Somethings I just can't accpet..

[Popeyesays]

Originally Posted by Postmaster

These conclusions you come to are by far reasonable and I do understand and thought about this reasoning myself.. But my main argument is this faith may have been created by false prophets, the east doesn't drink alcohol and as we know there can be massive amounts of problems relating to alcohol, but were mainly talking about western Europe and the united states, in south Europe we enjoy alcohol whilst celebrating and even within the Church and to many people it's a form of BREAD and by that I mean making a living from it. If this is GOD Almighty’s next message for unity, it's just not going to work, which to me further shows it's a false message. A god given message wouldn't mistake this issue. Further more, the kind of miracles claimed by Christianity hasn't been performed in this religion. I know there is an opposing reason for almost everything that is said including the miracle one but these written miracles are still serviving as proof for people today by the bible However the alcohol one to me is proof of a false message. How can we be all but one nation? How do we mix oil with water?

I just ran a word search in the Baha`i writings for "wine". The word appears 639 times in 522 documents. More than 95% of those mentions use the word symbolically to express the intoxication of the spirit in pursuing the knowledge of God.

The rest are mostly in administrative compilations and concern the ban on alcohol consumption. Though that ban is not complete. Alcohol is recognized as a medicine for certain ailments and acceptable with medical consultation.
This does not mean a Baha`i should tell his doctor he needs a verbal okay to drink wine or beer when he wants. It means that it can be prescribed for its good medical effect. Prescribed in amount and frequency of dosage - just like any other prescribed drug.

I can't help but think that concern over social alochol consumption warrants disbelief that one religions is true or false.

I have to recount a little anecdote.
Back in the seventies a friend of mine from Arizona was doing visits to new Baha`i's in North Carolina. He visited a new believer in the rural suburbs of Raleigh during the fast. His new friend was sitting on the back porch waiting for the sun to go down, holding a beer in his hand.

John said, "You know, we're not really supposed to drink."

The new believer said, "One thing at a time, John. One thing at a time."
He was convinced by the wisdom of that. So am I.

We all have had to make adjustments to our lives when we declared belief in Baha`u'llah. And ultimately our failures and successes are between the individual and God, in my opinion.

I, for one, miss beer most of all. And on a hot day, I love to drink a very, very cold, fresh from the freezer non-alcoholic beer - Coors Cutter, or some such product. Some other Baha`i's are shocked, because they do not even use vanilla extract thinking that is obedience.

Well, tough for them, my interpretation is my interpretation and I am welcome to it.

Regards,
Scott

[Popeyesays]

Originally Posted by dauer

Well what if Baha'u'lah was really a secular ethicist, or philosopher? Or even a secular experientialist or mystic. And let's say he said some awesome stuff but in this case he was a complete misogynist. He spoke in his books at times of the evils of women and their inferiority.
Dauer

Where?

" The sixth principle of Bahá'u'lláh regards the equality of men and women. The male and female of the human kingdom are equal before God. God is no respecter of gender. Whosoever practices more faith, whosoever practices more humanitarianism is nearer to God; but between the male and female there is no innate difference because they share in common all the faculties. The world of humanity has two wings, one the male; the other the female. When both wings are reinforced with the same impulse the bird will be enabled to wing its flight heavenward to the summit of progress. Woman must be given the same opportunities as man for perfecting herself in the attainments of learning, science and arts. God has created the man and the woman equal, why should she be deprived of exercising the fullest opportunities afforded by life? Why should we ever raise the question of superiority and inferiority? In the animal kingdom the male and female enjoy suffrage and in the vegetable kingdom the plants all enjoy equal suffrage. In the human kingdom, which claims to be the realm of brotherhood and solidarity, why should we raise this question?"
(Compilations, Baha'i Scriptures, p. 277)

Regards,
Scott

[smkolins]

Originally Posted by Postmaster

in south Europe we enjoy alcohol whilst celebrating and even within the Church and to many people it's a form of BREAD and by that I mean making a living from it. If this is GOD Almighty’s next message for unity, it's just not going to work, which to me further shows it's a false message.

The Southern region of the United States must, to all reasonable accounts, be the most Christian centered region of the United States and of the protestant regions of the world.

And yet this is exactly where the multi-billion industry of tobacco exists, and has striven under perjury to continue making the product all the more adictive. Universities have been founded with the money, whole cities populated and run as a product of, this industry. Let's not even mention the prolongation of slavery (not origination, but clearly prolongation.)

God doesn't not ever bring just a message of healing and unity. It has always been a sword and will always be a sword. Who might get cut off might be categorically different than has happened in the past, but there can never be a blanket acceptance and pardon of everything, large scale and small, than mankind has done with his hands, mind, and heart. With repentance comes forgiveness, but not acceptance of the sin.