If the Universal House of Justice throws someone out of the Bahá’í Faith like Sen Mc Glinn and Alison Marshall and Juan Cole or condones the NSA of the United States commanding Bahá’í libraries not to buy any books from Kalimat Press thereby driving them out of business after their considerable investment in inventory and a lifetime of service to the Bahá’í community, isn’t that some kind of actual defacto “infallible legislation”? Same with their formal “communications” telling people what they must teach the Faith in exact by-the-numbers ways? Isn’t that defacto “infallible legislation” on what you must be doing such as going door-to-door and recruiting people to take the Ruhi Courses because they have commanded it in their formal letters? What actually is formal “legislation” in the Bahá’í Faith? Does anyone really know?
Both Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha taught the sacredness of individual human conscience but former UHJ Members Douglas Martin and Peter Khan teach that whatever the UHJ says MUST be the top down PERSONAL conscience of every Bahá’í. To refuse their understanding is to risk being summarily thrown out of the Faith after being reported to the Institutions by someone.
I take that to mean that if the UHJ tells you to murder your children in their beds you must do it because they are infallible and they have told you to do it. That it is their infallible Divine power over your individual and personal heart, mind, and soul. People may say they would never do that, but tell me what safe guards are there in the developing excessively neurotic “Admin-O-Centric culture” of the Bahá’í Faith over time that they would never do that? Cult “Group Think” and top down “Hive Mind” are very, very, very dangerous states of consciousness in human beings as witnessed in the just past 20th Century. What safe guards are there in the Bahá’í System that this would never happen? Right now individual conscience takes primacy among most Bahá’ís because many come from Christian backgrounds. This was certainly true for me. But what will happen after centuries of top down Ruhi Indoctrination of people robotically filling out blanks in organizational workbooks over and over from the cradle to the grave at every stage in life? What can happen then?
What are the safeguards that the Bahá’í Faith won’t turn out to be the “Scientology” of Shia Islam? We are already the “Jehovah’s Witnesses” of Shia Islam. Couldn’t this next level of top down authoritarian administration indoctrination be out there next?
What is to keep it all from turning into this?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_wright?curre…
What is the difference between Baha’i “shunning” and Scientology “disconnection”. Psychologically I see NO DIFFERENCE whatsoever in the harm to families. I was a very dedicated Bahá’í for many, many years. I want no part of this. In my opinion the Bahá’í Faith is now a cult that has been hijacked by sociopaths. Just look at the posts on Talisman. It is all completely unbalanced in its petty hatred and vehemence.
Again, what is to prevent the Bahá’í Faith from becoming murderous centuries in the future? What? ALL top down “Group Think” Abrahamic religions have become murderous in human history so far. Why would the Bahá’í Faith be any different before insular cult psychological processes? I see no current or future system of checks and balances at all. There is not even a Guardian left to say “No!” to raw incestuous completely unaccountable power over people.
The worldwide Bahá’í electorate is probably now one of the most timid and cowardly communities of people in the entire World. Complete toadies to the whim of the professional lifetime incumbent elite clergy class of the Bahá’í Faith. I see no possibility for change whatsoever. This will be the fate of the Bahá’í Faith for at least the next 800 years and beyond. It will, therefore, go absolutely nowhere because no moral and spiritually aware person would ever join or stay in an incredibly spiritually barren and corrupted religion like this. It will become more and more inward, insular, and incestuous with every passing generation. One step forward. Ten thousand steps back.
You or anyone else here, please explain to me what safeguards there are in the Bahá’í Faith that it will not go the route of Scientology as outlined in the current New Yorker article? I will diligently ponder any argument that says there are safeguards and this can ever happen. I myself see no system of moral accountability in the Institutions of the Bahá’í Faith at all. After all, such accountability requires individual personal moral conscience which has now been declared null and void by the entrenched professional leadership.