A broad response to many of your interesting threads!
Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 10:28 pm
I have been following many discussions here with some interest, but because I have been so busy with school, I have been unable to participate. Also, many of the debates I have read are too difficult for me to get into, because I feel that they contain some foundational problems which make it practically impossible for me to discuss as they are framed. At any rate, here are my comments and attempt to contribute to several of the threads you have been discussing here!
First of all, I would like to suggest that there is a fundamental flaw in many religious debates that I want to bring to your consideration. I will try and frame it in a religious framework, and then try to find its parallel outside the religious framework. This is because I feel that outside the sphere of religious debate exist a higher degree of accountability, and a greater degree of expectation to adhere to the principles of the scientific method and logic.
In the religious context, the problem works like this: A new prophet comes, take for example Jesus to the Jews, and the scholars of the old religious community reject the teachings of the new prophet, primarily based on their astute learning and understanding of religious traditions and texts. Thus it was "well established" according to the Torah, that Jesus did not fulfill the prophecies or requirements of the Messiah.
Similarly, as can be witnessed here on occasion, and other places in cyberspace, the Manifestations of the Bab and Baha'u'llah are routinely "refuted" and "proven false" by learned Muslims and scholars based on Qur'an and Hadith, who feel satisfied with their ability to demonstrate the "impossibility" and "falseness" of these holy beings' claims.
Baha'u'llah revealed: "Say: O leaders of religion! Weigh not the Book of God with such standards and sciences as are current amongst you, for the Book itself is the unerring Balance established amongst men. In this most perfect Balance whatsoever the peoples and kindreds of the earth possess must be weighed, while the measure of its weight should be tested according to its own standard, did ye but know it" (The Kitab-i-Aqdas 56).
Logically this may be represented as diagram, rather like a Venn diagram, where a series of rings exist one inside the other. Originating from the innermost ring and moving towards the outward, it is seen that the outer ring contains the inner ring, and the inner ring does not contain the properties of the outer ring, except to the degree that they overlap. In other words, the outer ring contains all of the domains of the rings inside it, but the inner rings contain only their own domains and share the properties of the outer only to the degree that they overlap, while each outer ring possesses within it’s territory the entirety of its own sphere as well as the domains of all the rings contained within it.
Given this construct, it is illogical for the inner sphere to make bold and limiting assertions about the outer ring which encompasses it, given the fact that its knowledge is limited only to the properties with in it, (and the limited portion shared in common), and does not possess within its own domain that which is necessary to define the properties contained in the rings outside itself.
Furthermore, each new Manifestation of God often represent a fundamental and "paradigmical" shift in the order and understanding of things, and cannot be adequately expressed in the old terminology in an exact and precise manner. This is phenomenon is witnessed here on occasion by discussions such as: "was Ali Muhammad the Báb, or the Mahdi, or the return of Christ?" Was Bahá'u'lláh the return of Imam Hussein, or the return of Christ?" "Was 'Abdu'l-Bahá a 'prophet' or wasn't he?" While it is certainly necessary for discussion-sake to understand these things in general terms, in reality it is impossible to express them absolutely with old terminology such as "Mahdi", "prophet", "messenger", and the like, which is why new terms come into being such as "Manifestation", "Guardian", "Mystery of God", "Center of the Covenant", etc. These new terms make discussions in a new paradigm wieldier and more precise. This is why they become necessary.
In the world of science, when new discoveries are made, and new theories and models come into being, the new and more accurate theories and models are not bound to the language and requirements of the old theories and models which they replaced. Copernicus was not bound by Aristotelian models and theories, nor was Einstein bound by those of Newton. On the contrary, each as they advanced and progressed, supplanted at least to a large degree, the necessity of that which preceded it, although prior to the new knowledge, the former may have seemed satisfactory and adequate.
Similarly, the revelation of Bahá'u'lláh is not bound by the understanding of the Hadith and Qur'an current amongst Muslims. In fact, much of the proofs of Bahá'u'lláh's claims cannot be found within religious texts at all. To see the absolute glory and overwhelming evidence of the truth of the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, one must on occasion set aside all of the religious books and scholarly debates, and go take a look outside the window, and take a walk in the day light. Even as the Supreme Manifestation revealed:
"It behoveth thee to look with divine insight upon the things We have revealed and sent unto thee and not towards the people and that which is current amongst them. They are in this day like unto a blind man who, while moving in the sunshine, demandeth: Where is the sun? Is it shining? He would deny and dispute the truth, and would not be of them that perceive" (Tablets of Baha'u'llah 186).
Loren
First of all, I would like to suggest that there is a fundamental flaw in many religious debates that I want to bring to your consideration. I will try and frame it in a religious framework, and then try to find its parallel outside the religious framework. This is because I feel that outside the sphere of religious debate exist a higher degree of accountability, and a greater degree of expectation to adhere to the principles of the scientific method and logic.
In the religious context, the problem works like this: A new prophet comes, take for example Jesus to the Jews, and the scholars of the old religious community reject the teachings of the new prophet, primarily based on their astute learning and understanding of religious traditions and texts. Thus it was "well established" according to the Torah, that Jesus did not fulfill the prophecies or requirements of the Messiah.
Similarly, as can be witnessed here on occasion, and other places in cyberspace, the Manifestations of the Bab and Baha'u'llah are routinely "refuted" and "proven false" by learned Muslims and scholars based on Qur'an and Hadith, who feel satisfied with their ability to demonstrate the "impossibility" and "falseness" of these holy beings' claims.
Baha'u'llah revealed: "Say: O leaders of religion! Weigh not the Book of God with such standards and sciences as are current amongst you, for the Book itself is the unerring Balance established amongst men. In this most perfect Balance whatsoever the peoples and kindreds of the earth possess must be weighed, while the measure of its weight should be tested according to its own standard, did ye but know it" (The Kitab-i-Aqdas 56).
Logically this may be represented as diagram, rather like a Venn diagram, where a series of rings exist one inside the other. Originating from the innermost ring and moving towards the outward, it is seen that the outer ring contains the inner ring, and the inner ring does not contain the properties of the outer ring, except to the degree that they overlap. In other words, the outer ring contains all of the domains of the rings inside it, but the inner rings contain only their own domains and share the properties of the outer only to the degree that they overlap, while each outer ring possesses within it’s territory the entirety of its own sphere as well as the domains of all the rings contained within it.
Given this construct, it is illogical for the inner sphere to make bold and limiting assertions about the outer ring which encompasses it, given the fact that its knowledge is limited only to the properties with in it, (and the limited portion shared in common), and does not possess within its own domain that which is necessary to define the properties contained in the rings outside itself.
Furthermore, each new Manifestation of God often represent a fundamental and "paradigmical" shift in the order and understanding of things, and cannot be adequately expressed in the old terminology in an exact and precise manner. This is phenomenon is witnessed here on occasion by discussions such as: "was Ali Muhammad the Báb, or the Mahdi, or the return of Christ?" Was Bahá'u'lláh the return of Imam Hussein, or the return of Christ?" "Was 'Abdu'l-Bahá a 'prophet' or wasn't he?" While it is certainly necessary for discussion-sake to understand these things in general terms, in reality it is impossible to express them absolutely with old terminology such as "Mahdi", "prophet", "messenger", and the like, which is why new terms come into being such as "Manifestation", "Guardian", "Mystery of God", "Center of the Covenant", etc. These new terms make discussions in a new paradigm wieldier and more precise. This is why they become necessary.
In the world of science, when new discoveries are made, and new theories and models come into being, the new and more accurate theories and models are not bound to the language and requirements of the old theories and models which they replaced. Copernicus was not bound by Aristotelian models and theories, nor was Einstein bound by those of Newton. On the contrary, each as they advanced and progressed, supplanted at least to a large degree, the necessity of that which preceded it, although prior to the new knowledge, the former may have seemed satisfactory and adequate.
Similarly, the revelation of Bahá'u'lláh is not bound by the understanding of the Hadith and Qur'an current amongst Muslims. In fact, much of the proofs of Bahá'u'lláh's claims cannot be found within religious texts at all. To see the absolute glory and overwhelming evidence of the truth of the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, one must on occasion set aside all of the religious books and scholarly debates, and go take a look outside the window, and take a walk in the day light. Even as the Supreme Manifestation revealed:
"It behoveth thee to look with divine insight upon the things We have revealed and sent unto thee and not towards the people and that which is current amongst them. They are in this day like unto a blind man who, while moving in the sunshine, demandeth: Where is the sun? Is it shining? He would deny and dispute the truth, and would not be of them that perceive" (Tablets of Baha'u'llah 186).
Loren