95 posts tagged with "discourse"

A friend recently told me about this passage from the collection of Bahá'u'lláh's writings called Prayers and Meditations. In Facebook conversation I've been talking about my limited and impersonal understanding of "God". This passage might seem a bit paradoxical to that viewpoint, at first glance. The paradox is because of my inability to precisely describe the nuance of a belief that lies somewhere between the poles of atheism and personal theism, without recourse to philosophical language (the best "school of thought" to describe my own core belief has always been panentheism).

In responding to a friend about the nature of the "god concept" in the Bahá'í Faith, I began to collect a number of passages and add a few comments as to why I chose them. And then I found this hitherto unknown (to me) statement from 'Abdu'l-Bahá. It could not be more plain, and completely justifies what a fellow Bahá'í once said to an atheistically-inclined friend: "I don't believe in the same God you don't believe in."

The word "confirmation" is used by some in a spiritual sense, something akin to signs and portents: an experience that validates, proves, or explains a previous feeling, decision, or action i.e. "... ask for you all divine guidance and confirmation in the very important work you are directing" [1]. It is natural to ask, "what is the agent of this confirmation?" To the traditionally theistic, that answer is obvious: God. To the athiest, the answer is probably something along the lines of "Whoso seeketh out a thing with zeal shall find it." [2] (self-fulfilling). Truthfully, my attitude towards the concept has traditionally been dismissive.

Ms. Dudzinski’s 9th Grade English class. Grade: 94. Current observations: I was very into politics (this was shortly before the ’92 election), and somewhere I had learned some demagoguery that would later serve me well in debate class. The overall point I was trying to make was and is sound, but on rediscovering this recently, I couldn’t help laughing at my (ignorant) scare-tactic of running out of oxygen. And where did I get this "con-environmentalist" term? The assignment was clearly intended as an exercise in persuasive, opinion-based writing. The lack of citations is irksome to me.

This devotional program was presented at the Bahá'í House of Worship on September 5, 2010. Before going upstairs into the temple, I joked to my friend that I wanted to go downstairs to the bookstore, to be material before being spiritual. The architecture is inspiring enough, but the devotions and music were, well, heavenly :-).

The Times has a special feature about On the Origin of Species, including annotations from various Scientists commenting on favorite passages. The first annotation is by the famous primatologist Frans de Waal, who comments one of the passages that struck my interest when I read the book earlier this year:

I should premise that I use the term Struggle for Existence in a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny

Darwin, in the course of his opus, did not merely lay out the voluminous evidence for natural selection, he also frequently dropped hints of further research to come: for instance, the topic of cooperation. As de Waal notes, we're generally taught to think of Darwinism as survival of the strongest individual competitors. Look at so-called "social Darwinism," and you'll see something that Darwin would likely have hated. Because he clearly believed that cooperation and education (an extension of "leaving progeny") were key components of the general competition between traits (evolution) in a population — that evolution is more than just my biceps are bigger than yours, my brain case has more volume than yours, etc.

So asked a new friend (well, something close to this anyway). In a nutshell: it means striving to build unity in our midst, and acting on a path of service that starts "at home" but continues into the whole community, not just the Bahá'ís.

Save Darfur Coalition just called me. And thanked me for being so pleasant on the phone. How sad. Its not like it was a cold call — I've supported them in the past and thus have a reasonable expectation that they'll try to contact me in the future. Why are they calling? Because apparently the conditions in Darfur are deteriorating. Do I believe the woman on the phone? Well, the Times reports that Violence Said to Be Rising in Sudan’s Darfur Region (2010-08-05). At this point Sudan is as much a powder-keg as ever, with secession of the south likely next year, renewed civil war equally likely. The Save Darfur Coalition< is helping spread awareness of, and global pressure on, the Sudanese government's grave abuses (killings, rapes, and other human rights violations). My money will not do much to stop the situation. But public pressure does make a difference, and I'll provide a small amount to help keep that pressure steady.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is also calling, though not literally. The flooding has been absolutely terrible, and relief agencies expect that hunger and isolation will be extreme in the coming months. Time to step up and show the love again for Pakistan (dead link removed; SF 2025 removed). Unicef, World Food Programm, International Committee of the Red Cross, Oxfam, etc. — let's all give one of them a cold call, only to give rather than receive.

I've done my alloted time now: taught a Bahá'í children's class at a St. Paul public housing community center two weeks running, with around 10 children each time. None of whom are Bahá'ís, and neither are their parents. We learned about service and truthfulness. Well, I learned, and I hope they did too. And they taught me about karma. Perhaps I'll go back and help out some more.

A Pew Forum poll a few years ago included the following analysis: "Finally, while an overwhelming percentage of Christians (79%) say they believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ, far fewer see Christ's return as imminent. Overall just 20% of all Christians expect Christ to return to earth in their lifetime; even among those who say that the Bible is the literal word of God, just 37% expect Christ to return to earth in their lifetime."