oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Spiritual education?
What is this 'spiritual' that you mention so often, when you reject spirits?
It just sounds like religious waffle.
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How are these Great Beings explained?
- Thread starter loverofhumanity
- Start date
What is this 'spiritual' that you mention so often, when you reject spirits?
It just sounds like religious waffle.
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Tony...... this is just an embarrassment.
And so this boy was linked by some spiritual connection (like a medium
) to the Divine Lote Tree and would know all things, all God's laws, all correctness at such a young age?And then, knowing all by Divine Ordination, he would just go out and marry four women, three of them concurrently, knowing that only one was acceptable?
How do you manage to juggle this stuff into a believable religion that has some integrity?
Double Think..............
There is controvery with the authorship and dating of practically every book in the bible so I wouldn't be too concerned. We don't know whether the furnace story literally happened.
Two chapters from Revelation! That could be an essay in the making with even one of those chapters. Lets check out Chpt 17 then because our not so friendly 7 headed 10 horned beast is back! Revelation 17:3-5
So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.
The great whore (mentioned also in Revelation 17:1 is the corrupted Word of God). She sits on the sea of humanity. To commit fornication with the harlot means to closely embrace her false doctrine
The harlot can be contrasted with the Bride in Chapter 12. The Bride is the undefiled Word of God. In her pure role she is the Holy City of Jerusalem. In her corrupted role she is Babylon.
So the verse explains that the harlot, Babylon, is the corrupted Word of God, and the source of all the world's abominations.
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Still quoting John.....
John didn't even accurately report why Jesus was arrested.
The Sanhedrin could not order an execution of anybody beyond the Temple Grounds. Only the Roman Prefect could authorise an execution.
Spiritual practices for Baha'is including prayer, meditation, fasting and study/practice of sacred writings.
Spiritual education relates to religious education, secular to the arts, crafts, and sciences.
We have a soul that endures beyond physical death and progresses through the worlds of God depending on the progress we make in this world and through the Mercy of God.
Baha'is can pray for the progress of our ancestors in the next world as they can pray and assist us.
Still quoting John.....
John didn't even accurately report why Jesus was arrested.
The Sanhedrin could not order an execution of anybody beyond the Temple Grounds. Only the Roman Prefect could authorise an execution.
The chapter of John I alluded to mentions Pontius pilate and we need to consider the relationship betwen Pilate and Caiaphas. Another shared this with me sometime ago on RF.
Ancient societies did not make modern distinctions between religion, politics, or economics. "Religion" was imbedded with politics and economics in the concrete social forms of family and local community authority structures. The Temple was the spiritual center of Judaism and a military fortress and the economic lifeblood of Jerusalem. Similarly, Jesus' proclamation of the coming Kingdom of God was not simply a religious or spiritual message. It also had political consequences since the arrival of God's Kingdom would mean the replacement of earthly realms, including the Roman Empire.
The Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, effectively appointed Caiaphas as high priest. Pilate could remove an uncooperative priest by refusing to give him the sacred vestments worn to enter the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur. Since Caiaphas remained high priest during Pilate's entire tenure as prefect, it seems clear that they had a good working relationship.
Of historical importance in reconstructing the circumstances of Jesus' death is the fact that Passover in Jerusalem could be a volatile time. Thousands of Jewish pilgrims streamed to Jerusalem from all over the Mediterranean world to celebrate the festival of freedom from foreign domination, but upon arriving they would see many signs of Roman supremacy. The first-century writer Flavius Josephus tells of the regular Roman practice of stationing troops to maintain public order in the Temple precincts (Jewish Wars, 2.12.1). The inflamed mood of the Jewish populace at Passover probably explains why Pilate was in Jerusalem, instead of at his headquarters in Caesarea Maritima, when Jesus entered the city. If Jesus caused a disturbance in the Temple after his arrival, this would certainly alarm both Jewish and Roman authorities: a Galilean troublemaker might be planning to start a Passover riot. Pilate would want to keep the peace. So would Caiaphas, who could reasonably fear that violence could lead to the destruction of the Temple, as indeed eventually occurred (see John 11:48-50).
reference; The Arrest and Sentencing of Jesus
A Historical Reconstruction, The Arrest and Sentencing of Jesus
Philip A. Cunningham
A 'switch the topic 'answer, nothing to do with my post at all.
I'm in a different boat than you, obviously. But two boats can float along independently quite well. As for 'help' there are many problems with that. Firstly, the vast majority needs no help at all, we're all doing just fine with the way it is. Secondly, 'help' often isn't help at all, but hindrance. Many 'religious' folk for example, think that the best help they can give you is to convert you to their way. That's not 'help', it's 'hurt'.
Yes, you do. Far less than Islam, in my view, but some. Ahimsa for sure, and some shared virtues.No Baha'i denies an Islamic influence. But it sounds as if we may have a thing or two in common with the Dharmic faiths as well.
Action and experience are education too. Which is preferable, reading about something, or doing it? Go read a manual about motorcycle riding, and then go buy a bike and ride it. Then tell me which event lead to more education about it.
The Hindu environment is 'all in' so learning is happening all the time, just not the type that gets you stuck in intellectual gridwork/dogma, which is a barrier to spiritual progress. Going around in circles on the same topics ad infinitum. But it also is magnetic, human to get stuck there.
Some Hindus.
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Spiritual Proactices, eh? Let us see....
Prayer is speaking directly to your God, I assume?
What spirit is required to carry such messages? It's direct, isn't it?
Do you need spirits to help you to peruse and consider all?
Fasting is a physical action.
The fact that you can think motre quickly/clearly is a scientific fact rather than anything spiritual
From paper to eye, translated in brain.
No spirits required.
I cannot see anything at all which is spiritual about Bahai.
What religious education?
I cannot see anything spiritual about Bahai at all. Mark described spirits as tangible beings that dived down, drove out, forced a person, and also bad spirits that were unclean.
And so spiritual is all about good and bad spirits, tangible , and you discount this.
Oh dear! Progression of soul by good deeds. Just how far away from most Christianity do you really want to travel?
That must be contrary to Bahauallah wrote about then, because he claimed that our destinies were predestined.
This becomes more like religious two-minds by the 1000 posts.
Bahais used to say that the parents of Bahais would be 'looked after'........ this smacks of that.
Bahai is about predestiny.......... or not. Which?
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
OK, let us consider................
Irrelevent. Roman occupation of a foreign land made significant differences to the above.
If you think that forcing the Sanhedrin to accept Temple coinage stamped with another God, plus a graven image, plus Caesar's initials then you have really missed the point. There was huge contention between Prefect and Priresthood.
Judaism finds the word spiritual to be strange, I find.
The Temple was thre religious centre, the Sanctuary, it provided the priesthood with a living, and the people with direction, and Israel with funds.
What? Jesus wanted the old laws and rules to be returned, and kept, because the priesthood had gone 'Greek'! Hence a return of the Israelite God's Kingdom.
Sure, he hated the Roman occupation, but he despised the priesthood much more because the priests were 'quislings'.
No no.......Nope! Pilate had little love for Caiaphas, was aware of just how fragile the peace was, and he needed to tread with extreme care over every decsion. His duty was to keep the funds flowing to Rome.
Any major feast was volatile! Circa 400,000 jews attended a major feast, 2000 prirests and 6000 levite guards. How couldn't a feast be volatile, esp[ecially since the peasantry disrespected the corrupt priesthood and the occupational forces.
But the Jews did not see a massiove Roman presence. It was as discreet as it could be, althgough Roman troops did occupy the Antonian fort and patrol the Temple wall-tops.
The Temple Walls, actually, and the Antonian fortress. What were 6000 levite guards for?
Might? There was a riot, Jesus Son-of-the-Father (Yeshua BaAbba) started it and lives were lost during it. He got arrested, tried and convicted for it.
Of course John could foresee the destruction of the Temple! He wrote that book 50 years after the destruction of the Temple! That's funny...
Pilate may well have nailed the rioter up, and saved Jesus. I often wonder why the convict was whipped and thorned into utter bloodyness.
InvestigateTruth
Well-Known Member
No, that is not what I said. In Bahai view the power of discovery in human comes from his spiritual powers and the mind has a connection with our spirit. Thus I would think, all discoveries before or after the Baha'i revelation, came from inspirations by the Holy Spirit. You may have a different understanding about the concept of Holy Spirit, if you have ideas from Christians interpretations, or you have a literal understanding.
However, parallel with the history of Baha'i Revelation, there has been a much faster rate of scientific discoveries, which in comparison of the centuries prior to Baha'i Revelation, can be truly called a scientific revolution. We see such a rapid and great change as a manifestation of the grace of God. See what Abdulbaha wrote about it more than 100 years ago:
"Now the new age is here and creation is reborn. Humanity hath taken on new life. The autumn hath gone by, and the reviving spring is here. All things are now made new. Arts and industries have been reborn, there are new discoveries in science, and there are new inventions; even the details of human affairs, such as dress and personal effects—even weapons—all these have likewise been renewed. The laws and procedures of every government have been revised. Renewal is the order of the day.
And all this newness hath its source in the fresh outpourings of wondrous grace and favour from the Lord of the Kingdom, which have renewed the world."
Yes, the Pop who lived about 200 years ago, and the Shia Clergy in Persia in the 19th century are two examples among many of those who misused Religion for their own evil passion. You should investigate about their behaviours through historical accounts of those times in valid history books.
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It is not conversion, it is only ever an offer of advice, that we all get to consider.
It is like the calm before the storm in your boat.
We are all on the same sea and the big storm is coming, a storm of a magnitude never before wirnessed. Some boats are small, some Large, some very old, some new. Some no navigation, some old navigation that can not be used in the storm and some with modern navagation.
A safe port has been given, so each has His choice. Face the storm alone or assist each other to secure anchorage in the safe port.
Some feel and see the calm unaware of the pending storm and laugh off the advice of a safe port. Some think they have the skills to ride out the storm and so it goes, in the end help comes from ones own decisions in this situation.
In this case the safe Port is the Original Word of the Great Beings, the storm is neglect of and what man has done with that Word and what humanity will now face as a result.
I see great wisdom and great benefit in storms. They are not bad things.
Regads Tony
No we're not. There is no storm coming. That's just Fear playing its little game of 'Look at me, I can control you!" Tony, when you say 'we' it is a huge assumption. For some reason, you just assume that people agree with you, and go ahead and use 'we'.
Don't you think it might be a wiser thing to say. "I believe there is a storm coming. Do you believe that too?" before deciding that other people agree with you? It is not about you.
I don't accept the offer, because in my view it has no merit. In other words you have nothing to offer, nor does your prophet. But go ahead and offer it. Keep offering it until you're blue in the face.
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Poor advice. Bad analogy.
Let me show you.......................
In a Great Storm, Ports are so dangerous. All is smashed to pieces. The survivors are the ones that got out to sea-space in time.
Don't follow the sheep in ........ make your choices as an individual. That's true in your analogy, and true for Truth.
It would be nice if people could think of something better to do than proselytise. Some of us here actually have discussions. The more I think about, the more I feel fear is the major factor. Fear of stepping outside the box, mostly. Gee, what could possibly go wrong with that?Poor advice. Bad analogy.
Let me show you.......................
In a Great Storm, Ports are so dangerous. All is smashed to pieces. The survivors are the ones that got out to sea-space in time.
Don't follow the sheep in ........ make your choices as an individual. That's true in your analogy, and true for Truth.
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Click......
There may be other religions that rely so heavily upon analogy, but I can't think of one.
Bahai uses analogy such as just seen all the time.
But the thing is, every time somebody wants to show me the sense of a thing by using analogy, they are insulting me. Yes?
Here it is oldbadger, you are so thick that instead of telling you directly about my God and His plan for Mankind and the World, I'm going to keep it simple. It's like, instead of you and your bicycle alone and out in the wet, you could be with us in our bus, where the weather.................
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Not many do, really. We have LHPs and Satanists and many minority groups, religions and followings on here, and never in all my years on RF have I ever seen a single post from any of them telling us what a brilliant truth awaits us in their followings.
But Bahai cannot help it imo, because it believes that it is the ultimate pinnacle for its time and place.
I don't mind that, would never report it, but I know it irritates many others.
We only get a short time, so might as well step out and go see what gives.
I don't step too far now, though. The thing about finding something uniquely special is that I want to stay with it, in thought, word and action. I'm thinking of my little home and all within. I laze in our large bath in the late evening with my wife, who has absolutely no interest in religion of any kind, at all, and I listen to her telling me about the pets that came to the veterinary surgery, which ones made it, which ones could not, and it's the most beautiful place in the World for me to be, just listening to her and being there. If there is anything spiritual there, it is in her, I tell you.
But I find spirit outside, a sparrow hawk that has dropped a lapwing and because I happened along, out of the bushes it flies and leaves its kill, but it circles, and I know it needs to return for it. So I let it, and it does. Everything in Nature seems to have spirit. I don't see much of it in mankind.
I'm rambling........................
siti
Well-Known Member
See what Thomas Paine wrote a hundred years before Abdu'l Baha:
“We have it in our power to begin the world over again…The birthday of a new world is at hand.” (Common Sense, 1797)
There was nothing new about declaring a new world at hand at the beginning of the 20th century, it happened at the beginning of the 19th (as Paine's remark indicates), the 18th - Newton's Principia (1687) bringing Nature's secrets into the glaring light of scientific investigation or as Alexander Pope put it in his epitaph for Newton:
"Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night; God said, ‘Let Newton be!’ and all was light."
and Voltaire remarked "a man like M. Newton (we scarcely find one like him in ten centuries) is truly the great man".
My point being that the 'scientific revolution' you imagine happening because of the divine spirit behind the Baha'i revelation was really the product of the enlightenment of men's minds. If that 'enlightenment' through the power of scientific observation and humanistic reason is what you mean by "Holy Spirit" then perhaps I agree. On the other hand, the technological advancement of recent decades may, it seems, have brought with it a propensity for more rapid propagation of irrational mythology as well. What you lose on the swings...
I was actually employing irony (unfortunately, it doesn't work so well when you have to explain it) - but I do take your point - there was certainly a propensity for exploiting religion for personal aggrandizement in 18th/19th century Persia out of which a number of "Messiahs" emerged. You may have heard of one or two of them!