Posted by anon (138.88.29.198) on November 26, 2002 at 10:36:09:

In Reply to: What Would The UHJ Say? posted by Stuart Gilman on November 26, 2002 at 07:10:05:

Stuart - please remember that this site, for all intents and purposes, is Jonah's personal webpage. He can do what he wishes. As far as I know, this web site is not under the sponsorship or direct guidance of any Baha'i institution. So this is not an official Baha'i site. This is also a free and open message board - anyone can post and postings are not reviewed prior to their addition. It is only after they are posted that Jonah can decide to remove postings he may wish - it is entirely up to him. He may not like postings that have the letter 'q' in them - he is free to erase all of them! Check the message at the top of the bulletin board:

The Bulletin Board is primarily for discussion of scholarship, announcements, and other items directly related to the Baha'i Library or Baha'i studies. Tangential postings may be edited or removed. All spam advertising, flames, and obscenity will be removed. For other discussion, visit Planet Bahai Forum.

You must realize a few things. Official interpretation of Baha'i writings was only bestowed upon `Abdu'l-Baha and the Guardian. Personal interpretation is not forbidden, but cannot be construed in any way as official.

We can use the analogy of a Supermarket to think about the Baha'i Faith. You should buy the whole store - you shouldn't go through and pick and put in your basket the best things that suit you. Once you have bought the store, it will take time to go through the aisles and examine all the products. But you already own them, you can't help that, so you study them and find out what they consist of.

So if you wish to tell other's what is right and wrong and what they can and can't do, you should either state it as an opinion supporting with the Sacred Text, or make sure that you in the process are not violating any other commandments.

I encourage you and everyone to post your opinions about matters. But do you see my point?

I think writing the Universal House of Justice may not be the best line of action for the specifics of this matter, but I think you would find that your response from the House would be filled with such love and patience that no other single person would be able to show towards you. (As a side note, replies sometimes take a long time).

It appears that posting here has become some sort of hobby for you which is wonderful. But you should not feel somehow obliged to respond to every message multiple times for some reason. Remember that there are others who wish to understand and wish to express opinions - you may already understand these things, but that does not mean others do. Everyone is very different when it comes to Faith - some things make more sense than others, some things have more effect, some things need more explanation, some people simply have more faith, and also some people just have different interests. To think that they are all the same would be akin to having an aim of the Baha'i Faith to simply achieve sameness, instead of unity in diversity.

-eden

this topic is closed - post at bahai-library.com/forum