Last month, I was promoted to be the newest moderator at the exBaha’i subreddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/
Having to protect that group from intruders and trolls while also keeping it a safe space for freedom of speech is a delicate balancing act.
My first test of my abilities was here:
Which was a crosspost from here in r/bahai:
The discussion in r/exbahai began with this:
To me reflects that many Baha’is outright disagree with, are unaware of, or are just embarrassed by the conservative nature of the Faith as outlined by Shoghi Effendi.
Similarly many Baha’is take umbrage at covenant-breaking being equated with excommunication despite Shoghi Effendi and his secrataries comments in various places, i.e.:
That Document, furthermore, lauds the courage and constancy of the supporters of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant; expatiates on the sufferings endured by its appointed Center; recalls the infamous conduct of Mírzá Yaḥyá and his failure to heed the warnings of the Báb; exposes, in a series of indictments, the perfidy and rebellion of Mírzá Muḥammad-‘Alí, and the complicity of his son Shu‘á‘u’lláh and of his brother Mírzá Badí‘u’lláh; reaffirms their excommunication, and predicts the frustration of all their hopes; summons the Afnán (the Báb’s kindred), the Hands of the Cause and the entire company of the followers of Bahá’u’lláh to arise unitedly to propagate His Faith, to disperse far and wide, to labor tirelessly and to follow the heroic example of the Apostles of Jesus Christ;
https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/shoghi-effendi/god-passes-by/24#229666135
As regards the matter of those who have withdrawn from the Faith on the west coast: as you know, no one has the right to excommunicate anybody except the Guardian of the Faith, himself.
https://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/MC/mc-276.html?query=excommunicate&action=highlight#gr1
There are two things which he wishes to impress upon you. The first is that depriving people of their voting rights is the heaviest sanction which can be imposed at the present time (with the exception of excommunication, which is a right the Guardian has never permitted anyone else to exercise). Therefore, the greatest care should be exerted to try and remedy a situation before depriving anybody of their voting rights, and the action itself should only be taken if absolutely necessary.
https://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/MC/mc-263.html?query=excommunication&action=highlight#gr1
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Then the Baha’i who started the original discussion in r/bahai attacked us.
Do not cross post my posts on here — this is not your discussion.
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You posted it on reddit, you can’t stop anyone from discussing it elsewhere on the internet (as much as Baha’is would like to be able to ban all discussion outside of on-rails Ruhi book skits and cheesy promotional videos from Haifa).
You could follow the advice given to people who post critical content on r/bahai and find somewhere else to complain about not being able to censor the internet.
I cordially invite you to adopt a humble posture of learning to advance the process of learning about unleashing the society building engine of limitless potentialities.
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This is a discussion I as a Baha’i am having with other Baha’is, it was not for people like you to use and misrepresent for your own agendas.
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There were a lot of other things said, but I will jump ahead to where I entered the conflict.
Mod
exBaha’i atheist
That’s enough! I will start moderating this place until you agree to either engage this discussion properly or simply go away.
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Haifan Baha’i
This is literally one of the last places on Reddit that I want to be. I’m only here to tell you to leave my content alone.
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exBaha’i atheist
Do not be telling others what to do. If you don’t want your content reposted, DON’T MAKE IT PUBLIC. It’s really that simple. He did nothing wrong here…..but you did!
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agnostic exBaha’i
Good grief! Nothing nothing made me realize how toxic the Baha’i Faith is like seeing how exBaha’is are treated on this forum.
You can’t discuss that! Those are Baha’i words, you can’t use those words! I forbid it! You can’t think about things I tell you not to think! Stop reflecting on your experiences and discussing your thoughts in a supportive community!
They claim to have the solution to world peace, but cannot handle a democratic discussion from a differing perspective 🙄
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If you posted it, so it will be crossposted anywhere. If you don’t want this, so you can 1- erase your post 2- cry out to the UHJ and ask them to create their own Bahá’í social network with their FULL censorship as they are specialists on it. LOL
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I did delete several comments, but otherwise kept my cool.
Round two;
exBaha’i atheist
What are you talking about? Leftist politics are normally about using government as a social tool to bring about legal equality amongst people of different races, classes, genders, and religions. It’s not about censorship, which is a tool used by authoritarian states, not leftist ones.
The so-called “Communist” states in the 20th Century that claimed to be leftist were scams that simply replaced the ruling classes that ruled before Communism with the Communist parties themselves. George Orwell wrote Animal Farm to discredit that sort of nonsense.
Your claims and arguments make no sense whatsoever. Indeed, the Haifan Baha’i leadership strikes me as more right-wing than leftist. A true leftist leadership wouldn’t deny women the chance to get elected to it or insist on suppressing LGBT rights or expel “Covenant breakers” merely for dissenting from the leadership.
The idea that leftists want to suppress small businesses with individual owners is news to me too. What leftists hate are giant CORPORATIONS which are a basic component of modern capitalism and corporations are collective entities just like governments…..except they are NEVER democratic, because workers don’t get to elect their bosses.
Don’t get politics confused with religion, please. That’s what Conservatives have been doing and I’m fed up with it!
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There was a lot more said there. After a while, I locked the comments there because things were getting too heated, and then unlocked them a few hours later. Trident reacted to my attempts to keep things orderly like this:
Nice libel, eh?
Round three also involved trident.
He started off with:
Unitarian Baha’i
The thing he/they did wrong is not getting married first. It is ridiculous to put 16 year olds in the same category as children. She was not “exploited”.
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exBaha’i atheist
I’ve been told that most people’s minds don’t fully mature until their 20s, so most teens are easily manipulated by adults to become their tools….which is why most criminal gangs are composed of teens. A desperately lonely and confused teen can be seduced into sex with an adult that only wants to exploit them.
I was referring to this:
Being Better Educated and Changing my Opinion
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Unitarian Baha’i
If this were true then every guy would be manipulating teen girls, myself included. The fact is that it is in fact extremely difficult to manipulate a 16 year old girl, because at that point she has gone through puberty and has developed defense mechanisms against it. If you think that you as an old creep are capable of seducing a teen girl, then you are delusional.
Like he has ever been a teenage girl?!
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exBaha’i atheist
If this were true then every guy would be manipulating teen girls, myself included.
OMG!!! Like guys cannot CHOOSE NOT to be abusers of girls and women?! WTF is wrong with you?!
No, don’t bother answering because you are about to be BLOCKED!
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I didn’t have the ability to ban him outright from r/exbahai, so blocking him from being able to contact me was as much as I could do. Well, that and lock some of the comments.
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