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Is it true?

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
I don't know my friend...

There is a copper alloy which is very similar in appearance to gold.

Maybe that's a way to approach it?

Sterling silver is a copper/silver alloy. The number of alloys is infinite.
 

arthra

Baha'i
The references to copper and gold were symbolic:

For instance, consider the substance copper: which if it is protected in its own mine from super-abundance of dryness, will in seventy years[1] attain to the state of gold -- although some consider copper itself to be gold, which through super-abundance of dryness, hath become disordered and hath not reached its own state.


[1 Seventy years is equivalent to "three score years and ten," the life of man. This reference to copper and gold is symbolic, copper being human reason, while gold is spiritual illumination.]

To be brief: a perfect elixir, however, will cause the substance copper to attain the state of gold in an instant, and to traverse the seventy-year stages in a moment. Could it be said that this gold is copper or that it hath not attained the condition of gold, while the test is at hand to differentiate and distinguish the qualities of gold from those of copper?

(Compilations, Baha'i Scriptures, p. 43)

Also read:

"The trees of hope will become verdant; the copper of scorn and derision will be transmuted into the gold of honor and praise; the arid desert of ignorance will be transformed into the luxuriant garden of knowledge; the threatening clouds shall be dispelled and the stars of faith and charity will again twinkle in the clear heaven of consciousness."

(Compilations, Baha'i Scriptures, p. 548)
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
Personally I have no wish to.

I can not say what tye future may find. I just know there is a wisdom in those words far beyond our current understandings.

Regards Tony
But Bahaullah was talking about the past not about the future, else, the argument in the passage becomes absolutely meaningless, please.

Regards
 

InvestigateTruth

Well-Known Member
paarsurrey said:
I agree to what I have colored in magenta, please.
Do other Bahai people also believe Bahaullah to be a fallible man, please?


What about friend @InvestigateTruth, please?

Regards
The Bahai view is, Bahaullah is Manifestation of God. That means everything Bahaullah ever said or wrote, are the Words of God. Can we say, God is fallible?
Moreover, consider for example, Holy Books say, Jesus did not have a human father, whereas the current science thinks, human always need a father and mother. Can you say Holy Books are false? Perhaps God knows how to convert copper to gold in 70 years. How do we know, God does not know this? Bahaullah is not saying ordinary humans know how copper can be changed to gold in 70 years. He says, it's knowledge is with Him.
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
Analogies are always imperfect. He was physically wrong: copper metal does not convert to gold metal. If, instead, he was talking metaphorically, then it may be the case that a base person (copper) could convert to a more sophisticated (gold) person.
Sure , I believe,Bahaullah understood it wrongly.
In that case Bahaullah did not need to mention about physical metal copper converting to physical metal gold. Bahaullah was not talking about any "might be" future advancement of metallurgical science in the argument. Right, please?

Regards
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
I don't know my friend...

There is a copper alloy which is very similar in appearance to gold.

Maybe that's a way to approach it?
Well, Bahaullah was not talking about any alloys in the passage and in the context passages, please read them. Right, please?

Regards
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
It can. I already gave a link to wikipedia about transmutation. Anyone with some knowledge of chemistry would know it is possible. It is done through a nuclear process. It is expensive though. It will be more costly than the gold itself. But it is possible, and it is done! Just Google it, and you will know.

Your link showed some transformations into gold, but not of copper into gold.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
I quote from "Kitab-i-Iqan" or the "Book of Certitude" written by Bahaullah:

“For instance, consider the substance of copper. Were it to be protected in its own mine from becoming solidified, it would, within the space of seventy years, attain to the state of gold. There are some, however, who maintain that copper itself is gold, which by becoming solidified is in a diseased condition, and hath not therefore reached its own state.

Be that as it may, the real elixir will, in one instant, cause the substance of copper to attain the state of gold, and will traverse the seventy-year stages in a single moment. Could this gold be called copper? Could it be claimed that it hath not attained the state of gold, whilst the touchstone is at hand to assay it and distinguish it from copper?”*

Is it true, please?

Thread open to believers of religion and non-believers.

Regards

_____________

*Page 40 of 72 of English Translation and or Page 132 of 231 of Arabic Translation

First not all the writings are literal. As described in the more complete citation it has other meanings than literal.
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
The Bahai view is, Bahaullah is Manifestation of God. That means everything Bahaullah ever said or wrote, are the Words of God. Can we say, God is fallible?
Moreover, consider for example, Holy Books say, Jesus did not have a human father, whereas the current science thinks, human always need a father and mother. Can you say Holy Books are false? Perhaps God knows how to convert copper to gold in 70 years. How do we know, God does not know this? Bahaullah is not saying ordinary humans know how copper can be changed to gold in 70 years. He says, it's knowledge is with Him.

That may be an incorrect belief of the Bahaism people but Baha'ullah did not himself in Kitab-i-Iqan or Book of Certitude expressly and unequivocally claim that "everything he (Bahaullah) ever said or wrote, are the Words of God." Right, please?

If yes, then please quote from Kitab-i-Iqan or Book of Certitude, please.

Regards
 

danieldemol

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Are there other classification of the Bahaism people, like Radical-Bahai or Conservative-Bahai, Orthodox-Bahai etc other than the Liberal-Bahai to which one has identified, please?

Regards
Lol, "radical Baha'i" is something I've never heard of. But there are fundamentalist Baha'i in the same way there are fundamentalist Ahmadi such as yourself. To be liberal or to be a fundamentalist just depends on your ability to disagree with your founder when they got it wrong, are you able to disagree with the Quran where Muhammad got it wrong? Or are you able to disagree with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad where he got his writings wrong? If not then you are a fundamentalist
 

ManSinha

Well-Known Member
God is Omnipotent. Created humans from clay. (All he needs if he want something is to say : Be; and it will be.
Actually God as I understand it - does not work in that way

God does not do things against nature - such as immortality or transmuting metals - these are just made up stories as far as I am concerned
 

ManSinha

Well-Known Member
We speak one word, and by it we intend one and seventy meanings; each one of these meanings we can explain
That sounds somewhat confusing to a simple minded person like me - life is hard enough to understand without a very learned person speaking in riddles that have more than one meaning .....
 

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
That sounds somewhat confusing to a simple minded person like me - life is hard enough to understand without a very learned person speaking in riddles that have more than one meaning .....

Which is exactly my point. Often sacred writings are mystical in nature. A parable or allegorical story needs to be interpreted with caution. Problems arise when Faith adherents take sacred writings literally that are really intended to convey spiritual meanings. The verse in question if read in context has little to do with the transmutation of the elements but instead the qualities of the soul attuned to God.
 

TransmutingSoul

Veteran Member
Premium Member
We are presently focused on the passage written by Bahaullah given in the OP and its context given in post #18 , please.

Regards

To which Infalliable is applicable to the OP.

I say, we have yet to understand a lot about what Baha'ullah said and I discount no possibility as to the quote you posted. To be swayed either way by current popular belief, would be very unwise in my opinion.

Science has a lot to learn. Faith still has a lot of growing to do.

The infallibility of Baha'u'llah is clear as the non day sun in the writings. This is hard for a lot of Baha'i, because it appears science is contradicting what Baha'u'llah has offered. The scientific mind is far from working in harmony and far from discovering much at all, really science has just been born.

Regards Tony
 
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