The Caretaker of Creation, the Glory of God, tells us of the beginning of His Revelation:
"While engulfed in tribulations I heard a most wondrous, a most sweet voice, calling above My head. Turning My face, I beheld a Maiden—the embodiment of the remembrance of the name of My Lord—suspended in the air before Me. So rejoiced was she in her very soul that her countenance shone with the ornament of the good-pleasure of God, and her cheeks glowed with the brightness of the All-Merciful. Betwixt earth and heaven she was raising a call which captivated the hearts and minds of men. She was imparting to both My inward and outer being tidings which rejoiced My soul, and the souls of God’s honored servants. Pointing with her finger unto My head, she addressed all who are in heaven and all who are on earth, saying: ‘By God! This is the Best-Beloved of the worlds, and yet ye comprehend not. This is the Beauty of God amongst you, and the power of His sovereignty within you, could ye but understand. This is the Mystery of God and His Treasure, the Cause of God and His glory unto all who are in the kingdoms of Revelation and of creation, if ye be of them that perceive."
Praise be to God for His Manifestation of Glory and Beneficence to mankind! All honor to Him that hath arisen in earth and heaven! This Maid was none other than the Blessed, the Beauteous Person of the Báb, declaring Himself the truth of this latter Prophet of God and indicating to all in heaven and earth that they should bow and acknowledge Him Who suffered in that dungeon of horrors.
This symbolic form was used as an intermediary between the Báb and His Best-Beloved through the course of His Writings for the sake of we weak mortals. All of the references to the Maid of Heaven and Her Works are those of the Báb. In the Lawh-i-Houriyyih the Exponent of God on earth declares to the people of the Bayán that He is revealing the hidden truths of the Báb, though for this and despite His Worthiness their only response is hatred and the desire to put Him to death. For this the Báb wept bitterly.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Human development, the period of infancy, and the development of man
I have noticed that many people seem to have a conscious direction to their small movements, such as gestures, eye-movement, and facial expressions, in degrees that others do not and those who did were especially spiritual, or in other words better educated and trained.
I noticed this increasingly in myself when praying and other times when there would be moments when I felt completely in control of myself, and then some impulse dragged me off and said 'I HAVE to do this, one moment of which I noticed this evening. After a nap while waking up the thought came to me while thinking about some of the levels of development of order in the universe that that is exactly the work that babies are learning to do: develop conscious knowledge of reality as the first step of building the first step of a thought that will then then transfer, as described by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, through:
KNOWLEDGE. Man must attain the knowledge of God.
FAITH.
STEADFASTNESS.
TRUTHFULNESS. Truthfulness is the foundation of all the virtues of the world of humanity. Without truthfulness, progress and success in all of the worlds of God are impossible for a soul. When this holy attribute is established in man, all the divine qualities will also become realized.
UPRIGHTNESS. And this is one of the greatest divine attainments.
FIDELITY. This is also a beautiful trait of the heavenly man.
EVANESCENCE or Humility. That is to say, man must become evanescent in God. Must forget his own selfish conditions that he may thus arise to the station of sacrifice. It should be to such a degree that if he sleep, it should not be for pleasure, but to rest the body in order to do better, to speak better, to explain more beautifully, to serve the servants of God and to prove the truths. When he remains awake, he should seek to be attentive, serve the Cause of God and sacrifice his own stations for those of God. When he attains to this station, the confirmations of the Holy Spirit will surely reach him, and man with this power can withstand all who inhabit the earth.
This development is echoed throughout the Writings, corresponding to the Seven Valleys, one of the lists of the principles of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation giving seven in a sequential order, and others.
It is useful to note in this connection that Bahá'u'lláh said:
"Much hath been written in the books of old concerning the various stages in the development of the soul, such as concupiscence, irascibility, inspiration, benevolence, contentment, Divine good-pleasure, and the like; the Pen of the Most High, however, is disinclined to dwell upon them. Every soul that walketh humbly with its God, in this Day, and cleaveth unto Him, shall find itself invested with the honor and glory of all goodly names and stations."
Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 159
And that the Báb said:
"Likewise continue thou to ascend through one Revelation after another, knowing that thy progress in the Knowledge of God shall never come to an end, even as it can have no beginning."
Selections from the Writings of the Báb, p. 91
As a side note, I believe what He is saying here is that the Knowledge of God can have no beginning, and is therefore also eternal, not us and the amount of it that we have.
So how do we have grown people going back to and spending moments functioning exactly as babies do and gaining new knowledge of Reality? This is the kicker! A child can do NO MORE than that amount of development at that time in its life, but as it grows it gains the CAPACITY to build up that knowledge through the phases described in the Writings, as 'Abdu'l-Bahá said "when the child hath reached the age where he can make distinctions, let him be placed in a Bahá'í school", but as it grows it can also have information that is not based on knowledge, or what Bahá'u'lláh refers to as satanic knowledge, added. This comes from untruths, supersitions, the blind imitation of traditions, etc. This is the knowledge referred to by Him in this verse: "When a true seeker determineth to take the step of search in the path leading unto the knowledge of the Ancient of Days, he must, before all else, cleanse his heart, which is the seat of the revelation of the inner mysteries of God, from the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge, and the allusions of the embodiments of satanic fancy." And when we remove this knowledge, the capacity to acquire the knowledge we did not obtain as infants, and therefore all of the development with that knowledge into a capacity to serve God, becomes possible!
This is where the necessity for the investigation of truth comes into play, the imperative for contemplation, reflection, meditation, and the like, to gain and develop upon new knowledge. The best way to develop this knowledge is by reflecting upon subjects from which one can learn a great deal; a baby learns most from the facial expressions of the people around it and the voices it hears. This is a place we can learn from as well, as Bahá'u'lláh said: "he who wishes to commune with God, let him betake himself to the companionship of His loved ones." But above all we can find human truth, the highest and most complex truth which contains all of the complexities of creation that have gone into making it, is found in the thoughts and thus the words of others, and some people have more of these than others. Wherever you think you can find human truth, seek it out and listen to it, you will at the least, if you find it wrong, be stimulated to think about what you think must be true. Many people have found great truth in the scriptures of the great Religions; and what harm could come from reading them?
And what are these knowledges that we have the capacity to develop? As one of my previous posts provided a link to, infants have been found, no matter what their parents have done with them, to have an innate sense at the very least of helpfulness, sharing, kindness, and justice. They know what to expect rationally from the universe and the behavior of other people. Saints have all of those virtues and all of the others we associate with people who have made great attainments in the fields of human endeavor. There does not seem to be any difference in the quality of them, so they must come from the same basis of possibility and be formed in response to developmental influences in the same manner. This knowledge is the knowledge of what it means to be human, or as some philosophers have found by noticing that all of the capacities that man can develop are those that must be possessed by an Eternal, Almighty creator that created and sustains creation. It must be Selfless, we can be selfless, It must Love, we can love, It must be Just, we can be just, It must be Powerful, we can be powerful, It must be Forgiving, we can be forgiving, It must be Bountiful, we can be bountiful, It must be Merciful, we can be merciful, It must be Kind, we can be kind, It must be Good, we can be good, It must be Grand, we can be grand, and so on: investigate the universe!
But more importantly, what keeps us going on this path of development? If you have an egg and leave it do nothing, no chicken will come from it. If you plant a seed and do not water it, no plant will come of it. So how have human beings developed the capacity to be like God we see in him? It cannot have been through his own agency, because he did not create himself. He must have been and must need an educator. From here I suggest you read the description of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's of man's need for an educator, which can be found here:
http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/SAQ/saq-3.html
And this verse of Bahá'u'lláh's:
"In the name of God, the One, the Incomparable, the All-Powerful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
Praise be to God, the Eternal that perisheth not, the Everlasting that declineth not, the Self-Subsisting that altereth not. He it is Who is transcendent in His sovereignty, Who is manifest through His signs, and is hidden through His mysteries. He it is at Whose bidding the standard of the Most Exalted Word hath been lifted up in the world of creation, and the banner of "He doeth whatsoever He willeth" raised amidst all peoples. He it is Who hath revealed His Cause for the guidance of His creatures, and sent down His verses to demonstrate His Proof and His Testimony, and embellished the preface of the Book of Man with the ornament of utterance through His saying: "The God of Mercy hath taught the Qur'án, hath created man, and taught him articulate speech." No God is there but Him, the One, the Peerless, the Powerful, the Mighty, the Beneficent."
Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, Pg. 1
I noticed this increasingly in myself when praying and other times when there would be moments when I felt completely in control of myself, and then some impulse dragged me off and said 'I HAVE to do this, one moment of which I noticed this evening. After a nap while waking up the thought came to me while thinking about some of the levels of development of order in the universe that that is exactly the work that babies are learning to do: develop conscious knowledge of reality as the first step of building the first step of a thought that will then then transfer, as described by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, through:
KNOWLEDGE. Man must attain the knowledge of God.
FAITH.
STEADFASTNESS.
TRUTHFULNESS. Truthfulness is the foundation of all the virtues of the world of humanity. Without truthfulness, progress and success in all of the worlds of God are impossible for a soul. When this holy attribute is established in man, all the divine qualities will also become realized.
UPRIGHTNESS. And this is one of the greatest divine attainments.
FIDELITY. This is also a beautiful trait of the heavenly man.
EVANESCENCE or Humility. That is to say, man must become evanescent in God. Must forget his own selfish conditions that he may thus arise to the station of sacrifice. It should be to such a degree that if he sleep, it should not be for pleasure, but to rest the body in order to do better, to speak better, to explain more beautifully, to serve the servants of God and to prove the truths. When he remains awake, he should seek to be attentive, serve the Cause of God and sacrifice his own stations for those of God. When he attains to this station, the confirmations of the Holy Spirit will surely reach him, and man with this power can withstand all who inhabit the earth.
This development is echoed throughout the Writings, corresponding to the Seven Valleys, one of the lists of the principles of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation giving seven in a sequential order, and others.
It is useful to note in this connection that Bahá'u'lláh said:
"Much hath been written in the books of old concerning the various stages in the development of the soul, such as concupiscence, irascibility, inspiration, benevolence, contentment, Divine good-pleasure, and the like; the Pen of the Most High, however, is disinclined to dwell upon them. Every soul that walketh humbly with its God, in this Day, and cleaveth unto Him, shall find itself invested with the honor and glory of all goodly names and stations."
Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 159
And that the Báb said:
"Likewise continue thou to ascend through one Revelation after another, knowing that thy progress in the Knowledge of God shall never come to an end, even as it can have no beginning."
Selections from the Writings of the Báb, p. 91
As a side note, I believe what He is saying here is that the Knowledge of God can have no beginning, and is therefore also eternal, not us and the amount of it that we have.
So how do we have grown people going back to and spending moments functioning exactly as babies do and gaining new knowledge of Reality? This is the kicker! A child can do NO MORE than that amount of development at that time in its life, but as it grows it gains the CAPACITY to build up that knowledge through the phases described in the Writings, as 'Abdu'l-Bahá said "when the child hath reached the age where he can make distinctions, let him be placed in a Bahá'í school", but as it grows it can also have information that is not based on knowledge, or what Bahá'u'lláh refers to as satanic knowledge, added. This comes from untruths, supersitions, the blind imitation of traditions, etc. This is the knowledge referred to by Him in this verse: "When a true seeker determineth to take the step of search in the path leading unto the knowledge of the Ancient of Days, he must, before all else, cleanse his heart, which is the seat of the revelation of the inner mysteries of God, from the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge, and the allusions of the embodiments of satanic fancy." And when we remove this knowledge, the capacity to acquire the knowledge we did not obtain as infants, and therefore all of the development with that knowledge into a capacity to serve God, becomes possible!
This is where the necessity for the investigation of truth comes into play, the imperative for contemplation, reflection, meditation, and the like, to gain and develop upon new knowledge. The best way to develop this knowledge is by reflecting upon subjects from which one can learn a great deal; a baby learns most from the facial expressions of the people around it and the voices it hears. This is a place we can learn from as well, as Bahá'u'lláh said: "he who wishes to commune with God, let him betake himself to the companionship of His loved ones." But above all we can find human truth, the highest and most complex truth which contains all of the complexities of creation that have gone into making it, is found in the thoughts and thus the words of others, and some people have more of these than others. Wherever you think you can find human truth, seek it out and listen to it, you will at the least, if you find it wrong, be stimulated to think about what you think must be true. Many people have found great truth in the scriptures of the great Religions; and what harm could come from reading them?
And what are these knowledges that we have the capacity to develop? As one of my previous posts provided a link to, infants have been found, no matter what their parents have done with them, to have an innate sense at the very least of helpfulness, sharing, kindness, and justice. They know what to expect rationally from the universe and the behavior of other people. Saints have all of those virtues and all of the others we associate with people who have made great attainments in the fields of human endeavor. There does not seem to be any difference in the quality of them, so they must come from the same basis of possibility and be formed in response to developmental influences in the same manner. This knowledge is the knowledge of what it means to be human, or as some philosophers have found by noticing that all of the capacities that man can develop are those that must be possessed by an Eternal, Almighty creator that created and sustains creation. It must be Selfless, we can be selfless, It must Love, we can love, It must be Just, we can be just, It must be Powerful, we can be powerful, It must be Forgiving, we can be forgiving, It must be Bountiful, we can be bountiful, It must be Merciful, we can be merciful, It must be Kind, we can be kind, It must be Good, we can be good, It must be Grand, we can be grand, and so on: investigate the universe!
But more importantly, what keeps us going on this path of development? If you have an egg and leave it do nothing, no chicken will come from it. If you plant a seed and do not water it, no plant will come of it. So how have human beings developed the capacity to be like God we see in him? It cannot have been through his own agency, because he did not create himself. He must have been and must need an educator. From here I suggest you read the description of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's of man's need for an educator, which can be found here:
http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/SAQ/saq-3.html
And this verse of Bahá'u'lláh's:
"In the name of God, the One, the Incomparable, the All-Powerful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
Praise be to God, the Eternal that perisheth not, the Everlasting that declineth not, the Self-Subsisting that altereth not. He it is Who is transcendent in His sovereignty, Who is manifest through His signs, and is hidden through His mysteries. He it is at Whose bidding the standard of the Most Exalted Word hath been lifted up in the world of creation, and the banner of "He doeth whatsoever He willeth" raised amidst all peoples. He it is Who hath revealed His Cause for the guidance of His creatures, and sent down His verses to demonstrate His Proof and His Testimony, and embellished the preface of the Book of Man with the ornament of utterance through His saying: "The God of Mercy hath taught the Qur'án, hath created man, and taught him articulate speech." No God is there but Him, the One, the Peerless, the Powerful, the Mighty, the Beneficent."
Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, Pg. 1
Thursday, June 24, 2010
BOOM! There goes culturalism, nationalism, racism, and all other stereotypes...
This study:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html?pagewanted=all
Shows that people are pre-programmed for morality from our earliest years.
Combined with this fact:
In a study, Kuhl sought to determine at exactly what age children's brains are being connected to learn language. She exposed infants to a "Ra" sound, and trained them to turn their heads when it changed to "La" American and Japanese children recognized the difference between "Ra" and "La" at the age of six months. When Kuhl repeated the experiment six months later, the Japanese children no longer could do so. She theorizes that between the ages of six and twelve months they had been exposed to Japanese, a language that doesn't distinguish between "Ra" and "La," so their brains had simply discarded the neural connections that had earlier helped them tell the two apart.
So we are pre-wired with the capacities for certain things, obviously some more strongly because of evolutionary differences, but the basic foundation of our being is patternable to any culture, moral code, or sense of identity thereafter.
Oh, and educate your children. It makes as much as sense as breathing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html?pagewanted=all
Shows that people are pre-programmed for morality from our earliest years.
Combined with this fact:
In a study, Kuhl sought to determine at exactly what age children's brains are being connected to learn language. She exposed infants to a "Ra" sound, and trained them to turn their heads when it changed to "La" American and Japanese children recognized the difference between "Ra" and "La" at the age of six months. When Kuhl repeated the experiment six months later, the Japanese children no longer could do so. She theorizes that between the ages of six and twelve months they had been exposed to Japanese, a language that doesn't distinguish between "Ra" and "La," so their brains had simply discarded the neural connections that had earlier helped them tell the two apart.
So we are pre-wired with the capacities for certain things, obviously some more strongly because of evolutionary differences, but the basic foundation of our being is patternable to any culture, moral code, or sense of identity thereafter.
Oh, and educate your children. It makes as much as sense as breathing.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
The soul and the body
As the "the thought force and the animal force are partners," as described by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the soul learns and works through the intermediary of the body. That means that the growth of religion and civilization has been what has been driven the growth and development of the human brain, and that also what we are capable of learning as souls is directly limited to what our brains can do.
Several studies have shown that people from different cultures use different parts of their brains, sometimes even when approaching the same task! So there are massive amounts we can learn about what it means to be human simply by interacting with people of other cultures. Trying to do it ourselves would be like trying to reinvent their entire culture which took thousands of years to form.
And while "spirit has no gender," and there is no "giving and taking in marriage" in "the next world", because our brains form differently depending on whether estrogen or testosterone is present in the body, there are distinct spiritual qualities that both women and men will have in both this world and the next, and need to be developed here. People who are afraid of being abused or being unwanted are unable to fully enjoy and thus learn from the experience, people who are in cohabitating relationships are ninety-one times more likely to abuse their partners than married couples so there is a strong relationship between love and commitment, polygamy leads to the oppression of ones' spouses, and thus that part of a soul's learning can only happen within a monogamous marriage. Sexual activity also stimulates the production of both of those hormones, so monasticism is not ideal.
And anywhere we can learn more about how to think we should, most particularly by doing things, because otherwise we are only theorizing or fantasizing and our work will be slow and possibly wrong. This is why "work done in the spirit of service is the highest form of worship."
There are many more applications to this, but I am not prepared to write about them.
Some studies have found that doing a lot of learning, which also occurs when making decisions, takes energy from the brain to accomplish, and as such the brain can become 'tired.' I believe this is the physical manifestation of what is described in this verse:
Recite ye the verses of God every morn and
eventide. Whoso faileth to recite them hath not been
faithful to the Covenant of God and His Testament,
and whoso turneth away from these holy verses in this
Day is of those who throughout eternity have turned
away from God. Fear ye God, O My servants, one and
all. Pride not yourselves on much reading of the verses
or on a multitude of pious acts by night and day; for
were a man to read a single verse with joy and radiance
it would be better for him than to read with lassitude
all the Holy Books of God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.
Read ye the sacred verses in such measure
that ye be not overcome by languor and despondency.
Lay not upon your souls that which will weary them
and weigh them down, but rather what will lighten
and uplift them, so that they may soar on the wings of
the Divine verses towards the Dawning-place of His
manifest signs; this will draw you nearer to God, did ye
but comprehend.
Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 73
It is easier to learn things when in social settings, especially the larger, more diverse, and united the group is, because the mind can easily weigh a decision in terms of the social cues from everyone around them, while making decisions alone a person can even forget about the importance of other people and making decisions becomes very difficult and learning increasingly impossible the longer one spends alone. I believe this is what meant by the fact that "the spirit of man withers in isolation." Also, I think the more socially capable the person is the more you can learn from and reference them, which I believe is what is meant by the verse "he that seeketh to commune with God, let him betake himself to the companionship of His loved ones."
So, some people have a hard time getting to sleep at night even though they were moderately physically active during the day; this is probably a sign of an underused mind. Because the brain, driven by the soul, is like a growing child in that it is continually learning and developing, it feels restless when it is not able to exercise and jump up and down.
And some people can be perpetually tired because they want to learn more than they are able too, an effect that decreases in social settings because of the input described above.
Several studies have shown that people from different cultures use different parts of their brains, sometimes even when approaching the same task! So there are massive amounts we can learn about what it means to be human simply by interacting with people of other cultures. Trying to do it ourselves would be like trying to reinvent their entire culture which took thousands of years to form.
And while "spirit has no gender," and there is no "giving and taking in marriage" in "the next world", because our brains form differently depending on whether estrogen or testosterone is present in the body, there are distinct spiritual qualities that both women and men will have in both this world and the next, and need to be developed here. People who are afraid of being abused or being unwanted are unable to fully enjoy and thus learn from the experience, people who are in cohabitating relationships are ninety-one times more likely to abuse their partners than married couples so there is a strong relationship between love and commitment, polygamy leads to the oppression of ones' spouses, and thus that part of a soul's learning can only happen within a monogamous marriage. Sexual activity also stimulates the production of both of those hormones, so monasticism is not ideal.
And anywhere we can learn more about how to think we should, most particularly by doing things, because otherwise we are only theorizing or fantasizing and our work will be slow and possibly wrong. This is why "work done in the spirit of service is the highest form of worship."
There are many more applications to this, but I am not prepared to write about them.
Some studies have found that doing a lot of learning, which also occurs when making decisions, takes energy from the brain to accomplish, and as such the brain can become 'tired.' I believe this is the physical manifestation of what is described in this verse:
Recite ye the verses of God every morn and
eventide. Whoso faileth to recite them hath not been
faithful to the Covenant of God and His Testament,
and whoso turneth away from these holy verses in this
Day is of those who throughout eternity have turned
away from God. Fear ye God, O My servants, one and
all. Pride not yourselves on much reading of the verses
or on a multitude of pious acts by night and day; for
were a man to read a single verse with joy and radiance
it would be better for him than to read with lassitude
all the Holy Books of God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.
Read ye the sacred verses in such measure
that ye be not overcome by languor and despondency.
Lay not upon your souls that which will weary them
and weigh them down, but rather what will lighten
and uplift them, so that they may soar on the wings of
the Divine verses towards the Dawning-place of His
manifest signs; this will draw you nearer to God, did ye
but comprehend.
Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 73
It is easier to learn things when in social settings, especially the larger, more diverse, and united the group is, because the mind can easily weigh a decision in terms of the social cues from everyone around them, while making decisions alone a person can even forget about the importance of other people and making decisions becomes very difficult and learning increasingly impossible the longer one spends alone. I believe this is what meant by the fact that "the spirit of man withers in isolation." Also, I think the more socially capable the person is the more you can learn from and reference them, which I believe is what is meant by the verse "he that seeketh to commune with God, let him betake himself to the companionship of His loved ones."
So, some people have a hard time getting to sleep at night even though they were moderately physically active during the day; this is probably a sign of an underused mind. Because the brain, driven by the soul, is like a growing child in that it is continually learning and developing, it feels restless when it is not able to exercise and jump up and down.
And some people can be perpetually tired because they want to learn more than they are able too, an effect that decreases in social settings because of the input described above.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
What to pray for
Hello. I have been thinking lately about what to pray for. I went to an excellent youth retreat two weekends ago and started doing two things afterwards: praying for humanity and praying to be able to be of service myself. We do not know any little green men yet, and the world would be fine if humanity treated it fine, so that is the apex of what we can pray for. Everything else, I think, has to be done in context with that. Are you praying for good things for one group of people, but not another? Granted there are groups we need to focus on, such as our family, community, nation, etc., because we are working in them, but we cannot forget the whole and the role of our work within it. All other aspects of life can also be put in terms of the universal betterment of humankind, as much as we understand that. If we are praying for particular things people need, are we taking their whole well-being into account? It is possible to lose track. It also helps us develop a world consciousness. On the personal level, if you are not putting service first, how can you be sure anything else you are doing is right? If you lose a job and start immediately thinking about getting another one, you might miss that you have a golden opportunity to think about serving someplace else or doing something else. And it is happy to be trying to be on track.
Facts about women
While statistics are very inaccurate, probably about 1.2 billion women in the world have been raped or sexually assaulted, or about 30 million every year; statistics on the issue are are very hard to get because only about 65 of the 200 or so countries in the world keep statistics on reported sexual violence, and statistics on overall incidence beyond what is reported come from studies that cover few people, and the world is a very diverse place, and perhaps more tellingly an exhaustive investigation has not been done. According to a report covering only 62 countries about 1 person in every 10,000 is murdered each year, and multiplying this number to make it equal the approximate world population about 700,000 people are murdered each and every year, excluding deaths due to political violence, wars, deaths due to displacement, and societal negligence. A study believes that 40-70% of women who are murdered are murdered by their domestic partner. Two other studies proposed that 70 million women and mostly girls have, or 2 million each and every year are, genitally mutilated, often using unsanitary methods, causing untold and often life-long pain and destroying their capacity for sexual functioning. Only about 38 of 204 countries in the world keep statistics on violence perpetrated against children. Only about 15% of political positions in the world are held by women. A very strong correlation has been found between the number of married women in the workplace and the total number of women, both married and single, in the workplace. From a study that interviewed 25,000 women in 10 countries and studies of rates of domestic violence in other individual countries probably about 1 billion women in the world have suffered domestic violence, or maybe about 25 million per year.
This website is pretty good for stories about what is going on in some parts of the world related to this topic, but it does not address the U.S. or any countries it might not accept immigrants from:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Tahirih-Justice-Center/142257595231?ref=ts
This website is pretty good for stories about what is going on in some parts of the world related to this topic, but it does not address the U.S. or any countries it might not accept immigrants from:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Tahirih-Justice-Center/142257595231?ref=ts
Friday, June 11, 2010
A point about the re-establishment of Israel
I do not share my personal point of view on the State. But regarding whether it might have been right to establish one in some way, I found these facts that I have not heard related to the question.
The conquerors of the Kingdom of Israel 2700 or so years ago were the Babylonians and Assyrians who scattered ten of the tribes of the Kingdom of Israel. The descendants of the Babylonians and Assyrians live in what are today Syria, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan. The Romans conquered it about 2000 years ago. The Persians invaded about 1400 years ago and further disintegrated the country. Between 1400 and 900 years ago Muslims oppressed and scattered the community. Muslims were somewhat kinder to them after that point. About 100 years ago a European group regained control of Israel and began allowing Jewish people to resettle it. Muhammad told His followers 'Say not to every one who meeteth you with a greeting, "Thou art not a believer."' so He probably did not approve of His followers oppression of the Jewish nation.
The conquerors of the Kingdom of Israel 2700 or so years ago were the Babylonians and Assyrians who scattered ten of the tribes of the Kingdom of Israel. The descendants of the Babylonians and Assyrians live in what are today Syria, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan. The Romans conquered it about 2000 years ago. The Persians invaded about 1400 years ago and further disintegrated the country. Between 1400 and 900 years ago Muslims oppressed and scattered the community. Muslims were somewhat kinder to them after that point. About 100 years ago a European group regained control of Israel and began allowing Jewish people to resettle it. Muhammad told His followers 'Say not to every one who meeteth you with a greeting, "Thou art not a believer."' so He probably did not approve of His followers oppression of the Jewish nation.
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