From: McKenny Michael <bn872@freenet.carleton.ca>
To: smaneck@berry.edu <smaneck@berry.edu>
Cc: talisman@umich.edu <talisman@umich.edu>
Subject: Re Who Talisman and Where Answer
Date: Thursday, February 19, 1998 10:06 AM
Greetings, Susan, from Ottawa.
If you are well, it is well.
Thanks for coming back to add this other word.
Of course, this is merely the primordial fundamentalist Baha'i ad
hominem. It is equally against the canons of logic as all of its so
numerous children. By the way, for those with a little Latin, vir is
the word for man in the sense of male; homo means person.
You have defined, in my view, the primary flaw in the reasoning of
Baha'i fundamentalists, i.e. that no consideration is given to ethics
and morality, but that obedience to despotic authority takes priority
over decent behaviour.
However, leaving aside wishes and hypnotic dreams, whether self-
imposed or otherwise, the objective reality is that if actions when
conducted by the governments of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia or name
whichever tyrannical violators of human rights you will, if such deeds
are wrong performed by these administrations, it does not render such
deeds correct, proper and moral to substitute the word Baha'i or the
name Universal House of Justice as the perpetrators of such outrages.
It does not even help you to substitute the name God for the
originator of unethical and unprincipled behaviour.
As I understand the Baha'i line, the essential reason for the
appearance and existence of the Baha'i Faith is the alleged arrival
of human beings at the station of maturity. Well, is not that much
loved of despots position that the people are children whose only
function is to obey and serve the state quite contrary to such a
concept of adulthood?
The maturity of the human race means that the individual members
of the species may no more plead innocence on the grounds of simply
obeying orders than could the officials who ran the death camps for
the Nazi government, or all the rest of those who placed doing what
they were told to do above decency and principle.
Principle may not morally be defined as simply listening to what
authority dictates; it is demonstrably clear in history, in Baha'i
history as well as non-Baha'i history, that authority, if granted such
power, behaves immorally and, just as individuals in a mob find it
easier to condone and perpetrate unethical actions, so also those who
are able to toss away conscience by asserting they are simply doing
what authority says, and, alas, it seems, all the more, those actually
exercising such unrestrained authority, including the members of the
Universal House of Justice, find it easier to act in ways no upright
human would act, let alone any beneficient deity.
Each human being, as an individual, has a personal responsibility
for ethical and principled action. That Baha'i officials have been
going around telling Baha'is that their membership in the Baha'i Faith
necessitates the placing of obedience to Baha'i authority higher than
obedience to conscience is a very clear sign that the Baha'i Faith as
currently administered has more to do with despotism than with
morality.
Let there be no doubt, were flying saucers to arrive and by what
means soever to dictate that an all male ruling body must rule this
planet, notwithstanding the awesome power at their desposal, still
such aliens would be unprincipled interferers in the affairs of this
people. Changing the name of such an alien species to the UHJ or god
does not alter the issue in the least.
If one posits the existence of a beneficial and ethical deity
then the actions attributed to the will of this deity will be
beneficial and ethical. If what is said to be the will of such a god
is unethical and not beneficial, then this attribution is false. The
source of such actions can be varied and diverse. However, it is not
the will of the divine.
It is crystal clear, unless and until the members of the Baha'i
ruling patriarchy act according to principle, rather than seeking to
redefine principle so that what is contrary to the fundamental
principles of the religion is asserted to be the unquestionable divine
will, they will be seen as they deserve to be seen, as humans who have
dragged the standards of their prophet into the mud of their personal
unwillingness and incapacity to walk the talk.
May this find you very well, and may each of the days ahead of us
be more filled with peace, happiness and prosperity than the one it
succeeds.
All the Best,
Michael
--
"My name's McKenny, Mike McKenny, Warrant Officer, Solar Guard."
(Tom Corbett #1 STAND BY FOR MARS p2)
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