Week 14
of 52 - Baha'i Faith
Have traveled 157,321,664 miles. That's one quarter of the way around the Sun.
It would be more than six million trips around the Earth. A trip around the
Earth every minute would take 12 years to go this far.
Cards:
01 of
52: Six of Clubs
02 of
52: Three of Hearts
03 of
52: Three of Clubs
04 of
52: Five of Diamonds
05 of
52:
06 of
52: Five of Hearts
07 of
52:
08 of
52: Two of Spades
09 of
52: Ace of Diamonds
10 of
52: Three of Diamonds
11 of
52:
12 of
52: Ten of Diamonds
13 of
52: Four of Spades
???
Thoughts:
I saw
the new sign at The Church of Christ - it now says: "This Church is Prayer
Conditioned."
What
does this mean?
Of course
we know now that this is the version of The Church of Christ that has no organ
or piano - and no fancies - so you may be certain that this church has no Air
Conditioning.
We
Mormons would never trust prayer to cool the building - Prayer Conditioning would
never work, so we spend thousands on Air Conditioning - and thousands to
run it every year in each building when the weather is hot. Even the Donner party could not pray and have warmth.
I would
like to witness and measure the cooling of a building by prayer if anyone
believes it can happen.
That's
pretty obvious, but people pray for things like this all the time.
If I
pray to be a better father to my children - or a better grandfather to my grandchildren,
I see this as something that is likely to help. I can be inspired - and make
the effort to improve. But if I pray
about a pass I've already thrown in a football game - or that the car won’t run
out of gas, or that the building will be cool, I don’t think interference can
be expected from God - in the normal and logical flow of events. There may be
very special exceptions, but I've never experienced one of these and been aware
of it. If God did answer such prayers with other than a null, it wouldn't make
much sense to pay for Air Conditioning when the same money could do much good
elsewhere. We could pray the building cool - and give the money to the poor.
Once, a
friend got an envelope from BYU. It would be an acceptance - or regrets. He prayed
that it would be an acceptance.
Another
friend said, "Wait - you have the envelope - if it is not what you want -
do you expect God to change the computer records at BYU - and the memories of
those who made the decision, etc., etc., etc., as a result of your prayer now?
And what about the poor fellow that now does not get in, because you took a
slot unearned?
Prayer
would have been useful when this friend was making his grades in High School,
but not now.
Another
time, I heard a grandmother praying for a certain gender for the child of her
daughter. She knew her daughter wanted a little girl, having already two boys.
I wondered, "If this child is a boy now, as a fetus, does this nice
grandmother want God to make a sex change?" Do we believe in sex changes?
If we think this ok for a fetus, without consent, then what about for an adult,
who makes his/her own choice?
A
middle ground would be if one believed she could determine the gender of a baby
before getting pregnant - at least this would not require God to change
already laid out history. God would have only to control the swimming of the
billions of sperm - or change the lucky one from XX to XY or visa versa, but
then that would be changing history again. (Does a sperm have a gender? Is it a
living thing? Does it have a spirit? All those sperm that don’t make it - are
they alive? Do they have eternal lives? The scriptures say so of all the plants
of the field and all the animals. No clarity on germs, viruses, unfertilized
eggs, or sperm.)
We know
God does not answer prayers like this, and that's why we buy Air Conditioning
for the building.
Of
course, I know the
Planning
to attend the Baha'i Faith.
Concerning
Baha'i Faith -
From it's "prophet":
Neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and
not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy
neighbor.
This
appears to be a doctrine of the availability of personal revelation.
In a
list of beliefs, I found some of these attractive:
In creation
there is no evil, all is good. Certain qualities and natures innate in some men
and apparently blameworthy are not so in reality. For example, from the
beginning of his life you can see in a nursing child the signs of greed, of
anger, and of temper. Then, it may be said, good and evil are innate in the
reality of man, and this is contrary to the pure goodness of nature and
creation. The answer to this is that greed, which is to ask for something more,
is a praiseworthy quality provided that it is used suitably. So, if a man is
greedy to acquire science and knowledge, or to become compassionate, generous,
and just, it is most praiseworthy. If he exercises his anger and wrath against
the bloodthirsty tyrants who are like ferocious beasts, it is very
praiseworthy; but if he does not use these qualities in a right way, they are
blameworthy.... It is the same with all the natural qualities of man, which
constitute the capital of life; if they be used and displayed in an unlawful
way, they become blameworthy.
The Bahá'í
Faith does not therefore accept the concept of "original sin" or any
related doctrine which considers that people are basically evil or have
intrinsically evil elements in their nature. All the forces and faculties
within us are God-given and thus potentially beneficial to our spiritual
development. In the same way, the Bahá'í teachings
deny the existence of Satan, a devil, or an "evil force." Evil, it is
explained, is the absence of good; darkness is the absence of light; cold is
the absence of heat.5 Just as
the sun is the unique source of all life in a solar system, so ultimately is
there only one force or power in the universe, the force we call God.
However, if a person, through his own God-given
free will, turns away from this force or fails to make the necessary effort to
develop his spiritual capacities, the result is imperfection. Both within the
individual and in society, there will be what one might term "dark
spots." These dark spots are imperfections.
(It would appear that they
believe in no evil - just the lack of good.
It's like in physics - No such thing as cold or darkness - just lack of
heat - or lack of light. No such thing
as negative light - minimum is zero light.
No negative heat (cold) - but a minimum of no heat at all. [-273 degrees
Fahrenheit - zero actual degrees {Kelvin}] )
If a tiger kills and eats another animal,
this is not evil, because it is an expression of the tiger's natural instinct
for survival. But if a person kills and eats a fellow human being, this same
act may be considered evil because man is capable of doing otherwise. Such an
act is not an expression of his true nature.
The Independent Investigation of Truth
There is a fundamental obligation for human beings to acquire knowledge with
their "own eyes and not through the eyes of others."
One of the main sources of conflict in
the world today is the fact that many people blindly and uncritically follow
various traditions, movements, and opinions. God has given each human being a
mind and the capacity to differentiate truth from falsehood.
If individuals fail to use their
reasoning capacities and choose instead to accept without question certain
opinions and ideas, either out of admiration for or fear of those who hold
them, then they are neglecting their basic moral responsibility as human
beings.
Moreover, when people act in this way,
they often become attached to some particular opinion or tradition and thus
intolerant of those who do not share it. Such attachments can, in turn, lead to
conflict. History has witnessed conflict and even bloodshed over slight
alterations in religious practice, or a minor change in the interpretation of
doctrine. Personal search for truth enables the individual to know why he or
she adheres to a given ideology or doctrine.
Bahá'ís believe that, as there is only one reality, all
people will gradually discover its different facets and will ultimately come to
common understanding and unity, provided they sincerely seek after truth.
(This appears more like
scientific method than what I see among most religions.)
The fact that we imagine ourselves to be right
and everybody else wrong is the greatest of all obstacles in the path towards
unity, and unity is necessary if we would reach truth, for truth is one.
(I have often said that harmony is better than unity.
Perfect unity would mean no personalities left at all. Even if I love you, I don’t want to act or
believe exactly like you. I would like,
however, to be in harmony with you.) - Chuck
It
appears that their meetings allow questions - I'll ask some.
The
Visit: Baha'i
Faith
I
visited a small group of Baha'i's in
The meeting
began via the passing around of books - with specified passages (prayers) for
reading - each person, including the older children, reading his passage aloud.
After
these "prayers," one member, without invitation, began a solo song
(Kind of like a chant - but with clear words. - His voice was very good, and he
sang with his eyes closed.) He appeared to me the most emotionally attached to
the religion of the group.
The
rest of the time was spent with open discussion - though nobody initiated any
other than myself. They appeared relatively
comfortable with my questioning.
I
learned that they believe quite a few things that are common and expected of
the faith. They believe, for example, that Abraham, Moses (The prophets) and
Jesus are the same thing - each more advanced than the last. And
after Jesus, Mohammed, and after Mohammad, their prophet (interestingly from
the 1800's - Later than Joseph Smith - and a nephew of Napoleon!
His name is Bahá'u'lláh.)
Also
interesting is that there was another that came before
- they call the Bab (Pronounced Bob). The Bab's role was similar to that of John the Baptist for
Jesus - that is, he came before and laid the way for the prophet.
Those
among them who were raised in the Baha'i faith were
not very aware of Bible stories, though they profess to accept the Bible along
with other enlightening works (pretty much "so far as they are translated
and interpreted rightly.")
They
have no problem at all with interpreting the Bible stories a better way than
literal - that perhaps the Children of Israel carried out the killing of the
"firstborn," rather than God's having done it through an angel. I
think it's not their scriptures - and so not so
sacred as the writings of the Baha.
The
independence they teach, with respect to our individual finding of truth, is
after studying the Baha - that is, each of us has his
own way of dealing with what the Baha has taught.
That independence is not so complete as to suggest that one could follow some
lesser leader - even Jesus is at least two steps lesser than the Baha. They explained with an analogy - that perhaps Abraham
was the first grade - then Moses the second, and Jesus the third grade, and
Mohammad the fourth grade, and now Baha the fifth -
and others greater yet to come in the future for high school and college.
I was
surprised to find them not as open to other beliefs as I'd come to expect from
my readings on the internet. They view all our "other" religions as
"lesser," with lots of good, etc, but behind where they could be if they
studied the Baha. It's similar to our own belief that
all the other churches lack authority but still have
much good. They do think theirs is the best, not quite that theirs is
the only. And this, they opined, makes is right to teach the kids at a
young age - essentially insuring their attachment to it later in their lives.
The woman of this house, for example, was raised in the Baha'i
Faith.
Of my
14 visits so far, this one was one of the more pleasant - open and honest as
far as thought-conditioned people can be. I use those words perhaps a little
loosely - and don’t mean it to show them as any different from us or other
churches. We have six-year olds claiming a knowledge
of many things. (These are the same six-year olds who know there is an Easter Bunny and a Tooth Fairy. - Bless their hearts.
We're all children, and believe in many things as un-actual as the Tooth Fairy.
How could we not believe in Santa Claus before we understood real data, having
experienced the proof from the disappearing hot chocolate? The proof we
accept as adults is often no more scientific than the hot chocolate trick.)
They
have an interesting belief that love holds the planets in their orbits - and
all other things in order. They think love is a force, like gravity, and do not
appear to understand this as a metaphor. One said, "But you can move my
heart with your love." I put my arm around his shoulder - pulling him
toward me a little, and said, "There, I moved your heart about three
inches, but I cannot move your heart with love - nor can I move that chair over
there with love. I can love and love and love, and the chair does
not move. Love is not a force - that's only a metaphor. With a tiny thread, I
could move the chair better than with all the love in the world." (Like a kid is a "pig" if he eats too fast. Not
really a pig - just a metaphor.) Religion is big on metaphors being real - like
the wafer becoming the actual flesh of Christ. We don’t do that one, as
the Catholics do - we say "in remembrance." We have others, however,
wherein we insist that metaphors are actual literal truths. They seem to have
great "power" over people. "Power," here, is also a
metaphor. We have so many of them that it's difficult to speak clearly about
such things.
Week 14
of 52 - Baha'i Faith