>:"A very common Baha'i attitude is that if one of the Central Figures
wrote something that comes into conflict with scientific knowledge,
then science is wrong because our Central Figures are infallible.<
wrote something that comes into conflict with scientific knowledge,
then science is wrong because our Central Figures are infallible.<
The Universal House of Justice, the source of all good and freed from all error, wrote this in their message to religious leaders:
"...
religion and science are the two indispensable knowledge systems through which the potentialities of consciousness develop. Far from being in conflict with one another, these fundamental modes of the mind's exploration of reality are mutually dependent and have been most productive in those rare but happy periods of history when their complementary nature has been recognized and they have been able to work
together. The insights and skills generated by scientific advance will have always to look to the guidance of spiritual and moral commitment to ensure their appropriate application; religious convictions, no matter how cherished they may be, must submit, willingly and gratefully, to impartial testing by scientific methods."
I don't think it is correct to believe the Central Figures were ever wrong. But much of what they wrote is metaphorical, symbolic and not meant in a material sense.
As to ether, Abdu'l Baha explicitly says in Some Answered Questinos that ether is an intellectual reality, not a phenomenal reality. Maxwell's
equations may be relevant to this. As to evolution, I know of nothing in the Writings that denies the theory of physical evolution.
Evolution is about the body, the physical house we live in for a short time. Evolution has nothing to say about the soul,
which is the reality of a human being. So, when Abdu'l Baha said humans have always been human, this does not contradict evolution, because Abdu'l Baha was, in my opinion, talking about the human spiritual reality, not about the appearance of the physical body.
Tim Nolan
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