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By John Taylor; 11 October, 2006

One reader kindly wrote in appreciation of recent discussions of the life of William Osler. From my point of view he is a kindred spirit, in spite of his lack of outward religious allegiance. Consider this, from the Bliss biography, on the time around the turn of the Twentieth Century when Osler was teaching at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore:

"The Oslers were well-to-do, not rich. Dr Osler did not own a carriage, but always took the streetcar out to Hopkins. Nor would he permit a telephone in his house. When the phone company told him people were complaining about not being able to get through to him and cited their low rates, Osler is said to have replied that he would take a phone when the phone company paid him that much for the trouble he would have to tolerate." (pp. 240-241)

Myself, I have bowed to the passage of a century and reluctantly shell out my 30 bucks a month (or, as we should think of it, 360 dollars a year) to have a telephone, because I have to, I have no choice; but I feel just like Osler about cable or satellite television, I will accept that the day they pay me the fifty bucks, or six hundred dollars a year, to pipe their commercial garbage stream into my home. As for the electric streetcars that Osler took to get to work, making a carriage, much less an automobile unnecessary, the commercial Mafiosi at General Motors a few decades afterwards made sure that those sensible vehicles were destroyed, the tracks pulled up and polluting diesel buses took their place. Such is progress.

Osler was a great fan of the great early doctor-philosopher Thomas Browne, to such an extent that he had large passages of his writings memorized. Osler all but made Browne his religion; many of Browne's thoughts were on faith, life and death and other religious concepts. Here is a passage from Browne quoted in the Bliss biography that impressed me as being very close to Baha'u'llah's condemnation of words that begin and end in words.

"There are a bundle of curiosities, not only in Philosophy but in Divinity, proposed and discussed by men of most supposed abilities, which indeed are not worthy our vacant hours, much less our serious Studies." (Bliss, 46)

How often do I wander the bookshelves of library and bookstore with that thought in mind! I see shelf after shelf full of books published for one reason only, people will shell out money to buy them. Other than that, they are without merit. They should never have seen the light of day; they wasted the time of the writer, much less the time of those who would read them. Among the worst are the shelves devoted to tome after tome on health, diet and exercise. Entire series of books dedicated to walking... what is the point of taking the time to read a book about walking when that time could be better spent, well, walking? Why learn an elaborate fitness regime when all that is necessary is to find something active you enjoy, and do it?

But I suppose Brown is right, the worst offender is philosophy, and especially "divinity," which I suppose is what is now called theology. (Another reason for Baha'is to treat the word "theology" as a dirty word; it is arrogant to presuppose that the Unknowable can be studied) Once, in a passage that I documented several months ago, Baha'u'llah commented something to the effect that all of the hundreds and thousands of volumes of Sufi' mystical literature are not worth a few pages out of a geometry book. Cautions such as this are good for book lovers like myself to bear in mind; all that rests between the covers does not deserve a place there.

Another reader of this Badi' mailing list wrote the following thoughtful response to the increasingly bad blood between Christians and Muslims that is evidenced in news headlines over the past few months. He consented that it be shared here but since he expressed concern that the letter is not in finished form, I will not name his name.

Is anyone ready for relevant dialogue?

Hi John!

I've enjoyed all the articles you've written and shared about 'Abdul-Baha's encounters with the western world. My thoughts today after reading the latest news article (below) taken from http://www.worldnews.com/ are: "Listening" is so important right now.

We seem to be approaching a period where polarization between the two world's major religious peoples is growing deeper every day. Instead of welcoming good critical thinking and real honest dialogue, relevant communication is damningly condemned and violently rejected. So let's allow for some honesty.

For example, no matter what you're background, you could say, (historically speaking) "You know, your people really hurt me back then, and you know it seems like you still want to go on hurting me, and also it really seems like you don't want to listen to me." And if we can get that far, then move on to: "You know, we've done some terrible things to one another, so maybe we could try to forgive each other and learn to respect each other's good points, because we do have to get along now or be destined to start a new round of stupid fighting."

But the world is seriously running out of "divine love" because it is way beyond the reach of the major mob mentality amassing out there everywhere in the world. We're reaching the climax of an "us or them" thinking. It sure gives one an idea of what it was like to live in 1913 when the nations were like a powder keg. Only this time it's shaping up to be a much wider conflict. Huge populations grasping on to the remnants of the world's two major religious beliefs (... both ) want to take the other out, and I don't mean on a date.

When Douglas Martin was speaking in Victoria, BC, a few months ago, he said something along the lines that the major religions don't exist anymore and that you can't find them out there anywhere. Apparently he's right... The life of the major religions has been completely sucked out of them. Atheists I'm sure believe that they are going to win the world by default. They are pretty good at pretending that they have life, but they are just a fancy-dancy corpse. Relevant honest dialogue, understanding, forgiveness, getting along today. All are hard steps and they all need some good will behind them. We could be in for a rough ride. May God give us all new life.