Re: Pilgrims' Notes

Kent Johnson wrote:

How does placing His beliefs in the proper context differ from classify
ing
His beliefs? Is it like His belief in "ether" which was a common scien
tific
idea of the day, that you believe we should be deciding what scientific
background and knowledge Abdu'l-Baha had to work with more than what He
believed?

Because without an understanding of the context in which certain
statements were made, the classification might be inaccurate.

"Thus this light is the vibration of that ethereal matter, and from thi
s
vibration we infer the existence of ether." (Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered
Questions, p. 190) BTW this is an authenticated text, and the term app
ears
only once in unauthenticated text, while it appears several times in
authenticated texts.

`Abdu'l-Baha frequently used common, everyday examples to make His
points. In the case of ether, I don't think He was necessarily affirming
the correctness of the theory. He recognized that ether was a current
explanation for electricity, etc., and He used it as a metaphor for
spirit. Perhaps today, He would instead refer to the electromagnetic
spectrum.

--
Regards, Mark A. Foster, Ph.D. * http://www.markfoster.net
"... the modern challenge is how to live with uncertainty. The
basic fault lines today are not between people with different
beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an
element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with
a pretense of certitude." — Peter L. Berger, sociologist


.

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