63 posts tagged with "religion"

This month, the "Friends" (Yaran), a group of informal national Bahá'í leaders in Iran, began their third year in prison. The charges against them are specious, e.g. "corruption on earth", and the Iranian government will not even give them the dignity of holding a trial. I know that the Iranian people are better than this. I pray that their government will come to recognize their duty to respect the freedom to worship, and release this group. Last weekend I attend a devotional gathering in honor of this group, and others, who are imprisoned in Iran. I opened a particular Bahá'í prayer book with which I am not familiar, and this was the first prayer I encountered:

I beseech Thee, O Thou Who art the Lord of all names, to guard Thy loved ones against Thine enemies, and to strengthen them in their love for Thee and in fulfilling Thy pleasure. Do Thou protect them, that their footsteps may slip not, that their hearts may not be shut out as by a veil from Thee, and that their eyes may be restrained from beholding anything that is not of Thee. Cause them to be so enraptured by the sweetness of Thy divine melodies that they will rid themselves of all attachment to any one except Thee, and will turn wholly towards Thee, and extol Thee under all conditions, saying: “Praised be Thou, O Lord our God, inasmuch as Thou hast enabled us to recognize Thy most exalted and all-glorious Self. We will, by Thy mercy, cleave to Thee, and will detach ourselves from any one but Thee. We have realized that Thou art the Beloved of the worlds and the Creator of earth and heaven!”

Glorified be God, the Lord of all creation!

~ Bahá'u'lláh, Prayers and Meditations, LXI

It's about time. That was my first thought when I heard, late last year, that the Bahá'í International Community had endorsed the Interfaith Declaration on Climate Change. My next thought was: when will this trickle down to us, the people, as a meaningful directive to change our habits? A few weeks ago, the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States sent a letter to all American believers, calling their attention to the Declaration, and to a Seven Year Plan of Action on Climate Change. They encouraged us to actively incorporate sustainable practices into our community life, in a manner more direct than ever before.

Strange on the surface, but makes deep sense to me: currently reading Darwin's Origin of the Species, and also started reading Stories of Baha'u'llah and Some Notable Early Believers (Baha'u'llah is the prophet-founder of the Baha'i Faith). Social-scientific evolution gives us a Charles Darwin and social-religious evolution/God gives us the Manifestation of the Cause of God for today. One brought us a better understanding of the physical world, and the other a better understanding of the spiritual world — and its implications for how we live out our lives as sentient beings in that physical world. Its implications for how we live amongst each other, for how we treat that Nature, which Darwin so carefully analyzed and loved. For how we reconcile ourselves to the seeming pointlessness of the universe (dead link removed; SF 2025).

An interesting little discussion on the intersection of science and religion has unfolded in Special relativity and the Bahá’í Faith (dead link removed; SF 2025). In references in Some Answered Questions and elsewhere, 'Abdu'l-Bahá speaks of "ether," a concept that was abandoned by the majority of scientists with the acceptance of Einstein's special relativity. The question then is, which should we adhere to? The religious truth or the scientific one?

Fortunately I believe this is a false dichotomy, at least in this specific situation. Despite having a masters degree in physics, I’ve never been bothered by the "ether" quotation. For example, 'Abdu'l-Bahá writes:

"Reflect that light is the expression of the vibrations of the etheric matter: the nerves of the eye are affected by these vibrations, and sight is produced. The light of the lamp exists through the vibration of the etheric matter; so also does that of the sun, but what a difference between the light of the sun and that of the stars or the lamp!"

I was recently watching a show on PBS wherein the narrator was traveling the lands of ancient Canaan, illustrating the paths of Abraham in the book of Genesis. At one point he and his guide climbed a slope next to the Dead Sea, and, having entered a tunnel in the cliff-side, found themselves staring up an immense shaft blasted by salt. Due to a confluence of geographic and climactic factors, the pressure from the Sea will often push great fountains of salt up from the seabed through this shaft, and thence cover the plains above the cliff.

These very plains are one of the rumored locations of the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The film crew left the tunnels and returned to the cliff top plains. The land was harsh; the uneducated eye would have no idea that salt covered all, preventing growth. Was this spray of salt perhaps the origin of the Bible's story of the destruction of these cities? Even more interesting to me, however, was the pillar of salt that the crew passed – just bigger than a person. "But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt" (Gen 19:26). Could this be she?

In Wednesday's New York Times (2004-11-24), editorialist Nicholas D. Kristoff wrote about the Left Behind series of books (and assorted merchandise), which are the best selling books for adults in the United States. These books paint a grim picture of the Second Coming of Christ based on the authors' interpretations of some passages in the Gospels and, in particular, the revelatory language of St. John the Divine.

The United Religions Initiative is an international organization whose purpose is "to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence and to create cultures of peace, justice and healing for the Earth and all living beings." Just as everywhere else, there has been a good deal of discussion amongst URI members about the recent U.S. elections. The following letter is my personal response to the onrush of "mandates", "values", and "misinformation," calling for the interfaith movement itself to reach out to those who do not normally participate, calling for an internal dialogue to accompany the external work of interreligious organizations.

Do not the Unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of creation), before we clove them asunder? We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe? (Qu'rán, Al-Anbia' 21:30).

Thus begins "Water Conservation as a Religious Duty".

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.

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.