Correspondence
By John Taylor; 2007 Dec 23, 12 Masa'il, 164 BE
Now is the time to catch up on our correspondence. First of all, a big thank you to Ed for the heads up on Bill Hatcher's book,
"Minimalism: A Bridge between Classical Philosophy and the Baha'i Revelation" By William S. Hatcher Juxta Publishing, http://www.juxta.com/content/view/17/31/
Ed tells me that this work by a Baha'i philosopher can be downloaded at that URL for free. It should be useful in my mission to bring God to the atheist. More on atheism later. I plan on reading this book ASAP.
Jim Steyn writes: "Hi friends, We are getting some good publicity for
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sLJlyZ_QfA>
Jim also enclosed this quote of the Master about the value of Baha'i schools, and, interestingly, the responsibility of the learned to oversee them.
"Make every effort to acquire the advanced knowledge of the day, and strain every nerve to carry forward the divine civilization. Establish schools that are well organized, and promote the fundamentals of instruction in the various branches of knowledge through teachers who are pure and sanctified, distinguished for their high standards of conduct and general excellence, and strong in faith; scholars and educators with a thorough knowledge of sciences and arts."
"It is incumbent upon the exalted body of the Hands of the Cause of God to watch over and protect these schools in every way, and see to their requirements, so that all the means of progress will continually be at hand, and the lights of learning will illumine the whole world." ('Abdu'l-Baha, in Compilation of Compilations vol. I, p. 273)
A couple of weeks ago I wrote some comments about an author whose first name is Mark and whose second name is, in code, wwSaaTnnEkkkYeeeNrrr. I use code for this fellow, hereafter known as MS, because if I spell out his name it will happen again, the troll-bots will pick up this blog entry and plunk it onto the MS website, and I will be deluged with flames. The flames continue to trickle in. Here is one of two that charred my inbox yesterday,
"The real core problem that MS dances around is lack of testosterone in most males in western society. If you are an aggressive boy in school the female dominated education system wants the child to be medicated. If you are an aggressive male in the work place you need to be sensitized. Western society looks down on the single greatest trate (sic) that preserves freedom -- the stubborn possition (sic) of some to accept nothing else other than freedom. You may call this trate (sic) what you like, I choose Balls."
This anonymous email came in as a prospective comment for the Badi' Blog, and I accepted it as fair comment. Not that I agree, of course, but at least this guy's testosterone has not completely shut down his higher mental functioning, unlike the sender of this email that came in at the same time. Wanna know what happens to the brain after an overdose of testosterone? Go no further.
"Dear sport, Georgie Monbiot is a standard Leftard conformist, mental and moral gymnast sans anything worth a d*** to say or to offer anyone, that you can't get from any WTO protest rabble, student crisis meeting or grubby humorless pamphlet. Most every cliche he's ever parroted can be 'Fisked' utterly down to the empty frauds they are. Sure, Monbiot has a negative side too.
"MS is a witty individual, not a moral vanity fantasist, a very readable writer and empirically correct on virtually every point he ever makes or has made, if not usually every point. That's why his articles stand up over long periods of time and can be reread so fluidly. MS is subject to really only ad hominems by those who are incapable of refuting anything he says with any counter evidence at all on any actual point. That's standard Left modus operandi, folks.
"MS's enormous talent, humility, wit, sense of fun and decency, clarity of thinking and vast output, is entirely what makes the mentally ill and phony uncomfortable and enraged. It's curious and interesting at how conveniently, lazy and it's a crock, that the same critics who dismiss MS utterly, without ever mounting a coherent argument, neglect to dismiss his writings in music and so on. Because they are as incapable and unaware of it, as they are unaware of themselves.
"But please, do continue to produce exactly nothing. Colonel X."
This poor fellow's thinking is so tortuous I was reminded of a report in the latest Science News about mathematicians who made a study of spontaneous knots. It seems that the phenomenon we have all observed, where a rope left to itself ties itself into incredibly complicated knots, has been officially confirmed by knot theory. These spontaneous knots, they discovered, are, well, incredibly complicated; the study asks why and how nature comes up with such complexity so easily. After reading this communication and trying to make sense of it, my suggestion is that these mathematicians sit down with psychologists and ask how the human brain so effortlessly ties itself into such incredibly elaborate knots, and how to avoid this. Anyway, here is my reply to Colonel X,
"Dear Colonel,
"Just because somebody's opinions do not agree with yours does not make them a bad person. People who stop thinking in that manner become, well, better people. I remind you not to confuse affixing a label with real thought or reasoning.
"I like MS too, and even agree with much of what he says, but my point was that when it comes to a technical issue like global warming, we are best off trusting to experts, to the opinions of those with real scientific qualifications. In this respect MS's only qualification is the ability to suck up to the private owners of the newspapers he works for."
Since getting such a shiny example of clear thinking from a military man I keep having nightmares of my son entering the army and being ordered into battle by such a colonel. My father was drafted into the army and his terse opinion on this institution is the best commentary I have ever encountered, bar none: "The army is a dictatorship within a democracy." It is extremely dangerous for a free government to clasp the asp to its breast. Unless, of course, you agree with the first correspondent that testosterone has redemptive value. Otherwise, we should work hard to bring consultative methods to all institutions, and especially the military, where the slightest foggy thinking is paid for in blood and gore.
Anyway, another reader wrote a much more positive comment about George Monbiot, saying that some Badi' essays on this prompted her to read "Heat" and other works on the environment. This was a relief to hear, and I might go back to reading "The Weathermakers" which I had given up on, not having heard any response from readers on it.
Over the past week I have been corresponding with an Esperantist friend about his atheist beliefs. This prompted me to volunteer, along with Peter, to give a couple of talks about proofs of deity in January. For that reason the Badi Blog will become very preoccupied with proofs of the existence of God for the next while, so brace yourselves.
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