Steve Edwards has administered a particularly welcome hatchet job on critical aspects of the ostensibly benevolent, world government-loving Bahá’í religion. Check the comments – the Bahá’í faithful have piled in.
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Parallels drawnDecember 10th, 2006 |
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Fast-growing cults often have a millennarian aspect: “Sign up now before the End of the World, or you’ll be sorry!”
“Check the comments – the Bahá’í faithful have piled in.”
Just like the Samizdata commentariat piled on the “barking moonbats” during the run up to and after the invasion of Iraq.
Oddly enough, the “barking moonbats” were correct in practically every single one of their predictions as to what would happen in Iraq… and the commentariat were, in practically every single one of their predictions, dead wrong.
So, to be honest, you guys don’t have the best record when it comes to “piling in, and snarking at the Baha’i’s for “piling in” has a particularly black pot sheen to it.
Save for the Quakers and their ilk, practically every faith has, at its core, the overarching and inevitable climax of world domination in one form or another. It’s part and parcel of the whole “We have the TRUTH!/GOD is on OUR SIDE!” flapdoodlery and codswallop.
And about as much chance at achieving this end as does the Church of the SubGenius, Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, or big “L” Libertarianism.
By the way, yes DO check the comments, (all 17 of them currently) what few Baha’is have commented seem to have been rather polite and restrained in the comments.
Apparently, your definition of “piling in” is one with which I was previously unaware.
– And not one mention of beheadings!
The Baha’i might be planning world domination but then so was E. L. Wisty! There are a great many religious groups out there with ideas ranging from being misguided to being evil and the only reason to take any notice of them is if they are actually a real threat.
The Caliphate is a threat and Baha’i isn’t. Their faith seems pretty much like Islam with the beheading cut out and a rather more “spiritual” Sufism thrown in. Big deal! I feel very sorry for them – Armanidinnerjacket and his cronies seem to be giving them a torrid time in Iran.
Best go now. I only have only a short time to mount a defence against the 2nd Unitarian Tank Division!
(They’re real dangerous since they signed a tactical alliance with the militant wing of the Salvation Army).
Goddamn it Jim!
I thought I’d be the first to mention decapitation.
As I have yet to hear of Bahai terrorists blowing up civilians, I really am not going to loose any more sleep over them than the various daft quixotic Revolutionary Communist Parties in the western world. They are not the ‘Caliphate’.
What a selective memory you must have. I realise your Ba’athist chums are upset at not having a nation to full of people to plunder but please make a full argument about how Iraq was better off under the psychotic Saddam Hussain.
Such as? As the commentariat is still here, throw some quotes back at people please and lets see where that goes.
Mary Ann, the anti-war lobby predicted variously that there would be a repetition of Stalingrad at the gates of Baghdad, that the Iraqi people would rise en masse to repel the Americans and that elections would never be held.
What none of them, except perhaps on the VERY far right, predicted was that a shockingly high amount of Iraqis would emerge as murderous lunatics once their fetters were removed and that coalition forces would be too feeble and wet to restrain them.
Didn’t Stalin have something pertinent to say about these Bali hi Bods? Something along the lines of
“screw them!! How many divisions do they have?”
“…but please make a full argument about how Iraq was better off under the psychotic Saddam Hussain.”
Let’s see, number of car bombs pre invasion: 0.
Number of car bombs post invasion: Lots more than 0.
Sunnis killing Shia: Not a whole lot.
Shias killing Sunnis: Not a whole lot of that, either.
Pre invasion, working electricity, working water, working sewers, women not being beaten in the street for not wearing a headscarf, girls going to school unmolested by self-appointed Wahabbi “Morality Police”.
Post invasion: Not so much.
Yeah, life under Saddam sucked.
It sucks a WHOLE LOT MORE right now. Except for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, dead due to the invasion and at the hands of the Sunni/Shia ethnic warfare. They’re dead and can’t suffer anymore.
The invasion was a mistake. You can lie to yourself all you want. You can rationalize that this is somehow a Good Thing all you want.
Considering how Bush’s need to prove what a big dick he’s got, has destabilized the region, likely for the next few decades, helped recruit thousands of new A.Q. jihadis, resulted in the unspeakable atrocities that were the Madrid and London bombings, the shredding of the US Constitution, the shredding of whatever passes for the Bill of Rights in in the U.K., etc., etc., etc., how about you can the tired bullshit rhetoric about bathist this and baha’i that.
Thanks to the neocon chickenhawks in the US and the UK, there are hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead. There are thousands of US service members dead. There are hundreds of U.K. service members dead. There are hundreds of U.K. and Spanish civilians dead. There are countless thousands of newly minted blood enemies of the West, itching to extract revenge upon the Great Satan by any means possible.
Thanks a lot, you guys at PNAC and the GOP and all the rest of the chickenhawks.
Continue to console yourself with the Thoughts of Chairman Rand. For all the good your self-delusion will do for those of us in the reality based world.
Hey, here’s an experiment you can do.
Fly into Baghdad. Walk to the Green Zone fortified area from the airport. Write if you make it there alive.
Then, maybe we’ll pay attention to your claims that the Iraqis are better off now.
The site you link to, Bahais Online, is hardly representative of the “Baha’i faithful”. It features as many items that are negative about the Baha’is as it does items that are positive. If there’s an item about the Baha’i Faith on the internet, and it meets some arbitrary standard of newsworthiness, then it’ll be included. That’s how the first x paragraphs of Steve Edwards’ article got quoted – verbatim, and without comment. “Piling in”? I don’t think so.
It’s good to see the Baha’i Faith getting some scrutiny. It needs it.
Steve Marshall
Bahais Online
Deleted comment. Stay on topic. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with this post. – JW
Mary Ayn Rand has hijacked the thread to bang on about her (unrelated) pet issue and I can’t really be bothered dealing with her sort at present, so I’m ignoring her whine.
Steve Marshall – Baha’is clearly have ‘piled in’ on the relevant thread. There are comments from three different individuals who one can safely assume are Baha’is. I think it’s a safe assumption that they followed the link to Steve’s blog from your site.
Nick M – the Baha’is of Iran (or Persia, as they call it) have been severely persecuted long before Ahmedinejad’s time. I feel terribly for them as a group of individuals, but not as Baha’is – religious movements that claim they have the one true answer have a tendency to oppress other religious movements that claim they have the one true answer.
A clarification – Steve’s post (and this one) are not intended as calls to arms against the Baha’is. Certainly, the Baha’i faith is not nearly as chauvinistic as Islam, although – as a commenter at Steve’s noted – try bringing a homosexual along to a Baha’i meeting and see if you get invited back. Steve and I are censuring a movement whose stated ambitions would threaten our liberty if the Baha’is ever got an opportunity to put them into practice. The Baha’i faith is a religion that too often gets a free pass from people such as ourselves. I wonder if Nick, RAB, Perry and Jim would be so sanguine if the Baha’is gained some political power? Aspects of the Baha’i teachings richly deserve a negative critique from the liberal perspective.
Three people commenting on a blog about their own area of interest is hardly “piling in” is it? What is the intention of the exaggeration? Not that I have any time for anyone’s superstitions. Except the FSM, of course
“Piling in” is a figure of speech that I hardly think is an exaggeration in the circumstances. Who cares if it’s their area of interest? If it wasn’t, they wouldn’t be commenting.
Interestingly enough, there was plenty of exaggeration in your previous comment regarding Iraq. Like you, I don’t have time for exaggeration, so I’m sure you understand why I deleted it.
I misunderstood the reference to “piling in”.
I apologize and retract.
Mary Ayn Rand is more than half right, but Perry is too. Middles aren’t automatically excluded in real life.
The truth is nobody (to a first approximation) predicted how Iraq would turn out, and some of us with the benefit of hindsight can see it was a terrible mistake.
Whether it would have been better if the American attack plan had been differently executed, or (more importantly, at my guess) its occupation strategy hadn’t thrown out all previous experience and historical precedent, we can’t tell either – though it seems probable. Whether with better planning it would have produced a liberal democratic state as some advocates hoped, I am now strongly inclined to doubt. But it might have maintained a secular one with more liberal institutions (a major advance in an Arab state) and created the counterweight to Saudi Arabia that seemed to me the key point of the grand-strategic decision.
Where I think MAR is wildly wrong is when she implicitly attributes the Madrid and London bombings to the invasion of Iraq, and assumes that it has created many enemies of the West outside Iraq itself. What it has done is give those enemies a nice clear pretext. But they would, and did previously, find another. In Islamist rhetoric, Russian conduct in Chechnya is part of Western oppression of Muslims, as was the Bosnian war (where the West if anything was mostly on the side of the Muslims). In Islamist rhetoric, there are no Christian or secular Palestinians, and the differences between and within European and American approaches to Israel are ignored.
There’s a great shortage of realism in the world. People everywhere like the enemy to be a neatly packaged pantomime villain: “crusader” or “chickenhawk” whose motives need not make sense because the villain is the personified, but not characterised, negative impression of fear and aggression.
—
Now, can we talk about Baha’i, please? The other thing that’s always struck me about it is its deep-running, tho’ not aggressive, aesceticism. Why are people attracted by this? What fear does it answer?
Sorry for digression, James.
Mary Ann Rand’s attempts to contrast Saddam’s Iraq with what has happened since is beyond parody. No-one here is denying much of the mayhem since 2003, Mary, and some of us – such as yours truly – have expressed their regrets and wondered whether we should have stuck to a containment/deterrence policy. I am still undecided. How nice it must be to have 100 percent certainty on such things ! I know what position I prefer: to honestly change one’s mind or throw out childish abuse about “chickenhawks” (as if only people with military experience are entitled to hawkish views on foreign affairs).
Anyway, Guy Herbert, in his usual polite way, has answered most of your points. I suggest you treat the writers of this site with a bit more civility if you want to be taken seriously.
MAR go tell that to the Kurds. Or do you not think their slaughter by Saddam matters? Considering the consistent genocide perpetrated against them they might just take exception to the assertion that life is far worse now that it was under Saddam.
Why do the anti-war types have a blind spot when it comes to the Kurds?
MAR go tell that to the Kurds. Or do you not think their slaughter by Saddam matters? Considering the consistent genocide perpetrated against them they might just take exception to the assertion that life is far worse now that it was under Saddam.
Why do the anti-war types have a blind spot when it comes to the Kurds?
The Ba’h’org want to assimilate you, too.
What was that about those with good intentions? In some way they could be more of a problem as at least the Islamofascists are patently bad.
MAR – The Iraq war has “privatised slaughter”. Now there is no evil state mechanism to blame or absolve the individual, only evil groups of men competing for market domination.
James,
I know the Baha’i have been persecuted in Islamic lands pretty much since the get go. I only cited Armanidinnerjacket because he is their current tormentor in chief.
try bringing a homosexual along to a Baha’i meeting and see if you get invited back. And I suspect there are quite a number of religions where that is the case (apart from the episcopelians – obviously – they’d make him/her a bishop). But there is a world of difference between “not being invited back” and being brutally murdered – which is what might happen in many madrassas .
Of course the Baha’i tend to think they have the “one true faith” and want everyone else to share it. That’s the nature of religions – or at least the proselytising religions. Of course that can lead to some pretty rum behaviour at times but how many Baha’i have taken to suicide bombing, hi-jacking, hostage taking, beheading, (attempting) the of building nuclear weapons and making lurid threats against the West? Do they really represent a challenge? You’re asking someone to put out a cigarette while your house is burning down.
I wonder if Nick, RAB, Perry and Jim would be so sanguine if the Baha’is gained some political power?
And how would that happen? If they want to run electorally, well fine but I can’t quite see ’em getting very far. Most folk in the UK, I suspect, haven’t even heard of them. There’s about as much chance as of me winning “Miss Nebraska 2007”. James, you are making a paper tiger out of a molehill. If it was greens, resurgent Trots, Islamicists or even the lib-dems I might take the threat seriously…
Right, I’m off to ride my unicorn to the shops to buy some magic beans.
Balance, please? Balance is good… (and yeah I know, I’m boring you again – sorry.)
– Well as they’re going-about it peacefully, it might not be so bad a thing – and isn’t really all that likely anyways, is it?
All religions (except mine) openly intend to be “the only one on Earth someday” once we infidels wake-up and smell the coffee. Baha’i is growing nicely, and naturally has given some consideration as to what it will do when it takes-over the world – they’ve got to have something to discuss at prayer meetings! {One of the tenets of Baha’i, is that nobody is allowed to address a congregation except in remembrance of the dead: which greatly assists in avoiding their faith being hijacked by crooked Imams. Quite clever, really.}
It must be evident even to Baha’is that there’s a lot of greedy violence in the world – especially amongst all those non-aescetic Baha’is out there. So some sort of “force” will eventually be needed to quell it – and most likely it won’t be needed until they have taken-over most of the world already, at which point they’ll have both an imperative as the predominant sect to address the matter, and a fair deal of moral consensus, which would give their ‘dispute-resolution council’ a certain vox-populi authority. What the hey, they can’t do much worse than the U.N., can they?
And as noted by several others in this thread already, there are far more pungent threats out there to worry about. I don’t plan to lose sleep over Baha’i either: and again, due to their desire to accomplish all this peacefully, I don’t plan to live long enough to need to.
Yes, and each and every one deserves criticism, as I am a liberal. Today, it’s the Baha’i faith’s turn. If you have another organisation/spiritual movement in mind that you believe deserves to be exposed as having particularly illiberal ideological tenets (as I believe the Baha’is do), you’re more than welcome to e-mail the Samizdata editors with your complaint and it too could be published here as a liberal critique of a coercive movement. Which is exactly what you’ve read above.
Perhaps, but if Steve’s post – and my post – makes Baha’i totalitarianism (from the liberal POV, that’s a completely accurate description of the Baha’i faith’s version of a global utopia) even less likely than it already is at present, then I’d be pleased as punch. That’s why we write, isn’t it?
Yes they want their perception to be the world view. As do virtually all other belief systems. Some perceive God delivering messages, some perceive Mother Gaia feeling pain, some perceive an existence specifically devoid of god, some perceive ‘reality’ as the perceptions of the physical senses. These are all just different perceptions of what reality is. Most of us here believe in an absolute existence governed by immutable laws. But so do the others, they just perceive different absolutes, different laws, in fact, and entirely different reality.
We all want our perception of existence to be universally accepted, so that we can continue to live it.
Most Samizdatistas perceive others as intruding on our rightful place that is ordained by rationally derived rights in the world of our senses. Others perceive intrusion by us into their efforts to obey mandates which are ordained by God.
The only way world views with conflicting claims can simultaneously exist is with continuous struggle for dominance or by complete separation. Baha’i today may be a low threat to us. But make no mistake, the battle for minds is a war for dominance of a world view. And we ARE players. And the consequence for losing is to be forcibly absorbed by our opponants.
Well said, Midwesterner.
– No argument, but far less threat from Baha’i at the moment than from numerous others. And realizing it’s tacky to quote oneself:
– or are forcibly converted or just slaughtered out-of-hand, both options for attaining hegemony that Baha’i does not espouse.
{Yet…}
Furious barking at low-impact threats such as Baha’i, calls into question the urgency of one’s furious barking at more present threats. The shepherd-boy who screamed “ANT!”… (sorry – had to!) Cheers, all – Jim+
Off topic. Deleted. Can’t you read? This is not the appropriate thread to debate the Iraq war. Clear off and take your smug crusade elsewhere. – JW
Bugger it! I was going to post something on topic.
I mentioned on another thread that I had worked for a cult and thought I might have had something relevant to say.
But thanks to Mary, It’s gone clean out of my head.
RAB,
I saw your earlier “cult post”, please tell us more.
I couldn’t even be bothered reading MAR again. Though I did notice a reference to the “101st Fighting Keyboarders” and thought that rather witty.
Midwesterner,
So the war of ideas is a zero-sum game?
Darn it, Nick! Now you made me read that post! I just had to find the “101st Fighting Keyboarders“.
It depends on how you interpret “zero-sum” but essentially, yes.
My opt is for separation of world views that cannot peacefully co-exist because the alternative is A Very Bad Thing®. Some world views co-exist very well together. For example, Christianity requires individualism. It is in the very structure of it that choice is required. Contrasting to Islam where choice is forbidden. And Christians attempt to convert the heathen, not eliminate them. Judaism also seems to require individualism to function.
But for world views that each demand the same turf, separation or conflagration are the only options I see. If that is zero-sum, then yes.
once we infidels wake-up and smell the coffee
Well, if it ever comes down to an end times forced choice between Mormons and Bahai’s, I guess if Bahai’s have coffee, I’m choosing them.
Well, no…they forbid alcohol. How uncivilized. How are we to feel the unity of all humanity without a few drinkipoos?
101st Fighting Keyboarders
Brilliant! Someone, quick! Design a patch!
James, you are making a paper tiger out of a molehill.
I loved this mixed metaphor. Can I use it? And “when life gives you lemons, make crocodile tears?”
Seriously…Bahai’s seem a little superstitiously attached to the number 9, and their attempt at one world government and one language seems to be rebuilding the Tower of Babel.
I was hoping that Mary Ann Rand was merely stupid, but it appears she is a conscious apologist for Saddam. Funny, isn’t it, how so many “peace” campaigners bend over backwards to give the benefit of the doubt to dictators. I can just imagine this piece of scum defending Hitler/Stalin, etc.
No, it is called logic. Sorry to inflict it on you.
yes, if only we had persued the “let’s all hold hands around the campfire policy”, the head-hackers would have left us in peace.
You really are very stupid. And evil too, I suspect.
Well all I was going to say was, although some of us here, including me in my usual flippant first comment, make light of such cults, how much clout do they have etc, You may be interested to know how organised and cabalised these cults are round the back so to speak.
I have been present at meetings in London’s top eateries that included representatives of Scientology, Egzegisis, The moonies , Hari Krishna, Orange People, Children of God. All sat round discussing current problems they all shared. This was in the eighties, and the problem was a threat to their incomes because of a Private Members Bill that might take away their Charity status
These folk are awash with cash and can pay for whatever they want. Several of the above mentioned have not just lawyers but private investigators on perminent retainer.
The good news is that the leaders of these cults are almost as gullible as the people that give them the cash. So there’s some hope for the rest of us.
But remember, people like these are all on a mission , and will cooperate with each other to our detriment if they can.
That was 20 years ago. You think Fallon Gon and the Bali Hi’s arn’t round that table now?
I don’t really want to go as far as a comparison with terrorist groups but….
A keyboard with a geek standing on it surfing a wave with a breaking crest of cascading letters and numbers.
I’ll buy one!
Where’s that talented Frenchman that did your Logo Perry?
“101st Fighting Keyboardists” is already taken by a coalition of conservative bloggers. I believe their motto is “We eat chickens for lunch”
kentuckyliz,
You can mix your metaphors as freely as you mix your drinks…
Midwesterner,
This is the second time this thread you have left me unable to respond properly and it’s too late to even summon up a one-liner.
RAB,
The Orange People? Was the future for them bright?
Asceticism,
I think someone questioned what the attraction of it was earlier in this thread. I have often pondered that question. The only fast conclusion I ever came to was that it must be a lot cheaper.
In general,
Where has Dissident Froggy gone?
*sigh* you’d think some people would learn. – JW
Jim – this is a liberal site that frequently highlights the illiberal stances of a wide range of organisations. On this occasion, Baha’i illiberalism is the target. Are the Baha’i faith’s illiberal tenets frequently overlooked? I’d say yes. Thus, it’s a worthy target.
Your position regarding this post is quite odd. I’m mystified as to why you’re so worked up about it.
Nick he has his own site here.
Yes Jon I agree with your points.
Nick there were loads of them in Bristol in the 80s.
That’s what people called them.
I was going to use their proper name of Rajneesh
but I had a mental block and couldn’t spell it then for some reason 🙂
I guess that would make us the “2nd Online Keyboard Division”.
2 Para Popper mouse Infantry ?
kentuckyliz,
You can mix your metaphors as freely as you mix your drinks…
I’ve just re-read that and can now see how it might’ve been taken.
Sorry! I didn’t mean any kinda slur that you were a dipso or anything. I shouldn’t post at 3-30am and not fully awake.
Keep propping ’em up, I’ll keep striking ’em down, sweetheart. Look. Mary. If you want to rant on and on and on about the Iraq war, that’s fine. Just don’t choose an unrelated thread of mine to go off in like a badly brewed bottle of beer. It’s rude. Here’s an idea – why not start your own blog? Hang on, perhaps you already have. – JW
MAR,
You really are flogging a dead camel with this one. I find counterfactual history very interesting but this is just pointless speculation on current events not an amusing historical parlour game.
I could type a lot more but it’s completely OT.
There have been many Samizdata of threads on the morality and the effectiveness of invading Iraq but this is the first I recall on Baha’i so can we keep to the point?
If not, you will be dishonourably discharged from Left-Shift Co, F3 Battalion, 101st Fighting Keyboarders (who’s task is more wpm than WMD). Alt-F4!
{ – You don’t understand – you clearly don’t understand (which admittedly, I’m getting used-to) – I’ve said precisely that for reasons discussed, I am NOT getting worked-up over this. Indeed, I fail to understand why anybody else would devote the time and energy to getting worked up about it.
Ending with smily – Jim+ ;}
No, Jim, I think it is you that does not understand. You’re not getting “worked up” in a Mary Ayn Rand sense, however you are worked up enough to post the same argument four or five times without bothering to make reference to anyone else’s countering points. I understand your position perfectly, and I have a number of issues with it, which you don’t seem to be willing to engage. So maybe it’s best if we leave it at that.
Some people on this forum have implied that my hit-job on Bahaism is either a feckless diversion from the real threat (which we seem to agree to be Islam), or as somehow constituting evidence that I am personally too frightened to actually confront said threat. Of course, anyone who has glanced at my website – even fleetingly – would know that this is total nonsense. In fact my DEFAULT punching bag is Islam, and, as noted in the first paragraph of my blog post, I figured it was surely time to examine some other superstition, for diversity’s sake.
My position is identical to James’ – the coercive aspects of ALL religions SHOULD be exposed wherever they are present. If Bahaism is considered the fastest growing faith/ideology in the world (or one of them) then it is surely worth spending just a couple of hours (like I did, for example) examining exactly WHAT these people believe, and how it would all affect non-believers.
Of course, if more people had applied a little scrutiny when communism was an infant ideology in the 19th Century – no matter how few or seemingly innocuous its initial adherents were – then we’d all be much better off today.
Was it Churchill who described a fanatic as “one who can’t change his mind, and won’t change the subject”?
At its outset, Christians declared the Twentieth Century to be theirs – the century in which Christianity would become the dominant (IAW the more dogmatic of them, the only) Faith on Earth.
With six million members (and growing), what price Baha’i?
– And I really should’ve put this in my last comment: lest I be misunderstood again (or accused of being deliberately obtuse, which also happens frequently), I am not countering your positions because you and they are pretty well correct, and I pretty well agree with them. We appear to be debating colour-shades on the threat meter: if not, then I am the one who’s misunderstanding (as usual).
Jim –
Compare this one post in Samizdata’s history (I think) regarding Baha’i illiberalism with the innumerable posts highlighting Islamic illiberalism on these boards. I don’t think your “colour shades” require debating.
Yet, does the above make Steve’s criticisms of the Baha’i faith’s illiberalism any less valid?