Photo: The Christian Science Center at Night — sorry I don’t have any photos of Bahai temples (all the photos on my blog are mine –just a habit I like to keep) But Abdul Baha really liked Christian Science — I’ll blog about that someday soon — so its ok.
I just received an email message from a Baha’i scholar — Sen McGlinn. He is very learned — a graduate student of religion who has written a book entitled “Church and State: A Postmodern Theology” that postulates that Bahaullah meant for church and state to be seaparate. He was kicked out of the Bahai Faith as thanks for his efforts, but that’s another story.
Here is what he wrote:
On 23 Oct 2007 at 19:24, Frank Winters wrote:
“Now — when a writer — or Manifestation for that matter — uses the
term Most Great Infallibility, doesn’t that imply degrees? Most great,
somewhat great just plain great, not quite great and so on?”
Sen replies:
That’s exactly what Baha’u’llah says. Not just several degrees, but
also several different kinds:
Know thou that the term ‘Infallibility’ hath numerous meanings and
divers stations. In one sense it is applicable to the One Whom God
hath made immune from error. Similarly it is applied to every soul
whom God hath guarded against sin, transgression, rebellion, impiety,
disbelief and the like. However, the Most Great Infallibility is
confined to the One Whose station is immeasurably exalted beyond
ordinances or prohibitions …
(Tablets of Baha’u’llah, p. 108)
Sen
Here is my reply:
“Hi Sen,
Thanks.
The choice of the word infallible has to be unfortunate. If one leaves out the word and thinks about what Baha’ullah says then it is about being on the right path, I think. What might be a better word?
I tried inerrant but that means pretty much the same thing yet is has for me a connotation of travel to a goal so maybe its closer. Protected from getting off the path — is there a word for that? Steadfast?
‘Sigh’ — its another test. This is my primary argument with God: why all the tests? People need help not @#$% tests. Plain, clear language not flowery prose that could at times mean anything! Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King — better leaders than Baha’ullah or so it seems.
In the days when salvation was about individuals, tests made more sense. Now its the existence of the species that is at stake. Why test all of us in this way?
I’ll tell you why — the entity we call God is not only unknowable it is unthinking in the way we think. Logic has no place there. And God must be indifferent to the question of future human existence. As Baha’ullah says nothing we do has any effect on God whatsoever.
And …. wouldn’t it be great if, as Baha’ullah said, the books really were opened? Religion is still mumbo-jumbo to most people, even in the Baha’i era — if there is such a thing as that.
Cheers,
Frank”
Well that’s the latest.
I’d like to get some comments on these posts — a number of people have been reading my first post about Baha’ullah — ‘seekers?’ Baha’is? Speak up — what do you think? I will not be hurt or offended if you say you are offended — just don’t tell me to shut up because after all its a free world, isn’t it?
Peace,
Frank
7 comments
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October 27, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Eric Hadley-Ives
Dear Frank, I like what you wrote here:
. . . the entity we call God is not only unknowable it is unthinking in the way we think. Logic has no place there. And God must be indifferent to the question of future human existence. As Baha’ullah says nothing we do has any effect on God whatsoever.
God loves us, but seems indifferent to our physical existence. Eventually in the next million years an asteroid is going to smack into Earth and kill a quarter of humanity, and that’s practically a certainty. Yet God made this universe. Our physical comfort, our material existence, these things just don’t seem to matter. I lost an unborn son recently when my wife miscarried, and I’ve been reading up on the scientific literature on miscarriages and stillbirths and infant deaths. It seems like over 30% of fertilized eggs don’t end up with a live birth. If people believe the soul and body of a person begin their existance within a few days of conception, they’ve got to face a God-made world where over a quarter of all the souls that enter the physical world never even get to experience life outside the womb. I’m personally skeptical about conception being egg fertilization, but I keep an open mind, as it seems to me that life really begins during organogenesis in the 3rd-8th week of fetal development with humans. Even so, we’re still talking about about a fifth of babies that make it to organ development ending their lives before birth.
I guess its a price we’ve got to pay to avoid getting wiped out by parasites. I mean if we want to enjoy the advantages of evolution and sexual reproduction and beneficial mutations, and I think Life does want that, then we need to exist in a world where most living things die in pain as they are consumed by other living things, and a quarter to a third of us die before life has really begun. What do these souls do in the Abha Kingdom, I’d like to know. I mean, the whole point of life is supposed to be about developing our spiritual capacities, but what spiritual capacities does a fetus in its 10th or 15th week of life in the mother’s matrix have?
This has been the problem of natural evil. God is all powerful. God loves us. The universe was made because God knew God’s love for us. We get this message from God’s messengers, but then we look around us at the universe and wonder how many planets full of devout and praying sentient beings have been wiped out by supernovae, and how many more humans must die of malaria, earthquakes, or tsunamis? God’s love for us isn’t like our love for each other. God’s infallibility is not like what we would expect if an infallible human had designed the universe for the maximum safety and comfort of Life or more specifically, humanity.
These are the questions I’m thinking about. This stuff about the Universal House of Justice being the source of all good and the letters from the House of Justice being the equivalent of the Tablets of Baha’u’llah is just some sort of mystic sillyness (I use “silly” because of the religious connotations in its Anglo-Saxon roots). I wouldn’t worry too much about it. People like John Hatcher have a administration trip they’re on where they see God in the decisions of the Universal House of Justice. I think I see God in the decisions of any group of people who get together and practice honest and authentic consultation and democratic dialogue in a psychologically supportive way.
October 28, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Bill M.
I’m glad Eric wrote in. This is a cool discussion, Frank. I’m happy you’re having it.
October 28, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Bill M.
Frank, I don’t label myself Bahai, but your blog lately has been a fascinating look into some of these beliefs, and beyond. Just wanted to clarify!
October 29, 2007 at 9:21 am
frankwinters
Dear Eric,
Thanks for your supportive comment.
You wrote:
“This has been the problem of natural evil. God is all powerful. God loves us. The universe was made because God knew God’s love for us. We get this message from God’s messengers, but then we look around us at the universe and wonder how many planets full of devout and praying sentient beings have been wiped out by supernovae, and how many more humans must die of malaria, earthquakes, or tsunamis? God’s love for us isn’t like our love for each other. God’s infallibility is not like what we would expect if an infallible human had designed the universe for the maximum safety and comfort of Life or more specifically, humanity.”
This is at the crux of the problem of God.
When we accept the God of Abraham clear thinking becomes difficult. All warnings to the contrary we try to know and understand God. The Book presents a paradox — the purpose of life is the know and love God but.. you can’t because she is unknowable. Now just sit still and think about that for a few Millennia ..
I am saddened to hear of your loss. Death comes to everything we know but when it comes so very prematurely it seems completely unfair. Is unfair in fact.
I do believe in God in my way. I think whatever God is she is ever present. But I think her presence requires people. You ask about justice in a world with so much death and waste. This is one of THE questions.
Lately I have been thinking of another more abstract one: where was God when dinosaurs ruled the earth? I don’t see a God and messengers at that point in history.
God is present and strong when people are strong. God speaks to us through people. Without people (as in the age of dinosaurs) God is hard — to me impossible — to imagine.
We live in what Woody Allen calls a terrifying universe.
I believe we have created God to help us through a lifetime in that universe.
I don’t believe God is false. But I do believe God — or at least our concept of God — is an outgrowth of the evolution of people. Want to know and love God? Then know and love your fellows. Know and love nature. See the beauty of the universe as you fear it. Meditate, pray by all means if it seems to help. But don’t expect nature or the universe to be any less terrifying: just use the tools our advanced state of evolution has given us to cope.
Frank
October 29, 2007 at 9:25 am
frankwinters
Hi Bill,
I never thought you were a Baha’i but I’m glad you are enjoying reading some of these posts. I wondered how non-Baha’is would feel about them.
FYI — I was raised as a Baha’i but no longer believe as one. I accept some of what Baha’ullah wrote but don’t accept him as the promised one of all religions or as a savior of any kind. Also I don’t follow the Baha’i administrative order nor do I think the future world government will be a Bahai one as many (but not all) Baha’is believe.
Frank
October 30, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Eric Hadley-Ives
Dear Frank,
You write: “But I do believe God — or at least our concept of God — is an outgrowth of the evolution of people.”
Yes, human phenomena, including our belief systems and our religious experiences, are rooted in our brains, our cultures, our sensory perceptions, and all of these things are rooted in our physical existance, a physical situation that is certainly partly a result of natural selection. What else could it be? Once we are aware of something, or experience something, or think something, it has become a physical thing, a group of electrical processes in our brains and neurons, and so forth. God, as we know and experience God, has to be rooted in us and our interactions with the universe.
So, when you suggest God’s presence seems to require people, I’d agree if by “God” we mean “the God that people think about and understand.” As a Baha’i (and Muslims would generally agree with this), I accept Baha’u’llah’s suggestion that God is beyond our comprehension and understanding, so I expect that “God” as we humans understand God, isn’t the whole God.
Before humans, and after humans, God would be present, I suppose, in the various processes of the universe, the stellar furnaces, the linking of mass and gravity, the environmental systems of Earth’s biosphere, and so forth. But even outside this universe, God would be present, for me at least, in the potential for the creation of time, matter, energy, the basic forces of physics, and Life. I suspect in some other aspect of reality time is left behind, perhaps at the Planck scale, and when we escape time the whole idea of something that has happened or will happen not being present gets short-circuited, doesn’t it?
This has been my accomodation to my Faith and my trust in logic and the scientific method. This is my way of understanding how God was present in the Hadean and Archean and Proterozoic eons, or in the approximately 9 billiion years between the Big Bang and the formation of our particular planet.
I like how you suggest we experience God in our society, in our relationships, and in our positive emotions (“love your fellows”). This is something I feel is very clear in the reported talks of ‘Abdu’l-Baha, especially when he said something to the effect that each sees the Divine in the heart of others, and is attracted, and this forms loving social bonds. This also reminds me of that poem by James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) Abou Ben Adhem.
October 30, 2007 at 12:36 pm
frankwinters
Dear Eric,
Thanks for the reminder of Abou Ben Adhem. A flashback from my childhood I think.
I have major issues with religion. I don’t think Bahaullah knew as much as he would like us to believe. Same for Christ and the rest. Endowed with constancy? I doubt it.
Of course people tend to ask too much of prophets — laws seem to be coaxed out of them at times. The least impressive book by Bahaullah imo is the Aqdas. Feels forced and unnatural and is very disjointed. Not a book of laws for the planet I think.
Right now I’m somewhere between a devout follower of you name it and Kurt Vonnegut who spoke not too long ago (but before he passed on!) saying
“How on earth can religious people believe in so much arbitrary, clearly invented balderdash?…. The acceptance of a creed, any creed, entitles the acceptor to membership in the sort of artificial extended family we call a congregation. It is a way to fight loneliness. Any time I see a person fleeing from reason and into religion, I think to myself, There goes a person who simply cannot stand being so goddamned lonely anymore.”
I like the Unitarian church I’ve been attending because it has little emphasis on creed. Sounds strange to Bahais and other believers I’ll bet but it’s a great benefit. People are encouraged to love truth and beauty, to serve mankind and do it in the spirit of Jesus who is not venerated as a deity or special kind of being but as an enlighten man. I like it so far.
Einstein said that the universe was far weirder than we can imagine. I think that’s where the prime cause (God?) lies — in the weirdness beyond our understanding. Time was bent billions of years ago — different than what we experience. And of course in God there is no time. Same as in eternity.
Thanks for commenting now and before — its a boost that keeps me blogging away.
Peace,
Frank