Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Abdul'baha always asked if we were and encouraged us to be both materially and spiritually happy, however that was said in Arabic or Persian, that is how it is translated into English.
Agreed.
So far I largely agree. So let's examine the implications of this, "Abdul Baha was infallible as he interpreted the writings of Baha'u'llah."
To me the differences in roles should be based on demonstrable characteristics. Not on a seemingly (to me) empty promise that those characteristics will one day be demonstrated clearly.
All cars are equal, but only red ones will be allowed to travel within the city limits. One day, it will be obvious why this is.
But they are making decisions for a worldwide Baha'i community. A female might vote different then a man, but her opinion and vote will never be known. And really, no one says, "Wow, see that man over there. He's a member of the UHJ." There are Baha'is that are held in high esteem because of their positions. I was at a Baha'i Summer Camp in Vernon, B.C. where Hand of the Cause Furutan was the main speaker. He was a nice, humble man, but most everybody treated him like a god.
The point is that just because women are not allowed on ONE of many Baha'i institutions that doesn't equate to women and men not being equal.
Here's a couple quotes:
This men/House thing seems to be a big deal to you, and there are sooo many ways to explain/understand it. However the proper explanation/understanding depends on a person's belief structures. For example if you're a Christian then we can talk about the teachings of Christ --the idea being that if Jesus explicitly unambiguously stated that we all have to say wallawallawalla four times a day then we'd do it. Otherwise we wouldn't. However, a Buddhist would not care what Jesus said but would assign far more significance if the same teaching was in the Tripitaka.
They say the same thing to me, that we are supposed to be happy. I know he is talking to spiritual happiness, as if we can order that up like a burger at at fast food restaurant. The implication is that is we are not happy there is something wrong with us, e.g., we are not spiritual enough, not close to God, etc. This is very judgmental, and it is the underpinning of Abdu'l-Baha's writings.
That is despicable. Do you even care about people who are depressed, through no fault of their own? I am not referring to myself, but I have compassion on people who are depressed, I don't judge them.
Actually in my view my belief system is irrelevant as it should be demonstrable on merit, not based on beliefs, having said that I am spiritual but not religious.
What I'm hearing is more stuff you don't like and I'm not hearing what you do like. Off hand that should mean that your life's goal is complaining about other people. Please help me out to understand what you consider valid, and if your life's goal really is in fact complaining then we can simply go our separate ways.Reactions:TransmutingSoul, Truthseeker and Trailblazer
Or, I'm not encouraged that the Baha'i Faith is all that it claims to be. By the reactions of some of the other Baha'is, it is still "Hooray, for our side. Pete sure showed him!" In my opinion, there's only been one Baha'i here that has shown anything that resembled true humility... and that was Loverofhumanity.
Unfortunately, Baha'is aren't much different than the rest of us. Baha'is put themselves and their beliefs ahead of trying to be the ones that bring people together in a true unity in diversity. It's understandable that you believe your prophet and your religion is the truth from God for today, but the way it is being presented only pushes people that hold different religious views further away.
And how many times over the last few years here on the forum have Baha'is been asked, "Okay, you believe your guy is a prophet sent from God... where the evidence and proof?" The stuff we get isn't much different than what the Born-Again Christians give. But instead of saying, "The Bible says it and I believe it." Baha'is say, "Baha'u'llah says it and I believe it."
And about not "getting anything done." I was around Baha'is when they were doing their "mass teaching" in the early 70's. In the 80's Baha'is had the Peace Statement and held a Peace Conference in San Francisco. Are Baha'is getting anything done? Is it working? Can it work? A question I've asked a few times now... Can the Baha'i recommendation of having every nation disarm actually work? Would you trust every country to really get rid of their weapons? If not, then how's this "lesser" peace ever going to happen?
Sorry, but I've learned to distrust people that push their religion as the "only way" or the "new truth from God." Too many people have a "new truth from God."
Somehow it seems I've upset you and antagonized you and I'd thought that I had no intention of either. Please accept my apologies while I think about this and I'll get back to you when I've figured it out.
You described your belief system and this helps me a lot in undertanding where you're coming from. Please tell me how you translate merit and spirituality to you views on male/female roles.
The difference is that a female head of state runs for office with nominations or campaigning, knowing she could win. If she is of childbearing age she can plan accordingly. She could choose not to have children or if she chooses to have children she can plan for child care.
In a nutshell I believe that the roles that people are limited to should be based on criteria that are demonstrably relevant.
1) You do not 'know' that Baha'u'llah is a false prophet. That is only your personal opinion, not a fact.
That hasn't stopped women on the national spiritual assemblies who have themselves a great responsibility to bear in my view, that is what makes your apologetics so laughable - the same reasoning if applied consistently would require barring women from national spiritual assemblies or even large local spiritual assemblies in a theoretical Baha'i theocracy consisting of a 300,000 -400,000 members with large responsibilities;
That's not technically true in my view, it is sufficient for a summarising article, however there are a host of people such as people deprived of voting rights who can't be elected and if I recall one can even request to be removed from the voting rolls although its been a long time since I had a peak inside an LSA handbook so don't quote me.
They are not so significantly less that someone in charge of a large linguistically diverse country (such as India for example) would have no idea of what to do in my view.