“Civilised discussions of contentious ideas.”
Thankfully no one I know in real life reads BP so I can touch on some experiences.
One of the Bahais in my local community is an Ivy League overachiever. Really nice guy and we are good friends (we have an age gap of a decade; he is younger).
On one of our catchups my wife asked him some difficult questions about the Faith (alas we too have our skeletons but we don’t talk about it much).
He is a sparkling witty intellect but on this topic he just clamped up.
I remember when I was his age I was sitting in the house of a another good friend (frenemy). I made some remarks about Faith’s highest body (polite of course) but difficult topics. At a moment his mood flipped and he said if I continued he would ask me to leave.
The irony is that this devout chap is a notorious playboy but when it comes to the Faith he just couldn’t intellectually process “the difficult questions.”
That’s why I believers should be agnostics; it doesn’t mean we don’t believe but that we have to humility to know that we don’t actually know.
It would make for a much more civilised world..
plus 1000%
“have to humility to know that we don’t actually know” . . . this is where religion or spirituality starts.
Love the pictures of Lal Bahadur Shastri’s casket. I remain hopeful that Pakistan can soon be best friends with Afghanistan, India, Iran, Europe, America and Turkey. Inshallah it can’t happen soon enough 🙂
How much room to you have to criticize Haifa (or for Americans, Alberquerque)? There are some crazy stories of people of your faith being shunned for speaking out or challenging your hierarchy — being called “covenant breakers” and being shunned– or even just participating in certain mailing lists. Do you feel any of that pressure?
(Feel free to delete this comment if you find this topic uncomfortable).
What has Alberquerque to do with the Faith?
I’m actually very happy in the Faith and community; I only bring up these topics simply to show that I don’t want to cast stones on other religions.
Just went to a film (Isle of Dogs – excellent flick btw) with 5 other people, 4 of us were bahais.
At my birthday dinner in December of 9 (our holy number I love multiple of 3 lol), the only non-Bahá’í was Lady V (my wife).
Also Covenant breakers for those who go against her Administrative order ordained by Baha’u’llah. I don’t believe in ostracism but I do agree that there are ways to consult.
Bahá’í Faith is flexible (for me anyway) but I don’t want Kabir feeling we are picking on him..