As an active Bahá'í on campus in the mid-to-late 90's, I often found myself engaged in intriguing but sometimes pointless discussions with various Christians. The Bahá'í Faith, progressing from an Islamic milieu, shares a good deal of religious worldview with that faith. Thus in "A note on Muslim-Christian dialogue" one could almost directly substitute the Bahá'í Faith for Islam.
Though historically I've not read many blogs, I've been poking around looking for good news sources to add to my news feeds in the new Mozilla Firefox pr1. My slumming has turned an interesting piece on the future of cold fusion over at Popular Science.
Just as a negotiated-peace began to take hold in southern Sudan, a new crisis arose in the western Darfur region this past winter and spring. Half a year after escalation of the atrocities, estimates of the dead range from 30,000 to 50,000, and well over a million people have been internally or externally displaced. Men and boys have been systematically murdered; worse yet, a conscious effort at genocide has once again turned to mass rape of the remaining women. International response has been harsh yet guarded, and far too slow. We must push our political leaders to appropriate action under international law. [This editorial is specifically focused on religious and interfaith communities].
This weekend I have relaunched InterfaithNews.Net, with a few interface enhancements and new features — the most important of which is the ability to add comments to select articles. I invite you to stop by to see the new features and articles; read on below for descriptions of the latest articles added this month.
"The well being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established." ~Bahá'u'lláh
The concept of world peace is surely not new to you. The idea that it just might come about — now that is a revolutionary concept.
As a child I watched Elroy Jetson with a certain bemusement, flitting about in his jet pack, popping food pills, and relying on Rosy the Robot to keep his room clean. Likewise in Disney World's Tomorrowland I gazed in amazement at what was once envisione d for our future. Monorails and jet packs were just the optimistic incarnations of that Cold war futurism — but in science fiction particularly we find the more sinister predictions. Luminaries such as Bradbury, Roddenberry, and Gibson penned tales of continuing exploitation of all that humanity might invent. While their tales were scoffed at or ignored by the masses, especially when the Cold War ended with fall-out-free winters, the days of past present may be returning to the present future.
We're now 85% unpacked, though the place is still a mess. Just got library cards and using a public library Internet Station for the first time ever, very exciting you know. So if anyone's reading, other than the viagra and cialis spam-bots (they flood old blog entries with spurious spam comments), drop me a line and say hello. My Austin mobile number is still good. If you don't have it, send me an e-mail. Oh, and the weather has been gorgeous =).
In the next day or two Microsoft will come out with its long-heralded, major updates to WindowsXP, known as Security Pack 2. The updates for SP2 take care of usability, default settings, and security bugs/holes. A new security pack from Microsoft is always a major step forward… but in my experience always comes with a few bugs itself.
"When you look at marriage, it's between a man and a woman," Ms. Goldford said. "Biblically, homosexuality isn't in the plan." (today's New York Times). I'm sorry Ms. Goldford, but we do not live in a theocracy. Please base your vote on secular arguments. Unfortunately I'm too late for my elementary-years-state-of-residence: Missouri voters have approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. And probably based mostly on the simple religious truism above.
The persecution of the Bahá'ís of Iran continues: recent months have seen the wanton destruction of two holy sites in Iran. In April, it was learned that the grave of Quddús had been secretly razed over a period of several nights, despite local protests against the government's actions. This weekend the sudden destruction of the house of Mírzá Buzurg-i-Núrí in Tehran was brought to light. It is unknown (to me) how many holy places are left in Iran and Iraq; these were undoubtedly two of the most historical.
