A Statement About Mental Disorders and Domestic Abuse.

A friend of mine posted this the other day on Facebook:

Johnny Depp/Amber Heard
 
I was married to someone diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, although that diagnosis wasn’t given until after we separated. I had no idea the nightmare I was living through, all I knew was I wasn’t being treated fairly and I was miserable. One moment he would be sweet and loving, the next he was unimaginably cruel and telling me I was a horrible person. If I tried to confront him about anything ever he would tell me it was my fault, or lie and say it didn’t happen, or he would turn and walk out the door, get in his car and drive away without saying a word. If for some reason he couldn’t get away or couldn’t lie his way out of it he would flip out, which included suddenly screaming at the top of his lungs, throwing things, breaking things, wild accusations, getting in my face, towering over me and intimidating me with his size, just terrifying out of control behavior. Whenever he acted this way he would say I made him do it. It was my fault, for example: I tried to talk to him in the car and I should know to NEVER confront him in a car so it was my fault he freaked out. Or he had to lie because the truth would upset me. The lies were constant. He would lie about anything like a knee jerk reaction, things that didn’t even make sense to lie about. He would “future fake” which is when they promise to do better in the future but really are just stringing you along. He would say whatever I wanted to hear then turn around and do whatever he wanted without any regard to the promises he made. The splitting was the worst. It’s when they view you as all good or all bad, you can’t just be a good person who makes mistakes or made an offhanded comment that hurt their feelings. If you upset them, you are pure evil and doing everything to sabotage their life. Or you are their best friend and greatest most wonderful love. He would swing back and forth between greatest love and worst enemy, sometimes within minutes.
 
I learned that my mother has BPD (undiagnosed, untreated). It’s why I was willing to marry someone with it. He treated me the same way my mother did/does. Even as an adult, when I did something my mother didn’t like, she would go as far as to call my boss on her private cell phone and try to get me fired (this happened 6 months ago – I’m 39 years old and a single mother). She threatened to call my college and get me kicked out when I was 30 years old and paying for my own school because I disproved a point she was trying to make about evolution. Now that they are both out of my life I have learned how amazing life can be. People with BPD drain your soul and your energy. They don’t give AF about how they make others feel, all they care about is their own emotions, like a toddler who can’t comprehend the feelings of others and throws a fit when someone sets boundaries. They tell outrageous lies about the people they’re mad at as a way to justify treating them so badly. I don’t know if they believe the lies. But if they FEEL like you did something they accept it as a fact, whether or not you actually did that thing. I’ve had my mother and my ex acknowledge I didn’t do a thing and say, “But I FEEL like you did.” They will conjure something about you up in their own mind and treat you as if you did this thing that never happened, they will tell people you did something that never happened and even try to get others to treat you like shit for something that you didn’t do. It’s insane to witness. They keep you so energy drained and beaten down that you don’t know how to get back up, and you start to believe you are the terrible person they accuse you of being, and that no one else could possibly love such a person.
 
I’m team Johnny all the way. I know something of what he’s been through and I admire him for his bravery in telling his story to the world. I had no idea what BPD was until a therapist suggested my mother had it and I bought a book about it. It was like someone watched my childhood through a window and wrote it down in this book. My life would have been so much better if someone had shown me sooner.
 
ETA an example of blame shifting and justification for abhorrent behavior. A photo of messages between my mother and I. Read from the bottom up because when you download Facebook messages it puts them newest on top to oldest on the bottom.
 

279482910_5681835778499376_1488123421952092835_n

This reminds me of a statement that was sent to me about 2 1/2 years ago by a former friend of mine who turned out to be my WORST ENEMY!

Wahid Azal addresses his critics, take 2

Neither you, nor Christian ex-Bahai, let alone the dodgy moderators of that place, have correctly addressed a single indictment of your duplicitous behavior. I stand by what I said, and others seem to agree about your lot over there as well https://www.reddit.com/r/BAYAN/comments/cycea7/lets_talk_about_exbahai/ (not that consensus changes anything since facts stand on their own regardless who disagrees or agrees with them). You and Christian ex-Bahai are especially blind to what you say and do. But that goes with the territory of being self-righteous WASPs, so kindly stop playing the violin. Then again, white victim-playing when called out on white duplicitly always plays by the same playbook: reverse narrativization, victim blaming and gaslighting. Also, Christian Ex-Bahai still doesn’t understand what gaslighting means. Now, let’s look at your particular kind of white duplicity and dishonesty, one that people of color deal with 24/7 in a multitude of contexts with always the same reactions from you people: DENIAL and gaslighting.

  1. You brown-nosed on the very first comment of this post https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/comments/cxhzog/measures_to_restore_civility/ . It was after your stupid comment which I got rid of you from the moderation of realexbahais because at this point you have demonstrated that you are an asshole not to be trusted. So you have yourself to blame, and the facts demonstrate that the betraying was all your own — not mine. I cut weak links and don’t keep them.

  2. As I have maintained for years, the superstructure and bases of Bahaism is rooted in the white Anglo-Saxon global imperial project with its capitalism. I began the podcast by offering the quote from De Tocqueville that speaks to precisely what is driving people like you, Christian Ex-Bahai as well as Scott Hakala. Then I offered social psychological analyses showing that people like you and Christian Ex-Bahai are really spiritual tourists and how what you people understand by “pluralism” is merely free market ideology masquerading as something else. I offered the link to Joseph Massad’s latest book that addresses these very same issues. All of these points you and your Evangelical Christian friend have ignored in almost exactly the same kind of terms that Baha’i cultists ignore points.

  3. Which leads me to this point: indeed, while it is not enough to merely “bash Baha’ism”, without addressing the base and superstructure from which Bahaism subsists, this “bashing” is only telling a part of the story. I agree. But you are not interested in the other side of the story because it indicts your entire society and way of life as being what fuels the Haifan Baha’i cult because your interests (per your UU adherence) lies with perpetuating the white middle-class Anglo-Saxon imperial fallacy in its “liberal” form via the UU packaging. In other words, you are peddling Americanism, which is the real enemy here with Bahaism merely being one of its many colonial franchises, hence why my approach to these questions makes people like yourself unconformable and thus makes your own approach to “bashing Bahaism” ultimately irrelevant, only playing into the system’s hands, and more of the same.

  4. Repeatedly you have made Islamophobic statements and asides. The fact that you now call me an “extremist” also now reinforces the fact and goes to the very heart of the white racism that animates your thinking about literally all of these issues and why you cannot be an ally to what I am about. Be that as it may, there is no such thing as reverse bigotry or reverse racism. Here is why. Learn something https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M .

__________________

It is clear that EVERYTHING in that statement in red above is a case of victim blaming, much like what was done to my friend by her ex-husband and her mother! I also think, BTW, that my ex-wife Cheri is a case of this messed up attitude.

FUK ALL VICTIM BLAMERS!

Abdu’l-Baha’s Shrine Burns to the Ground

Look at this:

For some background of this, see:

https://dalehusband.com/2020/11/25/the-desperation-of-the-bahais-as-the-100th-anniversary-of-the-death-of-abdul-baha-approaches/

Even when the construction was going smoothly, it looked so STUPID!

Two videos about this were posted on YouTube:

One idiot said on the second video:

Not sure where this is but not looking like holy land. the shrine being built of Abdulbaha is in holy land.pass

Meanwhile:

More idiots said things like:

It’s a temporary setback. There’s no need to be.

___________________

With fire he tests the iron and gold He tests us

_____________

“Were it not for calamity, how would the sun of Thy patience shine, O Light of the worlds?” – Lawh-i-Qad-Ihtaraqa’l-Mukhlisun (Fire Tablet, Bahá’u’lláh)

May Bahá’u’lláh guide us through this dark period and may He restore the Master’s Shrine and the Twin Holy Houses, amen.

_____________________

Stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

_________________

Crisis and victory

___________________

More like crying and idiocy, amirite?

As for me, I said:

They really can’t take a hint, can they? Like the death of Shoghi Effendi wasn’t evidence enough that their religion was not credible?!

 

A New Trend on YouTube: Bashing Narcissists

Ever since Donald Trump became President of the USA, people who are disgusted with his incredible sense of entitlement have wanted to give him and every other selfish asshole a kick in their faces!

Recently, YouTube users have begun to post stories depicting such people and how they were dealt with.

Here is an example from a channel titled “Apple Texts”, featuring one sister betraying another:

or this one of a mother wanting to be a parasite on her son and his wife:

For more videos like that, go to the channel:   https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgkQeV7CxSeKHei7V9esEBw

Another channel with such videos is Feel Good Story: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoSRJRAOsBODe2b63EXNhqg

Here is a story of a greedy moocher taking advantage of family members:

And another of a mother-in-law trying to reduce her son’s wife to slavery:

After watching many of these videos, I got in on the trend too, with this episode of the Debbie and Carrie Show:

That was fun to make, wasn’t it?

Now we just need to make such stories always end that way in real life!

A Press Kit for the Debbie and Carrie Show

The Debbie and Carrie Show is a web based series of videos I have made using the Plotagon app.

PLOT ELEMENTS:

Setting: A small, unnamed town in east Texas in the present day.

Storyline:  The show is centered on two teenage (later adult) girls and their mothers. The early stories often deal with the Central Characters resisting the prevailing religious and political bigotries that dominate the town. As time passes, those bigotries are discredited and many people are won over to be friends with the Central Characters. Eventually, the town itself is changed completely.

Main characters:

Debbie Smith

Debbie Smith

Debbie as a young girl

Debbie Smith 2

Debbie as an older teen and an adult.  

At the beginning of the saga, she is 13 years old. She is an atheist, like the others in her family. Her parents were divorced when she was four and then her mother moved her and her brother James from Tulsa, Oklahoma to the Town in Texas Debbie would spend the rest of her youth years in.

Carrie Sims

Carrie Sims1

Carrie as a young girl.

Carrie Sims2

Carrie as an older teen

Carrie Sims

Carrie as an adult

Debbie’s best friend, also age 13 at the start of the saga, later her love partner and finally her wife. Raised by a lesbian couple. Unlike the sweet and gentle Debbie, Carrie was known for her violent tendencies and was more than willing to both dish out and take beatings to defend Debbie and herself from bullies and bigots.

Sandy Smith

Sandy Smith

Original appearance

Sandy Smith

Present day appearance

Mother of Debbie, she is a lawyer (and also a restaurant owner for part of the saga) who specializes in defending the rights of LGBT people. Was raised a Christian but became atheist as a teen.

Jessica Sims

Jessica Sims

Original appearance

Jessica Sims

Present day appearance

Birth mother of Carrie, she, her wife Lucy, and Carrie all came from Boston to buy a cheap house in the Town, only to find themselves surrounded by bigots. In an effort to resist the anti-atheist and anti-LGBT bigotry, she persuaded the others to form with her an Unitarian Universalist fellowship so Debbie and Carrie would have their own values and community to identify with. Was never religious before being a co-founder of the fellowship. Owns a pharmacy for most of the saga.

Lucy Sims

Lucy Sims

Original appearance

Lucy Sims

Present day appearance

Wife of Jessica and co-mother of Carrie. Was originally a Jehovah’s Witness but became alienated from her original family after coming out as lesbian. Was converted to atheism by Jessica. Eventually became the owner of an Italian restaurant, the Tuscany Tavern. Shuns alcohol, tends to drink only water. Says Jessica is her one and only true love. As both a lesbian and an African-American, she is often a target of bigots even more than the other Central Characters, but they ALL stand together when any of them are attacked for any reason.

Here is a playlist on YouTube with most of the Debbie and Carrie stories in short episode form:

And this is a list of assemblies of the episodes in a “movie” format.

Happy viewing!

The Breakup and Revival of Queensryche

In an earlier blog entry, I looked at how Dennis DeYoung repeatedly tried to make his rock band Styx all about himself and his musical vision, eventually resulting in him being fired from the band permanently in 1999.

Regretting the Past: A critical look at the Styx album Kilroy Was Here.

Obviously, a BAND should be a more or less equal partnership among the members. If you don’t want that, then you should be only a SOLO artist.

The progressive metal band called Queensryche faced a similar situation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensr%C3%BFche#Rising_West,confrontation,_split_and_lawsuit_with_Geoff_Tate(2012%E2%80%932014)

In a band meeting on April 12, 2012,[61] which [lead singer Geoff] Tate did not attend, the band fired both Tate’s stepdaughter, Miranda, from running the fan club, and his wife Susan, their band manager since 2005.[21] According to Wilton, the reasons were that “the last 3 years, basically it just came to a point that we didn’t have a voice in the band anymore. It was all run by the singer and his manager, the wife.”[62] On April 14, 2012, before the soundcheck for a show in São Paulo, Brazil, Tate had an argument with the other members about the firing of his family.[16][21] This confrontation became heated, leading to Tate retaliating by knocking down the drum kit,[63] throwing several punches and physically assaulting[64] and spitting on Rockenfield and Wilton.[60] Over the course of the band’s next three shows, Wilton, Rockenfield, and Jackson felt that Tate continued to misbehave and they came “to the conclusion that they can no longer work or perform with Mr. Tate.”[21][65] They called a band meeting on June 5[65] (some sources say June 6[21]). Tate withdrew from this conference call, after which the other band members voted to “consider Geoff Tate expelled from the band” and “continue to use the Queensrÿche name with a new lead singer”, prompting Tate to take legal action.[66]

So why did it all come to this? Well, it happened because Tate, who was indeed a co-founder of the band, was also one of rock music’s greatest singers and so he must have thought he could never be replaced.

Here is one of Queensryche’s early songs, featuring Tate on lead vocals:

No one can deny his incredible power…….but that does not excuse his trying to constantly dominate the rest of the band, ever!

Geoff Tate tried to form his own version of Queensryche and this band even released an album:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_Unknown

And the album cover, well……see for yourself:

Queensryche_with_Geoff_Tate_-_Frequency_Unknown

A fist aimed at the camera with the letters F U on it? Real classy, Tate!

Legal action later caused Tate to be deprived of any rights to the Queensryche name. Meanwhile…..

When the band flew [new lead singer Todd] La Torre in from Florida to Seattle nine days before the show to rehearse at Rockenfield’s house, they hadn’t played a note together, nor did they know whether it would work.[44] Although La Torre was a big fan of Queensrÿche’s older albums,[62] he was not very familiar with the songs on Promised Land and they had only limited time to prepare for the shows, the band focused on the material from the Queensrÿche EP to the band’s fourth studio album, Empire,[62] which are generally considered the band’s heaviest releases[by whom?], and according to La Torre: “are the songs and the time period that most represented the core sound of what Queensryche material was about”.[73] Their first rehearsal together went very smoothly, according to Wilton: “we blasted through 18 to 20 songs and everybody was amazed from the professionality, the musicianship and tone of Todd’s voice.”[62] Rockenfield was immediately reassured: “the second we played “Queen of the Reich”, it was all over.”[44]

Damn right! See for yourself!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb28Yam8EfI

Well, it sucks to be Dennis DeYoung and Geoff Tate, doesn’t it?

I think Beyonce made a song that fits both of those arrogant losers:

My most beloved friend in YouTube!

I’ve been using an app called Plotagon since April of last year to make videos using characters I created to tell dramatic stories.

https://dalehusband.com/category/plotagon/

Now I have befriended a fellow Plotagon user who seems to be very much a kindred spirit to me. I first took notice of her back in October…..

and then the following month she made these videos for Thanksgiving:

I thought that last one was especially amusing, so I made my own version of a dance party:

The user’s name in YouTube is Mary Bliss peanutcat1977 and this is her YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/dreamcicle19772006/featured

It wasn’t long before she began to have a strong influence on my own Plotagon stories. For example, the leading couple in her videos are Paul Jones and Vicky Jones (aka the Blazing Beauty).

I had already made a character for the Debbie and Carrie Show named Vicky Sims. That my Vicky had the same name as the Vicky of Mary Bliss was only a coincidence, but then I decided to give my Vicky Sims  a love partner…..and so I named him PAUL!

Then I took it a step further and made a copy of Vicky Jones to have her meet my Vicky Sims.

Her response:

This is awesome!!! 👌 thank you very much!!!

Tribute to Nick Karean

Strictly speaking, as an Honorable Skeptic, I do not expect to have followers of my ethical philosophy. Nor am I a blind follower of anyone (because then I wouldn’t be a skeptic). No, not even Carl Sagan, though he was a idol of mine in childhood and he was one of my direct influences in the creation of my standard of ethics. But there is one person whose vision so closely mirrors my own, and even exceeds it in many ways, that I must pay tribute to him as a brother in arms against ignorance, superstition, and self-serving bigotry: Nick Karean.

330569534_675312897680439_1808289129472943879_n

His new blog: https://nickkarean.com/

He lives in a nation split between Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and Hindus, among other religious communities, yet he was a fundamentalist Christian early in his life, just as I was. Eventually, however, he learned to get away from that and developed critical thinking, becoming one of the strongest advocates for reason, science and objective truth I’ve ever known. So he and I have more in common than almost anyone else I know.

I invite all who know me to also join with him.

A Podcast/Interview featuring myself and Wahid Azal

Note: After Wahid Azal and I became enemies, he was so desperate to eliminate this podcast from YouTube that in November of 2021 he filed a false copyright claim against it and I had to file a counter notification to get it back. He must know that I can use this video against him, as a warning to others to never trust him enough to collaborate with him on future podcasts! And now that I know he considered this a threat, that’s exactly what it will be used for!

The blog entries giving details of my recent battles with Azal are :

Wahid Azal is trying to get me banned from YouTube

Update on my Current Battle on YouTube

Defeating Wahid Azal again!

Battling with Wahid Azal on Vimeo too

MORE evidence of Wahid Azal’s blatant hypocrisy!

And now here are all the hateful and blatantly dishonest comments he threw at me after he got my YouTube channel shut down:

https://dalehusband.com/2021/11/21/update-on-my-current-battle-on-youtube/#comment-20964
NW Azal says:
November 21, 2021 at 5:21 PM

I am coming for this blog now, Gomer. You have one choice: take down all of the postings you have made about me here, one by one delete them, as well as elsewhere, and we will call it a day and I will leave you alone from there on out. Don’t do it, and I will send lawyers after you to force you to take them down and I will collect damages from you personally in the process, esp. since we now have your home address. Don’t believe me, go talk to an attorney and ask them what I can and cannot do to you. Your choice.

___________________

https://dalehusband.com/2021/11/21/update-on-my-current-battle-on-youtube/#comment-20997
November 25, 2021 at 9:14 PM
You don’t have a leg to stand on, Gomer. If you ever entered a courtroom with me, I would bury you. This is why you put on the hissy-fit hysterics because you know this too, fucking degenerate! This is also why you tried to kill yourself.

__________________

These next two comments were automatically thrown in my blog’s trash bin:

Dumbass, you tripped over yourself. I still hold copyright over that video. Even you have asserted it for the record. Not only have you not defeated anything, long-term I have everything you own. Good luck in court https://www.reddit.com/r/realexbahais/comments/rc1hsu/gomer_forgot_when_he_himself_asserted_the/

______________________

That’s not how copyright works, idiot. The content was made from my computer by me. I never granted you any right to the content. Therefore the copyright remains mine. You have asserted it for the record yourself. Any court and/or lawyer worth their salt will tell you the same. I have you by the balls, and I will collect all kinds of damages from your sorry redneck paedo BIA a$$. Watch me!

__________________

Here’s more bullshit:

https://dalehusband.com/2021/12/08/defeating-wahid-azal-again/#comment-21119
December 8, 2021 at 5:06 PM
We want you in court, moron, because there you are going to have to explain how you yourself asserted for the record that the original video belongs to Wahid Azal https://www.reddit.com/r/realexbahais/comments/rc1hsu/gomer_forgot_when_he_himself_asserted_the/
He has more than a copyright claim now on your insane redneck dumbass!

_____________________

https://dalehusband.com/2021/12/08/defeating-wahid-azal-again/#comment-21124
December 8, 2021 at 6:36 PM
Not how copyright works, dickhead. You were never given any rights by Wahid Azal to the content. The content was made by Wahid Azal from his computer. You have asserted for the record yourself that the “original version” is his. You are toast, and no lawyer or court worth their salt will tell you differently. Kill yourself now, and this time succeed where you failed last time. It is the easier option for you because if Wahid Azal takes you to court, you are dead.

___________________

https://dalehusband.com/2021/12/08/defeating-wahid-azal-again/#comment-21136
December 9, 2021 at 3:04 AM
Yes, you do need permission. No legal transfer of copyright was ever made over to you. You have violated intellectual property and you have committed fraud. None of the screenshots you have posted remotely demonstrate any transfer of rights of intellectual property. Go talk to a lawyer.

_________________

https://dalehusband.com/2021/12/08/defeating-wahid-azal-again/#comment-21138
December 9, 2021 at 3:11 AM
Because, dumbass, your logo is not the content. The content is the podcast which was made on Wahid Azal’s device. He has sole propriety and copyright over it. Not you. You can keep your stupid logo. But the content belongs to Azal – and the content is independent of any logo by you – and this is EXACTLY what any court will tell you. You aren’t a lawyer. Don’t know the first thing about the subject. But you are going to be taught a lesson now you will not soon forget.

_________________

I could assert repeatedly that one should ask a scientist to confirm that the earth is flat and that wouldn’t make it so, of course.

So for several weeks, I kept waiting and wishing and hoping I would have my day in court with him…….and it NEVER happened! Instead, I finally got these emails:

alt
 

Dear Dale Husband,

In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we’ve completed processing your counter notification.

The following videos have been restored unless you have deleted them:

________________

Dear Dale Husband

We are writing in response to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) counter-notification that you provided to us relating to material located on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/654107711 (the “Material”), which was previously removed as a result of a DMCA notice.

Please note that, as of the date hereof, in accordance with DMCA provision 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(2)(C), Vimeo has restored the Material. Vimeo has also notified the person that filed the DMCA notice that Vimeo did not receive notice, within the prescribed statutory period, that a court action was filed seeking to restrain you from engaging in alleged infringing activity relating to the Material.

We trust that this concludes this matter.

Sincerely,
Vimeo Inc.

_____________

SO WAHID AZAL CHICKENED OUT IN THE END! ROTFLMAO!!!!

 

 

The TLC Network should be SHUT DOWN, permanently!

I am beyond disgusted with the TLC network. The initials originally stood for The Learning Channel, but over the decades it has degenerated into a cesspool of reality shows and idiocy! Indeed, I consider it to be downright PERVERTED!

Among other examples of the filth that has been shown on it……

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_Kids_and_Counting

19 Kids and Counting (formerly 17 Kids and Counting and 18 Kids and Counting) is an American reality television series that aired on the cable channel TLC for seven years until its cancellation in 2015. The show features the Duggar family: parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their 19 children – nine daughters and ten sons – all of whose names begin with the letter “J”. During the duration of the show, two children were born, three children were married and four grandchildren were born.

The show focuses on the life of the Duggar family, who are devout Baptists, and frequently discusses values of purity, modesty and faith in God. The Duggars avoid birth control, saying they have decided to allow God to determine the number of children they have. All of the children are homeschooled and access to entertainment such as movies and television is limited. The Duggar family has also used “blanket time,” a controversial practice, with their children. They practice chaperoned courtship, in which a couple becomes acquainted only in a group setting. The values presented on the show have been associated with the Quiverfull movement, which has been described as promoting strict family conformity, male hierarchies and subservient roles for women. The Duggars have stated that they are not associated with the Quiverfull movement. However, in an article formerly published on their website titled “Why Have Such a Large Family?”, the Duggars reference Psalms 127:3-5, from which the Quiverfull movement name comes. Moreover, in 2001, Jim Bob and Michelle were interviewed for an article published on a Quiverfull affiliated website.

I have written about the Quiverfull movement before:

There is still hope even for those who are brainwashed
Ten Reasons the Quiverfull Movement is Idiotic

And I have suspected for a long time that some of the leaders of that movement may be pedophiles. And now we have evidence for that! Josh Duggar, who was featured on the show mentioned above, is now going to prison for child rape, including some of his own sisters as his victims! (((((PUKE)))))

Telltale wants Josh Duggar to never be free again. For me, that’s not enough!

Wahid Azal and his Bayani gang hit a new low

A pedophile is a person attracted sexually only to children and aggressively seeking them out for sexual purposes, disregarding their own feelings and needs. Not only do I condemn such a thing, I actually believe convicted child molesters deserve the DEATH PENALTY!

Someone commented on that video:

I remember seeing a lawyer, saying that “smiling for your mugshot is the dumbest thing you can do.” Cause it makes the prosecutors job so much easier. They can just come out and say “Look at them! They’re smiling! They’re not sorry they did this crime at all!”

___________________

Someone else said:

Likewise, there is no way of knowing how many children were raped by Catholic priests over the course of the Catholic Church’s over 1500 year history. The victims could number in the tens of millions! And I blame priestly celibacy for that!

Priestly Celibacy is unbiblical and stupid!

There are other programs that were shown on TLC and just as disgusting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toddlers_%26_Tiaras

Toddlers & Tiaras or Another Toddlers & Tiaras is an American reality television series that aired on TLC from January 27, 2009 to October 16, 2013. After a three-year hiatus due to much controversy, Another Toddlers and Tiaras aired the sequel on August 24, 2016. The show follows the personal lives of families of contestants in a child beauty pageant. Like many shows about children pageants, it generated controversy for dressing the children provocatively. The show led to other reality show spin-offs: Eden’s World, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, and Cheer Perfection. On November 24, 2016, TLC cancelled the show after its 7th season.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Honey_Boo_Boo

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo was an American reality television series that aired on TLC featuring the family of child beauty pageant contestant Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson. The show premiered on August 8, 2012, and ended on August 14, 2014. Thompson and her family originally rose to fame on TLC’s reality series Toddlers & Tiaras.[1] The show’s name comes from a taunt that Alana hurled at another pageant contestant during her debut in Toddlers and Tiaras,[2] but a sweeping misinterpretation from the general public resulted in Alana being referred to as “Honey Boo Boo Child” instead. The show revolves around Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson and her family’s adventures in the town of McIntyre, Georgia. The reality series received predominantly negative reviews from television critics during its run.

On October 24, 2014, TLC cancelled the series after four seasons when cast member June “Mama June” Shannon was seen with Mark Anthony McDaniel, a man who served 10 years in prison after being convicted of aggravated child molestation in 2004 and who is a registered sex offender. This prompted Shannon to admit to Entertainment Tonight that the father of her daughter Lauryn “Pumpkin” Shannon was not McDaniel as previously stated, but Michael Anthony Ford, another convicted sex offender who served time for sexual exploitation of minors after being caught on ‘To Catch a Predator‘ in 2005.[3] A number of episodes had already been taped for a fifth season, but none were released until TLC aired four of them as the two-hour special Here Comes Honey Boo Boo: The Lost Episodes on April 21, 2017.

YIKES!!! That mother should have lost custody of her daughters. And Alana Thompson should get years of intense therapy!

____________________

Blair, aka the iilluminaughtii, slammed Toddlers and Tiaras with this:

It seems to me that for pedophiles, both the Quiverfull movement and the TLC Network are like buffet restaurants. And we should go after both of those things until they are GONE!

MORE evidence of Wahid Azal’s blatant hypocrisy!

Wow, I thought Donald Trump and other bigoted Republicans were the worst hypocrites in the world! But instead…..

Well, just see all these screenshots for yourself!

Liar9

Stolen Blog Entry1

Stolen Blog Entry2

Stolen Blog Entry3

Stolen Blog Entry4

Stolen Blog Entry5

Stolen Blog Entry6

Stolen Blog Entry7

Stolen Blog Entry8

Stolen Blog Entry9

Stolen Blog Entry10

Stolen Blog Entry11

Stolen Blog Entry12

Stolen Blog Entry13

Stolen Blog Entry14

Stolen Blog Entry15

So he steals my blog entries, posts copies of them on HIS account in the Internet Archive, misrepresents them to defame me, accuses me of defaming someone else, and finally claims as HIS property and not mine a podcast that is clearly mine too and files copyright claims to suppress the podcast in both YouTube and Vimeo, violating my rights as a copyright holder.

This meme sums up that asshole’s totally depraved character:

51097666_1678926498875818_6117712662932488192_o

BTW, Vimeo gave me his address and phone number……and I will be looking for a lawyer to sue him over all he has done to me! It’s finally time for that sociopath’s abuse to end!

Battling with Wahid Azal on Vimeo too

Having won my fight with Wahid Azal over my YouTube channel (it was restored on December 6), I focused on the podcast he and I made together that I suspected all along was the real target of his efforts to suppress me. So I uploaded another copy of it to my channel on Vimeo (the same channel I posted most of my “Debbie and Carrie” episodes to during my exile from YouTube) and then announced what I had done in r/exbahai.

And what happened next was no surprise!

Dear Dale Husband:

Your video titled “Podcast with Wahid Azal” (https://vimeo.com/654107711) was removed on Dec 8, 2021 in response to a takedown notice submitted by N. Wahid Azal based on “FSO content” pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”).

Why did this happen?

We removed your video because a third party claims that your video infringes its copyright. The DMCA requires Vimeo to remove allegedly infringing content upon receipt of a valid takedown notice.

Who submitted this takedown?

The takedown notice was sent by:
Copyright Holder: N. Wahid Azal

Can I challenge this removal?

If you believe that the third party claim was mistaken, you may challenge it by filing a counter-notification form, available here: https://vimeo.com/dmca#counter_notification. Please read our full DMCA policy for more information on the counter-notification process. Alternately, you may contact the copyright holder (or representative) directly and ask them to withdraw their claim.

Will anything happen to my Vimeo account status?

This takedown will count as a copyright “strike” against your account. If you receive three unresolved copyright strikes, we will disable your account under our repeat infringer policy: https://vimeo.com/dmca#repeat_infringer.

You can review any copyright strikes your account receives here: https://vimeo.com/settings/videos/dmca.

You can also learn more about dealing with DMCA strikes in our Help Center here: https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/sections/203914978-DMCA

We strongly suggest that you carefully review the remaining videos in your account to make sure there are no videos that may infringe upon the rights of others. If you are in doubt as to whether a particular video infringes upon another’s rights, you should remove it. Finally, you should ensure that all future videos you upload do not infringe any other person’s rights.

Sincerely,<br />Vimeo.com, Inc.

So it was confirmed, he was desperate to get rid of that podcast!

Naturally, I fought back as a matter of principle. And that led to this interesting exchange:

Aaron (Vimeo Trust & Safety)

Dec 9, 2021, 6:10 AM EST

Hi,Thanks for reaching out.

It looks like your video was removed because Vimeo received an official notice of copyright infringement for it. We are required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) to remove videos when we receive takedown notices from the copyright owner or their agent.

This takedown notice was made regarding:

“Podcast with Wahid Azal” (https://vimeo.com/654107711) was removed on Dec 8, 2021 due to a claim by N. Wahid Azal based on “FSO content”

DMCA Claimant(s)

N. Wahid Azal

If you believe that your material has been removed by mistake or misidentification, you might be able to talk to the copyright owner who made the complaint and convince them to retract their notice.

Alternately, you may be able to provide VIMEO with a counter-notification through our online tool: https://vimeo.com/dmca/counter

If you have any doubts or questions about the counter-notification process, we recommend that you consult your legal counsel. THERE MAY BE SERIOUS LEGAL CONSEQUENCES IF THIS FORM IS MISUSED.

You should not re-upload the material, as further complaints against you could result in removal of your account.

You can find more information about your copyright strikes and past DMCA notices here: https://vimeo.com/settings/videos/dmca

You can learn more about the DMCA process on Vimeo here: https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/sections/203914978-DMCA

Sincerely,
Aaron
Trust & Safety

________________

Dear Aaron,
Thanks for your reply.
Since I am clearly a copyright owner of the video that was taken down (it features my voice and written lines, plus it has my Circle H logo on it which belongs only to me), I am confident that N. Wahid Azal won’t sue me in court without the case instantly being thrown out for lacking legal merit. I hope the video will be restored on Vimeo in a few weeks. Please let me know if that happens.
Dale Husband
_________________

Rohit (Vimeo Trust & Safety)

Dec 9, 2021, 10:48 PM EST

Hi,We are in receipt of your counter-notification.

In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(2) (B), we have informed [Wahid Aza] that a counter notification has been filed claiming that the material originally located at [https://vimeo.com/654107711] (the “Material”) was erroneously removed from Vimeo.

Within ten (10) business days, Vimeo may receive notice that a court action has been filed regarding the Material. If we receive such notice, Vimeo will be unable to restore the Material. If we do not receive such notice within this period of time, Vimeo will restore the Material as soon as practicable.

Sincerely,
Rohit

_______________

Dear Rohit,
Thank you for the update.
Below are screenshots from when Wahid Azal posted in the exbahai subreddit about the podcast in question. As you can see, his claim in the present day that he owns exclusively the copyright to the podcast is disproved by the fact that the podcast’s original title has MY name in it and its thumbnail had MY Circle H logo on it. I have also included a full sized pic of the logo, complete with my name and a copyright symbol on it. When Wahid Azal put my logo on that podcast, it was legally made mine and his attempts to suppress the material years later by filing false copyright claims against it on both YouTube and Vimeo violate MY intellectual property rights.
Dale Husband
Podcast1
Podcast2
Podcast3
circleh1 with copyright
___________________

Rohit (Vimeo Trust & Safety)

Dec 10, 2021, 2:56 AM EST

Hi Dale,Thanks for the clarification!

As a platform for user-generated content, our obligations and procedures for dealing with claims of copyright infringement are governed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), which requires us to remove videos when the copyright owner (or their agent) send us a formal takedown notice.

There may be cases where they are unaware of the fact that the uploader actually has a license. When that happens, the DMCA provides a remedy in the form of a formal counter-notification.

We have considered your counter-notice and processed the same.

Sincerely,
Rohit

__________________

Dear Rohit,
If you want damning proof of what a liar and a hypocrite Wahid Azal is, just look at this video on your own platform:
Podcast4

That video, like many others he made, contains slander against me……and he also put MY Circle H logo on it!
I want it removed!
Dale Husband
__________________

Rohit (Vimeo Trust & Safety)

Dec 10, 2021, 4:09 AM EST

Hello,
 
While we cannot speak to the truth or veracity of your claims or allegations, the content to which you refer has been removed from vimeo.com, as it violates the Terms of Service of our website.
 
This letter, and the actions taken as described herein, do not and shall not constitute or be construed as an admission of liability or wrongdoing whatsoever on our part or the part of any Vimeo member or user, and do not constitute and shall not be deemed to constitute any waiver, release or impairment of any kind of any of our rights available to us at law or in equity, all of which are hereby expressly reserved.
 
Furthermore, this letter, and the actions taken as described herein do not constitute, and shall not be construed as, an agreement or course of dealing by us to in the future take any action or refrain from taking any action.
 
Finally, please note that, if you feel threatened, harassed or believe that a crime has been committed, we recommend that you contact local law enforcement immediately or, at your own discretion, an attorney.
 
We trust that this concludes this matter.

Sincerely,
Rohit

____________________

Dear Rohit.
Yes, I am quite satisfied, for now. Not to mention impressed at the swiftness of your response!
Soon enough I will continue my battle with Wahid Azal to get that podcast he and I made together back so I can use it to completely discredit him and prove what a two-faced backstabber he has been for many years. That’s why he is desperate to suppress that material. But that’s not your fight, of course…..you and the other admin at both YouTube and Vimeo are merely the referees.
Dale Husband
___________________

Rohit (Vimeo Trust & Safety)

Dec 10, 2021, 4:27 AM EST 
 
You’re very welcome!  
 
Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any further questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Rohit

_______________

And THAT is why I now think Vimeo is the better platform for posting videos on. They are FAR more responsive to their users than YouTube ever was!

Defeating Wahid Azal again!

See this:

Before that, I got these e-mails:

Dear Dale Husband,

In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we’ve completed processing your counter notification.

The following videos have been restored unless you have deleted them:

Dear Dale Husband,

In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we’ve completed processing your counter notification.

The following videos have been restored unless you have deleted them:

I was certain that “Nawir Abu Yasser”, who filed the copyright claims against those two videos, was a pseudonym being used by Wahid Azal. My investigation of the blog used against me led to these screenshots:

Gatehood1

Gatehood2

Gatehood5

Gatehood6

Gatehood7

Gatehood8

Fake person, fake blog, fake copyright claims. A clear case of FRAUD!

But I wasn’t done. As soon as my YouTube account was restored, I was so determined to face Wahid Azal in a legal battle directly that I filed another counter notification against the one remaining video he had flagged with his OWN NAME to suppress!

Dear Dale Husband,

Thank you for your counter notification. It has been forwarded to the party that sent the takedown notification.

Keep in mind that by submitting this counter notification, you’ve initiated a formal legal dispute process. As such, YouTube will handle this process in accordance with the law. This process takes some time, so we kindly ask for your patience.

Upon forwarding your counter notification to the claimant, we will allow them 10–14 business days from this date to respond with evidence that they have taken court action against you to prevent the reinstatement of the video(s) in question.

If we receive no response, after that time period your videos will be restored and the associated penalties on your account will be resolved.

You will receive updates in this email thread about your counter notification’s status. You can also check its status within your Video Manager. Though no response is required of you, please respond directly to this message should you choose to provide us with any further information.

– The YouTube Team

Counter Notification as follows:

Videos included in counter notification:

Display name of uploader: Dale Husband

The video was a direct collaboration between me and Wahid Azal back when he and I were on friendly terms, before he backstabbed me and the rest of the exBaha’i community in reddit, which he was later expelled from for disruptive conduct. I wrote the questions and he answered them as part of an interview process. By definition, a video that is a product of two or more YouTube users belongs to ALL of them and for one to claim exclusive copyright over the content is an act of FRAUD against the other(s) and against YouTube. Wahid Azal wants to erase any evidence that he and I were friends because his betrayal of me (which I documented in other videos and blog entries) destroys his credibility as a religious leader. He has sent threats, both personal, and legal, against me in an effort to frighten me. Do NOT enable his abuse! https://dalehusband.com/2019/08/17/a-podcast-interview-featuring-myself-and-wahid-azal/

I swear, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good faith belief the material was removed due to a mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.

I consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the district in which my address is located, or if my address is outside of the United States, the judicial district in which YouTube is located, and will accept service of process from the claimant.

Dale Husband

Then I took the copy of the video stored on my computer and uploaded it to my account on Vimeo:

Keep in mind that for over two years, Azal has been demonizing me first as a racist, then as a pedophile and finally as suicidal.

  1. I’ve been anti-racist since I was a child, despite being a white person brought up in a southern state (Texas) and even being originally a Southern Baptist. I was smart and ethical enough to see that racism (and other forms of bigotry) was just bullshit that could never be excused! And I have made many, MANY, MANY statements damning racism.
  2. As for pedophilia, several years ago I knew a little girl who was molested by someone that she and I both knew and that, plus knowing a right-wing extremist politician (Roy Moore) was a pervert sexually assaulting underaged girls when he was younger drove me to denounce him and others like him in a blog entry……which Wahid Azal then used to try to “prove” I was myself a pedophile!  That’s as absurd as using Adolph Hitler’s book Main Kamph to prove he was a Zionist.
  3. His claim I was suicidal was another attempt to depict me as weak after the pedophile angle was debunked. My cousin Jim Williams did die by suicide over a decade ago. And it was in his memory that I made this video:

So insulting actual victims of racism, pedophilia, and suicide by calling ME a racist, a pedophile and suicidal is something only a profoundly immature, amoral and TOXIC person would ever do!

zhs5kz6132q31

Azal has denied that he and I were ever truly friends, since if I was indeed as horrible as he has claimed, how could he and I have been involved with each other? That podcast featuring both of us proves him to be a liar, full stop!

Azal has painted himself into a corner he cannot get out of and the only way he can retain any credibility he might have had (not that he ever had much, really) is to completely suppress all the evidence of his dealings with me in a friendly manner. But as long as I live and have access to my computer files and the internet anywhere, he cannot succeed!

My guess is that as both himself and “Nawir Abu Yasser” he tried to get me banned quickly from YouTube by flagging three of my videos for copyright infringement. YouTube must have been suspicious of what was happening from the start, because those initial attempts only got me two copyright strikes, not three that was needed to shut down my account. As a result, I had time to issue counter notifications on two of the three videos attacked and also took YouTube’s “Copyright School” that would allow the copyright strikes against me to be removed in a few months. So in desperation, Azal flagged one more video, my podcast interview with him! But since that video clearly belongs to me too, Azal has legally sealed his fate!

My ultimate goal is at least one of two things:

  1. Sue him directly in court for harassment, defamation, theft of intellectual property, and fraud and collect damages in a large enough amount to bankrupt him.
  2. Get him banned from YouTube, permanently!

Wish me luck! 😀

Update:  Wahid Azal issued another phony copyright claim against the copy of the podcast he and I made together that I uploaded on Vimeo, also getting it taken down. He also made some interesting assertions in comments he tried to place on my blog.

Liar9

But the reality, as revealed by screenshots of a conversation between him and me via Facebook Messenger in 2019, destroy completely his claims against me once and for all!

Liar1

Liar2

Liar3

Liar4

Liar5

Liar6

Liar7

Liar8

We Americans have a term for people like Wahid Azal who pull two-faced shit like this!

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Indian-Giver

Update on my Current Battle on YouTube

After I filed counter notices about the videos that Wahid Azal made fraudulent copyright claims on, YouTube sent me this message:

Dear Dale Husband,
Thank you for your counter notification. It has been forwarded to the party that sent the takedown notification.
Keep in mind that by submitting this counter notification, you’ve initiated a formal legal dispute process. As such, YouTube will handle this process in accordance with the law. This process takes some time, so we kindly ask for your patience.
Upon forwarding your counter notification to the claimant, we will allow them 10–14 business days from this date to respond with evidence that they have taken court action against you to prevent the reinstatement of the video(s) in question.
If we receive no response, after that time period your videos will be restored and the associated penalties on your account will be resolved.
You will receive updates in this email thread about your counter notification’s status. You can also check its status within your Video Manager. Though no response is required of you, please respond directly to this message should you choose to provide us with any further information.
– The YouTube Team
Counter Notification as follows:
Videos included in counter notification:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQO_7clkdHY
Display name of uploader: Dale Husband
I am the actual owner of the content made in this video, not the person making the copyright claim against me. I wrote the script and made the video based on actual events that took place in reddit in 2019, so I am puzzled as to how descriptions of real life events and of real people can be considered copyright infringment. Rather, the one making the false claim is attempting to suppress my legal right to free speech. That is my legal claim and I will defend it in court if called upon to do so!
I swear, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good faith belief the material was removed due to a mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.
I consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the district in which my address is located, or if my address is outside of the United States, the judicial district in which YouTube is located, and will accept service of process from the claimant.
Dale Husband
[address, e-mail address, and phone number omitted]

I then wrote them back:

After doing some searching, I have found the basis for the false copyright claims made against me regarding these two videos I made:
https://youtu.be/mQO_7clkdHY
https://youtu.be/9_FGQY1WcRU
Here is a blog: https://gatehood.com/
If you look at the very bottom of the screen, you will see: © 2021 Gatehood . Powered by WordPress.
This indicates to me that the blog was made only this year. And yet…….
https://gatehood.com/betrayed-by-brett-hard/
Posted April 13, 2017
https://gatehood.com/an-update-on-brett-hart/
December 24, 2017
So how is it possible for blog entries to be even older than the actual blog they are on? Through a process I call backdating.
In WordPress blogs, it is possible to change the date of a blog entry. This may be done to take an old blog entry, modify it with updates, and then move it to the top of the blog to allow its readers to see it again. I call this process forwarddating. But blog entries can also be backdated, meaning a date earlier than when the blog entry was originally posted.
For the sake of clarity, here is my original blog entry that contains the script for the one of the videos I made on YouTube:
https://dalehusband.com/2019/09/28/betrayed-by-wahid-azal-podcast/

That is indeed MY original content!

The real life event referred to in my blog entry is here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/comments/cxhzog/measures_to_restore_civility/
This occurred in 2019, NOT 2017.
Wahid Azal attempted to destroy a community in reddit with lies, innuendo, and threats and was expelled for that, and my videos reported on his treachery to the world outside reddit. It is clear that he is now attempting to suppress my reports of his disgraceful behavior, so he must have created the blog Gatehood and its two blog entries for the sole purpose of denying my freedom of speech. By making those copyright claims against me, he has committed FRAUD!
Dale Husband

So, what will Wahid Azal’s next move be?

Wahid Azal is trying to get me banned from YouTube

I have just been informed that he has made completely false copyright claims against me for videos I made that contain original content, specifically criticism of his actions on reddit back in 2019. It is clear that he is trying to suppress those videos because they have damaged his reputation. But telling the truth about someone, no matter how disgraceful his behavior may be, is always justified and must never be suppressed as a matter of integrity.

Here are screenshots into my YouTube account documenting Azal’s latest act of treachery:

Censorshit1Censorshit2Censorshit3Censorshit4

I am confident that YouTube will soon recognize at least two of the copyright claims for what they really are and restore the two videos I filed counter-notices on: “Betrayed by Wahid Azal” and “Update about Wahid Azal”. I chose not to contest the claim on the third video, “Wahid Azal prays for the coronavirus to kill people”, because it does seem to have a valid point, but the first two certainly do not!

Update: I found the basis for the copyright claim:

An update on Brett hart

And it is a copy of what I made, but it is backdated to make it look like it was made first. Clever bastard, that Wahid Azal, but now I have a basis for a counter claim against him!

Not all Bayanis are @$$#0l&$, it seems

It is unfortunate that I first learned about the Bayani/Babist religion from the psychotic backstabber known as Wahid Azal. His betrayal of the exBaha’i community in reddit and of me personally colored my opinion of the Bayani religion itself, causing me to assume that the Bayanis as a whole deserved nothing but eternal damnation for their acts of treachery against others.

Now I’ve had to rethink that assumption, thanks to a friend I made in Facebook known as Paul Schuhl or Pawel Szul.

This is his Facebook profile:   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100013306660871

This is his blog on WordPress:   https://religionofbayanuk.wordpress.com/

And this is his new group on Facebook to promote his interpretation of Babism:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/3089069504457427/

Naturally, Wahid Azal and his toxic cultists went after him once they learned of what he was doing. Some of their attacks are documented on Schuhl’s blog:

https://religionofbayan.wordpress.com/2021/11/12/wahid-azal-opponent-spits-venom-at-me-pawel-szul/

(Note: Schuhl included an exact copy of my own blog entry defending myself against Wahid Azal’s lies: https://dalehusband.com/2020/05/12/wahid-azal-and-his-bayani-gang-hit-a-new-low/ .)

https://religionofbayan.wordpress.com/2021/11/13/wahid-azal-attacks-me-again-and-now-also-shaykh-plato/

https://religionofbayan.wordpress.com/2021/11/14/insulting-my-person-by-wahid-azal-sect-god-forgive-them-for-they-know-not-what-they-do/

After looking into his Facebook group and seeing what a war zone it had become, I advised Schuhl: “you should identify and expel all the known followers of Wahid Azal from it.

And in case anyone says his doing that is censoring opinions critical of him, it should be noted that  on NONE of Wahid Azal’s videos on YouTube are comments by others allowed. So NO ONE can directly confront him about his many lies. Since he censors opposing opinions on his YouTube channel, he and his followers shouldn’t complain about being expelled from any place they are disruptive in, whether it is a Facebook group, or the ExBahai subreddit!

 

The Hilarious Discrediting of DavidBinOwen

So last blog entry I dealt with the Beavis of reddit. Now it’s time to go after its Butt-Head!

Take a look at this:

I’ve been an inactive Baha’i since about college… 15 years or so? I married a non-Baha’i who is a lovely person and does his best to do right by his actions but is generally an atheist with some agnostic considerations. We have two young kids now (5 and 2) and this is about the time when I would have considered starting them in Baha’i classes if it weren’t for COVID… except…

There’s a reason I’ve been inactive. Ever since I was engaged to my husband of now 12 years, the Baha’i’s in the community I grew up in would immediately ask if he was a Baha’i – not how we met, or what our plans were, and when I said, no he’s not, their immediate answer was “Well, he will be one day.” And I was NEVER, ever out to convert my husband. I hate the Ruhi books – and I’ve done like four of them. I did the first book twice. And it all reeks of brainwashing as opposed to independent investigation of the truth. It felt more like a test than open and honest study of the texts.

My mom is Iranian and I’m like a seventh generation Baha’i on her side, and my dad converted from Catholicism to the Faith. My dad hates the Ruhi books and has pretty much become inactive too other than the occasional Feast. I’ve moved far away due to jobs and graduate school and ended up putting roots in a new, large city. And the community just puts me off. I never realized how unnerving being introduced as a new Baha’i to the community is. Immediately I was jumped upon to introduce myself, and my family, and to drag my non-Baha’i husband along and volunteer my home for events and join a Ruhi circle…

There was so much expectation that I shut down and never went back – and I’m an extrovert so this wasn’t me being overwhelmed by people in general.

What happened to practicing the Faith as opposed to just talking about it to other people? What happened to asking ppl in the community if they need help, and providing it, instead of asking for every ounce of free time a person has left? We’ve moved again within the same city and I’m afraid to reach out to the local chapter here incase I’m overrun. Or get voted onto the LSA, because I have no time or sanity for that – thank COVID for depression and anxiety and other issues.

I believe in most of the tenants of the Faith, but I find it harder and harder to be a “Baha’i” in things other than my own personal ethical and moral codes and behaviors. And if I try to bring it up with Baha’i friends from my childhood… they sort of just don’t know what to do with me and tell me to pray.

I miss having a community. I want my kids to know about the Faith and all the good things Baha’i’s do or at least did when I was a child. Maybe my eyes are just opening to it now, or maybe something shifted around the time I was in college… but I’m so disappointed in our communities and their overwhelming desire to convert rather than serve.

____________

This was later cross posted to r/exbahai:

At the original post. a member named Any-Part4466 picked a fight with the one who made the OP.

NO one should say you have to do anything in order to be a Baha’i. You are free to not give to the Funds and free to not attend Feasts or meetings as you wish. NO one says you should devote excessive time to the Faith in service if you do not want to. That being said, I have learned from personal experience that there is a spiritual price one pays for being inactive and for having negative attitudes towards others and engaging in excessive criticism.

In my experience, most of the problems people have like yours relate to attitudes and expecting things from the community without offering anything in return. In my community, we focus on service to others, including local food banks and shelters for children for abusive homes and other groups as well.

A number of persons in my community do participate actively in the Institute process, of which Ruhi courses are only a part of not the whole, but many (most) do not have much time and some may, at most, attend a devotional or take a Ruhi course maybe once every couple of years. The Institute focus has been on devotional meetings, study circles (which do not have to be Ruhi and have included Kitab-i-Iqan and Will & Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha study), children’s classes, and home visits. There is less, not more, focus on conversion than in the past when I first became a Baha’i in the late 1980s and early 1990s, contrary to what you are suggesting.

First, I never have been in a Baha’i community where a Baha’i was expected to convert his/her spouse. There are often some few pushy or nosy individuals in any community (certainly were in the church I grew up in) but you have to just learn to look past them or forgive them or simply tell them appropriately it is not their business.

Second, I find your statements about the Ruhi books completely offensive and contrary to the experience of most Baha’is. There are some elements and statements at times in sections that I disagree with and express that appropriately. They mostly ask open-minded questions, allow for dialogue, emphasize service, and provide a perspective. I have no clue why anyone would feel that they are brainwashing. All materials in school and in a religious community come from a belief and perspective in my experience. In the Baha’i Faith and in the way Ruhi courses are supposed to be tutored, free and open discussion is allowed as long as it does not veer into criticism of others. My sense is that is just a pejorative term people use when they do not like or disagree with something and used far too often and inappropriately.

Third, most Baha’i communities are welcoming in my experience having moved around quite a bit in my Baha’i life of 30+ years. Most Baha’is once they get to know each other are helpful and friendly. Perhaps the real issue is how you present yourself, verbally or non-verbally to other Baha’is and your attitude.

Fourth, there is no “local chapter” in the Baha’i Faith. There are Local Spiritual Assemblies and local communities or groups where no Assembly exists. All LSAs are organized on a citywide basis, not within a city. In larger cities, they sometimes divide the city into clusters for certain Feasts and meeting in order to make for smaller and more friendly, personal feasts and less travel but those are not LSAs. So, therefore, some of what you are saying does not make any sense in the context of the Baha’i community. If you are in a larger city, then worrying about being elected to the LSA with the attitudes you expressed seems strange and odd.

She replied as follows:

My words have certainly struck a cord with you, and I apologize if they have conveyed any sense of an attack on the Faith. It is both possible for me to love the Faith and struggle at the same time. I am hurt and lost and have been brushed off by those in my local and extended communities when I’ve talked about these struggles with the Faith, so I brought them online where I thought maybe I could get more perspectives than quotes from the texts or pressure to do Ruhi. I don’t mean to criticize so harshly, but I do see how my words read as such.

I am regretful my experience with Ruhi has not been yours – I truly wish it had been. But the way the classes I specifically took were run did not lend me the feeling of study but rather of reciting and writing an answer that we were guided to, rather than formed ourselves.

I would like to defend myself that I never said the community demanded these things of me. Expectation and disappointment can be unspoken and no less heavy a burden. A community can be warm and friendly and engaging – and most Baha’i communities are – but even then to be so eager to welcome you that they overdo it. I have also been a part of online Baha’i communities – a Baha’i mother group on FB – and some of them said such nasty things about politics and the LGBTQ community that I had to leave. I’ve known Baha’i’s who beat their spouses and children (I myself was a child at the time).

No community is perfect, and I strive to recognize this in my own community as well as myself – I have not been an exemplary example of a Baha’i since becoming inactive. I give back to my communities in my own way – I serve by teaching when people ask me about my Faith of their own free will, I serve my local community through volunteering and helping my neighbors when they need help with kids or food or rides to healthcare. I don’t often remember my daily prayers and I definitely need to get back into giving to the Fund.

My apologies for not using the word cluster – I couldn’t remember it as I have been inactive for some time so used the next best word choice to describe the smaller communities in a large city. Our local clusters have LSA’s. Maybe not in the cities you have lived in or visited, my birth city only has one LSA, but where I currently live, yes, that’s how it is.

I’m not trying to attack the Faith. I am trying to find someone, anyone to talk to that isn’t going to tell me to pray my struggles away. Your response makes me feel more isolated, more alone, as though as a Baha’i I am not allowed to show any weakness in my Faith. If you are so offended by my struggles, please just don’t respond.

He ignored her pleas and kept attacking her, prompting me and others to confront him.

Later:

Of course, this prompted another battle. And then…..

 

Free speech that promotes disinformation and is just hatred and insults is not worthwhile. It is just sick and degrading.

____________

So you believe in worthwhile (as judged by you) speech and reserve the right to deem others as sick much like DBO. You don’t believe in or support free speech.

________________

I don’t know exactly what DBO believes. I’m not DBO as you have imagined and demonized him.

You can’t complain about free speech and then participate in a subreddit that purports to have no rules, does not apply the rules of reddit consistently, and regularly blocks and bans free speech when the mods don’t like what is being said. Two of the three mods on the exbahai subreddit do not tolerate free speech because they have banned numerous persons there over time, most on false pretenses because they committed far fewer offenses than the exbahais regularly commit. So, the whole subreddit is basically a sh$$ show, hypocrisy, and a lie and has gotten worse over time in that regard.

As a Baha’i, Baha’u’llah warned against an excess of speech and clearly indicated some speech is not worthy. That does not mean that I believe in strict censorship, just that a lot of what is said is really offensive and disrespectful and disinformation. We should regulate what we say. Sometimes, I push the limits myself admittedly.

Whoops, he made a boo boo!!!! LOL! DavidBinOwen (aka Any-Part4466) was sockpuppeting, no doubt to get around that so many of us had blocked him!

Which led to this post:

And of course, even after being exposed, the idiot kept on lying.

Any-Part4466

I hope you realize that your post about DBO’s post was bait by him. It just drew attention to my posts and his. It does not really serve you very well in the end. It only exposes further the hypocrisy and inconsistencies on the exbahai forum which bans such content. Also, to the extent a number of the individuals on the exbahai subreddit use multiple accounts at times (and they do), they are being silly.

All the chest beating and bragging is also a riot. Now I’m laughing.

No more needs to be said!

History Repeats Itself in the ExBaha’i Subreddit

Take a look at this:

That was over two years ago. I was reminded of this incident by a fellow member of r/exbahai here:

Where he and I said:

The reddit Baha’is often spy on us and in the past even tried to disrupt our community outright.

Here are some stories of their works:

https://dalehusband.com/2018/04/08/treachery-of-bahais-reddit/

https://dalehusband.com/2018/07/04/muslim-bashing-and-libel-against-ex-bahais-in-reddit/

https://dalehusband.com/2020/07/12/another-fight-with-davidbinowen-in-reddit/

https://dalehusband.com/2020/08/26/another-victory-over-the-bahai-faith-and-one-of-its-bigoted-hypocrites/

______________

I can second that. I’ve even had some of the Azali losers message me after I hurt their little feelings lmao

________________

Yeah, they were a threat to us a couple of years ago after their ringleader was banned from here for telling outright lies about us to make himself look like a genius who alone knew the truth about how the world works, but eventually he was totally discredited and his followers quit coming around here.

_________________

He legit started messaging me when someone mentioned him on the sub and I commented that his beliefs (a cross between Marxism and babies) sounded contradictory. One of the dumbest convos I ever engaged in where he accused me of being a crypto-Baha’i. They’re like Baha’is with crack head energy.

__________

“a cross between Marxism and babies”! What a nice PUNishment for Wahid Asshole, eh?

For the sake of clarity, these are the exact statements that got that dingbat tossed out of r/exbahai forever.

https://www.reveddit.com/v/exbahai/comments/cxdsax/answering_investigator919s_disinfo_part_1/

بِسم الله الكاشف الغطاء

Investigator919 has a huge bee in their bonnet regarding the Bayān, and has demonstrated this bias time again. But it is one of those typical woolly biases that one sees amongst liberal Muslims living in the West who are schizophrenic to the core over the Baha’i issue while then parrot fashion regurgitating the uncritical tripe of some of their more reactionary brethren. Now, it is no secret that both the supporters of the liberal faction of the Islamic Republic of Iran congregating around Hasan Rouhani and the supporters of the Rafsanjani mafia (to which Investigator919 as well as the chief moderator of this subreddit are linked) and the Haifan Baha’is are in an open alliance (which I wrote about publicly here in 2016, https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/25/behind-the-politics-of-a-current-brouhaha-in-iran-an-ex-president-ayatollahs-daughter-and-the-bahais/). One of the biggest threats this alliance of convenience perceives — just as the Haifan Baha’is and the Khomeinists of the pre-1979 era did as well — are the Bayāni community. At the time SAVAK, which the Baha’is controlled via its deputy chief Parviz Sabeti (a Sangasari Baha’i), and the hawza realized that Ali Shariati (d. 1977) was in fact a Bayānī and was actually promoting the Bayān via his ideas of revolutionary Islam sans the clericocracy wherein ‘Black Shi’ism‘ indeed represents the hawza and the reactionary mullahs with ‘Red Shi’ism’ standing in for the Bāb and the religion of the Bayān. That certain factions of the IRI and the Haifan Baha’is are in bed together and are protecting each others interests is no longer just a mere theory, and so these two together will pull rank against the Bayān while wheeling in dubious paid trolls to muddy waters even further. On this subreddit we have seen this happen time and again especially when the moderators were openly pulling rank behind DavidbenOwen.

Now, Investigator919 regularly cherry-picks from the Bayān. Yet their technical grasp of both Arabic and Persian as well as the writings of the Bāb in general are quite limited (although that doesn’t seem to matter to those ex-Baha’is passive-aggressively promoting the interests of the church and Evangelical Christianity in the guise of ex-Bahais), so let’s look at what they instanced. Their translation is bolded in quotation marks. First the original text is offered and then my translation follows it with the chapter number bolded with the chapter heading italicized.

“Chapter six of the sixth unit which is about destroying all books but those that have been written or will be written about this Order (meaning the Bab’s creed). (The Bāb, Farsi Bayān, unit 6, chap. 6.)”

الباب السّادس مِن الواحد السّادس في حُكم مَحوْ كلّ الكُتب كُلّها إلّا ما انشئتْ أوْ تنشئ في ذلك الأمر

The sixth gate of the Sixth Unity. Regarding the ordinance [ḥukm] of the erasure [maḥw] of all books, all of them, except what has emerged or will arise in this Cause.

Commentary: The translation offered by Investigator919 is off by miles. First, neither the words هدم or دمر have been used here, both meaning ‘to [physically] destroy‘ something. The word used instead is محو [maḥw] which has a specific context in none other than the ḥadīth kumaylhttp://wahidazal.blogspot.com/2011/07/hadith-kumayl-or-hadith-al-haqiqa-of.html to which the Primal Point constantly made reference and wherein each of the six years of His Manifestation is supposed to correspond to each of its six theophanic sequences. محو [maḥw] occurs in the second theophanic sequence of the ḥadīth kumayl:

محو الموهوم و صحو المعلوم

The erasure/negation of conjecture and the realization of the known.

The nuance is immediately apparent to anyone who actually understands the High Imamology animating the writings of the Primal Point throughout and that He is not actually saying to physically destroy any book but to erase the primacy (i.e. influence) of all books (such as, for instance, the industry of tragicomical nonsense produced by the mullahs for centuries in the corpus of fiqh/jurisprudence, i.e. the same industry of jurisprudential nonsense that produced the wilayat al-faqih and clerical rule in Iran over the past 40 years to which people such as Ali Shariati were sworn enemies because Khomeini and his Guardianship of the Jurisprudent is precisely the consummation of the Black Shi’ism that both Shariati and the the Primal Point unequivocally denounced and tried to prevent).

Continued in Part 2.

________________________________

Let me put you straight, Investigator919. I don’t give a flying monkey’s backside about your power trip or Saman Wilson’s or your territoriality over this subreddit. I have already put the word out far and wide all over the internet about what manner of scum actually manage this place and what dirty politics underlies it all. You, Saman Wilson and whoever yanks your chains belong to the faction of the IRI who are deep in bed with these cultists and you, Wilson and MirzaJan are gatekeping and managing this place on behalf of the Haifans. This nonsense is also going on inside Iran itself as we speak where innocent people who are merely criticizing Bahaism in social media all of a sudden find themselves hauled before Ettela’at (the intelligence ministry) inside Iran itself; and the reason is simple, because scum such as Wilson and yourself (who are more than likely card-carrying Baha’is) are under Rouhani helping the Baha’is within the system. Fortunately there is a long track record for this kind of duplicity by both the Haifans and you Green-Rouhani-Rafsanjani-Ahmadinejad-criminal mafia punks. You can block me from this place. It won’t change the fact that you, your duplicity and that of Wison’s have already been outed publicly, which is why the traffic to this place is daily coming to a grinding halt. Ban me, and, one way or another, I will have this entire subreddit shut down and publicize your real identity, Saman Wilson’s as well as MirzaJan’s all over the internet for the trouble.

You have been warned, and you should know by now that I am not one to be trifled with.

________________

Onlyoneatall Also note that for all their crying and carrying on about doxxing, the corrupt and hypocrital moderators of this subreddit who are in the pocket of your “institutions” have no problems in a non-intervention policy where the doxxing and defaming has me as its target. Anyone else, and they jump up and down becoming sticklers for rules — trigger happy with the banning — which they won’t implement in other cases. This has been the case from the beginning here, especially as you all already know that I am the real enemy of your cult while others are merely playing, so you may want to tell your Baha’i Internet Agency that the double-standard behavior of the mods makes things more than a little obvious and confirms everything I say about how these people roll and who the real identities behind the moderators actually are.

Also, that two defamation posts by the paid troll have been left without intervention also proves what I say about the troll: that this individual has been put up to what they are doing and are paid to do so by the BIA, who actually controls this subreddit with the mods as their gatekeepers, particularly given that the well known racist troll doing the doxxing actually needs the money per their own 2012 article.

https://www.wweek.com/portland/article-19620-notes-from-a-newbie-homeless-portlander.html

______________

He got banned at that point, only to return with another account with which he said:

The truth has already shown itself, and on multiple occasions. Last year in 2018 DavidBenOwen went on a defamation and doxxing spree right here on this subreddit. The mod did nothing. I complained about it, and this individual banned me instead while DavidBinOwen continued to run riot. DavidBenOwn was only recently banned after years of abuse in this place. This has all been a consistent pattern and I have documented it all. Any court that reviewed the situation from beginning to end with the evidence I have would immediately see what I claim, that the moderator of this subreddit consistently rewards perpetrators and punishes the victims of these perpetrators whenever they complain or put up a fight. In other words, the moderators here do what Baha’is have always done best: gaslight since this is a consistent Baha’i modus operandi literally everywhere, not to mention historically located, and the behavior of “Saman Wilson” (not to mention his two dubious sidekicks) only reinforces what I say, i.e. that this subreddit is gatekept and its mods are gatekeepers for the interests of Haifan Bahaism against its actual enemies.

Also, the slap in the face Investigator919 got in the rejoinder here means this individual doesn’t wish to be further humiliated intellectually by me over issues they have no clue about and are actually misinforming the public regarding. But that suits the Baha’is just fine since they have profited for over a century in any skewed presentation of the Bayan — or whenever the Bab has been labeled insane and mentally ill — and it will be damned if anyone who knows what they are talking about sets these cultists and their hangers on straight with actual textual evidence, proper contextualization and analysis. That is the bottom line and why “Saman Wilson” and the BIA see me as a threat because they know that I am committed to ending their proverbial “party” and exposing every last one of their deceptions once and for all.

 
WHAT A FUKED UP SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT! The rules of reddit itself say:
 
Reminder from the Reddit staff: If you use another account to circumvent this subreddit ban, that will be considered a violation of the Content Policy and can result in your account being suspended from the site as a whole.
 

So why was I EVER friends with this sick bastard?

Well, it appears about eight or nine months ago he came back yet again with a new account, named Naw-Cryptographer49. At first, he fooled everyone, even me, but eventually I figured him out. And he and I had a final showdown here six months ago:

Where I started to warn others about his intentions:

Because he is a troll who seeks to disrupt this subreddit using abusive attacks on others disguised as criticism.

Just do what I did when he did it to me: BLOCK AND IGNORE HIM FROM NOW ON.

________________

That set him off, just as I intended!

Speak for yourself. One of the biggest trolls on the scene, bar none, who thinks he owns this place while incessantly pushing the UU cult and his own blog of inane drivel and who doesn’t even know what a hagiography is. Pathetic.

________________

Naw-Cryptographer49 vomited:

Speak for yourself. One of the biggest trolls on the scene, bar none, who thinks he owns this place while incessantly pushing the UU cult and his own blog of inane drivel and who doesn’t even know what a hagiography is. Pathetic.

You know, you are not very good at hiding your true self even when you repeatedly use sockpuppets to get around being banned from this subreddit!

__________________

That con artist also said this to me a while ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/comments/m9u6yb/divine_manifestations_according_to_the_bab_and/grw6jyl/

You are a know-nothing fanatic, not to mention a head case, no better than the Baha’is you decry. I am trying to get you to spell out your philosophical position, but you seem not to have one and are merely operating by some pseudo-intellectual remote control of rehashed sound bites and one liners, which makes you as dangerous as any braindead RUHIfied Baha’i. The way you talk when challenged on your BS reveals you to be just another basket case chump circumambulating the trauma around their experience with authoritarian cults like Baha’i. Get over yourself already!

Which only confirmed what I said to him first, which was:

Now that I see you are willing to LIE OUTRIGHT to throw out talking points at me even after I try to end our debate on a positive note, I will have no more to do with you. Once a liar, always to be distrusted from now on!

And of course, stating MORE outright lies at me after I decided to shun him only makes him look more ridiculous.

_________________

The bigot also outed himself as a “Bayani” fanatic here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OnThisDateInBahai/comments/m7ul78/march_19_on_this_date_in_1850_the_báb_began_to/

As far as I am concerned, anyone who is a follower of the Bab, who was killed by a firing squad in 1850, is as much of an idiot as any Baha’i. Reason: the Bab’s claim to be the promised one of Shia Islam was forever debunked by his death, and no amount of phony rhetoric, not from Baha’u’llah or even from any Bayani apologist today, will EVER restore the Bab’s credibility.

I like Messengers of God who do not get slaughtered, imprisoned, exiled or exposed as frauds, thank you very much!

_____________

And like the idiot he always has been, Wahid Azal went INSANE at being exposed!

What are you babbling about, you deranged lunatic? Go take your meds and while you do keep your hands off other people’s kids, silly sicko fuck!

____________________

The biggest con artist hereabouts is the 50+ year old INCEL guy with a psychotic sense of entitlement to a subreddit, not to mention a chip on his shoulder the size of Mt Rushmore, who literally has nothing to contribute but the same old, same old rehashes from a stupid blog where he once wrote up embarrassing sicko fantasy blog posts; gets dumped by the very people who tried to rally behind him after they found out about it; deletes the posts on his blog, and then tries to kill himself with the stove! The STOVE! Yeah, everyone knows that story because the moron blabbered it out himself…

You are the greatest clown EVER! This lady said it best: https://groups.google.com/g/talk.religion.bahai/c/pydVNFD3l-Y

_____________________

Of course, I reported all his crap to the mods of the subreddit and they banned him…..AGAIN!  And I gave him a final shot even as I was LMAO:

Message to Naw-Cryptographer49:

Wow! It seems that deja vu is a bitch, isn’t it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/exbahai/comments/cxhzog/measures_to_restore_civility/

And just because I have written about the ugly issue of pedophilia on my blog doesn’t mean I AM a pedophile, you lying sack of crap!

https://dalehusband.com/2019/05/12/biblical-genocide-and-pedophilia/

https://dalehusband.com/2021/04/02/rape-apologists-round-two/

And stop making up rumors about me. No doubt, you HOPED I would have committed suicide by now after you made up so many ridiculous lies about me that some people started to believe your bullshit (the “if there is smoke, there must be fire” fallacy), but suicide is nothing to joke about and you claiming that about me too is only more proof of your degenerate nature!

Baha’is on Facebook make fools of themselves!

Back in 2019, a Baha’i on “The Largest Bahá’í Facebook Group Ever” made this statement:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2209644753/permalink/10156990348534754/

Ashkon Rowhani Ashraf

Allah’u’abha all!
Just a small reminder of what the House wants each and every single one of us to do NOW:
1. Become friends with all of your neighbours on your street and in your neighborhood. Invite them over to cups of tea and get to know them and go and visit them in their house. Take them a food to enjoy together with your cup of tea.
2. Host a children’s class in your house and invite your neighbours children to all attend. You do not have to run it, u just have to host it.
3. Host a REGULAR devotional gathering in your house. Invite your neighbours and their kids. Share prayers together from the Faith and from other sacred traditions to make it even more amazing. Try and get chants, kids prayer songs etc
4. Help enthusiastic attendees setup regular devotional gatherings in their own homes AND accompany them in this. Help your friend to help their friends to run regular devotional meetings in their house. This process will multiply until the whole world is in a devotional gathering.
4. Host a Junior Youth Class in your House. Invite the neighbours JYs. Once you are friends with neighbours you can tell them about the JY programme.
4. Once the children and and JY start coming then offer to train their parents to become Childrens class teachers and JY animators.
5. Train the new teachers and animators and help them start a childrens class and JY in their own home (if they are far away enough in the neighborhood).
6. Accompany the new teachers and animators on their path of service towards spiritualising our new generation. Help them to do everything you just did i.e. to get them to eventually also train children class teachers and JY animators AND to accompany their new teachers and animators to setup JY programme and childrens classes in THEIR own homes. This process is now growing exponentially.
7. Repeat Cycle.
This is all we have to do. This is all the house wants us to d0. If we do this the whole world will become involved in a core activity. World peace will finally come. The words of God do the work for us. All we have to do is the logistics.
The time is now. Get up stand up for your right to live in a world which is at peace. We can have world peace in ONE generation. How exciting! Are not proud to be blessed with a concrete plan on how world peace can be achieved!? Nobody else is doing this! Only us! So time to get up and stand up for YOUR RIGHT to live in a world at peace.
Allah’u’abha all and may we fill our cups with the blessings which rain down~
What an incompetent list! Note that the writer repeated the number 4 THREE TIMES….the last number on the list should have been 9, not 7. Of course, the number nine is one Baha’is are obsessed with, so that makes the error of the writer even more obvious!
And not all Baha’is who read it were positive in their responses to it.
Richard Genobles

 

We have been doing this for years.Is it working?
__________________

Ashkon Rowhani Ashraf

Hi Richard yes it is most definately working, Rome was not built in a day and the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven is no different. Ours is the opportunity to build it! 😮 😮
______________
Richard Genobles

 

These things are happening but no one is coming to them. Do you know the 50% of the people who declare become inactive the first year and since the beginning of Entry by troops the membership in the faith has fallen 17% based on world census.How you ever seen an invitation to a total stranger and have you ever thought there might be better ways.. Dr Peter Kahn said “we are looking for people who make mistakes that way we know you are doing something.” What we need, first, is a solid community foundation. And one of the aspects of teaching is “Proclamation,” that’s letting the people know we ar here. The above comes under “Expansion” but the two, plus “Consolidation” the must work together.
_________________
Ashkon Rowhani Ashraf

 

yes that is exactly right! That is why we must first become FRIENDS with all of our neighbors, then introduce them to the core activities and then invite bless. Blessings~
This reminds me of something I read in the exbahai subreddit a year ago:
She wasn’t fooled and lots of others likely were not either!
Speaking of that subreddit:
Where these comments were made:

The man called “Richard Genobles” firmly contested this BS above, and I realized he is no longer on that Facebook group. It would be nice to know if he withdrew from Faith and joined us here on r/exbahai LOL

_____________

Often it’s the most superactive Ruhiites who end up the most bitter (because they actually believe that stuff is going to imminently change society so it’s a hard fall when they experience how little anyone gives a stuff about it).

I sometimes think the Baha’is are like Daleks who are so incompetent that they can’t even shoot straight and therefore can’t EXTERMINATE anyone!

Restoring Plotagon Studio

This is the sequel to Plotagon Studio is down!

In response to a ton of complaints about the failure of Plotagon Studio, the company that made it has released a new version of it, that works!

After downloading and installing the new version, I made these two videos with it:

And added the second one to my Plotagon made saga:

So life goes on! I hope I win the September Plotagon challenge, but I doubt it, given the shallow nature of most of our culture. Looks seem to matter more than actual content quality.

Plotagon Studio is down!

For earlier references to Plotagon, an app that allows you to make animated features on your computer or your cell phone, see these:

A series made using Plotagon to promote Unitarian Universalist ideals

Race and Being a Witness

“The Debbie and Carrie Show” is finished!

Making MORE Videos with Plotagon

Nearly all my videos listed on those blog entries were made using Plotagon Studio, the app made for desktop computers. There is also Plotagon Story, which is the version made for smartphones. I recently downloaded that one too……and now only that version is left, because I and many other users have NO access to Plotagon Studio!

Meanwhile:

Plotagon, your timing SUX!

Thankfully, I was able to use Plotagon Story to make my trailer for “The Debbie and Carrie Show”.

And here is the ENTIRE saga of Debbie, Carrie and all the other characters in their universe:

I am thankful that I was able to make all that before I lost the means to do so. And I can’t sue Plotagon over this, because:

https://www.plotagon.com/terms-of-use/

Termination

These Terms of Use are effective until amended by Plotagon® in its sole discretion. You agree that Plotagon® may terminate your access to the Services, including, without limitation, your user name and password, at any time for any reason without prior notice or liability. Plotagon® may change, suspend, or discontinue all or any aspect of the Services or the Website or create usage limits for the Service at any time for any reason without prior notice or liability, including, without limitation, the availability of any feature. Plotagon® may close all accounts and cancel all of the rights granted to you under the Terms of Use at any time for any reason without prior notice or liability. Plotagon® may, but not obligated to, communicate such termination to you in any of the following manners: (i) when you log into your Account; (ii) in a notice on Plotagon®’s website; (iii) via electronic mail; or (iv) in another manner that Plotagon® deems suitable to inform you of the termination. If Plotagon® terminates the services, you will not receive a refund of paid fees. You may terminate your account at any time, upon notice to Plotagon® via electronic mail. You will not receive a refund of paid fees.

Gee, thanks for NOTHING!

The Great Commission

Ever since Christianity was founded nearly 2000 years ago, Christians have felt called to spread the Gospel around the world. The source for this commandment, known as the Great Commission, is Matthew 28: 18-20.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+28%3A18-20&version=ESV

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Note what Jesus did NOT say. His commandment wasn’t to “convert all the people you can to my religion” and he certainly did not call for all other religious communities to be wiped out. He called for a Christian community to be established among all the nations of the world. So his Great Commission would be fulfilled if in some countries of the world only 1% of the populations became Christian. 

Indeed, the idea that the vast majority of a population should be made to embrace Christianity would have been more likely to debase Christianity rather than to uplift the population. We saw exactly that in the case of the Roman Empire, which converted en masse from Paganism to Christianity around 300 to 400 AD. That did nothing to stop the Empire from falling in 476 AD.

Why did Christianity fail to improve the population? Because it never changed human nature. Read this blog entry:

The Bell Curve of Morality

As the illustration shows, only a minority of people are truly good and very rarely do we find anyone that is extremely good.

Some Jewish groups not only do not proselytize, they discourage people from joining them and only accept those who they deem worthy of membership.

Sadly, the Baha’i Faith is also obsessed with winning converts. As I noted here:

A Baha’i Divorce

After I left the Baha’i Faith, I realized that religion simply has nothing whatsoever to do with one’s character; if people have screwed up personalities, religion actually can make them worse by making them think that believing certain dogmas and following certain rituals will save them and make them great people before God and their fellow humans. I know from my own experience with myself and others that this is simply a lie.

Maybe if Christians had been more cautious about accepting members, a lot of the scandals and atrocities associated with Christianity wouldn’t have happened.

Susan Maneck, Baha’i apologist (and IDIOT)

A long time ago, a certain Baha’i scholar (I use that term quite loosely) began posting comments on my blog in response to my criticisms of the Baha’i Faith. Eventually, this person, Susan Maneck, waged a long running battle on one of my blog entries:

Baha’is must reject the Guardianship!

I tolerated her shit for a while but finally had enough of her arrogance and banned her.

Well, she has struck again! Take a look at this video about her:

The very first comment on it was mine.

Dale Husband

Susan Maneck is one of the biggest hypocrites I ever had the misfortune of dealing with. She is really a blindly obedient Baha’i dogmatist. The comments below this blog entry show her true character: https://dalehusband.com/2010/03/21/bahais-must-reject-the-guardianship/

________________

 
That was four years ago. Then three months ago:
 
 
I then replied on this month:
 
 
_________________
 
 
Of course she does! How else could she have posted her comments on YouTube? You can have a channel even if there is no content on it. And why doesn’t she bother to make her own videos? Anyway, here is her channel:
 
 
So her first outright lie is debunked.
 
 
 
Then I waited for her to respond. After a while, I made another comment, to prove my point about her cowardice.
 
{{{Date sent: Tue, 11 May 99
To: Susan Maneck
Subject: Access to materials at the Bahá’í World Centre
From: Bahá’í World Centre 4 May 1999
Transmitted by email to Dr. Susan Maneck, U.S.A.
Dear Bahá’í Friend,
The Universal House of Justice has received your email of 30 December 1998 requesting clarification of the policies governing access to sources at the Bahá’í World Centre and regarding publication of primary source material available to people through other avenues. It welcomes the opportunity to provide further information on these issues and has instructed us to send you the following reply.
 
Your questions have to be considered in the context of the range of the work and responsibilities of the Universal House of Justice. One of the most important functions of the Head of the Cause is to guide the faithful to the tasks which need to be performed at each stage in its progress. It must allocate the resources of the Faith and point out those areas on which attention should be focused. Naturally, each individual tends to see the importance of his or her special interests or to focus on needs which are immediately apparent. All these have their own validity, but it is the Universal House of Justice which sees the whole picture and can guide the process. The friends must have faith in this, otherwise their efforts will be dissipated and even mutually conflicting.
 
The question of providing access to primary source materials is but one of the matters which must occupy the attention and consume the resources of the Cause. The written material of this Dispensation is incomparably rich and varied, and we now stand only a century and a half from the day on which the Bab announced His Mission to Mulla Husayn in Shiraz.
 
Access to source documents relating to the Bahá’í Faith which are held in libraries in different parts of the world, or are in the hands of individuals, is open to anyone who wishes to consult them, dependent only on the permission of the institution or individual in whose possession the documents are held. A major service which a number of Bahá’í scholars have rendered to the Faith is in tracing such deposits and, where possible, obtaining archival quality photocopies for the World Centre Archives and Library.
 
As for source documents at the World Centre itself: these are held by the Universal House of Justice in trust for the entire Bahá’í world and ultimately for the whole of humankind, of both present and future generations. There is tremendous work to be accomplished in sorting, identifying and cataloguing such documents so that they can be effectively studied without either damaging them or losing vital information by disturbing their inter- relationships. As far as the urgent needs of the Faith are concerned, the primary work in this respect must be devoted to the Sacred Texts rather than to documents of historical interest, although the latter are by no means ignored. It would be irresponsible for the House of Justice, without itself first being fully informed of what is in the Archives, to consider opening them to individual scholars for the pursuit of purely personal interests.
 
Far from allowing anyone to tamper with the historical records, the Universal House of Justice has the obligation to preserve the integrity, not only of the Sacred Texts, but of all the historical documents in its possession. It has, moreover, a responsibility for arranging their publication for the scholarly world in a coherent manner that will not give a misleading impression of events as a result of the mere choice of the items and the order in which they are made public. Undoubtedly, in due course, it will be possible to publish editions of historical documents in facsimile accompanied, in the case of each document, by a printed transcription, and supplemented by necessary commentaries and notes. It is with such thoughts in mind that the House of Justice feels that a certain discipline is required of those individual believers who decide, for their own purposes, to publish or translate documents which they have at hand.
 
This entire process is made the more delicate by past experience with those who, pursuing unacknowledged agendas of their own, have wished to publish certain documents for ulterior motives, or with others who have lacked the good sense and breadth of vision to act responsibly.
 
You refer to the principle of the unfettered search after truth. This is certainly upheld, but it cannot imply that the institutions of the Faith have a duty to make available to each enquirer every piece of information he or she requests. We are faced here, not with wisdom prevailing over the search for truth, but with a process of organic growth, both in the world and, commensurate with it, at the World Centre of the Faith.
 
The Universal House of Justice has asked us to assure you of its prayers on your behalf in the Holy Shrines for the reinforcement of your devoted endeavours to advance the interests of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh.
With loving Bahá’í greetings,
Department of the Secretariat
cc: International Teaching Centre}}}
 
News flash: Anyone who followed the link provided by the original video poster could have seen that response. Susan Maneck made an issue out of nothing!
 
_______________
 
This seemed to cause her to become unhinged.
 
 
So she thought I had made the video? I didn’t and in any case she was lying, since I had actually just posted the entire response by the Universal House of Justice as a comment…..and in any case, a person still could have looked up the response by following the original link in the video’s description. And the real point of not bothering to include the reply in the original video was that Ms. Maneck was an idiot to make such a lame inquiry to begin with! Any objective non-Baha’i would have already figured out that the Universal House of Justice was running a scam…..why couldn’t she see it?!
 
Then she started a rant at me:
 
Then how would she explain the case of John Wycliffe, who translated the Vulgate into English and was condemned by the Catholic Church for doing that, among other things that challenged its dogmas?
 
 

In keeping with Wycliffe’s belief that scripture was the only authoritative reliable guide to the truth about God, he became involved in efforts to translate the Bible into English. While Wycliffe is credited, it is not possible exactly to define his part in the translation, which was based on the Vulgate.[30] There is no doubt that it was his initiative, and that the success of the project was due to his leadership. From him comes the translation of the New Testament, which was smoother, clearer, and more readable than the rendering of the Old Testament by his friend Nicholas of Hereford. The whole was revised by Wycliffe’s younger contemporary John Purvey in 1388.

There still exist about 150 manuscripts, complete or partial, containing the translation in its revised form. From this, one may easily infer how widely diffused it was in the 15th century. For this reason the Wycliffites in England were often designated by their opponents as “Bible men”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe#Declared_a_heretic

The Council of Constance declared Wycliffe a heretic on 4 May 1415, and banned his writings, effectively both excommunicating him retroactively and making him an early forerunner of Protestantism. The Council decreed that Wycliffe’s works should be burned and his bodily remains removed from consecrated ground. This order, confirmed by Pope Martin V, was carried out in 1428.[9] Wycliffe’s corpse was exhumed and burned and the ashes cast into the River Swift, which flows through Lutterworth.

Indeed, Wycliffe was part of the growing trend of dissenting from Catholic dogma and practice that finally enabled Martin Luther to actually start the Protestant Reformation. One of Luther’s most famous works was his translating the Bible into German. That could have been done centuries earlier.

The assertion by Maneck that “Latin was the only language of literacy” for centuries doesn’t address WHY that was so, nor why literacy in general was so limited in most of Europe. It was limited by DESIGN!

Europe in the Middle Ages was dominated by a political and economic system known as feudalism, which was characterized by a strict social hierarchy.  At the top were the monarchs, including kings and emperors who ruled their lands with absolute power. Below them was the nobility and the clergy who had most of the wealth and exercised power of their own over the lower classes. The next level below was the peasants who were free but were also poor. And finally in some countries there was an even lower class known as serfs, who were slaves bound to the land and forced to work on farms for little or no pay. It was in the interest of the upper classes to keep the peasants and serfs uneducated, since an educated population would be more likely to question authority and tradition and demand better lives for themselves.

Here’s an illustration of how that hierarchy may have functioned (indeed, modern capitalism is directly descended from feudalism):

Anti-capitalism_color

You’d think that Ms. Maneck, who is supposed to be a historian, would know that!

Repeating a point of hers:

The letter from the House merely says they don’t have the resources to make their sources available to everyone and points out that most of them are available elsewhere.

First, what resources would the House of Justice need? And how exactly did the House of Justice come to this conclusion?

Second, even in the House of Justice’s response  to Maneck it did not specify examples of such outside sources.

Indeed, the very idea that historical documents relating to the early times of the Bab and Baha’u’llah are not suitable for exposure to the public smacks of a lack of transparency that one would only expect from scammers and tyrants, not credible leaders!

 

A Story About King David, Sort of

The Biblical tale of King David, Bathsheba, and her husband Uriah the Hittite is one of the most infamous ones ever, because of not only the way it depicted the king, but also how it depicted God. David may have killed Uriah, but God killed a BABY!

God was a hypocrite?!

Why couldn’t the story have been rewritten to make both David and God look a lot better???

And as the war against Ammon waged on, King David was informed that one of his loyal soldiers, Uriah the Hittite, was killed in battle and he left behind a wife, Bathsheba, who was pregnant. David sent for the widow to give her his condolences. But when he saw her, he felt she was beautiful and deserved better than to be a widow of a soldier, so he offered to marry her so her child could be raised in the royal palace. She agreed and thus became his wife and gave birth to a son a few weeks later.  But a few weeks after that, the baby fell sick and died, causing Bathsheba to mourn again. Even worse, a nasty rumor was soon spread that the baby was actually David’s, that the king had killed Uriah to get his wife, and therefore the baby’s death was a punishment from God. David was furious and demanded that the one who started the rumor be found and put to death. But the prophet Nathan urged restraint.

“Sire, the people who started that rumor are not worth bothering about,” Nathan said. “Those who are loyal to you and know your true nature will ignore such gossip.”

David accepted the prophet’s advice. But in reality, it was Nathan himself who started the rumor as a means of undermining the king. And centuries later, Nathan’s claims were recorded in the Bible, tarnishing David’s reputation forever!

Did you ever see yourself leaving Christianity?

To directly answer the question, when I was a Southern Baptist, of course not! But I did later!

This question was asked in the exChristian subreddit.

Where one member said:


Definitely not. I was planning to go into ministry to convert as many people as possible to Christianity (wanted them to not go to hell you know). Majored in theology. Studied apologetics aggressively in high school and college.

I am honestly one of the most surprising people to have left the faith considering how deep into it I was.

______________

Then what made you quit?

___________


Christians acted horribly during the pandemic. It started not making sense that horrible people went to heaven while good people went to hell. Then I used my rational thinking skills that I learned in apologetics and my theology degree against the Bible to deconstruct. Figured out pretty quickly that it’s all fake.

__________________

It started not making sense that horrible people went to heaven while good people went to hell.

Maybe because Jesus never taught such insanity?

Then I used my rational thinking skills that I learned in apologetics and my theology degree against the Bible to deconstruct.

It should have been obvious that something was wrong as soon as you read the first few chapters of Matthew and compared them with the first few chapters of Luke. The two narratives CANNOT be harmonized, period. At least one of the accounts must have been made up. And if one, why not both? Quite simply, there is NO reason to assume that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

You can read about that issue here: Teaching religion dishonestly

____________________

I was always taught that everything in the Bible can be explained. I see now how stupid that was. I was aware of all the errors in the Bible for years, but was extremely proficient in performing mental gymnastics around them.

_______________

When I was a Baptist, I used to laugh at the Mormons for believing in the ridiculous Book of Mormon. Then I stopped being a Baptist. Then I became a Baha’i and defended that religion for years. Then left the Baha’i Faith after realizing it was no better than Christianity!

When you have “faith”, anything goes. It does not matter what your faith is in.

_____________________

mental gymnastics

Which NO ONE should tolerate anymore. Reason: the followers of EVERY OTHER RELIGION also use mental gymnastics to defend their dogmas too. Truth can NEVER be found when you rely on dogmas of any kind.

__________________

Yeah I know. It was honestly ridiculous how damn blind I was, because I was an avid student of other religions much of the time I was Christian. I would always shake my head at the ridiculous attempts people used to defend their obviously flawed holy books, while somehow not recognizing that I was doing the same thing. Part of my deconstruction was that realization, and after that the whole thing unraveled pretty quickly.

 

Anti-Conservative Rants in Reddit

I sometimes think that as a whole, the users in Reddit are WAY smarter than most people. Here are two powerful comments I have just noticed that seem to illustrate that.

Fun… ok no, sad fact:

When slavery was abolished, I feel like a lot of people think it came with asterisks next to the amendment.

But it didn’t .

When slavery was abolished, it instantly made every black person equal to whites under the law.

Same rules applied to white and black people. Owning land. Owning a business. Eating anywhere they liked. This was the intended goal. It’s what those in congress voted and passed and celebrated. Equality.

But the southern states saw the loopholes, and within a few months, enacted the Jim Crow laws, separate but equal pretty damn fast.

The federal government made black people equal.

No caveats no restrictions in the amendment.

Then the states took that right away from them.

On another sad fun fact,

FDR was set to push a new bill of rights, an employee bill of rights.

His speech is something that hits so relevant today. His wants for all citizens and his reasoning as applied to the constitution was something you just don’t get from any politician today.

A snapshot of his speech;

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.”[8] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

The more you learn of the past, the more you realize that progress could have happened sooner but evil prevailed in the name of “country and patriotism”.

Sad.

Good place to remind folks that conservatism is about hierarchy and a de facto underclass.

Conservatism (big C) has always had one goal and little c “general” conservatism is a myth. Conservatism has the related goals of maintaining a de facto aristocracy that inherits political power and pushing outsiders down to enforce an under class. In support of that is a morality based on a person’s inherent status as good or bad – not their actions. The thing that determines if someone is good or bad is whether they inhabit the aristocracy.

Another way, Conservatives – those who wish to maintain a class system – assign moral value to people and not actions. Those not in the aristocracy are immoral and therefore deserve punishment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4CI2vk3ugk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs its a ret con

https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/conservatism.html

Part of this is posted a lot: https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288 I like the concept of Conservatism vs. anything else.


A Bush speech writer takes the assertion for granted: It’s all about the upper class vs. democracy. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/why-do-democracies-fail/530949/ “Democracy fails when the Elites are overly shorn of power.”

Read here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conservatism/ and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism#History and see that all of the major thought leaders in Conservatism have always opposed one specific change (democracy at the expense of aristocratic power). At some point non-Conservative intellectuals and/or lying Conservatives tried to apply the arguments of conservatism to generalized “change.”

The philosophic definition of something should include criticism. The Stanford page (despite taking pains to justify small c conservatism) includes criticisms. Involving those we can conclude generalized conservatism (small c) is a myth at best and a Trojan Horse at worst.


Incase you don’t want to read the David Frum piece here is a highlight that democracy only exists at the leisure of the elite represented by Conservatism.

The most crucial variable predicting the success of a democratic transition is the self-confidence of the incumbent elites. If they feel able to compete under democratic conditions, they will accept democracy. If they do not, they will not. And the single thing that most accurately predicts elite self-confidence, as Ziblatt marshals powerful statistical and electoral evidence to argue, is the ability to build an effective, competitive conservative political party before the transition to democracy occurs.

Conservatism, manifest as a political party is simply the effort of the Elites to maintain their privileged status. One prior attempt at rebuttal blocked me when we got to: why is it that specifically Conservative parties align with the interests of the Elite?


There is a key difference between conservatives and others that is often overlooked. For liberals, actions are good, bad, moral, etc and people are judged based on their actions. For Conservatives, people are good, bad, moral, etc and the status of the person is what dictates how an action is viewed.

In the world view of the actual Conservative leadership – those with true wealth or political power – , the aristocracy is moral by definition and the working class is immoral by definition and deserving of punishment for that immorality. This is where the laws don’t apply trope comes from or all you’ll often see “rules for thee and not for me.” The aristocracy doesn’t need laws since they are inherently moral. Consider the divinely ordained king: he can do no wrong because he is king, because he is king at God’s behest. The anti-poor aristocratic elite still feel that way.

This is also why people can be wealthy and looked down on: if Bill Gates tries to help the poor or improve worker rights too much he is working against the aristocracy.


If we extend analysis to the voter base: conservative voters view other conservative voters as moral and good by the state of being labeled conservative because they adhere to status morality and social classes. It’s the ultimate virtue signaling. They signal to each other that they are inherently moral. It’s why voter base conservatives think “so what” whenever any of these assholes do nasty anti democratic things. It’s why Christians seem to ignore Christ.

While a non-conservative would see a fair or moral or immoral action and judge the person undertaking the action, a conservative sees a fair or good person and applies the fair status to the action. To the conservative, a conservative who did something illegal or something that would be bad on the part of someone else – must have been doing good. Simply because they can’t do bad.

To them Donald Trump is inherently a good person as a member of the aristocracy. The conservative isn’t lying or being a hypocrite or even being “unfair” because – and this is key – for conservatives past actions have no bearing on current actions and current actions have no bearing on future actions so long as the aristocracy is being protected. Lindsey Graham is “good” so he says to delay SCOTUS confirmations that is good. When he says to move forward: that is good.

To reiterate: All that matters to conservatives is the intrinsic moral state of the actor (and the intrinsic moral state that matters is being part of the aristocracy). Obama was intrinsically immoral and therefore any action on his part was “bad.” Going further – Trump, or the media rebranding we call Mitt Romney, or Moscow Mitch are all intrinsically moral and therefore they can’t do “bad” things. The one bad thing they can do is betray the class system.


The consequences of the central goal of conservatism and the corresponding actor state morality are the simple political goals to do nothing when problems arise and to dismantle labor & consumer protections. The non-aristocratic are immoral, inherently deserve punishment, and certainly don’t deserve help. They want the working class to get fucked by global warming. They want people to die from COVID19. Etc.

Montage of McConnell laughing at suffering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTqMGDocbVM&ab_channel=HuffPost

OH LOOK, months after I first wrote this it turns out to be validated by conservatives themselves: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/16/trump-appointee-demanded-herd-immunity-strategy-446408

Why do the conservative voters seem to vote against their own interest? Why does /selfawarewolves and /leopardsatemyface happen? They simply think they are higher on the social ladder than they really are and want to punish those below them for the immorality.

Absolutely everything Conservatives say and do makes sense when applying the above. This is powerful because you can now predict with good specificity what a conservative political actor will do.


We still need to address more familiar definitions of conservatism (small c) which are a weird mash-up including personal responsibility and incremental change. Neither of those makes sense applied to policy issues. The only opposed change that really matters is the destruction of the aristocracy in favor of democracy. For some reason the arguments were white washed into a general “opposition to change.”

  • This year a few women can vote, next year a few more, until in 100 years all women can vote?

  • This year a few kids can stop working in mines, next year a few more…

  • We should test the waters of COVID relief by sending a 1200 dollar check to 500 families. If that goes well we’ll do 1500 families next month.

  • But it’s all in when they want to separate migrant families to punish them. It’s all in when they want to invade the Middle East for literal generations.

The incremental change argument is asinine. It’s propaganda to avoid concessions to labor.

The personal responsibility argument falls apart with the whole “keep government out of my medicare thing.” Personal responsibility just means “I deserve free things, but people more poor than me don’t.”

Look: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwpBLzxe4U


And for good measure I found video and sources interesting on an overlapping topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vymeTZkiKD0


Some links incase anyone doubts that the contemporary American voter base was purposefully machined and manipulated into its mangle of abortion, guns, war, and “fiscal responsibility.” What does fiscal responsibility even mean? Who describes themselves as fiscally irresponsible?

Here is Atwater talking behind the scenes. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/news/2013/03/27/58058/the-religious-right-wasnt-created-to-battle-abortion/

a little academic abstract to lend weight to conservatives at the time not caring about abortion. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-policy-history/article/abs/gops-abortion-strategy-why-prochoice-republicans-became-prolife-in-the-1970s/C7EC0E0C0F5FF1F4488AA47C787DEC01

They were casting about for something to rile a voter base up and abortion didn’t do it. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/02/05/race-not-abortion-was-founding-issue-religious-right/A5rnmClvuAU7EaThaNLAnK/story.html

The role religion played entwined with institutionalized racism. https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisladd/2017/03/27/pastors-not-politicians-turned-dixie-republican/?sh=31e33816695f

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisladd/2017/03/27/pastors-not-politicians-turned-dixie-republican/?sh=12df77c6695f

https://www.salon.com/2019/07/01/the-long-southern-strategy-how-southern-white-women-drove-the-gop-to-donald-trum/

Likely the best: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133

Just a couple of brilliant statements I noticed. And they deserve a wider audience.

Silencing the truth is unacceptable, from ANYONE!

A reddit user named MacPark711 tried to bring up a painful topic in the Bahai subreddit. You can guess how far he got with it.

Sorry, this post has been removed by the moderators of r/bahai.
Moderators remove posts from feeds for a variety of reasons, including keeping communities safe, civil, and true to their purpose.

__________

 

Hi MacPark711,

I’m not going to approve this post. It would take a long time for contributors here to address all the specific points you raised. It’s sort of like if you were trying to learn about vaccines and you spent hours and hours on anti-vax videos and forums, and then wanted other people to address/dispel all the misinformation you learned. Here are the books you’ll need to read.

  1. The Kitáb-i-Íqán. This book covers the basic principles and lays the foundation for the teachings/revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. It states God continually provides mankind with revelation direct from God for our education and upliftment. After reading this you should decide if you think Bahá’u’lláh is a messenger of God or not. If you think a possibility exists, you can continue into history:

  2. The Dawn-Breakers for the context and early history of the Faith, centered on the life of the Bab but it does carry forward to some events in the life of Bahá’u’lláh.

After those two works you should have a good idea about the character and purpose of the life and mission of the Bab and an understanding of the place held by Bahá’u’lláh. After that if you still want answers to your specific questions, turn to the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and read it carefully. From it you will get an idea about what was acceptable behavior and what was not and you can judge the behavior of those close to Shoghi Effendi, who was following the Will and who was not?

In Summons of the Lord of Hosts you’ll find this passage: “This is the Day that shall not be followed by night, nor shall it be bounded by any praise, would that ye might understand!”

This is a significant promise written in 1868, because the only way to avoid the ‘night’ humanity has always seen following a religious dispensation is for the religious community Bahá’u’lláh has created to remain unified and under a control everyone accepts. You can almost bypass every concern listed simply by asking yourself, is it unified today? Is it under stable leadership?

But, going the long route, you can look next to histories centered on the life and teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi. There are very lengthy books about each.

Like The Covenant of Baha’u’llah by Adib Taherzadeh, perhaps?

This books do not answer questions regarding the issues I have brought up. I am trying to do a service to the Bahai faith which is clearly falling part online. Just searching Bahai faith in google or you to leads to many negative pages and videos that need addressing You are contributing to sweeping issues under the rug. The debate over the will of Abdul needs talking about due to some evidence that it was forged. Just “reading” it carefully isnt the answer. I have read it as well as talks about it. I am well versed in it. The issues is the handwriting analyses that was done on it which claims it was alerted. I cant debunk this without being able to find people and information that discredits this. If you think just “reading” the Will will answer peoples questions who want to know if it was forged due to the many many pages and videos online saying it was forced, then you have your head in the clouds. I feel you are helping to hold back the faith. In an online world most new people will look up bahai, see these issues and then just go no further. You need to tackle the big issues as hard as they are. By keeping to put your head in the sand will help nothing. You cant just ask a casual perspective new member to “go read Kitáb-i-Íqán and the dawn breakers”. I myself have read all these books and many many more. Probably more Bahai books and scripture than most active bahais. By not approving this post you will be contributing to holding back growth of the faith as it will hinder my ability to answer tough questions and make good reports and videos on them. I have faced the same issues in bahai groups on facebbook. No one wants to answer the tough questions. Its a shame. I was ready to open some very good discourse on this reddit. Your vaccine analogy is ridiculous. If people were finding out anti vax issues and you were able to ask people info about correct info to dispel these falsehoods would not tackling the incorrect issues be smarter? You seem to think the issues would just go away. Trust me the anti bahai info online is getting huge. Its going to hinder the growth of the faith as these questions are not being answered. Almost 100% of perspective new members will go online for Bahai info. Many will leave. I did and then decided to come back and tackle these issues head on but as always just keep hitting brickwalls. Is this because in people hearts they know these issues are real?

I guess you have had your mind made. Just know I am going to give up my defense of the bahai faith. I am over it. I keep coming across people like you wishing to just “hope it away”. Its not going away unless someone tackles the anti bahai brigade. I hope in your own heart you realize the mistake you are making. I was going to do a full website and youtube giving great debunks to anti bahai issues that are all over the net. These videos and website could have saved potentially thousands of people from walking away of moving on. Its 2021. You cant just tell people to “read the book”. This thinking will kill the Bahai faith…

So MacPark711 went to the ExBahai subreddit instead:

Where I had this to say to him:

He answered:

Thanks. I am on the fence Bahai and trying to make sense of it all. But people like t0lk are simply gatekeeping on a huge public forum and doing a disservice to the faith. Its 2021. People cant hide behind just covering things up and pushing under the rug anymore. Everything is out there online. I can see you are obviously anti Bahai. And thats totally fine. You have that right. I am at least open to some dialogue and now I just wish some Bahais would have the guts to come and tackle the negative Bahai posts online or at least help me in what I wish to do. I dont have enough info or knowledge to do this. Thats why I was hoping to get some Bahais onboard to help me but as you can see everyone just hides and blocks everything. Even worse they couldn’t even reply to my follow up explaining their reasons. t0lk just hides.

“Independent investigation of truth” means “just read and agree to what our books say”. by the sounds of it.

This is all really irritating me.

___________________

The Baha’is will NEVER allow you to ask such questions, not in any Baha’i Community, not in any Baha’i meeting, not at the Baha’i World Centre. You will be asked to leave. Your Membership in the Faith will be removed.

Was S.E. a closet homosexual? Probably so. The witnesses are many. Are they ALL lying? If you believe current Baha’i apologists, yes. I don’t think they were all lying.

Was S.E. lazy and went on 4 month long trips to Switzerland (without his wife) every year? He went on such trips, yearly. Without his wife. Was he lazy? He spent most days writing letters and translating. Why did he go to Switzerland for four months a year? Some say to get away from his wife. Others say to meet his lover, George Townsend. Others say, to get away from the hot Palestine Summers. Maybe the answer is “All of the above”. No way to be SURE unless one finds a letter written by Townsend or Effendi, that is a love letter. No such letter has been found.

Was S.E. a tyrant who excommunicated his relatives over the smallest of things? Answer: THEY thought so. He demanded absolute control over every decision of their lives, including whom they could marry and not marry, where they could go on trips, etc. If they “defied” him, he excommunicated them: including their children.

Did the wife of ‘Abdu’l-Baha forge part of the Will and Testament, making S.E. Guardian? Answer: the evidence is that part of the Will and Testament was NOT written by ‘Abdu’l-Baha. That much is known. Some think ‘Abdu’l-Baha dictated it to his wife or some scribe. Others think it was forged after AB died. Nobody saw the Will and Testament BEFORE AB died except AB and his wife. All we know for SURE is that the section where AB appoints SE as Guardian, is NOT in the handwriting of AB, but the rest of the W&T is in the handwriting of AB.

How can these issues be resolved? Answer: they won’t be. Either way, they won’t be. You have to decide “if” you want to be a Baha’i, and promote the Baha’i Faith, or not. These questions will always be unresolved. You have to choose.

Much to my annoyance, MacPark711 chose……to run away from the discussion by deleting his own post. But the neat thing about reddit is that you can still look up and restore some deleted material. Also, I found that Naser Emtesali had already copied the statement MacPark711 deleted here.

So…….I proceeded to put it ALL back on r/exbahai !

It worked!

Thank you for the restoration. Interesting read as I hit my 1-year anniversary of formal resignation.

(Have not regretted the decision one iota; only sorry I hadn’t done it a few decades earlier.)

May I highlight the staunch baha’i’s, named t0lk, typical and expected reply (in my own words): “read these (excruciatingly) lengthy books–hopefully your brain will be numbed to a level that will keep your critical thinking muscles QUIET.”

_______________

I am actually more upset at MacPark711 for deleting the original post here than at t0lk. I am USED to t0lk being a lying, backstabbing asshole.

MacPark711 needs to wake the hell up! I can state for the record that even if I was still a Baha’i in 2018 (the year I first joined reddit), by now I would have resigned from the Faith because of all the crap I have clearly seen from the reddit Baha’is. They are mostly hypocrites because their Faith makes them so by DESIGN. You can’t save it……..you just have to…….LET IT GO!!!!!

 

George Floyd’s killer is brought to justice!

Yesterday, racist cop Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in the case of George Floyd, whom he held down by his neck for over eight minutes until he was dead.

Make no mistake about this; the only reason Chauvin was found guilty at all was because his act was recorded and made public. But in the past, even that would not have been enough. The terrible beating nearly to death of Rodney King by four white cops was also recorded and made public, and those cops were acquitted at their first trial, triggering rioting in the city of Los Angeles. Rodney King did not get justice. Nor did Treyvon Martin. Nor have many other black victims of police brutality.

At long last, people are FINALLY waking up to the idea that having bad and bigoted cops in a police force is not something to tolerate. It never should have been a thing at all.

Hell. even the TV show In the Heat of the Night never showed the cops of Sparta, Mississippi assaulting and murdering blacks unjustly (others were shown doing that, however) and that may have contributed to the public perception that most cops can be trusted. I am not so sure, based on my own experience. Corruption rather than integrity seems to be the norm. So let’s keep fighting the system until it truly changes!

The Ridiculous Claim of Philip Henry Gosse

Just prior to the publishing of Darwin’s theory of evolution, there occurred an event that may have actually helped make his ideas more credible even to devout Christians in England. In a desperate attempt to reconcile modern findings in geology with the teachings of the Bible, the naturalist Philip Henry Gosse published a book in 1857 titled Omphalos (Greek for naval) which was so badly received that even Gosse’s own son Edmond considered it to be an insult to his intelligence and publicly disowned it, even rejecting Christianity outright as well.

Gosse claimed that when creation occurred about 6,000 years ago, trees had been created instantly with tree rings, Adam with his naval, and birds had been made as adults even though birds today hatch from eggs as chicks, thus seeing the first birds would naturally lead someone to assume that these birds also came from eggs even though they did not. Thus even the fossil record, Goss claimed, could also be “evidence” for an ancient age for the Earth that did not really happen.

Many Christian clergy who read the book, including Rev. Charles Kingsley, thought this was blasphemous, in essence calling God a liar (which was actually part of MY motivation for attacking “scientific Creationism”). As a result, Gosse’s standing among scientists and Christians alike was destroyed forever and he retreated from the rest of society, a broken man, until his death in 1888.

Vangelis, the Dragon, and the Bullshit of Religious Fundamentalism Revisited

If you haven’t done so, read these two blog entries:

Religious fundamentalism is blasphemy!

The Bible CANNOT be the Word of God

Those are indeed among my earliest works, but until now I did not have a real life example to show an artist being misrepresented, much like I think God is misrepresented by those who claim the Bible is the infallible Word of God. My rejection of that dogma stems from my assumption that if God really gave his word to us, it would be vastly superior to the Bible. No historical or scientific errors, no contradictions and no excuses for ancient atrocities or injustices.

Anyhow……..in the late 1970s, the pioneering new age composer Vangelis was a rising star. He had already come to fame with albums like Heaven and Hell.

Indeed, some of the music from this album, and some of his other early works, would be used in the COSMOS series by Carl Sagan. And in 1981, he would win an Oscar for the Chariots of Fire movie soundtrack, which I to this day consider to be the greatest soundtrack of all time! The music is remembered and loved even by those who never saw the movie!

But in 1978, something happened to tarnish his reputation. Back in 1971, Vangelis teamed up with a group of musicians and they made two albums worth of material that were merely jam sessions and were soon forgotten. Vangelis did not compose music for these albums, nor were any plans that year made to release them. Fast forward to 1978, when an unscrupulous record company somehow got those recordings. Hoping to capitalize on Vangelis’ fame, the record label released the albums as “Hypothesis” and “The Dragon” without his permission. I tried to listen to those albums, but they were so bad I always stopped after a few minutes.

Vangelis then sued the record label to have these two albums removed from the market and won the case. Just as I wish God could sue to have the Bible, the Quran, or the Book of Mormon somehow eliminated from all human cultures in the world. Of course, someone did buy copies of these albums, and decades later uploaded them to YouTube. Sorry, Vangelis!