"The Baha'i Faith"

[Sen_McGlinn]

Well, that sounds good on paper, but in practice the entire concept is flawed and imbalanced with the absence of Guardianship.

If Congress or the Judicial branch were to just up and disappear, I don’t think the model as a whole would work.

This model, intended on two twin offices, is now flawed with the absence of one.

I have a separate question. Can the UHJ elect a new Guardian?

The loss of the Guardianship is certainly a loss. Yet the twelver branch of Shiah Islam (the main part of Shiism) has continued for centuries on the strength of the example and teachings of the 11 Imams they had, before the line ended.

I agree it wouldn’t work in a government: but it does work, so far, in the Bahai community. Since the Guardian was the last authorised interpreter of the Writings, we refer to what he wrote, and no-one sets themselves up as having authority to interpret for others. To do so would be trying to stand in the Guardian’s empty shoes - and the shock value of that image effectively prevents anyone trying (well - it inhibits most people. Mason Remey tried it).

No the Universal House of Justice cannot elect a new Guardian: the text in the Will and Testament specifies that the Guardian has to appoint his successor and get that appointment approved, in secret ballot, by a body of 9 'Hands of the Cause" elected by the Hands of the Cause around the world. No substitute mechanism could have undoubted legitimacy, so to try to make a substitute would just cause division.

 

[DavidMark]

Nothing has proven any of its claims or prophecies true yet either, like the nonsense about the Lessor Peace by the year 2000 which none of you seem to be wanting to talk about anymore.

I’ll talk about this till it happens! If you remember, the League of Nations and the United Nations were formed before that date, which means something was begun that had not existed before, for those with faith in Baha’u’llah’s promise that Lesser Peace will come through the efforts of the world’s laders, not the Baha’is .

A baby requires time to grow, to crawl, toddle, walk and so on, before it can run. We have not reached full World Federation yet, in which peace covenants will be forged with iron in them. There may still be severe conflicts as we approach that too.

And oh, it was a “pilgrim’s note” anyway. Sen, wasn’t there a statement at the turn of the millenium from the House of Justice about the attitude towards this?

The apparatus of conflict will, as preparations go on at their present rate, reach a point where war will become something intolerable to mankind.
~‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Secret of Divine Civilization, pp 64-67

 

[NoWings]

The loss of the Guardianship is certainly a loss. Yet the twelver branch of Shiah Islam (the main part of Shiism) has continued for centuries on the strength of the example and teachings of the 11 Imams they had, before the line ended.

I understand what you’re saying, but that isn’t a good analogy to use. The 12th Imam was in occultation, not dead. Especially considering that there is a break-away Baha’i sect stating that the Guardian is in occultation.

 

[Sen_McGlinn]

Is this to mean that Mary the Virgin and Mary the Mother of Jesus are two different people, or that Abdul Baha believed that the Magdalen was Jesus’ mother? …

The Persian text of this letter from Abdu’l-Baha does not appear to have been published, but there is a parallel text here:

O ye maid-servants of God and leaves of the Tree of Eternal Life!
Blessed are ye for attaining to that which was the greatest hope of Mary the Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jacob! This gift was shining on the face of the Virgin Mary like unto a brilliant gem glistening on the great crown of glory.
(Abdu’l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu’l-Baha v3, p. 662)

As in the Catholic tradition, Mary, mother of Jacob and Joses, is regarded as a different person to Mary, mother of Jesus. This other Mary, the mother of Jacob, is mentioned by Matthew:

… many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him: Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s children.
(Matt 27:56. This is the translation in the King James Bible, in which the translators have changes ‘Jacob’ to ‘James’ – apparently in honour of King James !)

The three women called Mary also appear in the crucifixion narratives:

John 19:25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene

and later, but without the Virgin Mary

Mark 15:47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.

And after the resurrection, again without the Virgin Mary:

Luke 24:10. It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.

for the art lovers, there’s a striking picture of the three women called Mary here:
artbible.info/art/large/495.html

 

[DavidMark]

What are we to do with this:

** “Christ said that His mother Mary was not of His Relationship, also that those were His brothers and sisters who were in the Kingdom of God.” **(Attributed to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Ten Days in the Light of ‘Akká, p.47)

 

[arthra]

Wow. Those are the Remey guys. Their website is filled with doomsday predictions and quirky stuff.

What is the Baha’i response to Remey’s claims of Guardianship through adoption by Abdul-Baha? The logic they use is fairly sound.

Abdul-Baha made many references to the believers as His children… sons and daughters and so on… That Abdul-Baha addressed Mason Remey in this way should be no mystery as in his early days Mason Remey served the Cause and Shoghi Effendi recognized him as a Hand of the Cause along with many others…

You are my family" and he looked about with a smile, "my new children! if a family lives in unison, great results are obtained.

(Abdu’l-Baha, Abdu’l-Baha in London, p. 106)

The tokens sent to Mason were just that … a sign of thanks for serving the Cause…

• Art

 

[Sen_McGlinn]

And oh, it was a “pilgrim’s note” anyway. Sen, wasn’t there a statement at the turn of the millenium from the House of Justice about the attitude towards this?

There is no authentic Bahai scripture that says the lesser peace or unity of nations would arrive by the year 2000, it was a combination of words imputed to Abdu’l-baha by newspaper reporters, pilgrim’s notes, and misreadings of scripture - particularly thinking that every time the word ‘century’ appears it means the western 20th century.

I have two posts on this on my blog:
tinyurl.com/bahai20thcent = century’s end
tinyurl.com/centuryoflight = century of light

~~ Sen

 

[Sen_McGlinn]

What are we to do with this:

** “Christ said that His mother Mary was not of His Relationship, also that those were His brothers and sisters who were in the Kingdom of God.” **(Attributed to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Ten Days in the Light of ‘Akká, p.47)

This is a pilgrim’s note DavidMark (apocrypha), it is not authentic scripture. Abdu’l-Baha speaks, an interpreter may or may not understand the point, and conveys it into English, Mrs Grundy listens attentively, and later makes notes of what was said. You can imagine how much can go wrong in the process. If you go the foreword of Ten Days in the Light of Akka you will see the editors have made a substantial list of discrepancies between what Grundy reports Abdu’l-Baha as teaching her, and what Abdu’l-baha has written in authenticated texts.
The foreword is available here:
bahai-library.org/books/tendays/forward.html

My blog is full of things attributed to Shoghi Effendi, Abdu’l-Baha or in once case the Bab, in Bahai books or the oral tradition. If you scan a few of these postings you will understand that the reliability of these things is very low. One of my favourites is ‘The world’s a stage’ about the story that Shoghi Effendi predicted the world would fall off its axis and spin wildly for three days. Earlier versions attribute the words to Abdu’l-Baha ; but it’s all produced by text changing as they are passed from hand to hand, like a game of whispers.

 

[Wahid_Azal]

There is no authentic Bahai scripture that says the lesser peace or unity of nations would arrive by the year 2000,

Utter hogwash and a typical display of the core disengenuous sectarian dishonesty that is Sen McGlinn! First, your distinction of what constitutes authentic and inauthentic scripture is an after the fact fiat, and so bias, based on an official Haifan institutional position as to what is authortative or not. Furthemore you have no personal access to the entirety of letters, speeches and tracts of Abbas Effendi kept in Haifa, Palestine where he explicitly stated this in numerous instances. Moreover this position that the Lessor Peace would come by 2000 was one repeatedly articulated in the Haifan Bahai community consistently from the 1950s (and maybe earlier) up to the eve of 2000 by consecutive members of the uhj, by Hands of the Cause (where I witnessed it personally at the 1986 India Lotus Temple dedication straight from the mouths of Bill Sears, Colis Featherstone as well as Ruhiyyih Rabbani), by Councillors and others. The message of urgency put out by Bahai authorities throughout the 1990s for fund raising in order to finish construction of the meglomaniacal, Haifa-Disney complexes on Mt Carmel centrifugally revolved around this very caveat of Lessor Peace by 2000. So if you choose to forget and raise pathetic hubris, that is your business, but don’t insult the intelligence of those who were there and heard and read this silliness again and again and again straight from the horses mouth with some dishonest smoke and mirrors nonsense about authoritative scripture and pilgrims notes.

As such the position you people are articulating now about this **Lessor Peace by 2000 **(that never happened) is the sort of dishonest sleight of hand and dubious whitewash which totalitarian movements consistently employ to rationalize to themselves and everybody else in order to forget, and so bury, blatantly failed prophecies!

On yer bike, McGlinn! Go sell your snake oil elsewhere…

Wahid

 

[arthra]

If ye fail to discover truth in a person’s words, make them not the object of contention, inasmuch as ye have been forbidden in the Bayan to enter into idle disputation and controversy, that perchance on the Day of Resurrection ye may not engage in argumentation, and dispute with Him Whom God shall make manifest. XVII, 16.

        (The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 133)

 

[Wahid_Azal]

Fair enough, but if it’s that simple to refute, then why is there a 30-mile long post with that as its foundation? Are they just… quirky?

Yes. But so are the Haifans

Wahid

 

[Wahid_Azal]

If ye fail to discover truth in a person’s words, make them not the object of contention, inasmuch as ye have been forbidden in the Bayan to enter into idle disputation and controversy, that perchance on the Day of Resurrection ye may not engage in argumentation, and dispute with Him Whom God shall make manifest. XVII, 16.

        (The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 133)

This only applies to people who are in the Bayan. You people are not, and in fact technically your religion constitutes apostacy from the Bayan with yourselves as apostates.

Wahid

 

[Wahid_Azal]

A baby requires time to grow,

And your baby appears to have grown into a monster.

where war will become something intolerable to mankind.

~‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Secret of Divine Civilization, pp 64-67

Intolerable or not, war and conflict is part and parcel of the nature of this world and the humanity who inhabits it. Your **Brave New World **to stop it altogether, rather than to curtail it, is a far more dangerous utopian fantasy and threat to this planet and its humanity than Fascism and Communism combined.

Wahid

 

[arthra]

I think it’s called the “lesser peace” not the “lessor” peace …

Any way for those interested they can read the following:

bahai-library.com/?file=uhj_unity_nations_peace

• Art

 

[DavidMark]

This is a comparison between Baha’u’llah’s experiences, and 2 Bible prophecies:

In 1848, in Amul in the north part of Iran, Bahá’u’lláh was arrested and bastinadoed (beaten with a rod on the soles of His feet) for being a follower of the Báb. Toward the end of His life Bahá’u’lláh wrote of this event: “While confined in the prison of the Land of Mím (Mázindarán) We were one day delivered into the hands of the divines. Thou canst well imagine what befell Us.”
“At all times He was at the mercy of the wicked doers. At one time they cast Him into prison, at another they banished Him, and at yet another hurried Him from land to land. Thus have they pronounced judgment against Us, and God, truly, is aware of what I say."
“This Holy Land hath been mentioned and extolled in all the sacred Scriptures. In it have appeared the Prophets of God and His chosen Ones. This is the wilderness in which all the Messengers of God have wandered, from which their cry, “Here am I, here am I, O my God” was raised. This is the promised Land in which He Who is the Revelation of God was destined to be made manifest.”
By the righteousness of God! I was at all times thankful unto Him, uttering His praise, engaged in remembering Him, directed towards Him, satisfied with His pleasure, and lowly and submissive before Him. So passed My days, until they ended in this Prison (Akká) which hath made the earth to tremble and the heavens to sigh. Happy that one who hath cast away his vain imaginings, when He Who was hid came with the standards of His signs. We, verily, have announced unto men this Most Great Revelation, and yet the people are in a state of strange stupor."

39:21 And I will set my Glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment which I have executed, and my hand which I have laid on them. 43:2 And behold, the Glory of the God of Israel came from the east; and the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shone with his Glory…43:4 As the Glory of the Lord entered the temple by the gate facing east, the spirit lifted me up, and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the Glory of the Lord filled the temple!

Matthew 23:33 **Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? **3:34 **Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: **23:35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth…

 

[Wahid_Azal]

This is a comparison between Baha’u’llah’s experiences, and 2 Bible prophecies:

In 1848, in Amul in the north part of Iran, Bahá’u’lláh was arrested and bastinadoed (beaten with a rod on the soles of His feet) for being a follower of the Báb. Toward the end of His life Bahá’u’lláh wrote of this event: “While confined in the prison of the Land of Mím (Mázindarán) We were one day delivered into the hands of the divines. Thou canst well imagine what befell Us.”
“At all times He was at the mercy of the wicked doers. At one time they cast Him into prison, at another they banished Him, and at yet another hurried Him from land to land. Thus have they pronounced judgment against Us, and God, truly, is aware of what I say."
“This Holy Land hath been mentioned and extolled in all the sacred Scriptures. In it have appeared the Prophets of God and His chosen Ones. This is the wilderness in which all the Messengers of God have wandered, from which their cry, “Here am I, here am I, O my God” was raised. This is the promised Land in which He Who is the Revelation of God was destined to be made manifest.”
By the righteousness of God! I was at all times thankful unto Him, uttering His praise, engaged in remembering Him, directed towards Him, satisfied with His pleasure, and lowly and submissive before Him. So passed My days, until they ended in this Prison (Akká) which hath made the earth to tremble and the heavens to sigh. Happy that one who hath cast away his vain imaginings, when He Who was hid came with the standards of His signs. We, verily, have announced unto men this Most Great Revelation, and yet the people are in a state of strange stupor."

39:21 And I will set my Glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment which I have executed, and my hand which I have laid on them. 43:2 And behold, the Glory of the God of Israel came from the east; and the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shone with his Glory…43:4 As the Glory of the Lord entered the temple by the gate facing east, the spirit lifted me up, and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the Glory of the Lord filled the temple!

Matthew 23:33 **Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? **3:34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: 23:35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth…

Any of the non-Bahais here notice how everytime the Haifan Bahais are caught in an uncomfortable discussion, which they are unable to argue themselves out of, they quickly change and scuttle the subject to something else?

Wahid

 

[NoWings]

Any of the non-Bahais here notice how everytime the Haifan Bahais are caught in an uncomfortable discussion, which they are unable to argue themselves out of, they quickly change and scuttle the subject to something else?

Wahid

That’s one of my criticisms about the Baha’i faith. They’ll answer easy, informational questions until they’re blue in the face, but let anyone ask anything hard and they just shrug and stick their heads in the sand.

They always talk about ‘Independent Investigation of the Truth’. Everyone has a duty to investigate the truth concerning belief, they say. They say that their religious figure is the return of several important figures in various belief systems. Thus, it should stand to reason that if that’s the case, then the Truth should be rather self-evident.

SInce it isn’t so self-evident, there will be people who do not agree. Problem is, you can’t investigate the Truth independently without seeing said belief system stand up to criticism. Baha’is are going to have to up their apologetics to be able to match the likes of Christianity. I want to see knock-down, drag out debates over the nature of god and deep theology lessons on what a Manifestation is and how exactly it unites or combines with the human nature. I want to see my potential belief system stand up to and logically combat dissentors in a way that makes sense and rings true.

Never happens, though. If it does, then I never see it.

 

[NoWings]

Since we’re on the subject of Catch-22s in the Baha’i Faith, how about this one?

How is it that Baha’is hope to establish a one-world country and government when they are prohibited from becoming involved in politics and military duties?

I mean… you want to unite countries and dissolve sovereign boundaries and change the world to a theocratic republic… but you aren’t allowed to involve yourself in the two processes that make those changes possible?

Seriously?

 

[Sen_McGlinn]

Since we’re on the subject of Catch-22s in the Baha’i Faith, how about this one?

How is it that Baha’is hope to establish a one-world country and government when they are prohibited from becoming involved in politics and military duties?

I mean… you want to unite countries and dissolve sovereign boundaries and change the world to a theocratic republic… but you aren’t allowed to involve yourself in the two processes that make those changes possible?

You have been misinformed - in just about every respect.

1. The Bahai aim is not to establish a theocratic republic, but to assist the nations of the world in creating a democratic world commonwealth of nations. That is a task for governments, but support for the idea among their populations can help, and that’s the role of the Bahais and other people of good will. It means fighting a battle of ideas against the forces of national and racial and religious prejudice, which seek to keep humanity divided into defensive or warring camps.
2. Bahai are not in principle banned from participating in politics, in fact those living in democratic countries are required to participate in "the affairs of the republic." It’s part of good citizenship. This participation is limited at present because if Bahais in one country get involved in some ways, Bahais in other countries may suffer. A substantial portion of the Bahais live under dictatorships or in countries where the Bahai Faith is legally banned, and the Bahais who live in freedom have to realise that their actions may be used against others. As the Bahai Faith becomes better known, and misunderstandings of the kind you have expressed are eliminated, it will be possible for Bahais to be more active in politics in the narrow sense. In the meantime, there are plenty of opportunities that do not involve advocating one or other party line: school boards and neighbourhood watch, environmental activism and spreading the Bahai message about the need for a world commonwealth of nations.
3. Bahais are not banned from military matters, and Bahais have for example served as senior army officers in Iran, but for reasons I’ve outlined in a blog entry at tinyurl.com/bahaismilitary, it is wiser to choose service in purely domestic branches such as fire service, police, coast guard, customs and the like. The framework of international law is so weak, that those in the regular armed services (of some countries more than others) may find themselves being ordered to do illegal things in other people’s countries.
4. the aim is not to dissolve national boundaries, but rather to fix them permanently in a universally recognised pact, underwritten by all nations, so that boundary disputes and territorial wars can be a thing of the past. This pact will also need to guarantee the autonomy of the state members, and - most important - the personal freedoms of individuals within states. (same link)

I notice you referred to other questions you felt you what not getting straight answers on. If you tell me what your questions are, perhaps I can help.

 

[NoWings]

I notice you referred to other questions you felt you what not getting straight answers on. If you tell me what your questions are, perhaps I can help.

See my previous post about the refusal to engage in any debates beyond Baha’i basics.