I just discovered a website where its makers state their intention to propagate Christianity among the world’s young people.
Category Archives: religion
What integrity in leadership looks like
Part of having integrity is knowing when you have failed at something, realizing you need to step aside for the good of the people you claim to serve, and move on. Today, the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association is doing just that. Continue reading
Another (and much better) Presidential race!
After the absolute disaster that was last year’s Presidential election for the United States, and then watching the madness and chaos that is President Trump’s administration since he took office, I am beginning to worry that our country may be sliding down to ruin like the Roman Empire did.
And yet this year another Presidential race is going on right now. And I am unable to decide which candidate would be best for the job, because all of them seemed highly qualified. This is for the Unitarian Universalist Association, the organization for the religion I belong to! Continue reading
Lying About History for the Bible, Round 2
In a previous blog entry, I tore apart an attempt by a Christian apologist online to defend the Book of Ezekiel regarding its prophecies of the city-state of Tyre. My expose was so damaging that the writer eventually took down the web page I attacked.
Now I will take on another target, the Book of Daniel.
Why more people should join the Unitarian Universalists
A symbol of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
First, take a look at this video:
For more details, see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations
Over 30,000 divisions?! Remember this warning from Jesus himself: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.” (Matthew 12:25) If his word is true, then the Church is useless. It has been divided against itself since at least 1054 AD, when there was a schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. The leaders of the two factions actually excommunicated each other!
My words are going VIRAL!
When I started this blog about a decade ago, I always hoped it would be a useful reference for people seeking credible arguments about science, religion, politics, and other social issues, backed with a consistent ethical standard. Little did I know just how far my words would travel!
Recently, other bloggers that are critics of the Baha’i Faith have begin taking my words and directly posting them onto their own blogs and even on one video on YouTube, much to my astonishment.
First the video, based on Four Ways to Create a Religion of Hypocrites
Which also appears here: http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2016/12/4-ways-to-create-religion-of-hypocrites.html
The original blog entry was copied here: http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2015/07/four-ways-to-create-religion-of.html
That same blog also reposted several other blog entries of mine:
http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2010/07/fatal-flaw-in-bahai-authority.html
http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2011/10/universal-house-of-international.html
http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2015/07/equality-of-sexes-not-in-bahai-faith.html
http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2015/10/bahai-scandals.html
http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-i-abandoned-haifan-bahai-faith.html
http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2016/04/dale-husbands-battle-on-amazon-with.html
When it comes to faithfulness and accuracy in quoting my writings, ‘s blog is indeed the best. Others, not so much.
Here are other examples of blog entries elsewhere that got it right, mostly:
https://thebahaiinsider.com/2015/11/02/some-interesting-bahai-scandals/
http://en.bahairesearch.org/article/independent-investigation-truth-baha%E2%80%99i-case-hypocrisy
http://en.bahairesearch.org/article/fatal-flaw-baha%E2%80%99i-authority
http://en.bahairesearch.org/article/why-i-abandoned-haifan-baha%E2%80%99i-faith
Another blogger, Ed Darrell, referred to one of my early statements on climate change, which is an even bigger issue to me than the Baha’i Faith:
Which actually came from here:
https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/damning-evidence-of-fraud-by-nils-axel-morner/
And loooooong before any of that, one of my oldest online friends referred to my blog here:
https://dovaryeh.wordpress.com/2007/07/29/fundamentalism-second-take/
Which came from here:
https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/religious-fundamentalism-is-blasphemy/
Earlier, he made this: https://dovaryeh.wordpress.com/2007/07/29/science-can-it-dictate-ethics/
Which referred to this: https://dalehusband.com/2007/07/21/three-opponents-three-different-results/
Which is also more important in some ways than criticizing the Baha’i Faith.
The Watchtower leaders are EVIL!
Why I Abandoned the (Haifan) Baha’i Faith
Note: this is an updated and expanded version of an original blog entry from nearly a decade ago.
From 1995 to 2004, I was a member of a religion known as the Baha’i Faith. This religion teaches that God is called by various names but is still the same all over the world, that all religions teach the same basic message, and that humanity is actually one race and is destined to unite under the banner of the Baha’i Faith in a new age of peace and unity.
I was eager to see and to achieve the highest goodness in my life and in the world, so this was a Godsend to me! I embraced the faith after attending firesides about it in Bedford, Texas and became an active teacher of it, even attempting to convert others to it. I had been a Christian, specifically a Southern Baptist, in my teens, but had become disgusted with Christianity and left that faith in my early 20s because I saw the errors, contradictions, and failures of it. The Baha’i Faith explained that away by claiming that while Jesus was indeed a Messenger (or Manifestation) of God, His faith had become corrupted over time and thus most Christians were not truly following him, but the doctrines of men. In joining the Baha’i community, I thought I was seeing what the early Christians in the Roman Empire were like, except that unlike them the Baha’is would not split into competing sects and engage in wars against each other. If only everyone in the world became Baha’i, I was told, we would be at peace and prosperity forever. Continue reading
Some Right-wing Bigots have NO Shame!
Sometimes Conservatives are so desperate for validation of their extremist crusade against their political opponents that they will grab at straws and refer to things that have NOTHING to do with their politics. Below is an example of this chicanery:
How Leah Remini’s Scientology Fight Is A Front in Andrew Breitbart’s #WAR
Please note that RedState is yet another one of those right-wing propaganda mills, like breitbart.com, FOX News, WorldNetDaily, NewsMax, and others.
I don’t know any Scientologists that I’m aware of and my only connection to L. Ron Hubbard is having read his bad science fiction novel Battlefield Earth back in the ’80s and later—primarily out of morbid curiosity—watching the even worse film adaptation starring Scientologist John Travolta.
The writer starts off with something that looks completely reasonable and true. If it had stuck to the actual issue of the Church of Scientology vs. Ms. Remini, I would highly recommend it. Instead….the article goes into left field, pun intended!
Last night while watching episode 7 it dawned on me why I am so involved with this show: What Leah Remini is doing is the most Andrew Breitbart-esque thing I have seen anyone do since his untimely passing. Like Andrew did with the Democrat-media complex, Remini is throwing down the gauntlet and challenging a corrupt institution to prove her wrong.
I only met Andrew Breitbart a couple of times, both of which were in chaotic and noisy environments, so I can’t claim to have been his friend or to have really known him personally. Still, he is one of relatively few people I would consider to be personally inspiring to me.
And what did Breitbart do to be so inspiring? Save one or more lives? Create an invention to make millions of lives better? Write a fictional story to entertain and impress readers? Hold public office and push for legislation to make government better for the people? No, none of these things! He was a writer and publisher of propaganda attacking liberals!
I have no idea what Remini’s politics are. Maybe when you publicly pick a fight with a global cult that has virtually unlimited resources, there isn’t even room for politics in your life. Whether she knows it or not though, Remini’s fight is the same fight for liberty and truth that Andrew Breitbart fought, just on a different front. She is in effect saying to a the cult of Scientology, “I’m going to follow the facts where they lead and if you don’t like it, f*** you. Bring it on. Accuse me of whatever you want, I’m not going to be intimidated. I’m just going to take what you throw at me and use it to show everyone who you are and why you need to be taken down.”
She is executing her takedown just like Andrew would, by telling stories. Data and analysis don’t change people’s minds anywhere near as well as good storytelling.
Scientology is responding with the same sort of tactics the institutional left used against Andrew. According to the people whose stories Remini is telling, anyone who leaves Scientology or speaks ill of it is declared to be a “suppressive person” and is considered “fair game.” Scientologists then use any and all means to intimidate, discredit, or personally destroy those people. They employ private investigators to dig up dirt. They falsely accuse them of crimes. They follow them with cameras in order to capture embarrassing video. It is like an even more fanatical version of the Saul Alinsky tactics employed by far left progressives.
As I recall, it was Breitbart and his cronies that engaged in disruptive and deceitful tactics against liberals. Like having a guy pose as a pimp to misrepresent how ACORN did its business.
Remember when “Joe the Plumber” tripped up candidate Obama into being honest about wealth redistribution? In just a few days the media investigated the background of a private citizen more thoroughly than they ever did Obama’s. How about when the New York Times crowdsourced their sleazy fishing expedition into Sarah Palin’s emails from when she was Governor of Alaska? Have you ever heard of a black conservative who hasn’t been smeared as an “Uncle Tom?” Or a scientist skeptical about man’s role in climate change who hasn’t been accused of being in the pocket of Big Oil? Racism, sexism, misogyny, are all part of the litany against those who have a different opinion. It’s all the same though. Speak out against progressive orthodoxy and you will be smeared or destroyed. The more effectively you speak out, the more weapons they will bring to bear, not to refute what you say but to silence you from saying it.
Of course, the first two sentences are assertions not backed up with proof. The reference to Sarah Palin’s emails is ironic considering how obsessed Republicans have been about Hillary Clinton’s emails. Hypocrisy much? Also, black conservatives may have sexist (if male), religious (if Christian fundamentalist) or economic (if rich) reasons to sell out the best interests of their own race, much like Milo Yiannopoulos does in backstabbing the gay community despite being gay himself, because he is a white man too. And Big Oil is indeed rich enough to corrupt both governments and scientists; the evidence for man-made climate change is solid. It’s OK to have a different opinion as long as it does not hurt people or render them powerless, as conservative policies often do. And most obvious of all……CRITICISM IS NOT CENSORSHIP! Unless Andrew Breitbart or the others that work for his propaganda site could show attempts on their lives or even death threats sent to them by known liberals, they cannot legitimately claim to be targets of attempts to silence them. That’s just dishonest hyperbole.
I can’t help but think Andrew would be a huge fan of what she is doing. He might even be helping her if he was still with us.
Did he ever attack Scientology before he died? Did he ever attack any extremist cult? If not, that assertion is entirely baseless. The implication that liberals are also members of some extremist cult is nothing but libel.
Morgan Cryar was a Liar
Back when I was a born-again Christian, one of the many Christian artists whose albums I bought was Morgan Cryar. He was a lot like Richard Marx in his sound. One of his hit songs was “Pray in the USA”. The lyrics for it are as follows:
http://www.newreleasetoday.com/lyricsdetail.php?lyrics_id=34569
Abortion Autonomy
Read this story:
http://womendeliver.org/2016/women-perform-abortions/
Inna Hudaya was a woman in trouble. Lying in a shoddy hotel room, she squeezed her eyes closed as an old woman performed an abortion on her with no anesthesia and no painkillers. They barely spoke a word after the exchange of money — a lot of money, money Hudaya had borrowed and for which she had sold many of her possessions including her motorbike to repay. This, Hudaya thought to herself, is how I will die.
But what else was she supposed to do? She was 22, pregnant, unmarried, and living in Indonesia, a country where abortion remains illegal in nearly all cases and out-of-wedlock pregnancy is intensely stigmatized. A medical student, Hudaya was just getting a toehold on a life she hoped would keep her out of Tasikmalaya, the conservative city she fled after high school. Having a baby would mean the end of everything: her studies, her relationship with her family, her freedom.
The procedure ended, and Hudaya walked out of the hotel room alive. The pain, though, persisted. Her relationship ended. A close relative disowned her, telling her it is a sin for a woman to kill her own blood. For years, Hudaya had the same dream: a baby chasing her, crying.
The Downfall of Billy Graham’s Legacy
Long after I abandoned Christianity as a college student (after I learned that most of the claims made to support it were nothing but double standards and even outright lies), I continued to respect evangelist Billy Graham as one of the genuine Christians I knew of. While some of his fellow Christian leaders would join together to form the despicable scam known as the “Religious Right”, Billy Graham steered clear of such things and continued to merely preach the Gospel with no political references. He also befriended and advised both Democratic and Republican Presidents regardless of their political or religious background, even the first Catholic President John F. Kennedy.
What is really “dangerous” within Christianity?
First, consider this Bible reference:
Luke 9:49-50
“Master,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.”
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”
That seems like an absolute proclamation. Jesus certainly did not say, “Whoever preaches my doctrines exactly according to some standard made long ago is for you.”
Radical Reincarnation
Reincarnation is the notion in some Eastern, Indian or Dharmic religions that people who die later return in a different body to start a new life, usually with no memory of their previous life. Often this is paired with the concept of karma, the idea that people go to a higher or lower form of existence based on how they lived in their previous lives.
By contrast, in Western religions that are based on the Jewish and/or Christian scriptures or at least are descended from them, reincarnation is rejected and instead people’s souls are assumed to either go to a place called heaven if they are good (or are true believers) or hell if they were evil (or followed a wrong religion) and never return to life.
I have no empirical reason to believe in reincarnation or indeed any form of an afterlife and it is my understanding that the idea of a soul that can be separated from a body and exist apart from it is simply impossible. Indeed, when a person’s brain is damaged in some way, it is clear that the person is also damaged, so why not just assume that when the person’s brain is completely destroyed at death, the person ceases to exist completely? But that idea seems to frighten most people witless. Why? How did we come up with the idea of an afterlife to begin with? Perhaps because of near death experiences that someone might have had on rare occasions?
Read my earlier statement about spirituality. Because of my open-mindedness on that issue, I have created a concept called “Radical Reincarnation” in which every person and animal that has ever lived was once within every other person and animal that has ever lived. In short, we were all Adolph Hitler, Albert Einstein, dinosaurs, cavemen, and dodos at one time or another and we are also part of the universal life force that we return to when we die. This life force, timeless and incredibly powerful, is what most of us have mistaken for “God”. And it is greater than we will ever know. Of course, I cannot support this idea with any evidence whatsoever, but I also know of nothing against it……..and no, it is NOT the default position to say something is not true just because it has not been proven. Atheists who assert that are as narrow minded as some religious bigots. Rather, individuals are free to believe or not believe something that has no proof and no disproof. I reject the idea of heaven and hell for eternal souls because it HAS been disproven. Radical reincarnation certainly has not…..yet it does not exist in the Dharmic religions either.
Five Things Most Christians Get Wrong About the Bible
Inspired by atheist YouTube personality Steve Shives, I have compiled the following list of five things Christians, and many other people, typically get wrong about the Bible.
- It is treated as a single work, when in fact it was sixty-six (and perhaps more, according to some Christian denominations) SEPARATE works that were never intended by their many original authors to be put together. That did not happen until centuries after the books were written. Imagine a massive English book that assembled some of the works of Dr. Suess, Stephen King, Louis L’Amour, Anne Rice, Barbara Cartland, R. L. Stine, Sidney Sheldon, and Richard Scarry into a single volume to allow people easy access to samples of American literature. Would it ever have been reasonable to claim that those specific works by those specific authors must from then on always be sold together in that specific form?
- It combines scriptures from TWO different religions, but misrepresents them in the process. The scriptures of the Jewish religion are called the “Old Testament” and the scriptures of the Christian religion are called the “New Testament”, even though they are actually over 1900 years old and thus are hardly “new” by any standard you can name. The implication that Christians should have any claim to the scriptures of some other religion, even an earlier and related one, would be considered nonsense by most people if we were talking about any other subject. Do Americans have any claim whatsoever to the Constitution of the British government?
- It is assumed that these scriptures were intended for all of mankind, when in fact most of the Jewish Scriptures were written by Jews and intended only for Jews. Maybe the Christian Scriptures were intended for all mankind, but…….Jesus only came to the Jewish people and was never known to go outside his people’s homeland. It was only later after his supposed resurrection that he dispatched his disciples to preach the Gospel around the world.
- Even more damning, there is NOTHING in the Christian scriptures that came directly from Jesus himself. In fact about half of the Christian Scriptures came from Paul, who was depicted in the book of Acts as originally an enemy of the Christians who later converted to Christianity and helped spread the Gospel among non-Jews. In what context would this be considered credible anywhere else? Imagine if Abraham Lincoln was credited with ending slavery in the USA, but wrote nothing about slavery that we have to verify his involvement, except biographies decades after his death that do not even agree on the circumstances of his birth, and most of the work of ending slavery after him was done by General Robert E. Lee, himself once a slaveowner who fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War and later became an abolitionist.
- Revelation is treated by most Christians as the last thing God ever revealed to mankind. Sure, let us ignore the Quran, the Book of Mormon, the Urantia Book, and Conversations with God, among other things. But if those are not valid, why accept the Christian scriptures……or even the Jewish ones, for that matter?
Tim LaHaye is no more
Read this news story:
‘Left Behind’ Co-Author Tim LaHaye, Leading Voice of Evangelicalism, Dies
Tim LaHaye, an intellectual and popular leader of the evangelical movement whose 16 “Left Behind” novels sold tens of millions of copies, died Monday at age 90 in San Diego following a stroke last week, his ministry and his family said.
The “Left Behind” novels, co-written with Jerry B. Jenkins, were enormously popular, crashing mainstream best-seller lists in the 1990s and the 2000s, which until then had been all but unheard of for Christian-themed fiction.
The books, which were based heavily on the Book of Revelation, chronicled the struggles of the unfortunate people “left behind” on Earth after the Second Coming of Jesus and the “Rapture” of believers into Heaven, introducing the frankly apocalyptic theology to a much wider audience.
“Thrilled as I am that he is where he has always wanted to be, his departure leaves a void in my soul that I don’t expect to be filled until I see him again,” Jenkins said in a statement Monday.
But the books were only part of the reason the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College named LaHaye the most influential leader in evangelical Christianity in 2001 — ahead of Billy Graham, James Dobson and Jerry Falwell.
Falwell, who died in 2007, credited LaHaye with having inspired him to found the Moral Majority in 1979. And in a 2005 interview with Time magazine, Falwell called LaHaye and Jenkins’ “Left Behind” books the most influential Christian body of literature of the 20th century — behind only the Bible itself.
LaHaye also founded San Diego Christian College, 12 Christian secondary schools and the Tim LaHaye School of Prophecy at Falwell’s Liberty University in Virginia.
Among the first departments at San Diego Christian College was the Institute for Creation Research, which branched out as an influential young-Earth creationist research organization in 1972.
In 2005, Time enshrined LaHaye and his wife of almost 70 years, Beverly LaHaye — an evangelical leader in her own right as founder and chairwoman of the powerful conservative political group Concerned Women of America — as “The Christian Power Couple.”
Combined, their books and their radio and TV shows reached hundreds of millions of conservative Christians around the world for more than a quarter-century — and drew sharp criticism from liberal organizations and fellow pastors on the more progressive side of the Christian spectrum.
In 2009, LaHaye famously called President Barack Obama a socialist whose rise to power was possibly a signal of the approach of the End Times.
In an essay Monday in Christianity Today, Jenkins acknowledged that LaHaye was often called “opinionated, polemic, a right-wing conservative fundamentalist — and some will even accuse him of homophobia.”
But “the Tim LaHaye I got to know had a pastor’s heart and lived to share his faith,” Jenkins wrote. “He listened to and cared about everyone, regardless of age, gender, or social standing.
“If Tim was missing from the table at a book signing or the green room of a network television show, he could usually be found in a corner praying with someone he’d just met — from a reader to a bookstore clerk to a TV network anchorman.”
LaHaye’s ministry said that in addition to his wife, he is survived by four children, nine grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, a brother and a sister.
I first heard about Tim LaHaye when I was still a thoroughly brainwashed Southern Baptist and I had the misfortune to pick up and read his book “The Battle for the Mind”, a right-wing extremist diatribe that demonized secular Humanism as a corrupter of American society. I wasn’t until I attended college and deconverted from Christianity that I realized the truth. I came to see that Humanists were to LaHaye what Jews were to Adolph Hitler and his Nazis; they were scapegoats that Christian bigots could focus their hatred on instead of the spiritual love that Jesus actually taught about.
As for that series of “Left Behind” novels LaHaye co-wrote with Mr. Jenkins, the entire premise behind those books was an outright lie, as I already showed in this blog entry:
Why the Rapture is a bogus concept
And that is why I prefer to call that fraud Tim LaHELL. He was just like Hal Lindsey, another self-styled expert on Bible prophecy no one should take seriously!
My own spiritual experience
In the early 2000s, back when I was devoted to the Baha’i Faith, I was at North East Mall (near Fort Worth, Texas) and was just sitting down to eat lunch at the food court when suddenly I felt this urge to leave the mall! I couldn’t understand why, but I picked up my food (a Chick-Fil-A sandwich) and drink and I left the mall as if I was following a direct order. I got in my car and started for home. As I was passing this mostly deserted shopping complex, I saw a family stranded on the side of the road begging people for help. It was a couple and their two sons and they were suffering in the summer heat! I decided to offer them a lift in my car, so the father sat in the front passenger seat while the mom and boys sat in the back. We traveled together for several miles, me following the father’s directions while the music of an Ottmar Liebert CD played in my car. Finally, I stopped in their neighborhood and dropped the family off. Then I went back home and ate my lunch there.
To this day, I cannot explain what happened. It could have been a coincidence, but I also think I could have been under some outside control, which foresaw the need of that family and sent me to be their “angel” that day.
That is my story….take it or leave it.
Spiritual Orientation
I have come up with the concept of “spiritual orientation” to explain something about human nature that seems to be a puzzle to atheists . Despite the dogmas of major religions like Christianity and Islam being debunked by reality itself, there are still nearly two billion Christians in the world, as well as over one billion Muslims and millions of followers of other religions around the world; there are relatively few atheists and agnostics in the world, and most of them are found in countries like China and North Korea where atheism is forced on the people by Communist governments. The experiences of the 20th Century proved that Communism as an ideology was just as dogmatic, arrogant, and embarrassing as Christianity, so it was eventually discredited. Good riddance!
When there is a conflict between one’s sexual orientation and one’s spiritual orientation, the result is something that can be life destroying. Continue reading
Rewriting a bigoted article about religion
Read this news report on a Christian website:
Ken Ammi, Enemy of Truth
Years ago, I discovered a blog which contained some criticism of the Baha’i Faith and I eagerly copied a blog entry from it to support my own case against the Baha’i Faith, only to discover that the author was a hard-core Christian who was not nearly as critical of his own religion as he was of other faiths, a clear sign of dishonesty and bigotry. This was confirmed today when I found the new version of his blog and read its About page. I will post parts from that page here in green and italics and my responses in blue and bold.
Let them be hypocrites
A website titled Let Them Marry promotes Christian standards for marriage.
“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him”
(Genesis 2:18)There are thousands of godly young men and women who are ready to be married but are not – this is not good.
It is time for godly men to seek out the biblical path for marriage, to search out the cause of delayed or denied marriages, and to put away unbiblical ideas surrounding the marriage process.
Note: Contrary to vicious internet rumors we do not support or in any way condone child sexual activity of any sort, child marriage, or any other illegal activity. Nor do we support or condone forced marriages. We believe that parents should NOT seek a spouse for a child where that child has not actively sought for the parents to do so.
Jehovah, the Homophobe.
Recently, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, one of the many Christian based cults founded in the 19th Century, produced an attractive and professional looking video with a clear message: Jehovah will not allow gays and lesbians into Paradise.
Watch that video here:
Afterwards, consider the following questions.
How do we know that Jehovah invented marriage for us? Why him and not some other god?
What if Jehovah told us to reject interracial marriage too? The Mormons have a book that condemns people with black skin!
What if Jehovah ordered us to kill anyone above the age of 65?
How do we know there is a Paradise for us to go to?
How do we know that gays and lesbians will be excluded from Paradise?
Indeed, how do we even know Jehovah exists at all?
We KNOW that gays and lesbians exist and that some of them are PARENTS.
Using one or more things that may not be real to attack things or people that are certainly real is irrational.
And making something cute to teach BIGOTRY is the worst kind of brainwashing!
It does not matter if you say, “God hates fags!” or if you say, “Jehovah does not approve of your gay lifestyle and he will love you more if you change.” Sugarcoated bigotry is still bigotry, period!
Princess Leia was right!
In the very first Star Wars movie, released in 1977, Princess Leia, being held captive by Grand Moff Tarkin, tells him:
That certainly seems to be true of individuals in the real world and the oppressive religions trying to control them. I myself am an example of this. And here is another. And now I find two more examples:
http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/all/2016/03/choosing-your-religion/475164/#note-477660
Putting Words in my Mouth.
As one who has been highly critical of the Baha’i Faith (and most other religions) for many years, I am usually more than happy to share my words with others for the sake of enlightenment and seeking the truth. So I was dismayed to discover today that a statement falsely attributed to me is being spread around by other critics of the Baha’i Faith.
http://bahaism.blogspot.com/2016/03/bahai-women-are-conditioned-to-flirt.html
http://bahaiculture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/the-13th-principle-of-bahai-faith.html
https://thebahaiinsider.com/2016/04/02/the-13th-bahai-principle/
The statement is:
“I got sick of seeing how women are conditioned to flirt with any possible potential convert around. For the Baha’i administration, most worthy of women values are their bodies – which are conditioned to attract new followers to Baha’i faith”.
Usually when I quote statements by others and they have been publicly made, I include a link leading back to the original statement so others can see that the object of my blog entry has been referred to accurately. As an Honorable Skeptic, I expect everyone to do no less. In each case above, this was not done.
Nowhere on my blog did I make the above statement and I do not remember making it anywhere else. Indeed, when I was a Baha’i, I do not recall seeing any women or girls flirting with potential converts to the Baha’i Faith.
Therefore, I am calling upon my fellow critics of the Baha’i Faith to retract the statement. If I did not make it, it is unethical to say that I did. We need to be better than our bigoted and dogmatic opponents, or we have no business opposing them.
My Battle on Amazon with a Haifan Baha’i
This blog entry is a direct sequel to this earlier one: A Lost History of the Baha’i Faith
The book was put up for sale on Amazon.com, and just as I and Eric Stetson expected, Haifan Baha’is took notice of it and proceeded to attack it, even without bothering to read its contents.
on July 13, 2015This is NOT a good history of the Baha’i Faith. It is a very biased history. This would be comparable of the history of the message of Jesus Christ written by Judas Iscariot or by Caiaphas, the Jewish priest who organized His death sentence.
If you REALLY want a good and well authenticated history of the Baha’i Faith, you should try “Baha’u’llah & the New Era” by John Esslemont, a British citizen, or “God Passes By” by Shoghi Effendi, the grandson of the founder, who was educated
at Oxford with a particular interest in history.
A Mature Discussion About Religion
(A father is washing dishes in the kitchen. His ten-year old son enters.)
Son: Father, why do atheists hate God?
Father: Who told you that nonsense?
Son: Uncle Bob was talking about religion with Mother in the living room.
Father: (Lowers his voice) Son, your uncle is an idiot. Atheists do not hate God because you cannot hate something if you do not believe it exists.
Son: So what are we supposed to believe about God?
Father: I can only tell you what I believe and I expect you to make up your own mind later. I believe in the God of Christianity, which is also said to be the God of Judaism and Islam.
Son: Then I choose to believe as you do.
Father: So be it. But as you grow older and learn more, you may reconsider that view. If you do, no matter what you end up with, I assure you that I will always love you.
Son: Thanks, Father.
Baha’i Scandals
1. The Violation of Abdu’l-Baha – Baha’u’llah in the The Kitáb-i-Ahd, or Book of the Covenant (his Will and Testament) appointed Abdu’l-Baha as his successor, but also stated that Abdu’l-Baha’s younger brother Mirza Muhammad Ali should be below him in rank and also be his immediate successor. Abdu’l-Baha disobeyed this commandment by depriving Muhammad Ali of any rank and replacing him as successor with his grandson, Shoghi Effendi, in his own Will and Testament.
2. The Madness of Shoghi Effendi – Abdu’l-Baha, in the same Will and Testament that appointed Shoghi Effendi as Guardian of the Cause of God, stated that the Guardian must appoint either his firstborn or another branch (male descendant of Baha’u’llah) as his successor in his own lifetime. Shoghi Effendi not only had no children, but he expelled from the Baha’i community every single one of Abdu’l-Baha’s own descendants, making it impossible for him to keep his grandfather’s commandments. He also died in 1957 without leaving a Will and Testament of his own as required by Baha’i law, throwing the Faith into a crisis.
3. Failed prophecy cover up – An early edition of Baha’u’llah and the New Era by J. E. Esselmont stated a prophecy by Abdu’l-Baha that by 1957 “Universal Peace will be firmly established, a Universal language promoted. Misunderstandings will pass away. The Bahá’í Cause will be promulgated in all parts and the oneness of mankind established.” But what really happened that year was Shoghi Effendi’s death. The prophecy was deleted from later editions of the book.
4. Attack on Kalimat Press – In 2005 and 2006,The National Spiritual Assemblies of the Baha’is of the United States and the United Kingdon issued orders to Baha’i communities under their command to stop selling books published by Kalimat Press, a small Baha’i owned book publishing company, for publishing a few books that they happened to disapprove of. As a result, the company was crippled in its operations.
5. Dr. Hossein Danesh, sex offender – A member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Canada, Danesh was stripped of his psychiatric license in the 1990s after being accused by several of his patients of sexual abuse. Instead of being expelled from the Baha’i community, he was sent to the Baha’i Landegg “university” in Switzerland, a private school which failed in 2005. Returning to Canada, he was hired by the NSA of Canada as a marriage and family therapist for fellow Baha’is.
6. Italian Baha’i financial scandal – Franco Ceccherini, a longtime member of the Italian National Spiritual Assembly, was found in 2007 to have stolen over 360,000 euros over 14 years while serving as the Assembly’s treasurer. This was discovered only when the Italian government audited the Baha’i community and then charged it 275,000 euros in back taxes, crippling financially the entire Italian Baha’i community.
7. Stephen Birkland, Baha’i secret police detective – In the 1990s, as a member of the Continental Board of Counselors for North America, Birkland led an investigation of Baha’is running an internet forum known as “Talisman” where members could openly question and debate issues regarding the management of the Baha’i communities. Birkland’s abusive tactics drove several Baha’is, including Juan Cole and John & Linda Walbridge, to resign rather than be condemned as covenant-breakers for taking part in Talisman, which was then shut down. Birkand was later rewarded for his zeal by being appointed to the International Teaching Center in 2008 and eventually he was elected to the Universal House of Justice in 2010.
The Destruction of Islam
Read this story:
http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/09/26/saudi-haj-toll-idINKCN0RQ0FD20150926
Sat Sep 26, 2015 10:16pm IST
Haj death toll rises to 769, Iran denounces “crime”
Polonium halos
I got this comment from someone on an earlier blog entry regarding Creationism.
https://dalehusband.com/2011/03/16/dr-georgia-purdom-hypocrite/
Judy
hjvandyke@aol.com
173.58.89.66
I came across this site and, although ridiculed by several here, I was very impressed with Purdom’s honest answers to Shermer! Everyone has God given choice to believe what they want but I personally believe there is ample evidence for belief in the Creator God; and it would take more faith on my part to believe evolutionist viewpoint. About 27 years ago I met Dr. Robert Gentry who told his story about discovering published evidence of polonium halos in granite — see http://www.halos.com/ — and lost his job as a result. Scientists whose whole lives and degrees are bound to evolutionary theory do not want to acknowledge such evidence as it would negate their own cherished belief and positions. What Purdom stated is true that there are lots of holes in the theory of evolution–seems like taught as fact now in schools–but it is still just a theory.
Yes, all lives DO matter!
At First Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church, a banner was put up that said, “BLACK LIVES MATTER”. A couple of weeks later, someone decided to “correct” the message:
And one of the church members came up with an excellent response.
I would go farther. If you as a white person are not willing to talk about what black people go through, if you as a Christian are not willing to talk about what Jews, Muslims or other non-Christians go through, if you as a man are not willing to talk about what women go through, and if you as a straight person are not willing to talk about what gays go through, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!
Dale Husband's Intellectual Rants 