A Confession of Faith

November-04-2012

 

 

0=0, The equation of Faith

 

I had a discussion the other day with a dear but unbelieving friend about what faith is. Is it following blindly a set of ideas? Is it what the New Atheists say, holding to an irrational belief in the teeth of evidence? What does faith mean, anyway? I was reminded of a passage from Tolstoy's Confession, which influenced me quite a bit over the last few years. It defines faith as a sort of commitment to life; whether that life is present or eternal, there is the rub. Tolstoy holds that faith, belief in the value of life, starts by recognizing this formula, 0=0, ephemeral life equals nothing. Once that is honestly acknowledged, faith is whatever remains. It is what we value then. I will share the whole passage, but first, a brief discussion of the definition of faith.

 

First, I agree with my unbelieving friend that faith has several meanings, and that they tend to bleed into one another. This causes a great deal of equivocation. The result is distancing, a horrible sort of mental incompatibility where someone will believe in one thing, and fail to hear what those with other beliefs are saying. They may be close enough to hear one another's words clearly, but, in the image of the Qur'an, they resemble two people standing apart, at a great distance, shouting to be heard. So great is the chasm, the effort to communicate so arduous, that both give up even trying to comprehend. As Heraclitus put it, they know "neither how to listen, nor how to speak." (DK 19)

 

"Those without understanding when they hear are like deaf men; of them does the saying bear witness that `they are absent when present.'" (Heraclitus, DK 34)

 

Soon, each side begins to see the other as willfully ignorant. And again, there is the rub. The Qur'an teaches that will is of the essence of faith. No matter what, it is always a conscious decision to believe, or not to believe. That is why, ultimately, we are responsible to God for what we believe. There is a huge gap between us and Him because we have willed it to be so. Otherwise, God is "closer than their life's vein." Here is how Tolstoy understood his journey from distance to proximity, from belief in this life to belief in One beyond:

 

"If it had been thy Lord's will, they would all have believed,- all who are on earth! wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe! No soul can believe, except by the will of God, and He will place doubt (or obscurity) on those who will not understand." (Qur'an 10:99-100)

 

From Tolstoy’s Confession

 

"Rational knowledge led me to the conclusion that life is meaningless; my life came to a halt, and I wanted to do away with myself. As I looked around at people, I saw that they were living, and I was convinced that they knew the meaning of life. Then I turned and looked at myself; as long as I knew the meaning of life, I lived. As it was with others, so it was with me: faith provided me with the meaning of life and the possibility of living."

 

"Upon a further examination of the people in other countries, of my contemporaries, and of those who have passed away, I saw the same thing. Wherever there is life, there is faith; since the origin of mankind faith has made it possible for us to live, and the main characteristics of faith are everywhere and always the same."

 

"No matter what answers a given faith might provide for us, every answer of faith gives infinite meaning to the finite existence of man, meaning that is not destroyed by suffering, deprivation, and death. Therefore, the meaning of life and the possibility of living may be found in faith alone. I realized that the essential significance of faith lies not only in the `manifestation of things unseen' and so on, or in revelation (this is simply a description of one of the signs of faith); nor is it simply the relation between man and God (faith must first be determined and then God, not the other way around), or agreeing with what one has been told, even though this is what it is most often understood to be."

 

"Faith is the knowledge of the meaning of human life, whereby the individual does not destroy himself but lives. Faith is the force of life. If a man lives, then he must have faith in something. If he did not believe that he had something he must live for, then he would not live. If he fails to see and understand the illusory nature of the finite, then he believes in the finite; if he understands the illusory nature of the finite, then he must believe in the infinite. Without faith it is impossible to live."

 

"I looked back on the course of my internal life and I was horrified. It was now clear to me that in order for a man to live, he must either fail to see the infinite or he must have an explanation of the meaning of life by which the finite and the infinite would be equated. I had such an explanation, but I did not need it as long as I believed in the finite, and I began to use reason to test it out. And in the light of reason every bit of my former explanation crumbled into dust. But the time came when I no longer believed in the finite. Then, using the foundations of reason, I began to draw on what I knew to put together an explanation that would give life meaning; but nothing came of it. Along with the finest minds that mankind has produced, I came up with 0=0, and I was utterly amazed at coming to such a resolution and discovering that there could be no other." (Tolstoy, Confession, pp. 61-62)

p13hum

Proofs of Deity, Humour

I am preparing a small book on the proofs of God's existence. For the next several weeks I will be posting often on the Badi' blog selections from my notes, sometimes preliminary essays to be included in the book. If you are overwhelmed, just email me and I will pull you off the Badi' mailing list. As a former atheist, this topic is more fascinating for me than for some.

 Long ago I set up a "system" with slots to take in every note and quote that I collect; the first of these categories is humour, which includes not only jokes and cartoons, but also proverbs, anecdotes, fables, and other nonsense. Here is what I collected for the proofs of deity.

 

Going through the labyrinthine passages of a university library many years ago, I stumbled upon an excellent book called "Oriental Humour." It featured some of the startling and often profound jokes and koans from Japan, Korea and China. One is so famous that it has entered Western culture, too. We know of it as a Zen koan, but according to this book, it is also a Korean proverb,

"One hand finds it hard to clap." (Korean Proverb)

One meaning of this proverb is that a given spiritual experience is not enough, we need social feedback; we need religious experience. In turn, society needs spiritual experience as well. However much an individual may feel affected or transformed by a given state of consciousness, the reality of it only lives on when others share in it, or at least when they benefit from the changes it had on us. I think this may be why Jesus, when he declared, "The Kingdom of God is within," used a word that also can mean, "The Kingdom of God is among (you)."

 Here is another story from Oriental Humour,

 "A man called at his landlord's and said, `I didn't know at all that you were ill. When I came back home today, my wife said that you had ophthalmia. How do you feel now?' The landlord appeared from within the dark doorway, squinting. He replied, `You're welcome, I feel better since yesterday.' Looking at him, the man said. `I see that you are not only suffering from ophthalmia but there is something wrong with your eyes, too.'" (Blyth, OH 549)

 

 The authors of the book commented: "The great fall of man is that we use words that are meaningless, words like `God,' `infinity,' `the absolute,' `perfection,' and `opthalmia.'" A fable from Aesop (AE180), illustrates another divine lesson. It is that, as God puts it in the Bible, "my ways are not thy ways..." The story is called, The Ass Carrying Salt,

 "An ass loaded with salt was crossing a river. He slipped and fell into the water and as the salt melted, he got up with a lighter burden. He was pleased at this and another time when he was loaded with sponges. He came to a river. He thought that if he fell in again he would come off lighter, and so he slipped on purpose. As the sponges filled with water it turned out that he couldn't get up and was drowned."

 

 

 The fate of this ass shows the dangers of drawing spiritual conclusions from material evidence, and vice versa. Great is the incompatibility between these ways of thinking in our own lives. We can only judge of a religious experience by whether we walk away a better person, or have a lighter conscience. If we get stuck and drown, we know to avoid such things in future. Difficult as this is, how much harder it is to judge fairly the spiritual lives of others. Still, if large numbers of people live many generations in a given faith, we know that its beliefs cannot be wholly invalid. On the other hand, if a certain belief drowns its adherents in hatred and prejudice, it will not last long anyway. In that case it is not unreasonable to reject it and to consider its adherents as, well, asses.

 The skeptic generalizes on the evidence of bad experiences by some and dismisses the entire enterprise of faith A Priori. For them, belief is a quagmire, a failure and a sorry waste of time. H.L. Mencken's famous quip sums up this rush to judgment,

 "For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing."

 Others are not so hasty. Religion, after all, is a cultural universal. No society in history is known to have survived long without some sort of ritual, prayer, belief in God or gods, or other expressions of faith. As the proverb goes, "Big ship need deep water." Mind and consciousness need to take in the infinite, if only to recognize our helplessness before it. Having done so, we feel the better for it. Another proverb says,

 "Stand far, see better."

 

 

 Even the most skeptical can benefit from stopping and entering into communion with the eternal, in whatever way works for them. We might take, for example, a walk in natural surroundings. Trees and grass have been around for hundreds of millions of years, after all, so every natural place is like a very ancient cathedral. Or we might enter a place of worship and there converse with God, or, if we prefer, with our higher, more distant and detached self. To stand in a place designed to reflect the aspect of infinity is always to be illumined, and later to see everyday problems in a different perspective. Of course, we can often gain spiritual maturity just from our daily service to others.

"On the morning I began my new job was an excavation company I found myself standing knee-deep in mud, holding a shovel. `You know, Jerry,' I remarked to the boss, `I signed on with this outfit to learn how to operate heavy equipment.' `Don't worry,' he said with a grin, `by the end of the day that shovel will be heavy enough.'"

 

A Muslim's Proofs of Deity

October-17-12

9:21 AM

I was returning a book to McMaster University's library when I ran into A--- at the Muslim Student Association booth, who offered to answer any question on Islam, "no matter how controversial." I was impressed with this young proponent of his Faith. I asked for an essay about Muslim proofs of deity, the subject of a talk I was preparing. A colleague of his emailed me the following, which I share here with permission.

So in terms of proving the existence of God in Islam we use two things: the Quran and the life and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). These are the two things that show us that there is a God and that he is communicating with humankind. The Quran very rarely will address the existence of God because it is already assumed that God exists since it is the speech of God. Imagine, for instance, having a conversation with someone - they wouldn't need to tell you that they exist because that conversation entails that they exist.

You might now ask, well how do we know that the Quran is the speech of God?

The answer to that is its miraculous nature: its inimitable language, it's historical, scientific, and linguistic miracles. For a better idea on the miraculous nature of the Quran please watch the following video by a renowned Muslim scholar, Yasir Qadhi. He starts at 4:10 and continues on to talk about how the Quran is miraculous.

HQ: Miracle of the Quran - Yasir Qadhi [Part 1/5] - Greatest Miracle Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)

The second way we prove the existence of God is by reflecting on the life and teachings of the messenger. God sent us many messengers to remind us of our duty to worship Him and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was the last and final messenger.

How do we know that he was a true messenger of God? We can easily deduce this with the following options: either he was a liar, he was deluded, or he was a true messenger.

Now he couldn't have been a liar because he was known as the honest and trustworthy of his people even before he became a Messenger (at age 40). People would keep their gold and precious belongings with him whenever they went on a journey. And he would always return it to them, thus he was a very honest person.

It could also be argued that he wanted to be a messenger for money and power. But if you look at his life you can see that this was not the case. When he first started calling people to Islam the tribe leaders tried to persuade him to stop. So they offered him riches, women, power but his reply was

“By God! If they were to place the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand in order to abandon this mission, I would not do so until it has been well established or I would perish in my attempt to do so.” 

This, along with many other examples, proves that he was not in it for worldly desires.

Then was he deluded? Well, he was not known to be insane his whole life, but rather was known as the man with the best character. It is extremely rare to develop a psychological disease when you are 40 without showing any signs during upbringing.

Additionally, the insane have difficulty having a conversation one on one let alone be the leader of a political, social, cultural, and religious revolution that changed the face of human history. Another point is that the Quran is very eloquent and consistent so it is impossible for such a coherent message with a clear system of guidance and set of laws for all aspects of life to be produced by someone who is not mentally stable. You can watch the following video by another Muslim scholar, AbdulRaheem Green to get a better idea:

Was Muhammad (pbuh) really a prophet? - A.R. Green

So this is basically the Islamic way of proving the existence of God - His Message (the Quran) and His Messenger (Muhammad). If you have any other questions feel free to contact me and I would be more than happy to help!

Thanks for your interest! 

A---

--- Muslim Students Association

Is there a God, or what?

 

Is There A God, or What?

 

Speaker: John Taylor

 

8 PM

WEDNESDAY, October 10, 2012

 

 

SPONSORED BY THE Baha'is of Haldimand

Discussion Series on the Baha'i Principles

GARFIELD DISHER ROOM,

DUNNVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY

poster:

 

 

 

Chained and Devoured by Wild Beasts

Mary of Nazareth and "I Do Not Believe in Atheists."

 

By John Taylor; 2011 Apr 23, Jalal 13, 168 BE

 

Our local Super Video store is casting off its old VHS cassettes, giving piles of them away for free. Many films are therefore coming my way that otherwise might never do, including a copy of "The Message" (the only Hollywood movie about the life of His Holiness Muhammad, which I searched for many years and did know they had). One of the castoffs is "Mary of Nazareth," which I watched the other day when ailing with the latest bug imported from the kids' school.

 

 

The movie is entirely pious in intent, often cloyingly so. It traces the life of Mary from the time of her betrothal until she is taken in by John, the beloved disciple, at the bidding of her Son from on high on the cross. I was interested to learn that Mary was a babe, a real beauty, kind-hearted to all, lovely in every way. And well she probably was. The Bible does not seem to dwell on things like that, though it does say something about where the eyes are, there is the heart. As a male, it helps a lot to see her portrayed as a babe.

 

Anyway, the script leaves out the agony that, the Qur'an tells us, she suffered when impregnated by the Holy Spirit. More surprisingly, it glosses over the aspersions on her character after she claims her pregnancy was prayer induced rather than the usual cause. Joseph takes her in and that is that. The Qur'an has her despairing, begging God to take her life, in the face of the vicious bullying that she must have got when she claimed to have been "known" of God in the full Biblical sense. The movie has her keeping it quiet, which, come to think of it, would have been the wise thing do, considering the circumstances. She does not even tell Joseph, she waits until the Holy Spirit, in the form of a spotlight, tells him Himself.

 

 

But one good thing about seeing the movie is that it points out something I had not realized from just reading the sparse Biblical account of her life -- that Mary had been put into dire danger of death-by-stoning when she got pregnant out of wedlock. Joseph just had to say the word, and that was the end of her. This puts in a different light the scene where, later on, Jesus sits writing on the ground while, in order to test him, his enemies come to him with another accused woman (as portrayed in this film). The woman is less innocent this time than His mother had been, of course, but still, it is as if Jesus was writing the story of his mom, of the calumny and backbiting that had assaulted her when he was in her womb, right there in the dirt -- a story of a sainted mother accused unjustly. (Now we know from many studies that such trauma in pregnancy has long lasting effects on the lives of babes in the womb.) So, they ask what should they do with her? He replies, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." This says a lot more about condemnation, guilt and innocence, and forgiveness, than if you hear the story in isolation from his origins.

 

The film also puts the scene where Jesus as a twelve-year-old wanders off into the temple and when upbraided for leaving his parents, replies, "You should have looked for me in my Father's house." Joseph is hurt by this, for it implies that he is not Jesus' father ... as indeed he is not, he realizes painfully. Again, you miss that in any other account of the story. And again, when Jesus later on to his followers denies his family, saying his real bros and sisters, moms and dads, are those who follow the will of God. You see it from the family's point of view. To be a member of a holy family, you have to take your relations on faith even more than us not-so-holy-family members do.

 

Some movies are justified by one scene. Memorably, for example, Mel Gibson's Hamlet was pretty negligible throughout, except for the one scene, the final fight scene, which was better done than I have ever seen it portrayed. Leave it to an action star to do a fight scene well. Watch that movie just for that one miserable scene.

 

Similarly, there is one scene in this film that is truly unique and memorable, and which worked so well that I found myself in tears, not fully knowing why. It justified the whole movie, which otherwise is just a pretty mediocre retelling of the life of Jesus. This is the scene where the female followers of Jesus, who had been hanging back out of reverence for her, come to Mother Mary and share their spotty backgrounds with her and she tells them, oh, just watch it for yourself. When they get up to walk away and ask permission to walk with her and she replies, "Why should I not walk with my sisters?" Well, the next several scenes get all blurry from annoying tears filling your eyes.

 

I have been auditing a rather strange book called, "I do not Believe in Atheists," written by a guy who after he debated some of the new atheists decided that their arguments are fanatical and dangerous enough to warrant this book.

 

I Don't Believe in Atheists by Chris Hedges

 

 

Listening as far as I have, I am reminded of a fellow who uses a shotgun to kill a mosquito in his own house. After a few shots, it no longer matters if he got the bug or not, what matters now is the destruction he is doing to his own dwelling. Or perhaps I should not say a shotgun but a bazooka or some other anti-tank weapon that shoots out a massive fire backwards even as it sends a missile forwards. Essentially, the result is that in order to destroy the contemptuous attacks of atheists on religion, he totally destroys any reasonable basis for believing in God. He may not believe in atheists, but it is not clear that he is on the side of God either, or even understands it. Let me distill his argument to clarify what I mean.

 

This anti-atheist holds up belief in original sin as the essence of religion. He writes, for instance, that:

 

"Those who insist we are morally advancing as a species are deluding themselves. There is little in science or history to support this idea."

 

Anyone who believes in moral progress is a dangerous fanatic, liable to turn into a Hitler or Stalin, or some other monster ready at any moment to tolerate any amount of violence, law breaking and bloodshed in order to uphold his or her favorite utopia. Humans are sinful, ever subject to falling down into sin again. Humans may progress in science and every other way, but moral improvement is utterly out of the question. Life and moral progress are like a race where you fall down at any time, except that if you fall, you are dragged right back to the starting line. A few saintly people fight rear guard actions against evil authorities, defiant fellows like Martin Luther King or Gandhi, but even they do not bring us forward, they are essentially just making an heroic gesture in the face of relentless evil. There is no way humans will ever get beyond sin.

 

This kills the mosquito of atheism effectively enough -- assuming it does not fly out of the way -- but it absolutely demolishes any basis we might have for hoping that religion will do any good in the world. It sets on fire any hope that God can make us better, morally or socially. As the Qur'an puts it, "They chain up the hands of God." (Q5:64) That is just what the New Atheists are doing; like wild dogs, they tear away at the flesh of a helpless god whose hands are chained up, who is completely helpless to defend himself.

 

 

Having just watched "Mary of Nazareth," I am reminded of the scene where Judas kisses Jesus in order to identify him to the Roman soldiers, who then arrest him. Original sin is a kiss of Jesus. Christians who buy into it think they are loving their Lord, but in reality they walk not to the cross but straight to the tree on which Judas hanged himself.

 

Think about it. If we are irredeemably sinful, if we and our entire generation are born in sin, then no amount of suffering or effort will ever get us out of the muck. Despair, ye fools. Mary suffered all those hurtful accusations for nothing. The cross was just another vain gesture in the face of inexorable evil. The promises throughout scripture of a better time in the end are false. Faith, hope, charity are pipe dreams.

 

Once again, the movie Mary of Nazareth juxtaposes two scenes from the life of Jesus in a way I had never thought of, which say volumes about the falsity of original sin. It shows Jewish leaders and followers shouting at Pilate unashamedly, "We have no king but Caesar!" They are, in effect, denying God. Their God is chained up, a no-account slave of the worldly power of Caesar.

 

Then Pilate turns to Jesus and says, "Why are you doing this?" And Jesus replies, "What I do, I do to demonstrate the truth." And Pilate says, "What is truth?" He denies knowing what he is doing. This denial is the mirror image of what the Jewish leaders just did. He denies his only justification for being there. If power is not wielded by those who know what they are doing, truth and right are vain, progress is a pipe dream and power is its own justification. Secular denial mirrors denial by the so-called sacred. Both are corrupt power, both cause the suffering and death of God's Son.

 

It is absurd to think that God can be chained up and left to be eaten by wild beasts. What is being denied here, by believer and New Atheist alike, is not so much God as the nobility and worth of our human station in relation to God.

 

As Aristotle put it, Man by nature desires to know. And surely we want to know in order to gain power to make things better. Our nature as human beings is invested in progress and improvement. That is what approaching both God and truth are all about, for heaven's sake.

 

 

Baha'u'llah teaches this too. If you are not serving all humankind, you have not attained your human station. This is in the Lawh-i-Maqsud, where He says, "That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race." (Tablets, 163) He explicitly connects belief in the possibility of progress, especially moral progress, to becoming human, how much more to belief in God.

 

"All men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization. The Almighty beareth Me witness: To act like the beasts of the field is unworthy of man." (Gl. 214)

 

He goes on to point out that one reason we teach the Faith is to tell Caesar what the truth is, why God created us, and why it is important to hold to His truth.

 

"Say: O friends! Drink your fill from this crystal stream ... Let others partake of its waters in My name, that the leaders of men in every land may fully recognize the purpose for which the Eternal Truth hath been revealed, and the reason for which they themselves have been created."

What Choosing Life Really Means

September 04, 2010

This is a rewrite of an early chapter in the infrastructure section of Citizens Without Borders

Progress in Nature and Culture



By John Taylor; 2010 Sep 04, Asma 15, 167 BE



My ten-year-old son requested that I read the Book of Genesis as part of our daily study session. I had read the book before of course, silently, but never aloud to an audience unfamiliar with the text. I was quite surprised at their reaction to that obscure passage between Eden and the advent of Noah with that seemingly endless list of prodigiously long-lived and long-named patriarchs, each living for an age and then dropping out with the formula, "...and then he died." My small audience reacted with increasing puzzlement, then hilarity at the glum quietus each suffered. Humour is not something I expected to find in Genesis; it sounds like material for somebody's Ph.D. thesis...



Increase is a Meter of Obedience



Another surprise on this reading was that the formula, "be fruitful and multiply" is not confined to one passage, it is repeated throughout Genesis. God says it at the first creation, Eden, and at the second creation, after Noah. It goes out at the start of every revelation. It surely led to the principle that Baha'is call "universal education."



Some Biblical translations say, "Be fruitful and increase in number," since the mathematical idea of multiplication is a recent development. But even if it somehow did mean "multiply," God was pointing to nature in general, not to exploding the human population until ecosystems collapse and all die together. That would hardly be increase, would it? Surely what is meant is the reverse of our cancerous increase at all costs. If so, Genesis is talking about what biology now calls "species diversity," as well as what is called "biomass," the total weight of living creatures.



Saving the Oceans



I just listened to a distressing new TED speech about the harm that we are doing to the world's oceans through neglect, overfishing and pollution. The talk took place before the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, so it is worse now. It struck me even harder how unjust it is for some to place the blame for all this frenetic destruction on the divine dictum. God is pointing right at nature, He is telling us to take it upon ourselves to see that nature prospers.



The implication is that the number of plants and animals acts as an indicator of whether we are corrupt or pure in our obedience to God. God ended the first creation with a flood because, God asserts, men had become "corrupt." As this oceanographer points out in his speech, we have dredged the sea bottom to the point where over huge areas the beautiful coral now literally looks brown, like some desolate farmer's plowed field. If the land under the seas were visible as the land is to us, we would be very afraid. We have done all we could to destroy the oceans, in disobedience of divine decree.



High Surface Area Natural Spaces



Let us be optimistic. It would not be too difficult to reverse our disobedience of God's first command, to be fruitful and multiply.



The cosmopolitan condition would make it simple to reverse the depredation of the oceans. We could start by ending the corrupt subsidies that Portugal and other small countries hand out to their fishermen to underwrite dredging operations on the sea bottom. We could halt other maritime disasters as well, like ending offshore drilling for oil. By electrifying industry we would not need super tankers to ship oil around the world, ending the danger of oil spills. By switching to organic urbiculture we would end the growing dead zones caused by runoff of agricultural chemicals.



Aside from ending destructive policies, there are many positive measures that we could then take to obey God's command to increase biomass and undersea species diversity



Divers have long observed that sunken ships vastly increase the number of plants and fish just by increasing the available surface area. Wrecks and uneven ground provide hiding places for many plants, herbivores and carnivores. Artificial reefs could be built by dumping decommissioned ships and just about any other large object into coastal areas. In places where this has been tried, both species diversity and the harvest from coastal fisheries increased dramatically. With a world government this could be done on a much larger scale.



One recent proposal is to use sand structures. Researchers, including Jason De Jong at the Soil Interactions Laboratory, at UC Davis (http://www.sil.ucdavis.edu/people-jason.htm) and Stefano Ciurli of the University of Bologna have discovered that a common swamp bacterium, Bacillus Pasteurii, can initiate a biochemical reaction that changes sand into sandstone in as little as twenty-four hours. Amazingly, a sort of three-dimensional printer directed by CAD/CAM software can direct these bacteria to sculpt sand dunes into any shape they please. Magnus Larsson (http://www.magnuslarsson.com/architecture/dune.asp) has proposed that this technique be used in the Green Wall Sahara initiative, a shelterbelt of trees that is being planted across twenty-four African countries in order to hold back the spread of the Sahara. The technique may be adapted to the formation of artificial reefs as well. It would make it cheap and easy to form the sea floor into whatever surface oceanographers deem most likely propagate life under the waves.



So, instead of subsidizing fishermen to destroy the oceans, why not hire the same workers to sail along the coasts of every continent in super tankers full of sand, dumping behind huge artificial structures that sink onto the sea floor to form artificial reefs. After plying the seas this way for a few years, who knows how much biomass the oceans would support?



And why confine ourselves to the seas?



We could enlist these sandstone manufacturing bacteria to create habitats with vastly greater surface area than is usually found in nature. That way we could turn boring prairies into hilly, sculpted surfaces of whatever shape ecologists deem desirable for species diversity. With research and experience, we could replenish natural areas that now are languishing. In fact, we could probably actually create greater biomass and biodiversity than before humans took over.


More is understood now about the importance of fungi as the foundation of forest ecosystems. Armed with this knowledge, we could sculpt the forest floor specifically for the support of mushrooms and other fungi. This would make trees stronger and healthier, and supercharge the number and diversity of species living in the forest.



This way we could fulfill the prime divine order, to multiply the fruits of nature. But why restrict ourselves to nature? Christ's parable of the talents intensified the first commandment, shifting it to the human world. The parable implies that God not only gets quite irate when we fail to multiply natural diversity, He is also less than pleased when we neglect to develop our human talent as well.



Human Diversity



In order to increase human diversity, we could mix cities with supercharged rural and natural areas. Done wisely, this would increase the fruitfulness of both the human and the natural world at once. For example, occasional exposure to nature has a healing effect on the human psyche. Studies show that a five minute walk in a forest path while in conversation or solving a puzzle has a more powerful effect on our well-being than a dose of antidepressant. Hospital patients who convalesce in natural surroundings heal much faster than those in an artificial environment. By mixing nature into all landscapes we would increase human happiness to heights never before attained.


::

Wisdom as Soul Beauty

The Beauty of Seeking Knowledge

Wisdom as Social Purity

By John Taylor; 2010 April 30, Jamal 02, 167 BE

You can talk about most divine virtues without having to drag God into it, but that is impossible for wisdom. At least, that is my experience. Maybe that is why I am having such a hard time writing about wisdom, when I, fool that I am, thought it would be easy at first. For one thing, you have to tread through some very thorny, politically not-so-correct ground right at the start.

The Bible throws down the gauntlet early on, saying not only that those who do not believe in God are fools, but that all folly can be traced to one's relationship to the Godhead in the first place. Both the 14th and the 53rd Psalms are nothing less than declarations of war against atheists. Did I say atheists? Is that right? Consider what the first passage says,

"The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they have done abominable works. There is none who does good. Yahweh looked down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any who did understand, who did seek after God. (Psalm 14:1-2, WEB)

This does not actually mention atheists, it equates folly with corruption and doing wrong, which is not controversial, right? We can all agree that every injustice and atrocity that takes place ultimately boils down to somebody's foolishness and lack of wisdom. That is what Socrates taught, that all wrongdoing is an expression of ignorance. Here it says that all corruption is an expression of folly. Folly, then, is an aesthetic value judgment about what goes on in the heart. Conversely, wisdom is the beauty of what happens in the invisible realm of the heart. Alexandrian philosopher Plotinus put this well,

"One Soul is wise and lovely, another foolish and ugly. Soul-beauty is constituted by wisdom." (Plotinus, qi Wisdom, Mortimer Adler, the Great Ideas, p. 939)

If wisdom is a sort of beauty of the soul and folly is its ugliness then, like physical poise and bodily frumpiness, they are difficult to perceive, and futile to point out. As effective as the nerd's lame pickup line, "Hnuk, Hnuk, you are beautiful!" This, I can tell you, does not generally glean good results, unless you yourself are very, very attractive. The ugliness of folly and the beauty of wisdom, then, are probably best discerned in collective behaviour.

 

The Psalm then turns its condemnation not to any individual's private belief, believer or atheist, but to the nature of the society that comes out many individuals agreeing to a single social contract.

"They have all gone aside; they have together become corrupt. There is none who does good, no, not one. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call on Yahweh? There were they in great fear, for God is in the generation of the righteous." (14:3-5)

The 53rd Psalm is identical to the 14th, except that it adds here, "They have become filthy together." In other words, lack of belief is a kind of group impurity. It is a condition where a group fails to question -- recall the 2nd verse, which describes God looking down at the heart from above and asking one crucial question: does anybody seek after Him? Those who do so thereby show, if not wisdom, then at least understanding. Wisdom, then, is defined as search for God. This investigation of the divine may or may not result in social conformity, depending on the cleanliness or purity of the covenant that holds the group together.

A fool, then, says in his heart that there is no God, and thereby gives up the search before it starts. This abrupt abortion of the soul begins an inner rot, "They are corrupt...," for we were created by nature to know and love God. Something inside has died, and started to putrefy. The result is a "filthy" group consent.

Even with the best of wills, we are pretty helpless in this search. We are by nature incapable to conduct our search for Truth on our own -- which is why God is looking down from above, searching those who seek Him. We need God in order to find God. As Heraclitus put it,

"Human character has not the means of knowing, but the divine one has." (fr. 78).

Worldly wisdom is by nature oppressive. It gives birth to cruelty and violence. Divine wisdom is peaceful. It has the ability to forge a pure social agreement. It starts a just society and a compassionate civilization going.

"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, [and] easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." (James 3:17)

God loves a loving group, and He sees to it that they succeed. That is why the major religions have lived on, while so many philosophies and faiths have gone by the wayside. As the Qur'an and Abdu'l-Baha both advised, take a trip across Asia and you will see very frequently the ruins of cities that once were prosperous, but which did not last. Their folly sunk them into oblivion, and only ruins remain standing -- or, now, archaeological digs.

God and His divine wisdom are at the heart of evolution. God works His creative energy through natural selection in nature, but among groups of intelligent beings He guides through what might be called "divine selection." In the words of the Psalm, He looks down from heaven at the hearts, seeking out the seekers and loving the lovers. Only corrupt science and corrupt religion imagine that there is a contradiction between evolutionary theory and progressive revelation. I leave the last word to the One Who opened the ancient scriptures with the key of a Revelation that openly explains progress in faith.

"O ye wise men of the City and philosophers of the world! Beware lest human learning and wisdom cause you to wax proud before God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. Know ye that true wisdom is to fear God, to know Him, and to recognize His Manifestations. This wisdom, however, can be attained only by those who detach themselves from the world, and who walk in the ways of the good pleasure of their Lord." (Summons, 5.113, p. 233)

::

Comenius anticipated the Enlightenment, Only With God Intact

Comenius; Why I Write About Him

By John Taylor; 2009 July 06, Rahmat 12, 166 BE

My little project over the past year on the Badi' Blog has been to
examine John Amos Comenius's Universal Reform, or Panorthosia, in
detail. One of my central purposes in making this heavy commitment was
to demonstrate that every major feature of the so-called Enlightenment
project is not only discernable but also unmistakable in this book,
the first 10 Chapters of which were published in 1657, and the
remainder written over the last decade of the author's life, which
ended in 1670. This was thirty years before the Enlightenment is
supposed to have begun. What are enlightenment values? Here is a
succinct statement written last year by one of the stately atheists of
England, A.C. Grayling,

"When people talk about `Enlightenment values' now, they tend to mean
a modernized and somewhat idealized take on the 18th-century version.
Enlightenment values today are commitments to individual autonomy,
democracy, the rule of law, science, rationality, secularism,
pluralism, a humanistic ethics, the importance of education, the
promotion of human rights." (A.C. Grayling, "How Humans Dared To
Know," New Scientist, 26 July, 2008, p. 43)

It can be seen that, with the obvious exception of secularism, these
enlightenment ideals are all laid out by Comenius in a purely
religious context, each carefully documented as a legitimate offspring
of Biblical teaching. Even the idea of "enlightenment" is there -- in
fact this is the title, Via Lucis, or Way of Light, of another in
Comenius's series known as the Consultatio. It is true that most
Christians of his and subsequent times chose to reject the gentle,
principled tolerance of Comenius in favour of exclusivist dogma and
fundamentalism. Indeed it was not until Abdu'l-Baha laid out the
Baha'i principles a century ago that we see this path of peace and
enlightenment blazed once more in religious thought.

The exception we mentioned was secularism, the complete rejection and
expulsion of religion from the public thing. Comenius proposed instead
the image of politics as the head and body of a bird, and religion and
natural philosophy as the two wings that keep it in flight. Humanity
cannot fly without all three of these essential organs. What we now
call "humanism" has been appropriated by anti-theists, who imagine
that the bird can get out of the dust with a body and only one wing.
Rather, Comenius proposed, God is the highest ideal of true humanism,
since the entire bird was created in His image. This, Comenius
proposed, is a neutral enough ideal for both scientists and
politicians to invoke without taint of parochial bias.

"The method of organising the Political Community can best be derived
from the Idea of the Image of God, as follows: 1. Men should behave in
the same way towards the image of God (which means himself and his
fellow-men) as he should behave towards God. 2. Since mankind is God's
image, we should show the same behaviour towards it as God does, for
God is setting us an example." (Panorthosia, Ch. 12, para 8, pp. 190)

Unlike many religious, Comenius held that what we cannot learn from
scripture, the book of God, we can and should derive from God's other
book, the book of nature, that is, natural philosophy, what we now
call science.

"Then again ideas of a true political system can be derived from the
natural world, (e.g. the economist learning wisdom from the ant and
the politician from bees), and also from the artificial world. And far
from passing this over, as if the resemblances were purely accidental,
we should take it seriously, as reflecting God's everlasting wisdom
designed for our present purpose. For these creatures certainly take
their activities seriously, and the works which they produce are just
as real as ours ought to be. Thus any living, organic, and systematic
body is purely and simply God's representation of the idea of harmony
to which any political body must conform." (Panorthosia, Ch. 12, para
8, pp. 190)

This use of nature as educator about harmony and model for society
ties in to my other major writing project, proposing a new,
zero-environmental footprint construction along with the social
reforms that would enable it to be built.

John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

::

Why Does God Keep Sending Us Religious Messages?

Hi everyone

http://religiouscomics.net/?p=119

This has some funny parts, and is obviously based on a degree of prejudice and ignorance. Would anyone like to share some ideas on how, if at all, one could respond briefly to this? -- Ed

JET: This argues that God should not send us religious messages but scientific ones. As a former atheist, I would argue that this is scientism, a confused attempt to make science into a religion.

Religion addresses questions that science has nothing to do with, such as, how do I prepare for the next life? This preparation involves things that have nothing to do with science, such as loving others, showing virtues like humility and compassion.

That is why I think this video, mocking as it is, is one that many shallow believers would benefit from watching. We have to ask why God did what He did when He sent His Representative to suffer and be killed. Otherwise, as they suggest here, he might as well have sent us some facts and figures that would have benefitted us physically, rather than spiritually.

Crashing Signs of God's Dominion

A Prayer for Meltdowns

By John Taylor; 2009 Feb 10, 04 Mulk, 165 BE

"Dominion is God's, the Lord of the seen and the unseen, the Lord of creation," (Baha'u'llah, Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 172)

This is the Prayer of the Signs, a prayer "to be said in times of natural events, like earthquakes, eclipses, and other such phenomena, which may cause fear and are taken to be signs or acts of God." A prayer of the signs is an obligatory prayer for Muslims, but for Baha'is saying it is optional.

Looking at the prayer, I noticed that it starts with that word "dominion." In the Badi' Calendar this month is named Mulk, Dominion. So this is surely an appropriate prayer to say and think about as the fast approaches, the old Badi' year is all but ended, and the creative renewal of spring approaches. Such events, rising and falling, cooling and melting, help us fathom the significance of the divine virtue of dominion.

I felt moved to research the Long Obligatory prayer this morning, and going through the Aqdas I ran across this prayer of the signs. Immediately, I wondered if it might be appropriate to say this prayer for the present financial crash. It is true that a financial meltdown is not as outwardly violent and scary as a volcano, say, but in terms of human misery and loss of employment, it will probably turn out to be far worse than most volcanoes.

When I watch the business news, the excruciatingly slow and ominous approach of the dreaded Second Great Depression reminds me of the early days of our planet, about four billion years ago. No, I was not there, but modern graphics technology, television productions like "The Earth" and "The Universe" give viewers a persuasive look at the defining cataclysmic event in pre-history. A huge meteor smashed into our planet, tearing off a huge chunk, which became the moon, and, among other things, melting the whole sphere so that the heavy iron sunk to the core, thus making it into a giant magnet whose protective field allows for both an atmosphere and life to form.

These films re-enact this defining crisis unforgettably.

It all started with a massive body seemingly hanging there in the sky, dominating it from horizon to horizon. From the standpoint of a doomed creature standing on the surface it would have seemed to just hang there tranquil and quiet, still and static. Although it was millions of miles away and plummeting at unimaginable speed, it just sits there, until, that is, everything around you starts to melt. A good time to say,

"Dominion is God's, the Lord of the seen and the unseen, the Lord of creation."

And now that we are entering into a money meltdown, a meltdown that will almost certainly soon be followed upon by an even worse climate meltdown, it is good to remember this prayer of the signs, to recall that if it were not for that moon-creating crash so long ago we would not have air to breathe, much less a life to live. Surely, out of these crashes will come creative benefits both "seen and unseen."

The artist has a right, when necessary, to wipe the slate clean and start again. It is part of the creative purpose.

Golden Age, anyone?

--
John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

::