The Baha'i Faith & Religious Freedom of Conscience

Hypocrisy of Bahai Shunning from talk.religion.bahai, December, 2005:

https://groups.google.com/group/talk.religion.bahai/msg/389454772e9ba8b1?dmode=source&hl=en


From: "Heather Carr-Rowe" <rowe@northwestel.net>
Subject: Re: Baha'u'llah said
Date: Saturday, December 31, 2005 5:53 PM

Howdy Brendan,

It is Baha'u'llah's own words which are contradictory Brendan words such as
the following:

Whatsoever hath led the children of men to shun one another, and hath caused
dissensions and divisions amongst them, hath, through the revelation of
these words, been nullified and abolished

(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 94)

He preached these words to all of mankind but failed to apply them in his
own life and ended up shunning his own half brother and his family members,
Abdul-Baha' followed his example and ended up shunning his half brother and
family as well, Shoghi followed suit and ended up shunning his entire
family, all in contradiction of the teaching: "Whatsoever hath led the
children of men to shun one another, and hath caused dissensions and
divisions amongst them, hath, through the revelation of these words, been
nullified and abolished."

When you nullify and abolish a practice for the rest of mankind you had
better be willing to refrain from that practice yourself if you want to be
taken seriously by thinking people.

As well Baha'u'llah lambastes Shiah Muslims for: "the shunning of the
followers of other religions."*

Thing is if the Babi Revelation was an independent Revelation as it is
maintained in Baha'i teachings it stands to reason that it was an
independent religion as well. So to shun Babis who didn't accept
Baha'u'llah's claim over what was clearly stated in the Bab's W&T itself is
the height of hypocrisy for a man who calls Shiah Muslims to task for "the
shunning of the followers of other religions."

This is the root cause of the dysfunctioning in the Baha'i Faith Brendan
and that it is the root cause is as evident as the sun at high noon. If
people chose to remain in the dark not much can be done to illumine them.

It is ignorance which has ever been the true spiritual enemy of humanity.
When people target people of other religions and other religious
interpretations as their spiritual enemies it is a sign of the work of
ignorance. Such ignorance has been at work in the Baha'i Faith since day
one. Why? Because Baha'u'llah failed to practice what he preached, it's as
simply as that.

Yours Larry

*The unbelievers and the faithless have set their minds on four things:
first, the shedding of blood; second, the burning of books; third, the
shunning of the followers of other religions; fourth, the extermination of
other communities and groups. Now however, through the strengthening grace
and potency of the Word of God these four barriers have been demolished,
these clear injunctions have been obliterated from the Tablet and brutal
dispositions have been transmuted into spiritual attributes.Exalted is His
purpose; glorified is His power; magnified is His dominion! Now let us
beseech God -- praised be His glory -- to graciously guide aright the
followers of the Shi'ih sect and to purge them of unseemly conduct. From the
lips of the members of this sect foul imprecations fall unceasingly, while
they invoke the word 'Mal'un' (accursed) -- uttered with a guttural sound of
the letter ayn -- as their daily relish.

(Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 91)





'That's only one of the many incidents that Shoghi lists as being
punishments
for God's enemies.

It's an attitude of mind I can't share.'

It's more than an attitude John it's Baha'i dogma. Attitudes can change,
Baha'i dogma can't change because of the myth of infallibility.

Because Baha'u'llah shunned his half-brother Azal, Abdul-Baha' shunned his
half-brother, and Shoghi shunned his entire family it has to be OK to shun
because they couldn't make mistakes, they were infallibile after all. This
mental aberrasion has carried over until the present day with the U.H.J..
When you mention any questionable action of the U.H.J. to the majority of
Baha'is they don't even begin to examine that action they simply state:
"well they must have deserved to be excommunicated." , "well they must
deserve to be shunned", "well the U.H.J. must know what it's doing". After
all if you're infallible you can never make a mistake and this is exactly
the reason that the Baha'i Faith is stuck in the past, it can never learn
from the mistakes of it's Founder, of the Master, of the Guardian, of the
Universal House of Justice.

The Baha'i Faith is forever stuck in the past because of it's inability to
learn from mistakes because of the myth of infallibility. How sad!

Yours Larry

Howdy John,

One has only to look at what the reason for such a mindset is to see that
it has nothing whatsoever to do with spirituality at all.

Take John Carre for an example. In my Baha'i Canada a year or two ago I
read a warning from the Universal House of Justice about John and the fact
that they consider him to be a covenant breaker and thus shunnable. The
mental illness of this shunning is even more evident with the fact that this
shunning extends to John children and even their children.

Any person who is aware of this mental aberration in the Baha'i Faith but
remains within the religious community which perpetuates this mental
aberration is a true blue cultist. People who could even be incited to
murder through hatred of those they see as enemies of their faith.

Yours Larry

Howdy Susan,

"Whatsoever hath led the children of men to shun one another, and hath
caused dissensions and divisions amongst them, hath, through the revelation
of these words, been nullified and abolished."

(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 95)

'Whatsoever' Susan; not just religion, but race, ethnicity, nationality,
politics as well as religious interpretations.

'Nullified' and 'abolished' Susan. problem is that Baha'u'llah, as well as
Abdul-Baha and Shoghi Effendi in Baha'u'llah's stead, had just as much
difficulty putting this teaching into practice in their own lives as the
present day Baha'i administrative order and especially the Universal House
of Justice have putting this teaching into practice.

From my forty five years as a Baha'i child, youth, and adult my experience
was, and continues to be, that the greater majority of Baha'is actually have
a difficulty in understanding that the Universal teachings of the Baha'i
faith apply to them as well as the rest of humanity. I attribute this
inability to the inability of Baha'u'llah, Abdul-Baha' and Shoghi Effendi
to apply the non-shunning, oneness of humanity teaching, in their own lives
as well.

Just as Baha'u'llah, Abdul-Baha' and Shoghi dellusionally believed that
they could espouse the oneness of humanity but not apply this principle in
their own lives, Baha'is are following in their footsteps.

The hypocrisy of calling on humanity to see the sense of the oneness of
humanity while at the same time advocating the shunning of those who have
been cast as spiritually contagious simply because their religious
interpretations differ from Baha'i dogmatism is not lost on those who see
with their own eyes and understand with their own hearts and minds.

The way that Ian Kludge deals with this glaring hypocrisy and the
contradiction in the lives of Baha'u'llah, Abdul-Baha', Shoghi Effendi, and
today in the Universal House of Justice, is to write off all Baha'i
Universal teachings as mere 'councils of perfection'. Of course once you've
written off the Universal teachings of the Baha'i Faith what are you left
with? A religion that is indistinguishable from all the religions which
preceded it. This is the present state of the Baha'i Faith and it is
traceable to Baha'u'llah himself and his inability to apply his own
teachings of the oneness of humanity even within his own family, that
Abdul-Baha' Shoghi Effendi followed in Baha'u'llah's dysfunctional
footsteps doesn't come as any real surprise.

To preach the oneness of humanity is a good thing, to believe that somehow
you are exempt from applying it in your own life but that the rest of
humanity should fall into line is delusional.

Yours Larry

Howdy John,

Bayanis accounts of Ustad's and Baha'u'llah's pre-murder encounter has
Ustad asking Baha'u'llah if it would be O.K. for him and some Baha'i pals to
bump off those pesky Azalis at the gate. In that account Baha'u'llah gives
his O.K., not verbally but with a smile which gives Ustad the perfect
understanding that it is A O.K. with him. Which account is true who really
knows, the fact that Ustad approached Baha'u'llah before the murders took
place and put the question to him is not in question at all. Taherzadah
simply claims that Baha'u'llah advised Ustad against murdering the Bayanis.

There is not enough evidence to prove that Baha'u'llah actually condoned
the murders but the fact that he continued to dis Siyyid Muhammad long after
the man had his throat slit by fanatical Baha'is leads me to believe that he
believed that Siyyid Muhammad got what he deserved. It is not only in bad
taste, it is spiteful to continue to dis someone even after they were
murdered by followers of the person doing the dissing. You'd have thought
that Baha'u'llah would have let go of his hatred of Siyyid Muhammad after he
was murdered at the hands of fanatical Baha'is, his own followers.

Yours Larry

> This applies to all extremes, excessive suppression of freedom, as well
> as to excessive licence, excessive refusal by the Universal House of
> Justice to legislate and excessive legislating, excessive disregard of
> the legislation of the Universal House of Justice, and excessive
> obedience of the Universal House of Justice.

Figuring out just what and were the original source of all those excess'
and extremes is important as well Michael.

When we take an average, inspired, human being and elevate him to super
human status it leads to all sorts of extremes and excess because to defend
this irreal picture takes extreme measures; even murder and shunning of
family members, even shunning the children and grandchildren of those
shunned.

The Baha'i edifice is tainted with this mental illness right from its
foundation through to its administrative order and the religious zealots who
enforce this mental illness.

It is mental illness to cast a fellow human being as spiritually corrupt
simply because they refuse to quit a job, simply because they chose to go on
a trip to America, simply because they refuse to disassociate with others
who have been mistreated by those with that mental illness. Shoghi Effendi
suffered from this mental illness and even his own parents were not spared.

This mental illness of shunning is directly traceable to Baha'u'llah
himself and it undoes any good that Baha'u'llah's Universal teachings may
have done.

The mental illness of shunning is a contagion that renders the Baha'i Faith
as a negative spiritual influence in the world.

The sooner the world is rid of such mental illness the better.

Yours Larry

Howdy Brendan,

Deprogramming requires that you get to the heart of the programming.

Deprogramming is an uncomfortable process at times because it dispels
illusions which are fondly as well as habitually held on to.

The present dysfunctioning in the Baha'is Faith which is centered around
It's administrative order and the Universal House of Justice in particular
has it's precedents.

I have personally, over the thirty five years that I was a Baha'i, traced
these precedents to the glaringly contradictory Baha'i teachings of "shun
no man" and "shun these men". You can't have your cake and eat it to
Brendan; you can't have God's Universality of "shun no man" as well as the
earthly limitation of "shun these men", even if your a supposed
Manifestation of God. These two directly opposing teachings that Baha'u'llah
gave voice to, which Abdul-Baha', Shoghi Effendi followed and the U.H.J.
follows in Baha'u'llah's stead, negate each other. The cognitive dissonance
of trying to reconcile the irreconcilable is what is causing the Baha'i
Faith to come apart at it's seams. Baha'u'llah's tent is dilapidated, worn,
threadbare, patched and ready for the refuse or compost heap. The Baha'i
Faith doesn't have the structural integrity to be whole because its
foundation is built on the contradictory teachings of "shun no man" and
"shun these men".

To vilify and castigate fellow religionists, Babis, because their personal
religious interpretations differ is contrary to the teaching of the oneness
of humanity and the reconciliation of religion. This is the root cause of
the Baha'i Faith's present day dysfunction and it started with Baha'u'llah
himself.

Letting go of myths and supernatural thinking is the hardest thing for
religionists to do when their world view is built on those myths and
supernatural explanations for natural events. It is far past time that
religionists began to deconstruct all the illusory walls that they have put
up to defend their precious illusions. This includes Baha'is as well as
Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, all religionists who use their religious
beliefs as an excuse to shun any man, to denigrate any fellow human being as
spiritually corrosive, as expendable simply because their interpretations
differ.

Humanities survival depends on it; which to my mind makes the dispelling of
such religious illusions timely, appropriate.

Yours Larry