Monthly Archives: April 2010

Attacks on Unitarian Bahai sites?

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It appears that someone is using hacking techniques to suppress the expression of Unitarian Bahaism on the internet.

A few hours ago, it was reported that the Unitarian Universalist Bahai blog’s web address was somehow redirected to a Universalist Christian web page made by Eric Stetson, who also leads the Unitarian Bahai movement:

http://www.uubahai.com/

Now I have learned that the Yahoo group of Unitarian Bahais has also been cut off:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unitarian-bahai/

No coincidence, I suppose, that this was done the day after Eric Stetson said he was taking a break from moderating that group.

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Sen McGlinn is delusional and idiotic

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In attacking the new Unitarian Baha’i movement, Sen McGlinn made the following absurd declaration:

http://senmcglinn.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/muhammad-ali-revived-2/

Do not be deceived: the latest attempt to rehabilitate Muhammad Ali is not due to some universal love and progressive ideas, or any great knowledge about Muhammad Ali: it springs from a desire to avoid the straight line that leads from authenticated texts by Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha, through inescapable reasoning, to the conclusion that the Universal House of Justice is the head of the Bahai community today. To avoid that conclusion, some people will bring forward anything, however implausible, that seems to offer an alternative.

Anyone who actually reads the Baha’i Faith section of this blog would know, if they were intellectually honest, that this claim is simply bogus postering. And there’s more:

http://www.uubahai.com/2010/03/ghusn-i-akbar-part-1-the-facts/

http://www.uubahai.com/2010/04/ghusn-i-akbar-part-2-his-significance/

Indeed, like most Baha’is, McGlinn takes at face value the profoundly one-sided narratives favored by the Haifan Baha’i Administrative Order about the conflict between Abdu’l-Baha (AB) and his brother Mirza Muhammad Ali (MA), never questioning them; never asking why, if MA was such a despicable man and AB was indeed so perfect in his ways, why nearly all the descendants of Baha’u’llah, even those descended directly from AB,  would reject the claims of AB and Shoghi Effendi and find themselves expelled from the Baha’i community rather than submit to the Covenant AB established in his Will and Testament. Also odd is that the mansion of Bahji, in which Baha’u’llah spent his last years, was lived in by MA after Baha’u’llah died, not AB! I’d think if AB was as highly favored by Baha’u’llah as the official Baha’i history claims, he would have been living in Bahji with Baha’u’llah and would have inherited it, but in fact, AB never lived there at all! Such logical gaps should be debated and worked over, not ignored and swept under the rug.

 People who operate like McGlinn have no business claiming to be reputable scholars on religion, unless they are promoting a scam.

And what is really ironic about this, is that McGlinn was actually expelled from the very Haifan Baha’i community he is still defending:

http://senmcglinn.wordpress.com/about/

In late 2005 I was removed from the rolls of the Bahai community, following a decision of the Universal House of Justice. I have put up some of the documents on a page here, in response to speculations about the reasons for the decision. I have applied to be re-enrolled periodically, and in the meantime continue as a believing and practising unenrolled Bahai. There are some informal reflections on being unenrolled in an email in my archive called ‘who belongs.’

Why would anyone continue to defend an organization that no longer even wants him around? To me, that is idiocy, and I do not respect idiots.

Professor Dann May vs. the American Baha’i Tyranny

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Several years ago, philosophy and religious studies Professor Dann May and his wife Phyllis E Bernard, current Robert S. Kerr Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law, Oklahoma City University, were devoted Baha’is. They were prominantly featured in this article about a private Baha’i School:

http://www.bahaindex.com/en/news/1-general-news/3258-school-in-bonny-doon-emphasizes-religious-tolerance

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Unitarian Bahaism (deleted Wikipedia article)

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(Note: This is a copy of an entry on Wikipedia that was deleted by one of its admin after a determined effort to get it banned by Haifan Baha’is. This is an example of the thought control and censorship that is subjected to anyone who stands up to the bullies that run or serve the Baha’i Administrative Order. Damn them!)  Continue reading →

There is NO Trinity, period!

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The simple fact that Jesus prayed to God (the Father) in many passages shows that they are two separate entities. The Christians of Gentile background were so immersed in Paganism that they understood Jesus’ claim to be the “Son of God” as also being God, so they invented the Trinity. Note that the Jews did not consider Moses to be equal to God, even though he spoke with as much divine authority as Jesus would 1500 years later. If the early Christians had been content with Jesus as a new version of Moses, then they would not have had to come up with the absurdity of the Trinity to account for what Jesus was like. But they had to make Jesus look even greater than Moses to make their own religion look greater than Judaism. Good for public relations, bad for intellectual honesty.

No doubt, “orthodox” Christians  will point to passages where Jesus appeared to do things only God could do (forgive sins, accept worship) and insist that the Holy Spirit was also a person within the Godhead, but that only illustrates how unreliable the scriptures (and those who interpret them) are. God may be unknowable, but he does not suffer from a multiple personality disorder. The Jews said their god was ONE God. Either that is true or it isn’t. There is NO Trinity.

A direct Bible reference in which Jesus denies being God or equal with God is:

Luke 18:18-19

A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good–except God alone.

So here we see Jesus specifically denying that he was God by correcting someone who addressed him as “good”, stating that only God was good. If Jesus had been God, he would not have responded that way.

The Catholic Church hits an all time low!

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Seriously, read this!

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/04/11/connecticut.abuse.bill/index.html?hpt=T1

Connecticut bishops fight sex abuse bill

From Jamie Guzzardo, CNN 
April 11, 2010 10:30 p.m. EDT

Hartford, Connecticut (CNN) — A bill in Connecticut’s legislature that would remove the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases has sparked a fervent response from the state’s Roman Catholic bishops, who released a letter to parishioners Saturday imploring them to oppose the measure.

Under current Connecticut law, sexual abuse victims have 30 years past their 18th birthday to file a lawsuit. The proposed change to the law would rescind that statute of limitations.

The proposed change to the law would put “all Church institutions, including your parish, at risk,” says the letter, which was signed by Connecticut’s three Roman Catholic bishops.

The letter is posted on the Web site of the Connecticut Catholic Public Affairs Conference, the public policy and advocacy office of Connecticut’s Catholic bishops. It asks parishioners to contact their legislators in opposition of the bill.

The “legislation would undermine the mission of the Catholic Church in Connecticut, threatening our parishes, our schools, and our Catholic Charities,” the letter says.

The Catholic archdiocese of Hartford also published a pulpit announcement on its Web site, which was to be read during Mass on Sunday, urging parishioners to express opposition to the bill.

The bill has been revised to address some of the church’s concerns about frivolous abuse claims against it, according to Connecticut state Rep. Beth Bye, one of the bill’s sponsors.

“The church didn’t recognize that this bill makes improvements,” Bye said. “The victims — their lives have been changed and some will never recover from years of sexual abuse. For me, it’s about giving them access to the courts.”

Under the bill’s provisions, anyone older than 48 who makes a sex abuse claim against the church would need to join an existing claim filed by someone 48 or younger. Older claimants would need to show substantial proof that they were abused.

“They were worried about frivolous lawsuits and so we made the bar high,” Bye said.

The bill does not target the Catholic Church, she said.

The bishops’ letter raised concerns that the bill would allow claims that are 70 years or older, in which “key individuals are deceased, memories have been faded, and documents and other evidence have been lost.” The letter said that the majority of cases would be driven by “trial lawyers hoping to profit from these cases.”

The bill passed in Connecticut’s House of Representatives, and Bye said the state Senate should vote on it in the next week or two.

Clearly, the Catholic Church is doing absolutely the wrong thing! Perhaps this will finally motivate most of Connecticut’s Catholics to bolt from the Church, along with millions of others!

Why we need a Unitarian Baha’i Faith

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Vernon Lawson sent me this via e-mail, and it is one of the best statements about the Bahai Faith I’ve ever seen:

There are limits to the expansion of the Baha’i faith, as currently practiced, and arguments can be made that the administrative order is not appropriate. However, if the Baha’i faith is ever going to grow beyond its current numbers, it is Baha’u’llah, and not Abdu’l Baha, Shoghi Effendi or the Universal House of Justice, who will reach the majority of people that currently have no knowledge of the Baha’i faith. He will reach them through the current believers. Yes, the majority of the current believers have great loyalty to a particular administrative order. However, their approach to spreading the word has proven particularly ineffective. If those more open minded people, who recognize that Baha’u’llah’s message is the message for today, spread the word more effectively that their administrative oriented breathren, then some day, maybe soon, the majority of Baha’is will not have this loyalty, or any concern about administrative orders. The ancient beauty is what matters here, not anything else. If we can reach just .2% of the human race, not exactly a tall order, then two thirds of Baha’is will not follow the current administrative order, and there could be some major changes in the way things are done. At 150 years into Christianity, the word had not gone far, primarily because they had not learned how to effectively market the faith yet. There is still hope for a significant growth of the faith. Go to any bookstore, and you’ll see more space dedicated to “New Age” than all the other religions combined. What else you’ll notice is NO Baha’i literature. That’s because the boys in Haifa are determined to control this thing. Fine, they have complete control of an insanely small order. If, and when, we ever get entry by troops, it will be because we blow this thing wide open. Nobody controls who, how, what gets translated, nobody controls distribution of the word. The word is for everyone. That’s when things can and will change.

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What credibility does the Anglican church have?

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This  news story just blew my irony meter:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100403/ap_on_re_eu/eu_church_abuse_58

Anglican leader: Irish church lost its credibility

By JENNIFER QUINN, Associated Press Writer – Sat Apr 3, 10:53 am ET

LONDON – The Roman Catholic church in Ireland has lost its credibility because of its mishandling of abuse by priests, the leader of the Anglican church said in remarks released Saturday. A leading Catholic archbishop said he was “stunned” by the comments.

FILE - In this Tuesday Oct. 20, 2009 file photo, Britain's ...

It was the first time Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the Church of England, has spoken publicly on the crisis engulfing the Catholic church. The remarks come ahead of a planned visit to England and Scotland by Pope Benedict XVI later this year.

“I was speaking to an Irish friend recently who was saying that it’s quite difficult in some parts of Ireland to go down the street wearing a clerical collar now,” Williams told the BBC. “And an institution so deeply bound into the life of a society, suddenly becoming, suddenly losing all credibility — that’s not just a problem for the church, it is a problem for everybody in Ireland, I think.”

The interview with Williams, recorded March 26, is to be aired Monday on the BBC’s “Start the Week” program. His remarks were part of a general discussion of religion to mark Easter.

The Catholic church has been on the defensive over accusations leaders protected child abusers for decades in many countries.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said he had “rarely felt personally so discouraged” as when he heard Williams’ opinions.

“I have been more than forthright in addressing the failures of the Catholic Church in Ireland. I still shudder when I think of the harm that was caused to abused children. I recognize that their church failed them,” a statement, posted on the archdiocese’s Web site, said. “Those working for renewal in the Catholic Church in Ireland did not need this comment on this Easter weekend and do not deserve it.”

Relations between the two churches were strained last year after the Vatican invited conservative Anglicans to join the Catholic Church. How many will take up the offer is still unknown.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a big deal for the Church of England, I must say,” Williams said. “I think there’ll be a few people who will take advantage of it — and they’ll take advantage of it because they believe they ought to be in communion with the bishop of Rome. And I can only say fine, God bless them.”

Williams said he would meet with the pope at Lambeth Palace, that he would be welcomed as “as a valued partner, and that’s about it.”

In the interview, Williams said Christian institutions, faced with the choice of self-protection or revealing potentially damaging secrets, have decided to keep quiet to preserve their credibility.

“We’ve learned that that is damaging, it’s wrong, it’s dishonest and it requires that very hard recognition … which ought to be natural for the Christian church based as it is on repentance and honesty,” he said.

We must remember that the Anglican Church split off from Catholicism in 1538 so King Henry VIII could divorce his Catholic wife and marry a younger woman who he hoped would give him a son. So that church never had credibility to begin with. Physician, heal thyself!