentially limits any increase in religious understanding because we have to wait every 10-1000 years for a new messenger of God (a middle man as EP puts it) to come along with a new (or old) grab bag of religious knowledge for humanity to assimilate (or reassimilate).

The extreme fundamentalist end of this is only what a messenger of God reveils is true knowledge and everything else is not from God and we can forget about it. I see this a lot in the Baha’i community. Basically what it means in the short and long term is religious knowledge very quickly becomes stagnant and irrelevent, particularly in current society where we’re learning new things all the time.

Christian scholars had commented on this subject saying that Christianity is all about revelation; it needs to reveil constantly or else face becoming redundant. They thought that the vehicles for revelation were the Christians themselves.

Similarly science is all about revelation as well, obtaining new understanding, exploring new ideas. Science by its very nature is evolutionary, it is growing all the time as new techologies develop and allow new methods to investigate phenomena.

But the Baha’i Faith? Has anything new come from the Faith in the past 50-60 years?

People might argue that the Baha’i writings have everything we need, but does it really? Baha’u'llah’s subject coverage seemed pretty limited and superficial, e.g. those bloody evil miscreants who persecuted him all the time; God is this that and the next adjective; be nice; and those bloody evil irreligious sods again.

We were supposed to be drooling with anticipation when the latest book was translated in the most wordy and convoluted way, and many Baha’is were going weak at the knees and creaming their jeans with excitement. Get the book and what a disappointment! Its all the old stuff revisited, nothing new at all.

The world has changed so much in the past 100 years that the Faith has already become redundant. Baha’i policy has prevented Baha’is from being instrumental in the evolution of Baha’i knowledge and religious revelation. We have no Guardian to turn to and the UHJ doesn’t really cut the mustard.

So I have to agree with EP, the Baha’i Faith is terribly limited, which suggests there are problems with the scripture and logically with Baha’u'llah himself… Who was Baha’u'llah really?

I certainly agree, it is not easy to be an environment where response to new things, at best is treated with suspicion and at worst, you are told you are wrong, such as in the ‘feminine divine’ example.

B.T.W. everyone there’s a beautiful book published by Kalimat on this:
I BEHELD A MAIDEN . . . :
The Bahá’í Faith and the Life of the Spirit

I have plenty of my own stories like this and I’m not suggesting for a moment that these are little things, just that, as I see this are not from the scripture but from the social structures created by individuals. I’ll have a go at responding to your point on evolution in the weekend. thanks.

So, of course, rant as you wish. It’s up to you. I was just giving you some feedback. If you are not interested in feedback that’s fine by me too.

sonja,
Thanks for the chuckle. no rants on bahai rants. right. LOL!
ep

Thanks for the chuckle. no rants on bahai rants. right. LOL!

Didn’t someone say that “politics is the art of the possible”?

Theology is probably similar to “Comedy is a serious business, don’t leave to it amateurs”.

As I mentioned, evolution is probably the biggest problem: bahai lacks a solid, scientific, developmental theory. such as something based on brain science, or cognitive linguistics.

instead, it has “progressive revelation” (universalized sufism/prophetology/revelationology, whatever technical term fits), which is a “middle man scam”: discredited premodern metaphysics that block access to transcendence for political/organizational/administrative reasons: to create a “submissive” class of serfs, peasants. this is an old game that goes back to the beginning of irrigation agriculture 5,000 years ago. equate “god” with “following the rules” with “obey the police (priests/ecclesiastic elites)”. let the rich people (priests) have all/most of the water so that they (or, their slaves) can grow enough crops to get more rich and powerful.

I think of politics/elections as part of social change theory and consciousness studies. memetics. paradigms. lets face it, bahai tells us very little about politics. it is confusing to most people that bahai has so little to say about most of the important issues that concern people (politics, economics).

please take a very deep breath of fresh air and consider that bahai is only slightly less confused about modern politics and economics than is islam.

I’m much more libertarian (populist) than liberal/progressive/leftist, so I’m not “sad” that liberals bahais failed to push reforms, I’m “sad” that bahais were not able to transcend their paradigms and offer “something better” to the people that need to belong to a group to get on with moving humanity into the future (”ever advancing civilization”, etc.).

so, as far as evolution or a developmental theory goes, bahai has no good explanation or model, just utopian hope for an apocalypse and magical reconstruction.

my approach to these topics is pragmatic/common sensical, not intellectually/academically rigorous. a vast amount of research has been done since the 1950s in organizational theory. it is known why businesses and organizations (including political organizations) become dysfunctional. there is nothing that bahais do that is outside of what is known to organizational theorists. one bahai scoiologist told me that any good sociologist would only have to “observe a typical bahai meeting for 15 minutes” to easily understand the pattern (antipattern) of everything that is wrong with bahai culture.

Integral theory has a much more coherent, pragmatic, appeal than bahai. Most of the people at the leading edge of cultural evolution are involved in supporting Integralism (such as “spiritual capitalism”), not bahai.

being an ex-bahai, I’m not very interested in how to maintain some kind of strained postured gyrations while leaning way out over the edge in order to appear to still be within the ridiculous constraints of the bahai tradition.

the overwhelming mass of evidence was that sen was kicked out for failing to conform to a fundamentalist (or at least rigidly orthodox) interpretation of bahai scripture/theology. (thanks for the correction about “church/state”).

you can try to spin it however you want to make a claim to some “positive” perspective, but I seriously doubt that you could get very many people to believe it.

I also gave a specific example of an attack by a group of fundamentalists (aided and abetted by the US NSA) on a bahai scholar/theologian in Omaha for holding a seminar on the divine feminine.

I was at the seminar. People were frothing at the mouth in opposition to the idea of “divine feminine”. they made complaints to the nsa, then members of the nsa turned loose some of their fundamentalist goons. only by extraordinary circumstances were the last stages of the attack diverted when the BWC was asked to intervene and “save” the scholar.

that is how the bahai faith “really works”.

the mazandarani history case is another specific example of abuse of power by bahai fundamentalists.

as currently implemented, bahai administration is horribly broken. since bahai administration rests upon the bahai writings, something is wrong, missing, etc.

(”social justice” my a$$.)

the part of the quote about consultation that you didn’t include was the part where God promises that the assembly will be “brought to naught” when it becomes spiritually disconnected.

I personally think that the whole religion has been “brought to naught” by evolution (not god), but for the same types of reasons: it has been corrupted, and has become rigidly orthodox (incapable of adapting to changes in social conditions and new memes/paradigms).

again, sorry for not engaging in discussions about the technical/theoretical minutea of theology. I’m not trained in such, and frankly don’t think that kind of stuff really matters to most people.

adeu amics!
ep