G: What criteria are you ultimately using to determine whether something
is "humane""? Are you basically just going by popular opinion? Or
something else? Do the Bahai writings actually say that the
punishments found in the Quran are inhumane for the present day? Or is
that something you are just saying?JS: Maybe humane was a loaded word that doesn't exactly describe what I mean. A better word would have been 'applicable to our time'. It may indirectly be based on popular opinion, but it is something that becomes apparent in the light of where society and human maturity is. I cannot say that I have seen the word inhumane used in the Baha'i writings in reference to Islamic law, but I have seen statements that describe Islamic Law as no longer applicable in our time.
----G: If you read in the Bible (or the Quran for that matter) even in
ancient times, people were imprisoned from time to time for various
offensese. If imprisonment was really the more human option, and it
existed in earlier times, why wouldn't those religions have simply
mandated imprisonment?
J: I would say that completely mandated imprisonment would have been an insufficient deterrant to the people in the ancient times.
----JS:
> I think that in the next few decades and centuries, secularism
> will overtake the planet, until the Baha'i Faith blossoms into maturity and
> brings spirituality back into civilization and governance.
G: Is that an actual Bahai prediction or is it just your opinion?
JS: Yes, this is my understanding of Shoghi Effendi's predictions. See "World Order of Baha'u'llah" of Shoghi Effendi. Here are some excerpts I separated into 5 sections below:1) Emergence of Baha'u'llah's New World Order:
The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, whose supreme mission is none other but the achievement of this organic and spiritual unity of the whole body of nations, should, if we be faithful to its implications, be regarded as signalizing through its advent the coming of age of the entire human race.
The Revelation entrusted by the Almighty Ordainer to Bahá'u'lláh, His followers firmly believe, has been endowed with such potentialities as are commensurate with the maturity of the human race--the crowning and most momentous stage in its evolution from infancy to manhood.
2) Disintegration of today's society
Deep as is the gloom that already encircles the world, the afflictive ordeals which that world is to suffer are still in preparation, nor can their blackness be as yet imagined. We stand on the threshold of an age whose convulsions proclaim alike the death-pangs of the old order and the birth-pangs of the new.
3) Secularization overtaking Islam, Europe, and America
The collapse of the power of the Shí'ih hierarchy, in a land which had for centuries been one of the impregnable strongholds of Muslim fanaticism, was the inevitable consequence of that wave of secularization which, at a later time, was to invade some of the most powerful and conservative ecclesiastical institutions in both the European and American continents.
This menace of secularism that has attacked Islám and is undermining its remaining institutions, that has invaded Persia, has penetrated into India, and raised its triumphant head in Turkey, has already manifested itself in both Europe and America, and is, in varying degrees, and under various forms and designations, challenging the basis of every established religion, and in particular the institutions and communities identified with the Faith of Jesus Christ.
4) Fall of Islam
"O people of the Qur'án," Bahá'u'lláh, addressing the combined forces of Sunní and Shí'ih Islám, significantly affirms, "Verily, the Prophet of God,
Muhammad , sheddeth tears at the sight of your cruelty. Ye have assuredly followed your evil and corrupt desires, and turned away your face from the light of guidance. Erelong will ye witness the result of your deeds; for the Lord, My God, lieth in wait and is watchful of your behavior... O concourse of Muslim divines! By your deeds the exalted station of the people hath been abased, the standard of Islám hath been reversed, and its mighty throne hath fallen."Both Sunní and Shí'ih Islám had, through the convulsions that had seized them, contributed to the acceleration of the disruptive process to which I have previously referred--a process which, by its very nature, is to pave the way for that complete reorganization and unification which the world, in every aspect of its life, must achieve.
5) Fall of Christianity
That the forces of irreligion, of a purely materialistic philosophy, of unconcealed paganism have been unloosed, are now spreading, and, by consolidating themselves, are beginning to invade some of the most powerful Christian institutions of the western world, no unbiased observer can fail to admit.
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