From: Ron House <house@usq.edu.au>
Date: 1997/11/17
Message-ID: <346FA886.53745469@usq.edu.au>
Newsgroups: news.groups
Guy Macon wrote:
> By my reading of Baha'u'llah, Bahais are not to interfere with other
> religions. You can't close down a Quaker meeting house. You can't
> burn a book written by a Covenant Breaker. You can't use your vote
> to try to stop a new newsgroup about the bahai faith. All are
> forbidden. Even I, a non-bahai, can see the basic principle behind
> the bahai teaching: leave those who oppose you alone. Don't help them,
> but don't interfere with them. It's a good, Godly principle, and I
> advise you to at least address the fact that you seem to be violating
> it. Saying that you have good reasons for violating it doesn't matter;
> all book burners have good reasons for burning books.
I agree 100%. It seems clear to me that Baha'u'llah did not
intend a 'legalistic' interpretation of his words: "Think not
that I have revealed to you a mere code of laws..."
To suggest that the fact that we are dealing with an electronic
rather than a paper medium invalidates the law seems to me the
height of legalistic, unspiritual reasoning. In essence, book
burning is using some kind of physical means to prevent
consideration of information. That is the 'spirit' behind the
law: don't interfere with people's right to read the contents
of the medium. Voting no against a newsgroup has exactly the
same effect as voting to confiscate and burn a physical book.
Guy, a non-Baha'i, can see this. Why is it so many Baha'is
can not?
--
Ron House
<A HREF="/profile.xp?author=house@usq.edu.au&ST=PS">house@usq.edu.au</A>
An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because
people refuse to see it. -- James Michener, "Space"
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