As Alison mentioned in her recent message about clusters, in the grand scheme of Baha’i multi-year plans, 2008 is the mid-point between 1996 and 2021. The future date being the centenary of the Formative Age of the Baha’i Faith.
To celebrate this and to “deliberate on its exigencies” the Universal House of Justice today called for 41 regional conferences to be held around the world. Check the map to see if your city is on the list. Each of the regional conferences will have 2 ITC counsellors as representatives of the UHJ. And Baha’is wonder why there is a revolving door between the two administrative bodies!
To see the document full page click on the top leftmost button (looks like a rectangle within a darker rectangle). You can also find the document here UHJ Calls for Regional Conferences (October 2008) along with all the other neat stuff uploaded there.
Here is a map showing all of them:
The UHJ publicists must have worked for George Bush! What a load of crap! They must’ve needed a lot of toilet paper to keep their keyboards clean when they were typing this out.
There are two things I love about this. The first is just that the UHJ messages still have that inimitable style. Take a line like this: “there has been a rise in the awareness of the efficacy of the framework governing the operation of the Five Year Plan.” That’s just a sparkling gem, now isn’t it? And Baquia is right to indicate the beauty of a phrase like “deliberate on its current exigencies.” It’s gold, I tell ya!
But in addition, I want to point out how the House tries to exploit the current financial crisis. This is great because the Infallible Nine aren’t alone in doing this. In the ’states we’ve seen two very different, very self-interested explanations: the Democrats blame deregulation, the Republicans have blamed community groups securing mortgages for poor people, the former blame President Bush, the latter blame ACORN. Well, now the UHJ is in on the act with their own very convenient diagnosis: insufficient spirituality. According to the .75 dozen propositionally inerrant individuals (who just happen to be male) in Haifa, it’s not because people voted in incompetent leaders who instigated bad economic policies, or even because they took out loans they should have known they couldn’t pay. The economy is in trouble because people aren’t listening to the UHJ! Now that we think of it, it seems so obvious.
It was predictable that the Baha’is would use this crisis to promote the Faith. In fact, when I realized the depth of the crisis, I mentioned to one of my friends: I probably can write the UHJ letter on this and be pretty close to what they say.
Shoghi Effendi wrote even more ominous letters back in his day. So what? Things got bad, then good, then bad and so on. The world ebb and flows. I just wish the Bahai Faith would ebb and flow with it. Instead it is stuck in the world of Shoghi Effendi. It’s not growing for a reason.
Keats Thomas wrote:
“It was predictable that the Baha’is would use this crisis to promote the Faith.”
Perhaps if the WHO sent help to an afflicted region, you would say they were promoting the WHO an not health facilities?
Brendan Cook wrote:
it’s not because people voted in incompetent leaders who instigated bad economic policies, or even because they took out loans they should have known they couldn’t pay. The economy is in trouble because people aren’t listening to the UHJ!
Brendan, voting for incompetent people or taking loans they cannot pay both refer to inadequate spiritual motivations, and the economy is indeed in trouble because humanity is not heeding to Baha’u'llah’s teachings which are promulgated by the UHJ.
Farhan wrote:
What an ignorant and arrogant thing to say.
Just because people voted for Bush and whoever or took loans that they cannot now pay does not mean that they have “inadequate spiritual motivations” as you put it.
How many American Baha’is voted for Bush? How many Baha’is have been affected by the current banking and loans problem? Even people I know with the highest “spiritual motivations” were still lulled by promises made by banking firms, finance companies, George Bush, etc. Who on the UHJ, NSA,ITC and arm of the learned voted for George Bush?
The economy in trouble? How many times has the economy crashed in the past and people got burnt? What about the Wall St crash in 1929? Or the Black Monday crash in 1987? What about the financial troubles caused by the tiger economies of Asia? Or the dot.com crash in the late 1990s? How many times has the economy crashed, recovered, new measures put in place, and people carried on with their lives?
Grove wrote:
How many times has the economy crashed, recovered, new measures put in place, and people carried on with their lives?
Grover, I will reply to your point and not to your insult.
I maintain my view that the deliberate technique of trapping unwary people into dangerous loans is a clear reflection of an unethical economic system that has and will continue to produce exclusion and misery until it is ethically inspired.
This might seem a “normal” trend to the ultra-liberal societies of the West, it most certainly is considered as unethical and even out rightly dishonest to the rest of the planet.
Farhan, your gross generalisations are amazing. Are you sure you are a doctor? I’d hate to see what diagnoses you give your patients… Hmmm lets see the symptom is swollen testicles. Oh, its a spiritual problem, you haven’t been paying attention to the UHJ… Broken arm, its a spiritual problem. Conjunctivitis, its a spiritual problem. Lets all lay on hands, say a round of prayers and you’ll be healed. Your bedside manner I’m sure is the stuff of legends.
Farhan,
You seem to be blaming the financial crisis on “people not being spiritual” and the poison of “ultra-liberal societies”.
Please study my new Ruhi Book 1929 for insight.
The most critical component of the crisis is NOT about home mortgages. It is about the financial instruments that were made out of these mortgages.
This situation is about stupidity. There is no nation, economic system, or certainly organized religion on this Earth that is exempt from stupidity.
If fact organized religions over the centuries have often been one of the most exemplary and prolific systems of stupidity of every era. Baha’u'llah actually writes about this a lot.
We, as Baha’is, certainly have done our part too to keep up the solid flow of stupidity with our lifetime incumbent electoral system that does not hold anyone accountable for anything ever.
Wall Street in this crisis actually mirrored us in attaining this new catastrophic level of stupidity so I think we are now truly influencing affairs in the world by example. No one on Wall Street has been ever held accountable for anything in all this just as the Bush Administration has never been held accountable for anything for eight years. Ever. Period.
So the entire world and it’s systems is now mirroring us in the Baha’i standard of no accountability in our organization. Ever. Period. We are truly now having a tremendous effect on the world.
As we reward stupidity in our organizations at every level, so the world rewards stupidity in all its organizations at every level also.
Rewarding stupidity is the hallmark of the present era and the Baha’is certainly have done their part to elevate this to a new standard of bullying incompetence.
With our record it will be great for everyone on Earth when we run the entire banking system of the world. So please take my Ruhi Book 1929 so you will not be a “D” student in economics and will be able to take over and run the Baha’i banking system in the future.
I will warn you though that the final practical spiritual exercise at the end of the Ruhi Book 1929 is to, well, lend me money as the authorized tutor! I am sure that as a medical doctor in France you are doing pretty good and will be glad to participate in this exercise. That is if you ARE spiritual enough and truly freed from all materialistic concerns. French francs will be accepted as well as all currencies worldwide. I am setting up my Paypal account now. Non-Baha’i monies are accepted as well. So your wife and daughters who you said never joined the Faith can send me money as well. Thanks!
Another lesson in Ruhi Book 1929 will be forth coming very soon. It will have the first multiple choice test. So please continue in the class.
Craig wrote:
You seem to be blaming the financial crisis on “people not being spiritual”This situation is about stupidity. There is no nation, economic system, or certainly organized religion on this Earth that is exempt from stupidity.
I fully agree, Craig. The purpose of knowledge is to neutralise stupidity. Knowledge is of two kinds: rational AND subjective; schools and science provide the rational part, and religion provides the subjective or “spiritual” part.
I hate the word “blame” “guilt”, “sin”, “pure”, “impure”… let us speak about lack of education and our duty to help each other advance on the path of understanding.
Craig: We, as Baha’is, certainly have done our part too to keep up the solid flow of stupidity
Farhan: agreed, except that I would word that as a lack of rational and spiritual understanding, insight, foresight…
The whole purpose of the Ruhi sequence is t help us understand that we are in this world for a short transit, and during this transit, whatever service we leave behind will have helped towards accomplishing our purpose in this life. Once this spiritual reality has been understood, then will all our rational knowledge help change the world instead of providing us with medals and awards we can exhibit on our lapels.
Grover wrote:
Broken arm, its a spiritual problem. Conjunctivitis, its a spiritual problem. Lets all lay on hands, say a round of prayers and you’ll be healed. Your bedside manner I’m sure is the stuff of legends.
Grover, the 1948 constitution of the WHO defines health as a global bio-psycho-social wellbeing. this means that broken arms, conjunctivitis, and all other health problems, even accidental, have some factors of a psycho-social nature in their occurence and in their outcomes: better social structure can help reduce the incidence and improve the outcomes of these conditions.
We also know that the psycho-social factors are directly influenced by our “state of mind” which is what we call “spiritual”. Hence all disease has some spiritual factors. This this does not mean that by prayers we will cure a broken arm, but by prayers we might reduce the incidence of accidents and prevent some complications resulting from broken arms.
Holy crap Farhan! Now I know with 100% certainty that you are a quack. With intelligence like that you must’ve just barely scraped through medical school or shoved money in someone’s pocket. Either that or you were once intelligent and endless repeats of Ruhi has rotted your brain. I wouldn’t want you for my doctor…. You must be the laughing stock wherever you are working.
Grover, I have no problem with you disagreeing with anything Farhan or myself or anyone else here says but I do have a problem when anyone here attacks or insults or questions the sincerity of others. So please do not engage in this sort of thing. It is unacceptable.
Furthermore, if all one has is personal insults and ad hominem then it isn’t very effective as a means to persuade others towards your position, is it?
thank you
Baquia wrote:
“…if all one has is personal insults and ad hominem then it isn’t very effective…”
Thanks Baquia, for keeping your blog a clean place for useful exchanges.
My hunch is that there is much more to be learned from say, Minsky than say, Baha’u'llah when it comes to this current financial crisis.
I agree.
I also say the Panic of 1907 is also very much worth studying in this current situation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1907
This sorry history will be a later lesson itself in Ruhi Book 1929.
There were very few new buildings built on “Main Street” in small towns in New England for the next 50 years because of the Panic of 1907. It took until around 1960 for things to recover at the small town level.
As I have said, since Douglas Martin and Peter Khan both seem to believe the Baha’i Faith will actually be the dynamic future monopoly banking system of the entire world, I’m sure our guys are all fully up on all this, right? Or do they just know how to create and run a worldwide banking system by just being automatically infallible? They are all up on Ravi Batra too right?
http://www.ravibatra.com/
I, myself, just love the guy’s books!
Oh, but that’s right. Reading books is now thought to be East Coast elitist now in BOTH the Baha’i Faith and the Republican Party too these days. Anyone who reads books and actually studies anything and thinks about anything is the enemy of BOTH God and the RNC!
We live in very strange times.
Do you think Douglas Martin and Peter Khan can lend me some money since they are apparently way out ahead on all this because they are “spiritual” and I, myself, am not “spiritual” enough as Farhan implied because I have a mortgage in our Godless “liberal” financial system, right? But I also have an imaginary insurance paper that says it will be paid back if I default. It would be very “spiritual” of them to accept that, right?
Sorry Baquia. Seeing as Farhan has cheerfully insulted all those that voted for George Bush, all those that are in financial difficulties, and western liberal culture in general, and made statements about everyone’s lack of spirituality with all the authority of the UHJ, I thought it only fair to call into question his integrity and ability as a doctor.
Craig, good point about the 1907 crisis. Did you know Abdu’l-Baha wrote a little prayer for JP Morgan? From what I heard it was when he was in NY and happened to pass by their offices. They had a book where visitors signed in… I wonder if it is in some vault somewhere. Disclosure, I may own some JPM
Grover, no problem, but I don’t think you owe me an apology, at least not as much as to Farhan. Let’s stick to the issues. I know things can get heated but we do each other and the ideas we stand for a disservice when we get personal.
On that note, I think both the source and the solution of the financial crisis is simple. The Baha’i Faith is not an economic model nor a solution. Nor is it a medical model or solution. These things are left to their respective fields and they continue to advance based on solid scientific research.
I’ve seen this before when fellow Baha’is pull out the “Baha’i” card willy nilly whenever any serious issue confronts us as a society. Truth is that the Baha’i Faith has its place but it is not to replace every other discipline out there.
Those who jam the round peg into the square hole do so because they have nothing else to offer. They don’t take the time to investigate the issue, nor to explore what is really going on. Their only answer is the same answer to everything.
Reminds me of the fundamentalist right or the Evangelicals in the US that believe everything has the same source and the same solution: God.
That manner of over simplification is ignorant at best and outright dangerous at worst.
Exactly. These people would be much better off studying the Panic of 1907 rather than the Hidden Words on this. But i did love that quote where Hand Master of Time and Space Douglas Martin said the Baha’i Faith will be the banking system of the future.
Yay Doug Man! Go Doug! So he had better take Ruhi Book 1929 which I am posting up here as an act of service to my fellow human beings. Got that Farhan? I am doing this as an act of service! Does that count? I’m old school where hard study and knowledge is ALWAYS ideologically appropriate no matter what the MAGICAL THINKING FADS of the hour are.
Would the Canadian Banking System lend me some money too?
I wonder what the Wasilla Bible Church teaches about the Panic of 1907 and how it led to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913? Does anyone know what their take is on the subject?
Baquia,
I would love to see that prayer! JPMorgan may need Divine Intervention yet! Especially for your shares! Even though they are in the Hollowed Nine Core Protected Banks (good number!) word has it that they are far more exposed and at risk to the CDS’s than anyone yet fully realizes.
As I will discuss in an upcoming lesson in Ruhi Book 1929, the CDO’s are financial AIDS and no one really knows who has been having completely unprotected financial sex with whom over the last five years with the incredible rise of this toxic financial plutonium.
In financial terms, the whole thing is right out of Eliot Spitzer’s most extreme V.I.P. fantasy. But in the case of the CDO’s and CDS’s nobody even kept their socks on.
This all happened because no one was held accountable on Wall Street which is the exact same people in the Baha’i Administrative order since 1921.
But the rise of the Internet is going to change all this now. You get to ANY position of power ANYWHERE on Earth doing AMYTHING now for the next thousand years and you will have the keyboards of citizen economists that are smarter than you and citizen theologians that are smarter than you and citizen administrators that are smarter than you up your a** 24/7/365/1000.
Political parties and organized religions had not figured this put yet. But they are beginning to realize it now. This current U.S. election is a case in point. Some political organizations understand how to use the Internet and some don’t. Same with some religions.
The Baha’i Faith is not one of them. This has to be of the Divine. Nobody as an organization could ever be this dumb on purpose. Nobody.
Remember, the powers of the World Age will be carried out by people whether they have ever heard of Shirley MacLaine or not while the Baha’is continue to disintegrate into hapless, incompetent, mindless, completely impaired dust.
The Promised Day Has Come on the photonic light carrier binary square wave of the completely free and open worldwide instantaneous personal communication system called…the Internet!
Duh.
God loves those who WORK in groups. Not those who are totally incompetent in groups!
Everyone keep posting!
Whoops! Should read: “This all happened because no one was held personally accountable on Wall Street which is the exact same SYSTEMIC PROBLEM in the Baha’i Administrative Order since 1921.”
ie. No one put into these positions is ever held accountable for their performance. Ever. But THAT is all going to change now thanks to the PUBLIC Internet WORLDWIDE.
Grover wrote:
“Seeing as Farhan has cheerfully insulted all those that voted for George Bush, all those that are in financial difficulties, and western liberal culture in general, and made statements about everyone’s lack of spirituality with all the authority of the UHJ, I thought it only fair to call into question his integrity and ability as a doctor.”
Grover, if you look through all my posts on this blog, I doubt if you will find a single insult to anyone, how much less implying that a whole nation would have voted inadequately!
My posting was not comment on any election or any economical system, but a comment pointing out to the fact that ALL human activities, including voting and money-lending, have a spiritual (or if you prefer, immaterial, philosophical, subjective, emotional…) motivation. My comment was not to you, but a reply to the following posting from Breandan:
“According to the .75 dozen propositionally inerrant individuals (who just happen to be male) in Haifa, it’s not because people voted in incompetent leaders who instigated bad economic policies, or even because they took out loans they should have known they couldn’t pay. The economy is in trouble because people aren’t listening to the UHJ! Now that we think of it, it seems so obvious.”
Baquia wrote:
“Those who jam the round peg into the square hole do so because they have nothing else to offer. They don’t take the time to investigate the issue, nor to explore what is really going on. Their only answer is the same answer to everything.”
Well, I might have to repeat myself on this point: ALL human activities have a “spiritual” (or if you prefer an immaterial, non-rational, emotional, philosophical, political, idealistic…) motivation.
Good reasoning, intelligence, good understanding… will not change human behaviour. It is only by CHANGING HEARTS that human behaviour can change.
This is the scope of the spiritual world: All religions refer to this “kingdom” and not to that of reasoning and rationality with which, of course, they have to remain complementary.
Hence, at the roots of the world’s problems we have a lack of spirituality and not a lack of rationality.
Craig wrote:
“These people would be much better off studying the Panic of 1907 rather than the Hidden Words on this.”
Craig, we can agree to disagree on that point. I rather refer to Abdu’l-Baha on this one:
“The fundamentals of the whole economic condition are divine in nature and are associated with the world of the heart and spirit. This is fully explained in the Baha’i teaching, and without knowledge of its principles no improvement in the economic state can be realized. The Baha’is will bring about this improvement and betterment but not through sedition and appeal to physical force—not through warfare, but welfare. Hearts must be so cemented together, love must become so dominant that the rich shall most willingly extend assistance to the poor and take steps to establish these economic adjustments permanently.” (PUP 91:4)
Farhan, has the rate of smoking (and therefore the rate of diseases it engenders) in the western world gone down in the last few decades because of a rise in spirituality? or a realization of the harmful effect of smoking?
Abdu’l-Baha refers to rationality and reason as a centerpiece of life. Otherwise we have nothing but superstition.
Craig wrote:
“This all happened because no one was held personally accountable on Wall Street which is the exact same SYSTEMIC PROBLEM in the Baha’i Administrative Order since 1921.”
Craig, the aim of the Baha’i teachings is to inspire hearts, and not to interfere with intellectual matters, although in order to inspire hearts in a way harmonious with intellectual matters, we have to become involved in understanding them.
Baquia wrote:
“Farhan, has the rate of smoking (and therefore the rate of diseases it engenders) in the western world gone down in the last few decades because of a rise in spirituality? or a realization of the harmful effect of smoking? “
Baquia, I would say both. We have thousands of doctors who know perfectly well what is in store for them, and who smoke because they are emotional prisoners of that habit. You will notice that health education publicity is concentrating on the emotional outcomes of traffic accidents and of alcohol and drug misuse.
Craig wrote:
“Nobody as an organization could ever be this dumb on purpose. Nobody.”
Craig, I am not at all sure that teh Baha’i Faith is an organisation. It is a Divine message offered to humanity with a bunch of “crazy lovers” trying to share it with the rest of the world.
As they have to harmonise their efforts in sharing this message, they try to be as organised as possible, and the whole purpose of systematising the teaching work through the Institute Process is part of that effort, but to me the structure is merely a TOOL that will evolve, rise and fall with time, and not at all the purpose which is a change in the minds and hearts of all humanity.
This change in hearts and minds is the crux of the universal problem that is disrupting humanity, and the essence of my efforts within the Baha’i faith.
I have more than enough on my plate organising my hospital, I would surely not want extra organisation efforts for my spiritual life.
Baquia wrote:
Abdu’l-Baha refers to rationality and reason as a centerpiece of life. Otherwise we have nothing but superstition.
Baquia, I remember the two wings of the bird as complementary, although Abdul-Baha does refer to science and reason as the one of the greatest gifts of God to man. I dont remember refering to a centerpiece or one wing being more essential than another.
My understanding is that in a computer, the hardware and software are complementary and just as essential, and in a car, gas and the engine are just as essential. I dont see one as more essential as the other.
What we hear in Europe is that bankers in the US deliberately enticed unwary loaners into financial traps with the intent of recovering and reselling their property.
Is this true? If so, this is a lack of spirituality on the part of bankers.
It so happens that in our world, material development has not been accompanied by an equal progress in spiritual values. Huge engine, not enough gas.
No.
Please study the links I have put up so far in Ruhi Book 1929.
The critical financial nuclear fission problem is NOT the mortgages themselves.
The problem IS the derivative and insurance instruments that grew as unregulated mushrooms on those mortgages.
You have to get beyond a mere superficial TV news comprehension of the problem.
It is much the like the current version of the Baha’i Faith.
The problem in the Baha’i Faith right now is not the free and open Teachings of Baha’u'llah for people to peruse and study in their own personal heart and mind. The problem is the system of incredibly incompetent dysfunctional sociopathic controllers that have grown like mushrooms as a cancer in an organization that has now totally usurped those Teachings. The means to an end became the end in itself because of the grasping personal psychological needs of these mentally unstable lifetime incumbent people.
Both these fates have come because people were never held accountable for ANYTHING EVER in these two respective eras.
Wall Street is collapsing. Today may be a very bad day indeed based upon futures so far this morning.
The current top down hapless version of the Baha’i Faith is collapsing. Very solid and previously very dedicated people have left in droves. These mentally ill deranged idiots have destroyed the seed corn.
But Baha’u'llah, as an Archetypal Savant Marker in the Prediction of Fates, warned of this in the Tablet of the Holy Mariner. And so it has all come to pass.
The Baha’i Faith is in very deep trouble and the clueless class of lifetime incumbent people at the top of it have no awareness of anything. Zero. Nada. Zippo.
And so the Divine Message for this World Age is moving on to other souls and other spiritual movements and spiritual organizations.
As I say: “The liberating power of the World Age is now being carried out by other people whether they have ever heard of Shirley MacLaine or not.”
Everyone have a nice day! I hope we all still have some money by 4PM this afternoon EST. I’m going to work now! My last pay check did cash so at least I’m good for two weeks yet!
Looks like the whole world is “Going Down To The Crossroads”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krwywj_gIjk
Craig wrote:
The critical financial nuclear fission problem is NOT the mortgages themselves
Craig, Thanks for the feed-back; I promise to look up your links ASAP. I am no expert on financial questions. I was told by our experts that people played Monopoly on other people’s money, and lost for them. You can’t create money from nowhere: if you make profit through manipulating money, someone else is bound to be losing somewhere. When you win a huge lump in a lottery, millions will have lost small lumps of money.
Craig wrote: “And so the Divine Message for this World Age is moving on to other souls and other spiritual movements and spiritual organizations.”
Craig, that would be absolutely no problem to me, as long as the life giving message of God did permeate all humanity. The Bab did say to his disciples that if they did not serve, God would raise others to do His work; Baha’u'llah did say that if we did not seize the opportunity to serve, God would raise the pebbles to do it.
We have always had, and will always have people who will want to get benefits from serving the Faith. I am in no position to judge fellow Baha’is serving or not on the administrative bodies, nor do I wish to do so. God’s plan cannot be foiled.
We have spiritual emergencies at hand and life giving teachings to serve to all who ask for them, and one essential ingredient of this message is that world economy has to be spiritually founded on humanitarian values and not on self-serving principles.
My survival ultimately rests on the survival of all humanity, and I will ultimately have to pay for the losses endured by my neighbour. This is to me a spiritual and not a financial principle.
Farhan,
The Baha’i Faith is a mere top down organization now. The Teachings are now completely gone from it. Baha’u'llah as any part of it is completely gone. The Writings and their deep structure link to all other religions and esoteric spiritual insights have been replaced by the completely straight jacketd fundamentalist Stalinist mindset of the “Institute Process.” No thinking person will ever join a religion like this now. It is just mindless spiritual communism now as authored by not terribly bright high school teachers. The result will be catastrophe. We are now the Jehovah’s Witnesses of Shia Islam. It is a terrible tragedy in world history. It just ain’t going to turn our very well now.
Tell me, Farhan, what the Baha’i Faith is going to do now for those sent to “do God’s work” as All Highest Cosmic Grand Master humanitarian POS Glenford Mitchell said?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/10/24/ptsd.struggle/index.html
Craig wrote:
The Baha’i Faith is a mere top down organization now. The Teachings are now completely gone from it.
Farhan: I am not sure you are talking about the Baha’is I associate with or those you see in your nightmares.
Craig: spiritual insights have been replaced by the completely straight jacketd fundamentalist Stalinist mindset of the “Institute Process.”
Farhan: the Institute Process as applied (or inflicted?) by some misled well-meaning might look what you describe; I did call them “apparatchiks” and the institutions called them “zealots” but all those mistakes are way behind us now.
Craig: No thinking person will ever join a religion like this now.
Farhan: I am sorry, Craig, but you are mistaken. Those very childish question sheets are exactly the kind of pedagogical tools used in universities now and current when doctors do their post university courses. In any case, with the institute process, the teachings are being handed out to all humanity and we will see what they will do with them, within or outside the Baha’i Community: who cares on the shape of the bottle as long as we get inebriated.
Craig: It is a terrible tragedy in world history. It just ain’t going to turn our very well now.
Farhan: Cheer up, Craig, things are going to change soon.
Craig: Tell me, Farhan, what the Baha’i Faith is going to do now for those sent to “do God’s work” as All Highest Cosmic Grand Master humanitarian POS Glenford Mitchell said?
Farhan: Wow, it is some time that question had not come up yet; have you asked Glenford Mitchell what he meant exactly?
“We are now the Jehovah’s Witnesses of Shia Islam.”
Brilliant comment, Craig, absolutely brilliant; and certainly no more insulting than the patronizing comments of religious apologists. But since, of course, apologists and casuists simply speak on behalf of religious truthiness, their insults hardly qualify as such, do they? After all, if I were to inform you that your relationship with your partner is inherently sinful, that it is a handicap to be overcome, that wouldn’t count as an insult, would it? I would just be telling you the truthiness! And if you were to find this a disagreeable or inconvenient truthiness, you would just need to be more spiritual. What could possibly be simpler than that?
Who’s that knocking on my door? No surprise, it’s those mainstream Baha’is, to teach me about progressive revelation and to present me with a plaster saint, pockmarked with patches.
No, it is not. That goes well beyond a simplification into fantasyland. My point about rationality is that it is the basis of independent investigation of truth. This is something we were talking about on Talisman9 actually.
In the Promulgation of Universal Peace (p180):
“The first teaching of Baha’u'llah is the investigation of reality.”
“Farhan, has the rate of smoking (and therefore the rate of diseases it engenders) in the western world gone down in the last few decades because of a rise in spirituality? or a realization of the harmful effect of smoking? Abdu’l-Baha refers to rationality and reason as a centerpiece of life. Otherwise we have nothing but superstition.”
I like your point, Baquia. It seems to me that just as the best political philosophies keep the state in its proper place and don’t let government intrude on private life, so too the best religious philosophies limit the role of the church. One of the most attractive things about the Baha’i Faith, at least as I understood it, is that religion shouldn’t be the be all and end all, but should make room for science, art, philosophy, and various other ways of knowing and thinking.
Hi Brendan!
Good to hear from you! I hope you and your wife are doing well!
I must admit I have thought of you, your wife, and your mother and father in the back of my mind lately in this context if things (gulp) put me in Plan B mode down here. (God help us!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMiqfusRWM4
What you say in this post used to be the Baha’i Faith I once joined. It was a totally free thinking religion. But that was then. This is now. That was OLDTHINK. This is NEWTHINK. That was the Teachings of the Founders. What any of them Taught is all completely irrelevant now. The Baha’i Faith is what nine men in Haifa say it is. Their “elucidations” as forcefully explained by ITC members and their very own personal opinions imprinted into worldwide Baha’i audiences trump all. The new Baha’i Faith is what unemployed laid off high school teachers say it is in the indoctrination workbooks they write and everyone worldwide is bulllied into using as the new substitute Holy Text.
Have you been called in for any further interrogations lately, or have they just dropped you like yesterday’s news now?
In the context of current world events I guess a this tune will suffice:
“Once I had a religion that ran on time…brother can you spare a dime?”
The main thing these days is to stay “Old Timey” as spiritually advised in “O Brother, Where Art Thou” as the World Age progresses.
The UHJ should have just stayed “Old Timey” and the Baha’is might get a hearing now in the world financial crisis. But instead, we are not even players anymore. (Yawn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krwywj_gIjk
Even spiritually blind people can hear “Old Timey” when they hear it… (man did this movie company have some fun in setting the deep truths of Ulysses to the 1930’s!)
Yep. It is REALLY important to be “Old Timey” for the next 11 days!
Pray for us down here in the Lower 48!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3eTSbC3neA
That is absolutely false Farhan. Having been to numerous university courses as a science teacher, there is no way in hell academics would ever use such a method. The students would leave in droves.
There are major differences between university and Ruhi style teaching. The first being Ruhi assumes Baha’i writings and interpretations in Ruhi are the truth and based on the writings of a man that is assumed to be messenger of God. University teaching is based on work of millions of individuals, peer reviewed, and revised numerous times. The knowledge in university education is constantly challenged and updated. People are encouraged to challenge that knowledge. It is regarded as a good thing, unlike the Baha’i Faith.
University education involves a combination of lectures, tutorials, assignments and exams. Mostly it is straight transmission of facts and theories (called the transmissive approach).
Current fashion in science education involves assessment of prior learning (what the student already knows), some form of constructivist type learning (lets the student build or construct their own knowledge) that builds on or corrects what the student already knows. Good teachers use tools that challenge students ideas and force students to reevaluate what they know or understand. There is also the experiential component through laboratories etc.
None of this is done in Ruhi, there is no assessment of prior learning, there is no method that allows people to build their own understanding, its just straight regurgitation.
At best, at least in my country, Ruhi would be equated with primary school (for ages 5-12) basic comprehension. We respect our students too much to use such an infantile tool as Ruhi. We want them to be able to think, not be lobotomised drones.
Perhaps Farhan meant the sort of universities they had in the ancient world… before Socrates, with his damned propensity to ask questions, came along.
Grover wrote: