p13 Brave New World

Clash of Two Brave New World Systems

By John Taylor; 2008 Feb 16, 10 Mulk, 164 BE

I wrote the following essay and prayer for the proofs of deity a couple of years ago. It still stands, and I have only changed a sentence or two. I mentioned that I had just read "Introducing Marquis de Sade" and react with great anger and frustration to the original sadist's, "Dialog between a Priest and a Dying Man." Since I wrote that I did get an electronic copy of the dialog, and have included a brief commentary and excerpt from the dialog at the end of this post.

2006 Jan 26; Baha'u'llah's Brave New World

The Marquis de Sade shot past the 18th Century deists and wrote "A Dialog between a Priest and a Dying Man," an apology for atheism, a refutation of Christianity and all it stood for. More than any other philosophe, Sade captured the anti-religious undercurrent of the "Enlightenment." As a former atheist myself, reading a summary of this dialog infuriated me and I plan to get a hold of an etext, if I can, and deal with it in detail. It was especially distressing to read that what the dying man regarded as his most devastating ammunition against belief in God is now actually fully accepted by most believers, especially by us Baha'is. The very nature of belief in God is completely different now. Now, we believe in a reasoned manner. Proofs enter in. Consider this, from another in the series I am reading, this time, "Introducing Philosophy,"

"But all of them (philosophers) believe that philosophers are obliged to provide some kind of explanation, proof or evidence for their ideas. And this obligation marks the one obvious difference between philosophy and religion." (Introducing Philosophy, Dave Robinson and Judy Groves, Icon Books, Duxford, UK, p. 5)

Sputter, sputter. I think that the reason that such an extraordinary distinction can pass muster in Europe must be that so few ever read the Qu'ran. Depending on the translator, there are between 9 and 55 mentions of "proof" in that Holy Text alone. If de Sade's dying man had a mullah instead of a priest by his side, he might not have won so decisively. But still, Jesus did say, "By their fruits ye shall know them," does that not count for anything? Besides, the KJV offers six mentions of the word "proof," and the World English Bible ten. The dying man's priest should have searched them on his Blackberry.

 Take a deep breath, John, and count to ten. Let us back off from this and take another tack. What is to follow is ground I have covered before but it is worth plowing it over, perhaps annually, like a crop. The House of Justice begins "One Common Faith" with a special reassurance that we can be confident that the,

"period of history now opening will be far more receptive to efforts to spread Baha'u'llah's message than was the case in the century just ended. All the signs indicate that a sea change in human consciousness is under way."

 Let us focus in on this phrase, "sea change in human consciousness." Consciousness is a slippery word, hard to nail down almost by definition. John Lock defined it as the "perception of what passes in a man's own mind." Dictionaries suggest a broader definition, an awareness or concern for something, be it within or without the mind. As for "sea change," this interesting expression was born, like many English words, in the imagination of the Bard. His last play, his swan song, and my favorite of them all, The Tempest, has prince Ferdinand stranded on a beach thinking that his father and all hands are dead in a storm and shipwreck from which he has barely escaped. He wonders about some music he thinks he hears,

 "Where should this music be? i' the air or the earth?

 It sounds no more: and sure, it waits upon

 Some god o' the island. Sitting on a bank,

 Weeping again the king my father's wreck,

 This music crept by me upon the waters,

 Allaying both their fury and my passion

 With its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it,

 Or it hath drawn me rather."

 Shakespeare then has the airy spirit Ariel sing the song again. Since Shakespeare, Ariel has become a symbol for poetic inspiration, but here she offers a song of Dutch comfort; it is consolation passing strange, assuring Ferdinand that his father is dead, drowned and gradually being encrusted by jewels under the sea:

 "Full fathom five thy father lies;

 Of his bones are coral made;

 Those are pearls that were his eyes:

 Nothing of him that doth fade

 But doth suffer a sea-change

 Into something rich and strange.

 Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell"

 It turns out that this song of Ariel is a spell, not to say a lie, that Ariel has been charged by Prospero to cast upon the young prince. The image reflects the anger of Prospero, a brother wronged by the present king of Milan. Ferdinand's father, the present king of Milan, is in reality alive and stranded elsewhere on the island. However, the plot of the play does offer real sea changes to all concerned, anointed by the magical imagination of Shakespeare. Many magical twists and turns finally correct the dislocated political situation. Wrongs are righted, Prospero regains his usurped crown, Ferdinand meets and falls in love with Miranda, his cousin and Prospero's daughter. When she first meets Prospero, Miranda has no memory of life off of the desert island, and has never seen a man other than the base and deformed Caliban and her aged father. She declares,

 "O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in't!"

 Aldous Huxley took Miranda's innocent wonder at what a beautiful thing a healthy youth in full flower can be, and made it infamous by entitling his satire of our technology and pharmaceutical obsessed life, "Brave New World." A thousand times, alas. Now, you cannot say "brave new world" without echoing Huxley's rank cynicism, the reverse of what Shakespeare's poetic expression intends. Fortunately, "sea change" did not undergo such a bad sea change. It still implies not a bad change (like the encrustation that actually happens to an object left for centuries under the sea) but an imaginary transformation of our "fading parts" into something "rich and strange;" moldering flesh in the sea of imagination turns into coral and diamonds, into a precious, rare and wonderful thing.

 Now the reason I am alive and still have hope, the reason that I am a Baha'i, is that I still look forward to a brave new world without qualm or hint of irony. I really believe that if we could see with our inner eye we would witness this sea change going on in our soul and in the general consciousness of society. However ugly it may look outwardly, I believe with all my heart that a sea change is in the offing, a wonder is in the making. I believe that the day will soon come that anyone entering a religious gathering, not just a Baha'i meeting but any gathering of sincere believers in God, will make that very declaration that Miranda made upon seeing her cousin Ferdinand:

 "How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in't!"

 Now why would people of faith change from objects of revulsion into a thing of beauty?

 The Definition of the word "Manifestation"

 The Bab made the answer to this question crystal clear when he defined the word "manifestation" in the following passage. Speaking of Islam's promised Qa'im, he wrote,

 "God hath made Him manifest invested with the proof wherewith the Apostle of God was invested, so that none of the believers in the Qur'an might entertain doubts about the validity of His Cause, for it is set down in the Qur'an that none but God is capable of revealing verses." (Selections, 118)

 A prophet points to a future time when religion and faith will be known and understood. The followers of a prophet place their trust in his insight, they do not really know anything of themselves. A Manifestation of God, though, makes all clear by offering proof. He sets forth arguments that stand on their own before any who try to comprehend. Thus proof is the big criterion, the difference between now and past ages of prophesy. Today there need no longer be any "doubts about the validity of His Cause" because His proof is set out in revealed verses, a body of literature that backs it all up. The Bab continues with His proof, pointing to His own lack of human qualifications, especially his youthfulness,

 "Now the Ever-Living Lord hath made manifest and invested with supreme testimony this long-awaited Promised One from a place no one could imagine and from a person whose knowledge was deemed of no account. His age is no more than twenty-five years, yet His glory is such as none of the learned among the people of Islam can rival; inasmuch as man's glory lieth in his knowledge." (Id.)

 The glory of the coming brave new world will be that not one or two, but many, many people will be intellectually equipped to stand up and offer extempore all necessary proofs of the existence and relevance of the One True God. It will all be manifest, obvious. Let me, O God, one day be in that number.

JET, 16 Feb, 2008: The Marquis de Sade was not the first or the last atheist to make hay from the division of religions, but this dialog is a classic expression of their arguments. The New Atheists, Dawkins, Harris, Hitchins and others, constantly return to this theme as if drawn by an invisible electromagnet. If religion is supposed to be a benefit, a good thing, they contend, then why such hatred among them?

 The infuriating reality is that for hundreds of years the fact of divergence among world religions has been well known. For centuries the solution has been clear: reconciliation. But all this time believers have stubbornly persisted in sectarian disputes, in smug holier-than-thou-ism. Their devil's spawn is atheism and anti-theism. I would like to just dismiss both atheists and exclusivist believers by saying "a plague on both their houses," but with global warming it is manifest that there is only one house, and it has a thermostat that is badly out of whack. The only way we are ever going to fix it will be to keep the divisive exclusivists well away from the divine thermostat repair Person. Otherwise, we will be where the DYING MAN is, squabbling on our death bed.

From "A Dialog between a Priest and a Dying Man, by the Marquis de Sade

DYING MAN. Answer me this frankly, and above all, do not give self-interested responses! If I were to be weak enough to let myself be talked into believing your ludicrous doctrines which prove the incredible existence of a being who makes religion necessary, which form of worship would you advise me to offer up to Him? Would you have me incline towards the idle fancies of Confucius or the nonsense of Brahma? Should I bow down before the Great Serpent of the Negro, the Moon and Stars of the Peruvian, or the God of Moses' armies? Which of the sects of Muhammad would you suggest I join? Or which particular Christian heresy would you say was preferable to all the others? Think carefully before you answer.

PRIEST. Can there be any doubt about my reply?

 DYING MAN. But that is a self-interested answer.

 PRIEST. Not at all. In recommending my own beliefs to you, I love you as much as I love Myself.

 DYING MAN. By heeding such errors, you show little enough love for either of us.

 PRIEST. But who can be blind enough not to see the miracles of our Divine Redeemer?

 DYING MAN. He who sees through Him as the most transparent of swindlers and the most tiresome of humbugs.

 ==========

 DYING MAN. My dear fellow, if it were true that the God you preach really existed, would He need miracles, martyrs, and prophecies to establish His kingdom? And if, as you say, the heart of man is God's handiwork, would not men’s hearts have been the temple He chose for His law? Surely this equitable law, since it emanates from a just God, would be equally and irresistibly imprinted in all of us, from one end of the universe to the other. All men, having in common this same delicate, sensitive organ, would also adopt a common approach to praising the God from whom they had received it. They would all have the same way of loving Him, the same way of adoring and serving Him, and it would be as impossible for them to mistake His nature as to resist the secret bidding of their hearts to praise Him. But instead of which, what do I find throughout the whole universe? As many gods as there are nations, as many ways of serving them as there are brains and fertile imaginations. Now, do you seriously believe that this multiplicity of opinions, among which I find it physically impossible to choose, is really the handiwork of a just God?

No, preacher, you offend your God by showing Him to me in this light. Allow me to deny Him altogether, for if He exists, I should offend Him much less by my unbelief than you by your blasphemies. Think, preacher! Your Jesus was no better than Muhammad, Muhammad was no better than Moses, and none of these three was superior to Confucius, though Confucius did set down a number of perfectly valid principles whereas the others talked nonsense. But they and their ilk are mountebanks who have been mocked by thinking men, believed by the rabble, and should have been strung up by due process of law.

p13 Future of the Talk

Whence, “Is there a God, or what?”

By John Taylor; 2008 Feb 15, 09 Mulk, 164 BE

On Wednesday night Peter Gardner and I gave our slide presentation "Is there a God, or what?" to sixteen people at Mrs. Javid's home. Only one was a new Baha'i and one more was a non-Baha'i. Since the latter was of Catholic background, the discussion turned from the proofs of deity to the usual Christian blather as soon as, and even before, the discussion period opened. I find such talk extremely tedious and was about to drop off to sleep. I was still conscious when at one point the new Baha'i mentioned the idea that Baha'u'llah was the "return in the glory of the Father." That opened up a big can of worms, as one might expect. Then came Peter's finest hour. He launched into an explanation of "glory of the Father" that was penetrating, logical, sensible (as always with Peter), but was also (and I have been noticing this more frequently about his analyses lately) wise. Yes, wise.

My wife Marie and Silvie (13) and Thomas (8) came along to offer support to our mission to the atheists. Thomas brought along a book about dinosaurs and was silent and motionless while reading it for the whole evening; afterwards he confided that he had found the book so fascinating that it was as if time had stopped and all the busy world ceased to exist. Silvie read for us a passage from Robinson Crusoe about his "natural" deductions about God. Mrs. Javid later praised her for the clarity and loudness of her voice (unlike mine). However later when the time came for her to read the Master's talk on the proof of deity in Some Answered Questions, she was too tired. It was getting late for the little ones. As a result Peter stood in and read it in clarion tones. He made it sound extra persuasive because he read it slow and carefully. His reading voice truly is radio quality, and the listeners were visibly impressed with the genius of Abdu'l-Baha.

Afterwards I spoke to Linda, a nurse at McMaster, who mentioned that she has many atheist and anti-theist friends from her professional contacts, but that none ever want to come out to Baha'i meetings. That fact made me realize the problem I face. Even though atheism is the third largest "faith" in the world, the number who would actually turn out to a Baha'i meeting to hear my arguments is probably small indeed. Which is why you see so few firesides directed at atheists and agnostics. So I am doomed to be bored to death at firesides, as long as the appeal of the Faith continues to be directed only at those of a religious bent.

The question remains, where do we go from here? We have pretty much shot our wad as far as the Baha'i Faith goes around here. Mrs. Javid's fireside is the only regular, well-attended meeting in this part of Ontario, with the exception perhaps of Dunnville's monthly public meeting, at which we spoke last month. The Dunnville talk was the off-Broadway production, and Mrs. Javid was the big time. For decades I have been harping on every chance I get about how we should start a speaker's circuit around here, but it has never happened. Until it does, those two are our only opportunities within driving distance inside the Faith itself.

I dreamed about this problem last night, and I woke with the idea of taking this talk to liberal Christian churches, and other religious meetings that might be interested in responding to the New Atheists and their attacks on the proofs of deity. It would take some considerable rewriting and adjustment to the slide show, but I could do it. I am not exactly a mover and a shaker, but I will put out what feelers I can and if God confirms, God confirms.

Another idea I woke up with was the possibility of pruning some of the ideas in the slide show and making them into little YouTube films. Since Peter has a radio quality voice, plus a technical flair (when a cord turned up missing, he saved the slide show at the last minute on Wednesday by cutting notches into another, non-compatible cord), we could probably come up with some films that would chase up further opportunities to give the presentation.

A prime candidate for a first video is the section of the slide show that defines the Baha'i outlook using Venn Diagrams -- the intersection set being the part of the set of all our opinions that a Baha'i values the most. I mentioned this "Venn Diagram definition" of a Baha'i early on in discussion with my atheist friend ePhilo. Later, he paid me the compliment of using it in a musical presentation that he and his family gave at their local Baha'i Center. He wrote that afterwards a Baha'i came up to him and kept asking: "Are you sure that you are not a Baha'i?" Actually, not necessarily so. I just came across this quote from the Bible to include in any further presentations of the Venn Diagram. This should show that concentrating on what the Master called "points of unity" is also a Christian ideal:

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." (Philippians 4:8, KJV)

p13 treachery

Fast Comments on Trust Issues with Atheism

By John Taylor; 2008 Feb 13, 07 Mulk, 164 BE

Last month I read Patrick Glynn's excellent book, "God, the Evidence." Now, going over an older essay on the proofs of God, I find that I had already read at least part of this book almost five years ago. I must be losing my memory because I have no recollection of this book before last month. Anyway, the question of trusting atheists had to come up sooner or later, since it is engraved so deep and often in Holy Writ. In this case, it is brought up in a Tablet Baha'u'llah wrote to a political leader that commented on on March the 3rd, 2003.

2003 Mar 03; Comments on Paragraph 60 of the Suriy-i-Muluk

It is appropriate to talk about exaltation and degradation during this month of `Ala, Exaltation. This month we are tested by the fast, which Baha'u'llah called the "sun" of the religion of God, while obligatory prayer is its moon. Even in terms of physical distance the sun is much farther away than the moon. In spite of its extreme distance, about nine light-minutes away, the sun is far more powerful and influential on earth than the moon.

Human exaltation and lowliness are bound up in belief and denial, in truth and trust. Here Baha'u'llah brings out a theme that runs throughout the Summons,

"Know thou for a certainty that whoso disbelieveth in God is neither trustworthy nor truthful. This, indeed, is the truth, the undoubted truth. He that acteth treacherously towards God will, also, act treacherously towards his king. Nothing whatever can deter such a man from evil, nothing can hinder him from betraying his neighbour, nothing can induce him to walk uprightly." (Summons, Muluk, paragraph 60)

Faith in God is the fulcrum of our exaltation and worth. This faith, Baha'u'llah says, is also the basis of our obedience to Government -- to paraphrase Jesus, "You cannot render unto Caesar unless you render unto God at the same time." Taherzadeh comments on Baha'u'llah's above paragraph as follows:

"In order to appreciate this statement let us remember that many people who believe in God may be truthful and honest in a normal situation. But the real criterion of a man's truthfulness and honesty is his attitude at the time of temptation. When severe tests and trials descend upon man, the only thing which keeps him truthful is his faith in God. If he does not believe in God, there is no motivation within him to resist temptation." (Revelation of Baha'u'llah vol. 2, p. 332)

At about 7 years old I rejected God and entered into atheism. I underwent a strange alteration of consciousness when it happened. It felt like my soul had constricted, shrunk; as if nothingness had seeped into the center of my being. Anyway, lately I came across this personal testimony of another former atheist, Patrick Glynn, which recalls some of the same things I experienced in the following decade of my atheism. Glynn calls the belief system that atheists hold to "nihilism," which in view of the double repetition of the word "nothing" in Baha'u'llah's statement above, seems like a fair enough description.

"Under such conditions one's intentions may be generally good. But if you come to imagine that there is no moral order to the universe, the incentives to good conduct, particularly in private life, are, unfortunately, much weakened. There is little to justify great self-sacrifice, or deep personal commitment. Indeed, it is hard, as I later saw in retrospect, to feel or express love to the fullest extent."

"Even if one cares for others and thinks one cares greatly, one is inclined to be guided in the final analysis by one's selfish wishes. What is there in the nihilist's universe to call forth sacrifice? And without a willingness to sacrifice, one's capacity to care for others is narrowly circumscribed."

"Such was my state in the early 1990's, when, rather than work on a marriage much in need of repair -- and badly strained by my uncompromising commitment to my own intellectual and political projects -- I sought a divorce, amicably, as the saying goes, more or less decently, but still with very painful consequences for my first wife and me." (Patrick Glynn, God, The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Post-Secular World, Prima Publishing, Rocklin, CA, 1997, p. 14)

My atheism entered stage two when I heard a Christian minister talk at a High School Assembly. He seemed the essence of hypocrisy with his holier than thou, "Jesus will save you from your miserable degradation like He did me" pitch. This prompted me to become a fervent nihilist and anti-theist.

Then stage three, Ayn Rand. She is the philosopher for atheists; she proudly proclaims that selfishness is a virtue. In a way she was more "honest" than other nihilists, because she openly recognized that selflessness is foreign to the atheist's universe. She admires the egotism of genius as a heroic stand, as if altruism always were a kind of hypocrisy. Her self-contradictory belief in non-belief took blatant nihilism as a Good Thing. It is as if her openly and honestly admitting the dark secret about atheism that Baha'u'llah exposes above could erase their lack of commitment to both truth and trustworthiness.

By the grace of God, at about 16 years old I read a penetrating critique of Ayn Rand's philosophy and immediately junked her strange idea. Now, after so many years I can see how close that hypocritical preacher who so angered me really was to the atheistic nihilist, Ayn Rand, and her ilk. Stage two nihilism leads to stage three atheism, which rests on it as its sole support. Religious fanatics are from the mold of Ayn Rand's selfish genius-heroes, unabashedly selfish, proudly upholding egoism as a virtue, and denying God. Their pride denies a God Whose exaltation makes us all equal. Like the sun, His virtues of perfection and exaltation put us all on the same level.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica’s annual survey of human beliefs, atheism is the world's second largest "religion." The really weird thing is that nihilists and other adherents of non-beliefs like agnosticism, according to surveys quoted in Glynn's book mentioned above, actually admit to praying several times a day (more often I am sure than many believers). So Ayn Rand is the pot calling the kettle black when she says that hypocrisy is built into altruism; rather hypocrisy is built into atheism.

Rand has it backwards, for nihilism is the source not of virtue but of cowardice. To deny God is to deny life; it is spiritual suicide. Which explains why suicide rates are so much higher among non-believers. Here is what the Master has to say about nihilism as manifested in denial of the life to come.

"The conception of annihilation is a factor in human degradation, a cause of human debasement and lowliness, a source of human fear and abjection. It has been conducive to the dispersion and weakening of human thought, whereas the realization of existence and continuity has upraised man to sublimity of ideals, established the foundations of human progress and stimulated the development of heavenly virtues; therefore, it behooves man to abandon thoughts of nonexistence and death, which are absolutely imaginary, and see himself ever-living, everlasting in the divine purpose of his creation."

"He must turn away from ideas which degrade the human soul so that day by day and hour by hour he may advance upward and higher to spiritual perception of the continuity of the human reality. If he dwells upon the thought of nonexistence, he will become utterly incompetent; with weakened willpower his ambition for progress will be lessened and the acquisition of human virtues will cease." (Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation, 89)

p13prax

The Pragmatic Proof of Deity

By John Taylor; 2008 Feb 13, 07 Mulk, 164 BE

Today Peter and I are scheduled to speak at Mrs. Javid's on the proofs of deity, though at this point the weather looks like it may intervene. In any case I want to sum up some of the changes and additions that I have made to the slide show over the past couple of days. One important point is that the so-called "new atheists" are not so new. I came across the following statement by Edmund Burke, the founder of modern conservatism. Burke said this during the French Revolution, which had been inspired over the previous several decades by a cabal of atheists and deists calling themselves "Les Philosophes," or philosophers.

"I hear on all hands that a cabal calling itself philosophic receives the glory of many of the late proceedings, and that their opinions and systems are the true actuating spirit of the whole of them. I have heard of no party in England, literary or political, at any time, known by such a description.

"It is not with you composed of those men, is it, whom the vulgar in their blunt, homely style commonly call atheists and infidels? If it be, I admit that we, too, have had writers of that description who made some noise in their day. At present they repose in lasting oblivion. Who, born within the last forty years, has read one word of Collins, and Toland, and Tindal, and Chubb, and Morgan, and that whole race who called themselves Freethinkers? Who now reads Bolingbroke? Who ever read him through? Ask the booksellers of London what is become of all these lights of the world. In as few years their few successors will go to the family vault of "all the Capulets".
“But whatever they were, or are, with us, they were and are wholly unconnected individuals.
“With us they kept the common nature of their kind and were not gregarious. They never acted in corps or were known as a faction in the state, nor presumed to influence in that name or character, or for the purposes of such a faction, on any of our public concerns. Whether they ought so to exist and so be permitted to act is another question. As such cabals have not existed in England, so neither has the spirit of them had any influence in establishing the original frame of our constitution or in any one of the several reparations and improvements it has undergone.
“The whole has been done under the auspices, and is confirmed by the sanctions, of religion and piety.
“The whole has emanated from the simplicity of our national character and from a sort of native plainness and directness of understanding, which for a long time characterized those men who have successively obtained authority amongst us. This disposition still remains, at least in the great body of the people." (Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, November 1790, at: <http://www.mdx.ac.uk/WWW/STUDY/xburke.htm>)

I cannot emphasize enough my agreement with Burke on this matter. Unbelievers presuming to call themselves "Philosophes" is an offense to the very word philosophy -- as I point out later in the section on the Baha'i principle of the equality of the sexes, the very word philosopher means "lover of Sophia," or wisdom. The word wisdom or Sophia in Greek refers to the female attributes of God, love, compassion, mercy and other motherly, nurturing qualities. Socrates coined this term when trying to explain his mission in the Apology. His role as gadfly to the state of Athens could only be called "philosophy" because he did not claim to know or understand anything, far less God. This is impossible in any conscious, direct or "male" way. So instead Socrates took on the female attributes of God by offering what is now called a pragmatic proof of deity. That is, he walked the path known as the Via Negativa, he acted out his belief that knowledge, even knowledge of God through the Being he called his "daemon," can be demonstrated by attempting to prove one's own ignorance. The more we show forth the fact that we are humble servants of God, the greater our understanding and influence. In Christ's terms, we must lose our life in order to gain it.

I also added a couple of slides on a book the kids and I just read for our children's class, called "Discovering the Moon," which is about the Long Obligatory Prayer, that is, the "moon" of God's religion -- the sun being the 19 day long Fast coming up next month. Since I have taken on the project of saying the Long Oblig every other day, I have come to understand the value of this pragmatic proof of deity. True, this is a proof that Baha'is share with other faiths, but it is such an important proof that I would be negligent not to mention it. Ultimately, the pragmatic proof, living the life of God in order to prove He can move, is the most important, indeed perhaps the only way that a hard-core, cynical atheist is ever going to come to faith.

I also added a fascinating contemporary satirical cartoon of Burke looking over the shoulder of a radical English clergyman who sympathized with the ideals of the Revolution by the name of Dr. Richard Price. Here is the explanation of the caricature given on the blog, written by an atheist, where I found several of my latest illustrations for the talk,

"Although originally a Whig and a supporter of the American Revolution, statesman and celebrated orator Edmund Burke warned that the French Revolution would lead to the collapse of order and an outbreak of regicide and atheism. Reduced here to a pair of peering spectacles, a prying nose, and a pair of tiny hands wielding a crown and a crucifix, Burke split with the Whigs and by 1792 had allied himself with the Tory leader, William Pitt. The rat upon whom Burke spies is the Dissenting, radical clergyman Dr. Richard Price. Gillray (the cartoonist) imagines Price at work on an imaginary essay "On the Benefits of Anarchy, Regicide, Atheism," with a picture of the execution of Charles I hanging over his desk. Price's actual sermon before the reformist Revolution Society, which praised the French Revolution and its ideals of liberty, and championed an elective monarchy, provoked Burke to write Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)."

I think this split between Price and Burke is, in microcosm, the sign of a "Great Divorce" between religion and liberalism that characterizes the West to this day. On the one hand, religion fumbles the ball by rejecting global solutions and sinking into reactionary, exclusivist obscurantism. On the other, science and the learned refuse to recognize the potential benefits of faith, even in effecting their own ends.

This split has widened to a chasm today. This is why I think it is beneficial to think back and look upon that radical clergyman Price in the light of what we know today. On one hand, he was right, the prospect of liberty, fraternity and equality on a world level, transcending national and parochial boundaries, is a glorious one. All religions should embrace them, especially in view of the fact that they are ultimately derived from the highest teachings of their own Founders. On the other, the brutal fact is that these "enlightenment values" were then and still are appropriated by cynical atheists and used as an excuse to exploit their fellow man. Burke rightly saw the evil in this, the first Great Lie (Hitler's Great Lie was only a more developed version of the same lie). Burke rightly predicted the terror to come. One slide is of a contemporary painting a public beheading, one of ten thousand that took place during the terror. It is well to remember that the word "terrorist" was invented at this time, and it did not refer to rogue elements but to the atheist government that oversaw the routine cruelty of "Le Terreur." How ironic it is that the Republican Party, whose intellectual muscle is formed by atheistic capitalist ideologues, is presently obsessed with the politics of fear of terrorists. Again, a cynical lie instantiated in bloody policy. As I have mentioned elsewhere, the present atheistic capitalists with their brutal, self-interested world-embracing economic policies are responsible for the homelessness and disenfranchisement of over a billion people, a crime that threatens to dwarf the Holocaust, the Stalinist purges and the “excesses” of the French Revolution put together. Terrorists indeed.

An important argument for the existence of God is to be found in Abdu'l-Baha's Secret of Divine Civilization. Although it was written to exclusivist Muslims in Iran, it also addresses questions of science, progress, reason and reasoned faith. Religion, He says, is a sort of virtue machine that churns out willingness to sacrifice on the part of individuals who otherwise would never do so. This is of incalculable benefit to society, the Master, the Master points out in the following section:

"It is religion, to sum up, which produces all human virtues, and it is these virtues which are the bright candles of civilization. If a man is not characterized by these excellent qualities, it is certain that he has never attained to so much as a drop out of the fathomless river of the waters of life that flows through the teachings of the Holy Books, nor caught the faintest breath of the fragrant breezes that blow from the gardens of God; for nothing on earth can be demonstrated by words alone, and every level of existence is known by its signs and symbols, and every degree in man's development has its identifying mark." (Abdu'l-Baha, Secret of Divine Civilization, 98-99)

Note especially the last sentence here, where the Master all but spells out the pragmatic proof of deity -- words alone do not suffice, we have to act out God in our lives, and the results of our piety then shine out like the sun demonstrating God to the three most skeptical parties of all, me, myself and I. This brings me back to Baha’u’llah’s comparison of the fast to the sun and the oblig to the moon. Why is only one month, Ala', sunny, while all the other eighteen months of the Badi' year are illuminated only by the moon?

Clearly, because life in this world of contingency is a dark, shadowy affair, subject to accidents and change.

Most of the time, most of the year, we are in darkness. We are creatures of the half-light, and we have only the moon of that prayer to guide our steps. Those precious moments saying the long oblig are unspeakably sacred, especially for me. I love them because that is when I am proving God, to myself and to others. This is so important to me because there is nothing a religious person can say to an atheist that they cannot understand and still reject, should they choose to do so. This is because any higher, spiritual reality is willed, gotten by choice, desired. Without love, all is as the tinkling of bells. If they do not choose to act out faith by literally going through the motions, performing the ablutions and then genuflections of the oblig, there is not much that can be done. But if we Baha'is, who have accepted Baha'u'llah, do not go through the motions either, then we deserve the defeat that is waiting for us. For all that is left are mere words.

While it is true that each of the Baha'i principles is a new, unique and unprecedented proof of God, they all depend upon the pragmatic proof of deity. That is because, as Alfred North Whitehead pointed out,

"Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it."

That is, the Baha'i principles are known and understood but they are still in any real sense completely undiscovered. For example, we all know that search for truth on the part of everybody is probably a good idea, but that is very different from having that at the center of your religious faith. Same thing for oneness of humanity and all the other principles. These are religious teachings that have to be treated pragmatically, applying the pragmatic proof of deity.

p13 atheism

The New Atheists and the Master's Law of Affinity

By John Taylor; 2008 Feb 09, 03 Mulk, 164 BE

To read the new atheists is to encounter an undisguised, unabashed, overarching sense of superiority. This witticism by Oscar Wilde points straight at their smug attitude,

"The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated."

It would be funny if it were not true. An anti-theist can be open and above-board about what even the most haughty and bigoted theist must conceal under a hypocritical whitewash. The egotist who accepts an all-powerful, superior Being has to be humble and subservient before Him, or at least pretend to. Atheists are free of such constraints. They revel in their frankness, the fact that they have no inhibitions about calling a spade a spade.

An example is Alan Dershowitz, the lawyer-hero whose real-life exploits inspired at least one film, Reversal of Fortune. Disappointingly to me, this legal hotshot has become a strident anti-theist in his old age. Unlike most “new” atheists, Dershowitz does not stop at tearing down  belief in God but boldly sets forth policy based upon his anti-theist viewpoint. He lays it out with chilling clarity in a video interview at:

<http://www.bigthink.com/truth-justice>

In this talk, called "Towards a Preventative State," Dershowitz opines that the legal profession needs to advance beyond passively enforcing laws, it can actively intercede to prevent crimes from being committed in the first place.

"... the Constitution and our legal system was built on the premise that we wait until people commit crimes. Then we indict them and prosecute them, give them all the due process safeguards. Apply a standard of better ten guilty go free than one innocent be wrongly ... convicted.  We have worked on that jurisprudence for thousands of years. The Bible is based on that jurisprudence.  Christian legal systems and theology is based on that system . . . Islamic and Anglo-American and western in general." (http://www.bigthink.com/truth-justice/4044)

The theist model stacks the deck against his preemptive state by establishing universal laws that apply to the strong as well as the weak. Torture is forbidden. Punishments are restricted to the guilty, not their family and friends. Dershowitz openly deplores that. He calls a spade a spade. What goes unsaid is that the theist model, while it includes laws, is first of all based upon teaching. God loves us and teaches us the right way. Laws only kick in when teaching is rejected and all attempts at bringing back the Prodigal Son fail. Only the stiff-necked refrain from wrongdoing, and they are regarded as abnormal. In other words, teachers come first and only when instruction fails do you call in the bouncers, the police and the lawyers. Dershowitz's atheist legal model glibly rejects teachers completely. He puts everything into the hands of law enforcement, or in this case, law intervention.

"But we are seeing a paradigm shift. We are now not able, it is thought, to wait until the crime is committed. Particularly if the crime is a nuclear attack, a terrorist attack with biological weapons, with chemical weapons. Sexual predators running rampant. Drunken drivers killing people on our streets. All these potential dangers and harms have moved us ever so subtly, but very, very, discernibly toward the preventive state, where the state is empowered to move in before you have done any of these terrible things, and to try to stop you from doing them in advance. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." "A stitch in time saves nine." We all know those cliches, but how do you turn those cliches into jurisprudence?"

I want to draw your attention to the "cliches" that he mentions. It is no coincidence that he invokes them even as he denigrates them; planning of all kinds is anathema to the anti-theist worldview. These are not cliches, they are proverbs about planning. In a teaching model, planning really would eliminate crime before it happens because only the foolish and the ignorant commit crimes. But as one commentator to this video interview points out at this site, Dershowitz's idea of pro-active law is indistinguishable from totalitarianism or fascism.

His ideas remind me of the science fiction film Minority Report, where a "pre-crime officer" travels back into time to arrest criminals before they can do the dirty. Except that Dershowitz does not need a time machine, he has his anti-theist ideology based on blind fear. That does his dirty work. Remember, the fundamental theist teaching is that love chases out fear. But in Dershowitz's legal model people are criminals until proven innocent, and only direct preemptive strikes will ever remove fear, if ever.

The divine model of justice comes from a God who is, first of all, Good. He sets an example of love, and gives us laws based upon the "choice wine" of love. God loves us, so He created us; God cares for and nurtures His creation, and we respond in kind by loving our neighbor. But for an atheist, at least this one, deterrence is the glue that holds us together. Only the threat of violence keeps us from committing criminal acts.

"The new paradigm of suicide terrorism makes our system of deterrents very hard to operate, especially when coupled with individual guilt and individual response. You could deter terrorism if you punish the families of the terrorists; but we cannot do that because we believe in individual guilt. So the combination of the use of deterrents and the requirement of individual guilt make it impossible for us to use the traditional legal methods and legal threats against suicide terrorists. That is why we need to move in preemptively."

Dershowitz believes that the belief in the afterlife is the root of all evil. That is why religion itself is the reason that the old legal ways that it invented must be hacked to bits. The law now has to allow for preemptive strikes on the part of the state. We must shuffle off religious strictures that hobble the law and force it to refrain from torture and only to punish individuals, never the families and tribes who bred the criminals. The government's hand is forced because religions are cynically and systematically training armies of fanatical suicide bombers willing to give their lives to destroy the nation. The only way it can defend itself is by throwing out individual rights and introducing a police state.

This would be amusing and pathetic were it not for the fact that Dershowitz's preventative state has been open policy at the White House for at least the past eight years. Before that it was less open, but characteristic nonetheless. The fact is that the Republican Party has been led by strong atheists since at least the Reagan era. In spite of their embrace of Christian fundamentalists, this shadow leadership is entirely, virulently atheistic, as are all ideologues. As another prominent anti-theist puts it, the "intellectual muscle" of the Republicans comes from its atheistic leaders of thought, the "Chicago School" of economists, Nathanial Brandon, Ayn Rand, and about a dozen others.

Because this is a political issue, I cannot argue against it directly. Nor do I need to. We are hurtling on a handcart to climatic hell and if atheists and fundamentalist believers raise their hands and identify themselves as the ones with their hands on the tiller, I say let them. A big crash is coming and what matters is that we concentrate on what conduces to our survival. The best I can do is to identify the principles involved. There are two principles of survival, one spiritual and the other material. Abdu'l-Baha explains here the spiritual principle that teaches us a better definition of the holy, one that non-believers can value the same as believers of all stripes.

"Whatsoever is conducive to unity is merciful and from the divine bounty itself. Every universal affair is divine. Everything which conduces to separation and estrangement is satanic because it emanates from the purposes of self. Consider how clearly it is shown in creation that the cause of existence is unity and cohesion and the cause of nonexistence is separation and dissension." (Promulgation, 207)

Unity is sanctified in this day and age, and planning is the way to unity. Faith in that teaches all to value our common oneness and hope that planned, cooperative action will make a difference.

The other principle is based on science, on pure mathematics. This short video explains it well, and I agree with its title that it probably the most important thing that anybody can learn at this historical juncture.

"The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See."
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyOw9IgtjY

As this retired professor points out, there are laws of growth that dictate how bacteria in a bottle will double their numbers, and they apply just the same to human beings. Even educated people, deluded by ideology forget that there are no exceptions to the laws of mathematics. The present political model is systematically ignoring this basic law. Ironic but true, this is not only an inexorable mathematical law, it is also the inevitable Law of God.

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of Yahweh; On his law he meditates day and night." (Ps 1:1-2, WEB)

p31 Freedom of Conscience

A Demonstration and a Digression
Dear Readers of the Badi' Blog,
Today I want to juxtapose two texts by two of the greatest geniuses ever to walk the face of this earth. The first is a newly translated passage from the writings of G.W. von Leibniz (1646-1716). Leibniz was so insightful a thinker that, according to the Wiki article about him, mathematicians, philosophers and physicists to this day read his writings not out of historical interest but in order to make new discoveries! Imagine, after all these centuries we still have not plumbed the depths that Leibniz explored. Consider, for example, one of his earliest discoveries, the calculus. He arrived at it using a technique called "infinitesimals," that was later shown to be spurious.
"Leibniz's approach to the calculus fell well short of later standards of rigor (the same can be said of Newton's). We now see a Leibniz "proof" as being in truth mostly a heuristic hodgepodge mainly grounded in geometric intuition. Leibniz also freely invoked mathematical entities he called infinitesimals, manipulating them in ways suggesting that they had paradoxical algebraic properties. George Berkeley, in a tract called The Analyst and elsewhere, ridiculed this and other aspects of the early calculus, pointing out that natural science grounded in the calculus required just as big of a leap of faith as theology grounded in Christian revelation." (Wiki: Leibniz, Calculus)
Except that, as the article explains, much later, in the 1960's, Leibniz's "leap of faith" using infinitesimals turned out to be prescient. The infinitesimals opened up an entirely new line of mathematical enquiry, one that this writer is entirely unqualified to say a word about, other than this: we who are interested in God and religion should pay as close attention to Leibniz as anybody, since Leibniz put a great deal of thought into this area as well. For example, Leibniz put was one of the pioneers of both the United Nations and the sporadically meeting Parliament of Religions.
"Leibniz foresaw the European Union. In 1677, he called for a European confederation, governed by a council or senate, whose members would represent entire nations and would be free to vote their consciences. Europe would adopt a uniform religion. He reiterated these proposals in 1715. Leibniz devoted considerable intellectual and diplomatic effort to what would now be called ecumenical endeavor, seeking to reconcile first the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches, later the Lutheran and Reformed churches ... These efforts included corresponding with the French bishop Bossuet, and involved Leibniz in a fair bit of theological controversy. He evidently thought that the thoroughgoing application of reason would suffice to heal the breach caused by the Reformation." (Wiki, Ib.)
Leibniz was also one of the early proponents of linguistic unification, the Baha'i principle of a universal second language. The passage I want to cite today is called "On the obligation to believe," and constitutes a dry argument that one cannot force belief upon anybody. It is an interesting argument, but I think it is especially valuable when put together with the other passage for today, a long digression the Master made in His history of the Baha'i Faith, written anonymously in His time, called A Traveller's Narrative. This passage offers a utilitarian argument for freedom of thought and human rights that I have seen nowhere else. Maybe one of my readers can point out to me somebody who has said the same thing. Certainly Mill's On Liberty, written around the same time by the founder of utilitarianism, does not.
Even today, with all our talk of freedom and equality, we never mention this fundamental fact! Yet, according to Abdu'l-Baha, the relative freedom and equality of England was the main factor, the chief explanation as to why such a tiny island had made the whole world its playground. The same is true today with the American Empire, a tiny nation of three hundred million that dominates the hearts, minds, cinemas, computers and pocketbooks of the entire planet, some eight billion souls. They do this wonder by holding to the key to prosperity, tolerance and the freedom to think and do as one pleases. But let the Master speak for himself, I cannot say it any better anyway.
Oh, one more question, when the Master mentions “sundry persons” making the representations summarized here to the Shah, He is probably talking about the Lawh-i-Ra'is and His own Secret of Divine Civilization, but were there any others? Any ideas?

Leibniz: On the obligation to believe
from:
[A VI 4, p2152]
On the obligation to believe, which is offered as a demonstration
The reasoning: Definitions
1. An obligation is a necessity imposed under the fear of a just punishment.
2. To believe is to be conscious of the reasons which we find convincing.
3. Things in our power are those which happen if we want them to.
4. Fear is the desire to avoid something.
5. Self-knowledge is the memory of our actions.
[A VI 4, p2153]
Observation
It is not now in our power to remember or not remember any past thing.
Proposition I
Self-knowledge is not in our power.
Demonstration: For self-knowledge is memory by definition
5. Memory is not in our power, by the preceding observation, therefore self-knowledge is not in our power either.
Proposition II
It is not in our power to believe or not believe something.
Demonstration: For to believe is to be conscious of reasons which we find convincing about what is to be believed, by definition 2, and self-knowledge is not in our power, by proposition 1. Therefore neither is it in our power to believe or not believe.
Proposition III
There is no obligation to do those things which are not in our power. [A VI 4, p2154]
Demonstration: Since fear of punishment is nothing other than the desire to avoid punishment, by definition 4, it follows that, to the person under an obligation, the only contribution punishment can make to the fulfilment of the obligation is the desire to avoid it, either by obedience or pledge. Therefore, since it is evident from this that the fear of punishment should only bring about the desire to obey, and indeed the obligation is a necessity which brings about the fear of punishment, by definition 1, it follows that there is no obligation except to the desire to obey; and hence to those things which even by the desire to obey, i.e. which - by definition 3 - are not in our power, there is no obligation.
Proposition IV
There is no obligation to believe, but only to investigate with utmost application.
To believe is not in our power, by proposition 2. There is no obligation to do those things which are not in our power, by proposition 3. Therefore there is no obligation to believe. Which was to be demonstrated.
Corollary
From this it follows that it is pointless to oblige someone by oath to believe or not believe something.
Scholium
From this I infer that an obligation or commandment to believe occasions only the greatest effort to obey, i.e. the most meticulous investigation into reasons for believing. However this investigation is to be moderated in such a way that we should not ask of anyone a greater feat than what, by his personal situation and way of life, he is capable of.
To express the matter more clearly: at this present moment I am not obliged to believe or remember anything, because it does not depend on me. But I am sometimes obliged to try to discover reasons, which I may remember, i.e. believe, in future.
Most things in moral matters and natural theology could be demonstrated by a similar method. This would be of great importance to the tranquillity of the soul. For demonstration alone begets certainty, certainty alone begets a durable tranquillity, tranquillity alone begets happiness, tranquillity begets happiness." (http://www.leibniz-translations.com/obligation.htm)

A Digression, from: Abdu'l-Baha, A Traveller's Narrative, pp. 85-91

At all events, in the beginning of the year one thousand two hundred and eighty-five [A.H.] they transferred Baha'u'llah and all those persons who were with Him from Adrianople to the prison of 'Akka, and Mirza Yahya to the fortress of Famagusta, and there they remained.
But in Persia after a while sundry persons who were discerning in matters, notable for wise policy, and aware and cognizant of the truth of the earlier and later events, made representation before the presence of His Majesty the King saying,
"What has hitherto been reported, related, asserted, and alleged concerning this sect in the Royal Presence was either an exaggeration, or else [the speakers] fabricated statements with a view to [their own] individual designs and the attainment of personal advantages. If so be that His Majesty the King will investigate matters in his own noble person, it is believed that it will become clear before his presence that this sect have no worldly object nor any concern with political matters.
"The fulcrum of their motion and rest and the pivot of their cast and conduct is restricted to spiritual things and confined to matters of conscience; it has nothing to do with the affairs of government nor any concern with the powers of the throne; its principles are the withdrawal of veils, the verification of signs, the education of souls, the reformation of characters, the purification of hearts, and illumination with the gleams of enlightenment.
"That which befits the kingly dignity and beseems the world-ordering diadem is this, that all subjects of every class and creed should be the objects of bounty, and [should abide] in the utmost tranquility and prosperity under the wide shadow of the King's justice. For the divine shadow is the refuge of all the dwellers upon earth and the asylum of all mankind; it is not limited to one party.
"In particular, the true nature and real doctrine of this sect have [now] become evident and well known: all their writings and tracts have repeatedly and frequently fallen into [our] hands, and are to be found preserved in the possession of the government. If they be perused, the actual truth and inward verity will become clear and apparent. These pages are entirely taken up with prohibitions of sedition, [recommendations of] upright conduct amongst mankind, obedience, submission, loyalty, conformity, and acquisition of laudable qualities, and encouragements to become endowed with praiseworthy accomplishments and characteristics.
"They have absolutely no reference to political questions, nor do they treat of that which could cause disturbance or sedition. Under these circumstances a just government can [find] no excuse, and possesses no pretext [for further persecuting this sect] except [a claim to the right of] interference in thought and conscience, which are the private possessions of the heart and soul.
"And, as regards this matter, there has [already] been much interference, and countless efforts have been made. What blood has been shed! What heads have been hung up! Thousands of persons have been slain; thousands of women and children have become wanderers or captives; many are the buildings which have been ruined; and how many noble races and families have become headless and homeless!
"Yet naught has been effected and no advantage has been gained; no remedy has been discovered for this ill, nor any easy salve for this wound. [To insure] freedom of conscience and tranquility of heart and soul is one of the duties and functions of government, and is in all ages the cause of progress in development and ascendency over other lands.
"Other civilized countries acquired not this preeminence, nor attained unto these high degrees of influence and power, till such time as they put away the strife of sects out of their midst, and dealt with all classes according to one standard. All are one people, one nation, one species, one kind. The common interest is complete equality; justice and equality amongst mankind are amongst the chief promoters of empire and the principal means to the extension of the skirt of conquest.
"From whatever section of earth's denizens signs of contentiousness appear, prompt punishment is required by a just government; while any person who girds up the loins of endeavor and carries off the ball of priority is deserving of royal favors and worthy of splendid gifts. Times are changed, and the need and fashion of the world are changed.
"Interference with creed and faith in every country causes manifest detriment, while justice and equal dealing towards all peoples on the face of the earth are the means whereby progress is effected. It is right to exercise caution and care with regard to political factions, and to be fearful and apprehensive of materialist sects; for the subjects occupying the thoughts of the former are [designs of] interference in political matters and [desire of] ostentation, while the actions and conduct of the latter are subversive of safety and tranquility.
"But this sect are steadfast in their own path and firmly established in conduct and faith; they are pious, devoted, tenacious, and consistent in such sort that they freely lay down their lives, and, after their own way, seek to please God; they are strenuous in effort and earnest in endeavor; they are the essence of obedience and most patient in hardship and trouble; they sacrifice their existence and raise no complaint or cry; what they utter is in truth the secret longing of the heart, and what they seek and pursue is by the direction of a leader.
"It is therefore necessary to regard their principles and their Chief, and not to make a trivial thing a pretext. Now since the conduct of the Chief, the teachings of His epistles, and the purport of His writings are apparent and well known, the line of action of this sect is plain and obvious as the sun. Of whatever was possible and practicable by way of discouragement, determent, eradication, intimidation, reprehension, slaughter, banishment, and stripes there was no lack, yet nothing was thereby effected.
"In other countries when they perceived severity and persecution in such instances to be identical with stimulation and incitement, and saw that paying no attention was more effectual, they abated the fire of revolution. Therefore did they universally proclaim the equal rights of all denominations, and sounded the liberty of all classes from east to west. This clamor and outcry, this uproar and conflagration, are the consequences of instigation, temptation, incitement, and provocation.
"For thirty years there has been no rumor of disturbance or rebellion, nor any sign of sedition. Notwithstanding the duplication of adherents and the increase and multiplication of this body, through many admonitions and encouragements to virtue this sect are all in the utmost repose and stability: they have made obedience their distinctive trait, and in extreme submissiveness and subordination are the loyal subjects of the King.
"On what lawful grounds can the government further molest them, or permit them to be slighted? Besides this, interference with the consciences and beliefs of peoples, and persecution of diverse denominations of men is an obstacle to the expansion of the kingdom, an impediment to the conquest of other countries, an obstruction to multiplication of subjects, and contrary to the established principles of monarchy. In the time when the mighty government of Persia did not interfere with [men's] consciences, diverse sects entered in and abode beneath the banner of the great king, and [many] different peoples reposed and served under the shadow of that mighty government's protection.
"The extent of the empire increased from day to day; the greater portion of the continent of Asia was under the just rule of its administration; and the majority of the different religions and races were [represented] amongst the subjects of him who wore its crown.
"But when the custom of interference with the creeds of all sects arose, and the principle of inquiring into men's thoughts became the fashion and practice, the extensive dominions of the empire of Persia diminished, and many provinces and vast territories passed out of her hands, until it reached such a point that the great provinces of Turan, Assyria, and Chaldea were lost; until - what need of prolixity? -the greater part of the regions of Khurasan likewise passed out of the control of the government of Persia by reason of the interference with matters of conscience and the fanaticism of its governors.
"For the cause of the Afghan independency and the revolt of the Turcoman tribes was in truth this thing, else were they at no time or period separate from Persia. In face of its evident harmfulness what necessity is there for persecuting the harmless? But if we desire to put in force the sentence [of the doctors of religion] no one will escape fetters and chains and the keenness of the sword, for in Persia, apart from this sect, there exist diverse sects, such as the Mutasharris, the Shaykhis, the Sufis, the Nusayris, and others, each one of whom regards the other as infidels and accuses them of crime.
"Under these circumstances what need that the government should persecute this one or that one, or disturb itself about the ideas and consciences of its subjects and people? All are the subjects of the king, and are under the shadow of the royal protection. Everyone who hears and obeys should be undisturbed and unmolested, while everyone who is rebellious and disobedient deserves punishment at the hands of his Majesty the King. Above all, the times are completely changed, while principles and institutions have undergone alteration.
"In all countries such actions hinder development and progress, and cause decline and deterioration. Of the violent agitation which has befallen the supports of Oriental government the chief cause and principal factor are in truth these laws and habits of interference; while that state the seat of whose dominion over the Atlantic and the Baltic is in the furthest regions of the North has, by reason of equal dealing with its different subjects and the establishment of the uniform political rights of diverse nationalities, acquired extensive colonies in each of the five continents of the world.
"Where is this little island in the North Atlantic, and where the vast territory of the East Indies? Can such extension be obtained save by equal justice to all peoples and classes? At all events, by means of just laws, freedom of conscience, and uniform dealing and equity towards all nationalities and peoples, they have actually brought under their dominion nearly all of the inhabited quarter of the world, and by reason of these principles of freedom they have added day by day to the strength, power, and extent of their empire, while most of the peoples on the face of the earth celebrate the name of this state for its justice.
"As regards religious zeal and true piety, their touchstone and proof are firmness and steadfastness in noble qualities, virtues, and perfections, which are the greatest blessings of the human race; but not interference with the belief of this one or that one, demolition of edifices, and cutting off of the human race. In the middle ages, whereof the beginning was the time of the fall of the Roman Empire, and the end the capture of Constantinople at the hands of [the followers of] Islam, fierce intolerance and molestation of far and near arose in [all] the countries of Europe by reason of the paramount influence of religious leaders.
"The matter came to such a pass that the edifice of humanity seemed tottering to its fall, and the peace and comfort of chief and vassal, king and subject, became hidden behind the veil of annihilation. Night and day all parties were slaves to apprehension and disquietude: civilization was utterly destroyed: the control and order of countries was neglected: the principles and essentials of the happiness of the human race were in abeyance: the supports of kingly authority were shaken: but the influence and power of the heads of religion and of the monks were in all parts complete.
"But when they removed these differences, persecution, and bigotries out of their midst, and proclaimed the equal rights of all subjects and the liberty of men's consciences, the lights of glory and power arose and shone from the horizons of that kingdom in such wise that those countries made progress in every direction; and whereas the mightiest monarchy of Europe had been servile to and abased before the smallest government of Asia, now the great states of Asia are unable to oppose the small states of Europe.
"These are effectual and sufficient proofs that the conscience of man is sacred and to be respected; and that liberty thereof produces widening of ideas, amendment of morals, improvement of conduct, disclosure of the secrets of creation, and manifestation of the hidden verities of the contingent world. Moreover, if interrogation of conscience, which is one of the private possessions of the heart and the soul, take place in this world, what further recompense remains for man in the court of divine justice at the day of general resurrection?
"Convictions and ideas are within the scope of the comprehension of the King of kings, not of kings; and soul and conscience are between the fingers of control of the Lord of hearts, not of [His] servants. So in the world of existence two persons unanimous in all grades [of thought] and all beliefs cannot be found.
'The ways unto God are as the number of the breaths of [His] creatures'
is a mysterious truth, and
'To every [people] We have appointed a [separate] rite'
is one of the subtleties of the Qur'an. If this vast energy and precious time which have been expended in persecuting other religions, and whereby no sort of result or effect has been obtained, had been spent in strengthening the basis of the monarchy, fortifying the imperial throne, making prosperous the realms of the sovereign, and quickening the subjects of the king, ere now the royal dominions would have become prosperous, the seed-plot of the people would have been watered by the bounty of princely justice, and the splendor of the kingdom of Persia would be evident and apparent as the true dawn throughout the horizons of the world."