The Baha'i Studies Listserv On 17 Jun 2010 at 10:27, Gilberto Simpson wrote:
> I think there is more to the > novels than just that. In the later novels, the Authority (presumably > "God") and his forces led by the angel Metatron are the primary > enemies. And at one point one of the "good guys" is explicitly > described as playing the role of the serpent for one of the alternate > universes. The later books declined in quality somewhat: it became as much metaphysics as adventure, at which point the interest waned. However I had no problem with the idea that good guys and bad guys might have got mixed up in the religious accounts. Alexander the Great is a prophet in Islam, and possibly mentioned in the Quran, but in Iran he is Alexander the destroyer. Can there be alternate universes in which good and evil are reversed? If you say no, then God is forced to be good. If you say God is free, and good is good because God said so, then it could be otherwise, and the imagination is free to imagine how things would be, if it were otherwise. And the Magisterium which supernaturally / metaphysically > abuses children by splitting them from their familiars are aligned (at > least in intention) with the Authority. It is a claim unsupported by virtue: so either the Authority has no virtue, or the claim is empty. That's exactly the question that the 9/11 suicide bombers present us with, is it not? In good fiction, the world mirrors the truths of the 'real' world, not necessarily the surface Sen ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Sen McGlinn http://senmcglinn.wordpress.com All is to be yielded up, save only the *remembrance* of God; all is to be dispraised, except His praise. Today, to this melody of the Company on high, the world will leap and dance: `Glory be to my Lord, the All-Glorious!' (Selections from the Writings of `Abdu'l-Baha, p. 93) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -- __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:[email protected] Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [email protected] Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:[email protected] Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
