Posted by Jenifer Ripley (65.94.252.125) on September 24, 2002 at 04:38:23:

In Reply to: Re: The Queer Question posted by Rob on September 23, 2002 at 18:06:52:

I believe the following should answer what is meant by "modernization" and will allow our readers to comprehend the question posted by xBahai:

TWO PARTS: DEFINITION & DISCUSSION
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"Modernize our religion"

TWO DEFINITIONS AND DISCUSSION

PART ONE: DEFINITION

1. mod-ern-ize

v. mo-dern-ized, mo-dern-iz-ing, mo-dern-iz-es

v. tr. To make modern in appearance, style, or character; update.

v. intr. To accept or adopt modern ways, ideas, or style.

also, modernIzation n.

Source: The American Heritage¨ Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

2. modernize

\Mod"ern*ize\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Modernized; p. pr. & vb. n. Modernizing.] [Cf. F. moderniser.] To render modern; to adapt to modern person or things; to cause to conform to recent or present usage or taste. --Percy.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

modernize

v 1: make repairs or adjustments to; "You should overhaul your car engine" [syn: overhaul] 2: make a country technologically advanced; "Many countries in Asia are now highly developed"; "Viet Nam is modernizing rapidly" [syn: civilize, develop]

PART TWO:

Discussion:

Preface, Word History: The word modern, first recorded in 1585 in the sense ãof present or recent times,ä has travelled through the centuries designating things that inevitably must become old-fashioned as the word itself goes on to the next modern thing. We have now invented the word postmodern, as if we could finally fix modern in time, but even postmodern (first recorded in 1949) will seem fusty in the end, perhaps sooner than modern will. Going back to Late Latin modernus, ãmodern,ä which is derived from Latin modo in the sense ãjust now,ä the English word modern (first recorded at the beginning of the 16th century) was not originally concerned with anything that could later be considered old-fashioned. It simply meant ãbeing at this time, now existing,ä an obsolete sense today. In the later 16th century, however, we begin to see the word contrasted with the word ancient and also used of technology in a way that is clearly related to our own modern way of using the word. Modern was being applied specifically to what pertained to present times and also to what was new and not old-fashioned. Thus in the 19th and 20th centuries the word could be used to designate a movement in art, modernism, which is now being followed by postmodernism.

Analysis:

As applied to Baha'i, we can see that the question in its intrinsicy is theologically irrelevant. There is no UHJ standing committee on the modernization of precepts in the Baha'i Faith. Moreover, this hypothetical committee cannot exist as it would be revisionist even though progressive in theory. Revisionism, as any Baha'i knows, is antithetical and diametrically in opposition to Baha'i thought.

One could not even motion to review homosexuality - for modernization of views, visit society, not Baha'i.

Jennifer

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