imho, we are seeing a repetition of a world view argument here that might be
improved by a restatement.
gilberto states:
:"I would go back to the original example. Even before Bahaullah freed
his slaves and banned slavery, morally sensitive people were already
thinking that there is something wrong with slavery. That suggests
something immoral in the institution, at least as it was practiced at
that period in time, which other people could recognize.."
it might indeed suggest that.
that would be a a change in rate of reflection.
members of the Baha'i Faith believe that in the period which in my vain
imagining begins 1 lifetime before 1844, the "breeze that stirreth" was being
created by the soon to emerge Sunrise.
and the net result is an increase in light, which to an observer is not
distinguishable from an increase of reflectivity.
in other words i might say that there are people who consider Baha'u'llah a
great sufi. there are people like me who think the sufis were Required to
develop so that somebody could have a working world view for Baha'u'llah to
address.
there are people who think Baha'u'llah was a masterful political
scientist, and people like me who think that the political turmoil beginning
about 1760 was Required as a matrix to receive the World View Baha'u'llah Gives.
in my mind, each Appearance creates a resetting of the baseline.
the most righteous guy available on earth during Abraham's time was lot.
his recorded conduct would get him jailed today. not thru >>any<< failure of
his own, but because the baseline has been Moved several times.
another visual example: if i have a bar chart of say something like the dow
industrial average, i will see a relatively smooth slope if i use the
relationship between the price of a troy oz of gold and the "basket" of
equities, and the period of 106 or so years as determinant values for drawing.
if i use the rate of change of $us to buy that basket from jan1 2006 to today,
it will appear very jagged, and steeper.
both views are merely expressions of a continuum of the mean of guesses
about the state of the usa economy 6-9 months in the future.
in reality, the economic continuum has been ongoing for 10,000 years thus
far, and 10,000 years to come, with the >>baseline<< of what is meant by
"wealth" or "poverty" being reset by objective criteria.
slavery depends on a definition of freedom that includes the freedom to own
people. Baha'u'llah Illumines the absurdity of that proposition, and over time
it disappears, regardless of whether people can name the Conduit of the Light.
people are capable if they choose to be.
God is Capable because He Is.
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