From: YUZIR@webtv.net (YU ZIR)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.bahai
Subject: Re: fw Timothy Mulligan Re: Why I left
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 16:48:13 -0400 (EDT)
As an outsider and, like T Mulligan a former Baha'i, I find interesting
his reasons for resigning his membership. Perhaps even more interesting
are the reactions to it by the loyal Baha'is who have posted here.
Mulligan's objections are completely reasonable. Like so many
searching souls, groping through the futility of temporal life, he seeks
a clear vision of life's plan, purpose and meaning. Turned off by the
mainstream Christian churches which hold to no eternal principle (but
only to the socio-babbolgical fad of the moment), repulsed by the
scandal plagued ministries of Swaggart, Baker and others, and subjected
to the propaganda of the predominantly liberal media (only 2% of
journalists ever see the inside of a church or synagogue on any regular
basis, I'm told), it is little wonder that people like Mulligan despair
of finding spiritual truth in this world.
The kinds of churches that do attract and hold people like
Mulligan are those that espouse clear, coherent teachings, and which
forgive but do not excuse the breaking of rules. That may be too
simplistic a description. They don't really attract many people in the
sense of persuading them to join, but they are the kinds of churches to
which TM and others like him will often respond favorably.
The Baha'is who replied to TM probably did more to confirm his
disillusionment than any contra-Baha'i could have done. They did this
through a subconscious duplicity that seeks to avoid giving answers to
honestly asked, embarrassing questions. The contradictions which TM
(and I, and many others) find in Baha'i teachings are not the benign
products of misunderstanding, nor are they cultural or translational, or
of any similar cause. They are real. They are the inevitable result of
any vast body of literature generated by any fallible human being(s).
The Baha'i literature is an unsteady house of cards that collapses
beneath the weight of honest scrutiny.
Saying that "all" religions contain contradictions is not only
a cop-out, it is false. For many years I believed that the Bible
contains contradictions. Only after I investigated these supposed
contradictions for myself did I find that they were not so.
Really, when I read some of the apologies in this NG, I
wonder if the writers themselves really believe them, or whether they
are clinging desperately to a belief system for fear of a truth they
would like less. People like TM see right through it.
This attitude would go a long way toward explaining the
censorship at SRB. Maybe the folks who run that site have thought this
through as clearly as TM has, come to the same conclusions he has, but
taken a different path. Just a speculation.