God's blessings are not demanded, which is how Calvinists misunderstand Arminianism. They are offered. Demanded is magic. Offered is grace.

Calvinism argues that God intentionally creates lemons. In effect, Calvinists portray God as a bad used car salesman.

Protection against unjust wars in the Bahá'í Faith is collective security (collective measures) not pacifism (individual measures).

: Doctrine is important to the degree that it helps one live a Christian, Muslim, Bahá'í, etc. life. Doctrine is harmful to the degree that it detracts from living a Christian life.

>>Do you think he [Paul Twitchell] might have adapted the so-called "Order of Vairagi Adepts" from Theosophy's Ascended Master belief?<<

Yes, including Christ and Rebazar Tarz, a mythopoeic representation of Twitchell's own master.

There really is nothing like "ascended masters," a term coined by breakaway Theosophist Alice Bailey (Arcane School, New Group of World Servers, etc.), in the more traditional surat shabd (Radhasoami) sects.

Probably unbeknowst to Twitchell, he did something quite similar to H.P.B. Both allegedly took at least one person they knew and transformed them into ascended masters.

Christians sleep (have the rest and peace of salvation) and non-Christians are in the grace (are spiritually dead).Thus, there is a duality between sleep and grave.

If I were a Christian, the following would be my faith statement:

1. Soteriologically, I am neither pluralist (univeralist) nor exclusivist but inclusivist. I believe that Christ, the Inner Light, can save people, according to His Own Will. Salvation proceeds through a childlike faith, not through theology. One can recognize the risen Christ (His continued workings in the world), irrespective of personal beliefs, and, God willing (unknown to us), be saved.


2. The saving faith is identical to the living faith. Salvation is a process, not a discreet event. Since "faith without works is dead," a profession of belief devoid of spiritual actions is no faith at all. In other words, the lack of good deeds does not negate one's faith. It is not faith.
   
3. Like some of the medieval nominalists, I am a divine command theorist. Goodness is not a priori God's Will. The "good" can only be defined a posteriori as what God has willed. If God's Will changes, goodness changes, as well.


4. I am an absolute minimalist with respect to orthodoxy. The only requisite salvific belief is in the risen Christ, which, for all I know, need not be consciously acquired. The rest of the Christian life (the process of salvation) consists of deepening one's relationship with Christ and in conforming to biblical ethics.

Here is an earlier fictional rendering of my faith statement.



posted at 12:40:11 AM by Dr. Mark A. Foster

Adopted from a joke by Bennett Cerf on What's My Line?:

My friend collects some rather strange pets. One of them is a Yak. Suddenly, he got a call that the place where he kept his yak was on fire. So he exclaimed, "Oh, my baking yak!"

"... postmodernism is a transitory phase; education will adopt a transmodern philosophy which will overcome the postmodern world view, not by eliminating world views as such, but by constructing a new world view through a revision of modern premises and traditional concepts. This constructive postmodernism, or transmodernism, demands a new integration of scientific, ethical, aesthetic, and religious intuitions.It rejects not science as such but only that scientism in which the data of the modern natural sciences are alone allowed to contribute to the construction of our world view. In spite of its fragmented approach, the postmodern movement has nevertheless created the necessary ingredients for a new intellectual vision, which I call transmodernism. In the words of Tarnas:12 “If the postmodern mind has sometimes been prone to a dogmatic relativism and a compulsively fragmenting skepticism, and if the cultural ethos that has accompanied it has sometimes deteriorated into cynical detachment and spiritual pastiche, it is evident that the most significant characteristics of the larger postmodern intellectual situation—its pluralism, complexity and ambiguity—are precisely the characteristics necessary for the potential emergence of a fundamental new form of intellectual vision, one that might both preserve and transcend the current state of extraordinary differentiation."

--- John J. Fanella

David Spangler's Luciferic initiation may be analogous to the baptism of fire mentioned in the New Testament. In other words, Lucifer, or Satan, correctly approached, is positive. The Bahá'í Faith is not Gnostic and does not regard the body, the "flesh," or ther lower nature ("Satan") as evil.

Structures are sets of rules. The Will of God relative to some phenomenon or situation may constitute a set of divine rules (intentionality) and, therefore, also be regarded as a structure.

Many Christians are inflicted with the "Flip Wilson syndrome," i.e., the devil made me do it.

The problem with the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal is that when you teach kids (really) in the military to be macho (even women), hard to then say, well, but don't be macho all the time.

>>Just so you know who you are really worshipping, read this page: http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/moongod.htm<<

Ah, the Allah=moon god argument. How about the following discussion of the pagan origins of Elohim:

http://www.skepticfiles.org/skeptic2/yahweh3.htm

There is no justification for the common evangelical and fundamentalist claim that the plural, Elohim, referred to a Trinity.

First, the Trinity was a Christian (and post-Christ) invention. The idea simply did not exist among the ancient Hebrews.

Second, Elohim translates "gods," not "three persons in one God." In claiming that Elohim referred to the Trinity, these Christians are essentially agreeing with the Muslim argument that the Trinity is a form of polytheism.

From John Charles Daly ("What's My Line?"):

Why don't they have many phones in China? Well, it appears that a lot of people in China have the names "Wing" and "Wong," and they are afraid that, if they install more phones, a lot of people will Wing the Wong number.

`Abdu'l-Bahá and Parker Palmer

"If we regard truth as something handed down from authorities on high, the classroom will look like a dictatorship. If we regard truth as a fiction determined by personal whim, the classroom will look like anarchy. If we regard truth as emerging from a complex process of mutual inquiry, the classroom will look like a resourceful and interdependent community. Our assumptions about knowing can open up, or shut down, the capacity for connectedness on which good teaching depends."
-- Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach

"The shining spark of truth cometh forth only after the clash of differing opinions."
-- `Abdu'l-Bahá', Selections from the Writings of `Abdu'l-Bahá', p.87

There is a difference between Palmer's postmodern view that truth emerges from discussion and `Abdu'l-Bahá's view that it comes forth, or is revealed, in the context of a discussion or consultation. Palmer's view is classical pomo. `Abdu'l-Bahá's is critical realist.

Copyright © 2002- Mark A. Foster, Ph.D. All rights reserved.