shunyadragon

[QUOTE=Jacob Aliet]DamienVryce has asked very good questiona and made important observations. [QUOTE]

I was away on a trip and did not get an opportunity to respond. some of the following may help.

shuntyadragon,


A partial list:

Uprising in eastern China in the 1840s through 1850s. Very bloody and almost successful. Leader claimed to be the fulfillment of the return of Jesus as the brother of Jesus.

The rise of the Shinto in Japan resulting in the overthrough of the Buddhist government in the 1860s, declaring the Shinto Emperor the savior of the world and fulfillment of Shinto prophecy of the coming of the most great Kami (incarnate God).

The numerous millennial faiths among the Christians in America declaring the return of Christ in 1844. Some later switched the dates to 1863 and 1912, because it did not happen the way they expected. Also the Mormons believed they were the 'Saints of the Last Days' before the return of Christ, but their story changed with time when things did not happen.

The various movements and uprisings among the American Indians related to their own prophecies of a savior in this period.


I admited this is true before, but the Baha'i Faith has a broader base of fulfillment of prohecy around the world at the same time instead of events occuring in one place in time as with Christianity. These events took place similtaneously in terms of Baha'i prophecy. Of course denial is clear option.

One or two coincidences can be allowed, but the occurance of many events, some on the same day, and within several months independently the world over is a stretch that coincidence does not explain. Other follow as the Baha'i writing describe they will.


It happened on the same day on two different continents. coincidence?

The quote to the above prophecy was in the book if you had read it

Prove 'proof' is an interesting challenge often thrown like mud and manure at the scientists like the 'Creation Science' advocates do. All I can do is list many occurances and events related to prophecy that happened similtaneously around the world that cannot easily be explained well by coincidence. And I have only begun. 'Proof Poof! Pfffffffft!' Denial is always an option.

'In the last day they shall beat on iron and it shall be heard over many hills.' Book, chapter and verse and complete better quote will follow. If you read instead of glanced over Sears book he describes the prophecy and the citation.

I probably did not explain myself well or completely. I believe that the relationships of matter and energy were described in this quote. 'If you split an atom and release a sun.' I beleive it is a remarkably specific quote that, yes, can be interpreted different ways, but it does graphically describe E=mc2 very well long before Eintein proposed it.

What I believe and will offer other references in later posts is that Baha'i Faith brought a new vision of science and religion that revealed 'knowledge is relative' and not absolute like either the Newtonian or archeic religious views of the past that haunt us today. Science would eventually merge with religion to form a more complete harmonious view of reality. I believe this theory of relative knowledge will be the basis of the science of the future.

Your manner of debate is rather aggressive and did not give me much of an opportunity to respond. It sure does not encourage healthy intellectual dialogue. There will be more specific responses to your challenges and others I assure you.

Your humility is only exceeded by the stoic belief in your own view and the consideration of none others.

It is interesting that the problem was solved over a hundred years ago and the Baha'is are quite comfortable with science as its knowledge unfolds and the greatest nation in the world cannot handle it.

The Bab and Baha'u'llah declared the social and legal equality of women as one of the new standards for the new age. Tahira (sp?) was the poetess and one of the first nineteen apostles of the Baha'i Faith who was killed with her own vail because she removed it and declared a new age for women in history. The writings describe these new principles as the desire of the world and like his proclamation for the end of slavery they have become world movements of change. Unlike Christianity and Islam, whose religious texts endorsed slavery and did not promote universal equality of women, it did more to divide them than to unite them in the past 170 years.

The rise of a Moslem leader claiming to be the 'Mahdi, Promised one' and waged a holy War in Sudan and the surrounding region claiming to fulfill the same prophecies that the Baha'i Faith did. He slaughtered the British garrison at Khartoum.

Easy. The first Buddhist texts to be translated into English, French and German were presented to Orientalist societies in the US and Europe in the spring of 1844. The book 'Buddhism in America 1844 - 1912' makes interesting reading. I will get further details on this book and author shortly. This fulfills an important traditional Buddhist prophecy that Buddhism must first be revealed in the west before the 'Most Great Buddha' will return.

The first Arabic Printing press started publishing in 1844 followed by the first printed Koran. 'The Arab Awakening' describes the radical changes in the Arab world begining in 1844 leading to the modern Arab movements. I will provide an author for this book later.

Yes, the radically changing new world that was unfolding presented new challenges that would require world embracing standards, organizations, ideals and untimately a confederation to deal with the problems you sited. Instead of epidemics, the new world would be faced with pandemics.

Chinese had it before the west. Even though printing was invented earlier as you described the number of books were extremely limited and not available to the people. The new age that began in 1844 changed all that. Also the movement for world literacy and the wide spread availability of religious texts like the Bible and the Koran began in this time and spread up through the 20th centruy. A check on the volume of publication of these texts after the 1844-1863 time period reveals the nature of the change in the availability of these texts to the world and the level of education of the people. Illiteracy is still a problem, but the world now recognizes it as a world problem, which is the way the Baha'i stated universal education and literacy would be the desire of the new age, the previous religions did not have this principle.


Not vague, 1844, as I described above. The major events that can be described as changing the world can best be traced first to 1844. Of course everthing didn't happen at once. The period between 1844 and 1863 is significant in many respects the period that the Baha'i Faith believes the last prophecies of all the world religions were fulfilled.

Darwin showed up too.

Some was given above, more to follow. One point is interested is that the writings of the Baha'i Faith said these changes in the world would take place and new standards for a new world would come into effect and they did.

shunyadragon

I do not consider many of the prophecies of the Bab, Baha'u'llah and Abdul'baha as overtly vague. I will give some examples in later posts. The Seven Valleys and Four Valleys is a mystical writing and the verses may have multiple meetings. I think the interpretation of the quote concerning spliting the atom is valid and not far fetched. In fact it is quit literal, which is okay in even mystical writing in the Baha'i Faith. You may not accept it, but the fact that it is quite literal and specific, whould make the interpretation quit logical and not a stretch by any means.

The principle of the harmony of science and religion has an important element to it from the Baha'i point of view. The Baha'i Faith view of the relative nature of knowledge goes beyond the concept of progressive revelation. The scientific knowledge of the future will have objective and subjective elements that will eventually merge with religion to become one knowledge. Science and math today is in fact exploring the more subjective side of reality to understand cosmology.

In the Baha'i Faith they are not swept away. Many volumes go into great depth in their study and comparison of religions. The concept that writings of religions are inspired but also distinctly reflect God from the human point of view and not literally Gods word allows for the problems of lingistics, corruption and multiple meaning os scripture.

Many studies and comparisons of different religions recently reveal that many of the misconceptions from the western view of eastern religons are because the west insists on the rigid interpretation of many spriritual concepts from a very strong egicentric culturally biased point of view. They often describe Hinduism as polytheistic and Buddhism and Taoism as Atheist or polyheistic depending on who you want to believe with a shallow superficial understanding of religions. They assume that many teachings are original to the Revelation and this may or may not be true. Concepts like Reincarnation, caste systems, Heaven, Purgatory and Hell, pantheons of Gods, devil, demons and the lesser divinities in many religions are likely to one degree or another doctrines created by humans molding religion in their own image and fears of the unknown.

In reality Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism all believe in one and only one ultimate source, which may be called God. Christianity may be described as polytheistic if evaluated independently.

Time frame is only one element and I do not believe it cannot be so easily discounted. I do believe that even with patents there is a relationship, but I will check further on this. There were some very specific things that happened in 1844 and between 1844 and 1963, as well as the history since that related to these prophecies.

It can be assumed that if the Bab and Baha'u'llah described and predited these changes that did take place that the arguement is strengthened. In later posts I will provide some quotes to document that the founders did state that these changes would take place.

I do think it is a stretch to describe these wars as anything close to global conflicts like World Wars between major powers. These conflicts and problems are described in the Baha'i writings. It would be naive to say the that there would be doves in the skies and suddenly world peace. The reality of the unfolding of the new world as described by the Baha'i writings is more real than that. I am not sure where your logic is going with this.

The fulfillment of prophecy for Jesus Christ is far, far more vague and nonspecific than for the Baha'i Faith.

shunyadragon

Two notes of clarification on posts concerning Baha'i prophecy:

The correct title and author book on buddhism in America is 'American Encounter with Buddhism 1844-1912' by Thomas A. Tweed.

The Moslem who proclaimed himself Mahdi in the Sudan. I am uncertain of the date of his proclamation as the Mahdi, except that he referred to similar prophecies in Islam as those fulfilled by the Baha'i Faith. He did not raise an army until 1882 to cleanse the Sudan of infidels. He laid seige on Khartoum and slaughtered the British garrison in 1885.


Go with the flow the river knows.

Frank

DamienVryce

Shunyadragon, I’m delighted that you are contributing to this discussion thoughtfully and courteously. I haven’t had a chance to discuss the Baha'i Faith in a thoughtful manner much except as a Baha'i, I’m grateful for this opportunity.

It is certainly possible to contend that this passage is specific and literal and there are likely examples within the mystical writings of the Baha'i Faith. However, the fact that they are within a mystical setting makes even specific scientific statements unfalsifiable. That is that believers may easily discount any criticism of the validity of the statement by saying that the skeptic does not understand the “true interpretation� of the passage. I’d like to include a larger quote to give context and let the readers decide if the passage is specific and literal.
I have two final thoughts on this quote. First, I it’s indicated that this passage is a quotation from a Persian mystic, and they are not specifically Baha’u’llah’s words at all. This link comments on the passage without reference to the Baha'i Faith at all.

Second, if it is indeed specific and literal, lets consider the scientific value of the passage. First, when we split an atom we do not find “a sun.� The sun’s diameter is approximately 100 times that of the earth. Enough atoms have been split thus far to have utterly destroyed earth millions of times over if we indeed discovered “a sun.� However, it could be argued that “find a sun� refers to the energy released through the process. However, this also isn’t very true either as the primary atomic conversion within a sun is atomic fusion where splitting an atom is fission. While still of dubious scientific value, perhaps a better wording would be:
Join atoms’ hearts, and lo!
Then thou wilt release a quickening power like unto a sun.

I don’t see how this will be possible and I’m not sure that I even believe it has support within the Baha'i Writings. Especially since merging the ideas of science and religion would also imply that God could somehow be objectively tested, and idea that is counter to nearly all religious tradition. If you’re referring to some theocratic control of science, then this idea is terribly dangerous, and would likely set human learning back. One needs only to look to Answers in Genesis or Kent Hovind to see examples of this.

Your last statement here is what I was referring to as being swept away, and I see this thinking prevalent throughout the Baha'i writings and apologetics (though certainly not exclusive to them). A quick search on Google for “Buddhism� and “God� reveals This link and this link which indicate that Buddhism is non-theistic, this link which explicitly differentiates a Buddhist conception of God from the Christian one. Further, about.com’s page on Buddhism does not explicitly mention belief in god either. To separate these from “True Buddhist belief� is unnecessarily arbitrary, and not a little arrogant. This represents a degree of confusion even within a religious tradition, the confusion between religions is even greater.

Certainly the nature of warfare has changed since the world wars, but even nature of war between the first and second changed nearly as much. The first world war could hardly be called such, as it was fought in and primarily concerned the Western European nations. I even concede that the wars we are seeing may not be in the same category as the world wars, but to say that we are experiencing a state of peace is hardly accurate. I only wish to illustrate that there are in fact conflicts involving parties from across the globe, and conflicts that have global influence and reach.

Most people here view the fulfilled prophecies of Jesus pretty skeptically, so this is not a very persuasive argument.

DamienVryce

It also occurs to me that if we are to credit the coming of the Bab and Baha'u'llah with the advancements and achievements of humanity since their declarations, shouldn't we also hold them responsible for our later shortcomings and failures?

It seems especially fitting for them to take responsibility for our ailments if we are to consider them to be "Divine Physicians" as Baha'u'llah claims to be.

shunyadragon

This is the easiest and quickest one to answer. Like some other major religions, the Bab and Baha'u'llah fully recognized the free will of humanity. The reality of the spiritual evolution of humanity definitely comes with ailments. There is a significant difference in the more modern teachings of the Baha'i Faith that sheds the burdens of predestination, fate, guilt of original sin and many other superstitions of older religions. In the view of the Baha'i Faith these and other beliefs of older religions that humans cling to of their own free will are far greater ailments than the superficial physical suffering of humanity. There are primarily two types of suffering in the view of the Baha'i Faith. The natural suffering of the cycle of life and death, and self inflicted suffering that comes about by the acts of human free will.

The Divine Physicians can only offer the cure, they cannot force the patient to take the medicine.

shunyadragon

Before we go further with the debate I would like offer some interesting insights into the problems of linguistics, philosophy and religion. I am not a linguistics specialist, but over the years I have studied this problem as far as religion and philosophy as well as everyday language. Culture also throws a couple monkey wrenches into the works and prevents a great deal of communication to take place. This I will hope give you some insight into my viewpoint.

Lao Tze tells an interesting story about about two villages that are on either side of a deep valley. They heard the dogs barking and cocks crowing, but grow old and die without knowing each other. This story exemplifies the problems of communication between languages, cultures and religious beliefs. It comes out vividly in debates. The best I can do is give some interesting examples of the magnitude of this problem that most people are not aware of.

(1) I live in China and study Chinese, history and culture. I focus a great deal of study on jade culture and the Arts of the Way (MA). In studying Chinese I found some remarkable problems between English and Chinese in dictionaries and the meaniings of words. For example, the word jade is mistranslated in every English/Chinese dictionary in print. The word jade in Chinese is translated as yu or yushi in all dictionaries. They are all wrong. Jade in English refers to two specific stones, jadeite and nephrite, which have specific words in Chinese. Yu and yushi in Chinese refer to about six to as many as 12 different stones including nephrite and sometimes jadeite. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

(2) My interest in the Bible led me to study the Jewish scriptures in more detail and hebrew to some extent. What I found blew me away. No wonder there was a huge chasm between Judism and Christianity. The contemporary traditional Christian theology could not reconciled with the hebrew scriptures.
The translation through Greek, Latan and then into the modern European languages went along with the Romanization of Christianity.

(3) In studying the Baha'i Faith years ago I found two books that had two different translations of the same prayers and tablets made about thirty years apart. I had difficulty comparing the two translations to determine that they were the same prayers and tablets.

(4) I began my study of Buddhism and Arts of the Way when I was 16 from a Japanese family my family hired to do Zen gardens for our land. I carried stones, gravel and plants for them as I learned the Art. From that point I studied in different Arts and beliefs of Buddhism. Everyone seemed to have a different view of the same religion. Some had statues of Buddha to pray to, some rejected statues. I studied Zen meditation and when a class finished the teacher patted his cushion saying, "There are many people meditating in many different ways to find enlightenment, but this is the only way."
He later told my bluntly Buddhist do not believe in God. It was time to hit the road.

(5) I scaned your references to Buddhism comparing the Christian view of God and the Buddhist view thinking Lao Tze's story. Of course I have seen this all before and was thinking that I am closer to the Buddhist view and the Baha'i view is likely some where in the middle. I stopped myself in mid thought and realized I had been here before, why go back again? It was all just an intellectual exercise and all meaningless when you are considering something on the scale of an unknowable God whether you believe God exists or not. I felt like one of the blind men checking out the elephant.

The empty cup contains the most.

Go with the flow the river knows.

Frank

shunyadragon

The oportunity is much appreciated, because in China there is not much opportunity for debate on this level.

I believe you are puting much emphasis on requiring specific translations to agree with a gramatically correct exact English. When the writings come from translations from different languages the result will not be that specific. I believe in several different meanings to quotation in SVFV. I will go in to this in another post.

A better understanding of the Baha'i writings on two related principles, the 'Independent Investigation of Truth' and the 'Harmony of Science and Religion' would help defuse any fear of what you describe is taking place in Christianity from happening in the Baha'i Faith. Historically Christianity has viewed science as subserviante to the Doctrine of Christianity.

The Baha'i view is more a harmoneous convergence of science and religion in the human quest for knowledge. Religion should never interfer or dictate doctrine in science, nor should science dictate or interfer in religion.


Based on my post on linguistics and history I think it is problematic to assume that any of these references to a discription of God or the nature of belief is reliable enough to to say they are different. In my studies of Judism and Christianity I have found that even though the have the same roots their descriptions and belief concerning God are irreconcilable because of the Romanization of Christianity.

My beliefs which in many ways reflect the Baha'i Faith and in general consider God as unknowable from the human point of view, therefore it is not difficult to assume that the religious writing are the human view cannot define God. The scripture of a religion need not specifically mention God as they do in the Western scripture. This would be putting too much of an ethnocentric burden on the lingusitics of other religions and cultures. The following example illustrates this point.

Just as an exercise in how the viewpoint can change simply by selecting different references on Buddhism I will argue that Buddhism is Theistic based on the nature of Mahavairocana, the primordial Buddha. This is the Adi-Buddha principle from which all Buddhas emanate. It is the Cosmic Buddha that does not incarnate in human form. In Japanese this is translated to Dainichi and refers to 'Great Sun'. Mahavairocana is a good paralell to God the Father.

I did not say we were experiencing a state of peace. The Baha'i Faith would describe this as the 'Lesser Peace', an end of World Wars, but definitely not an end to local conflicts. The Baha'i Faith is not naive. People are still distinctly human, having free will there will be conflicts.

DamienVryce

Perhaps I wasn’t clear in my question previously. Let me rephrase:
The Bab and Baha’u’llah take credit for: at least some scientific advances and improvements in human life
The Bab and Baha’u’llah take responsibility (the blame) for: nothing

I believe this to be essentially what your response (which I believe to be an accurate reflection of the Baha'i Writings) indicates. Why should I accept someone as a “Divine Physician� with these credentials?

I’ll return to your points on linguistics below, but I’d like to respond to this first:
There are atheists (myself included) that view the inability of theists to describe a consistent concept of God as a proof that such a being does not exist. I also don’t believe that this is simply an “intellectual exercise� as there are many people killing others over specific concepts of God, so this confusion is especially pertinent.

earlier in the conversation you said:
Well, I must admit that I’m confused with your position, is the quote specific or not? If not then how can it be of value scientifically? If it is, then it must be accountable to basic English meanings. Further, I’d like to point out that my revised version was not mere semantic quibbling. The meanings of the two versions are dramatically different, consider that “split� and “join� are antonyms. I have a hard time accepting that it is both specific and not, and scientifically accurate, put bluntly, the quote gets the science wrong.

I was a Baha'i for the first 22 years of my life, so I’m quite familiar with the principles you mention. I was on my Year of Service conducting my own investigation, which lead me away from the Faith and to atheism, so despite no longer believing it, I do have great respect for the ideals that they represent. I’ll certainly concede that it is possible that the Baha'i Faith will not lead to these same dangers.

However, I think its just as likely that similar problems will arise. First, the unquestioning obedience to statements of the House of Justice in the matters not specifically laid out by the Central Figures has the potential for tremendous problems. Secondly, while the Baha'i Faith does lend credence to science, faith will always trump it. God is specifically removed from scientific inquiry and no amount of human learning could impact the influence of God on Baha'i thinking. I don’t see how this is too different from being subservient to the Doctrine of the Baha'i Faith. Further, ‘Abdu’l-Baha expresses his disdain at this type of inquiry specifically in the second chapter of Some Answered Questions, “These obvious arguments are adduced for weak souls; … for those who are deprived of the bounty of the spirit, it is necessary to establish external arguments.� (page 6). [It should be noted that all the arguments ‘Abdu’l-Baha uses have been refuted here in the Infidels library.]


It seems to me that if you’re going to raise this objection, that it would be much more problematic to say that they are the same. Additionally, nearly all the religious texts Baha’is accept claim divine inspiration, and the Baha'i Writings themselves assert the divine origin of both the Qur’an and the Baha'i revelations, it is not difficult to assume that the religious writings do define God.

Yet you cite an example of a Buddhist that you know that claims without prevarication that Buddhism is non-theistic. Why should we discount him as a "True Buddhist?"

I fear that the scope of this discussion is growing to large to be handled in the thread, and as I read the OP, we’ve ventured far afield of it. Shunyadragon, if you’re interested in a more structured debate, there is a Formal Debate section of this forum, and it may be interesting for both of us (and hopefully for everyone else too). Please wander over to the debates and check out the basic formats for some of them. Based of comments made earlier, here are several topics (in no particular order) I’d be willing to debate with you.

1. Resolved, the Baha'i Faith provides instances where prophecies from previous world religions are fulfilled.
2. Resolved, the Baha'i Faith makes specific prophetic statements that have been fulfilled
3. Resolved, the Baha'i Faith makes specific scientific claims prior to their general acceptance that agree with current scientific thought.
4. Resolved, the Baha'i Faith presents a clear, consistent picture of God that successfully unifies the concepts of God from the world religions accepted as valid by the Baha'i Faith.
5. Resolved, the Baha'i Faith successfully presents evidence as to the positive existence of God.

Depending on the format, 1 and 2 may be combined into one debate. If you’re interested, I’m more than willing to tweak the titles, or revise the format to suit you. Further, please make any additional suggestions if you have other topics you’d be interested in discussing.

shunyadragon

To avoid getting to complicated I will only make some comments here. More details may be considered in a debate format as you say, but I am not familiar with your debate formate.

The Baha'i Faith does not consider cause and effect the same way 'blame' would fit in the unfolding evolution of the universe. This is close to the Buddhist Taoist view. 'Blame' is a very Judeo/Christian concept like 'guilt'.

I’ll return to your points on linguistics below, but I’d like to respond to this first:

I do not think the 'intellectual exercise' addressed the issue of killing people over religion. I sort of get you point, but your going beyond my statements. I would have to address that later.


I can address the linguistics and semantics of translation and meaning later, but to me the quote is literal enough for the meaning to be clear.


Regardless of being raised a Baha'i I feel you do not have some of the basic concepts correct. I will not go into great detal here, but I think one example is important and I will a give specific quote later. Abdul'baha specifically and clearly states that religion must except science's explanation of the physical nature of the universe, eventhough science is evolving and changing. The specific quotes are worded in several forms. I will give more on this. You are also apparently not fully aware of the limits the UHJ has placed onit by the Baha'i writings.

The problem with the refutation of the arguements for God from the Baha'i point of view is that ulitimately the nature of God is unknowable from the human point of view.

The answer is no. God is unknowable and undefinable from the human point of view. The attributes of God, nit the absolute nature of God, are revealed in the religions and religions are corrupted by human interests and God is then molded in the human image.

God is not a chess player with the white pieces.
God is the sea and we are the fishes.

I do not define anyone as true anything. I object to the concept of 'the only Way' and defining a religion in only one Way, which the nature of Buddhist thought is more slippery than that simplistic view.

Agreed, but an interesting point is #5 is problematic, because of the absolute nature of God is unknowable and unprovable by human logic. Abdul'baha gave some proofs which I do not consider adaquate. As with the Buddhist and Taoist belief in the unknowable nature of the source, 'blame', 'guilt', 'cause and effect' have little meaning in the bottom line. 'Inteligent Design' in the Baha'i Faith is no different than how science views abiogenisis and evolution.