Charles, your experience as a professional musician puts you in an especially qualified position to comment on the music of some Baha'is, even if you don't endorse what motivated the creation of and devotion to that music.
For instance, the music of Dizzy Gillespie still rocks, even after 60 years!
And you'd be hard-pressed to say Seals & Crofts didn't blaze a path in redefining where popular western music could go, even blown by a Summer Breeze...
The message may not move you, but Dragoman and Smith move, touch and inspire millions, not all of whom are dedicated to the Glory of God.
Using their musical gifts to unite other musicians and singers in this effort to tell the world of the astonishing cruelties and injustices now practiced by the Iranian government could be considered laudable, couldn't it?
The people LIKE Mona, now imprisoned unjustly in Evin Prison, Tehran, are the people we would help imprison by not allowing principled discussion of their plight, the motivations of the Islamic Iranian government in persecuting them, and efforts to free them and others like them languishing in Islamic prisons around the world!
Please, Charles, consider adding your voice to the conversation and the songs seeking freedom and justice for humans around the world.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Not Just Us Walking Free
Charles, these posts are quiet, observant of your explicitly expressed desire that I examine these realities on my own blog, and these have NOT been emailed to any people. None. If someone finds this blog, its by accident...
Because as strange as it may seem, freedom-loving people see that what we want to apply to US must be applied BY us to others, namely "There is NO coercion if the Faith of God" so you are entitled to respect and courtesy afforded all other humans.
Even the humans arrested by the Iranian mullah-government and imprisoned in the infamous Evin Prison for their beliefs, primarily their beliefs that the al-Qaim and al-Mahdi HAVE COME in the Persons of the Bab and Baha'u'llah.
If aligning WITH the mullahs and imams who say "No, no Holy Messenger from God has come since Muhammad!" is part of a larger strategy for you and LGF, we would love to hear more of that strategy, inasmuch as PUBLICLY denouncing those misogynist-mullahs at LGF would SEEM to be more appropriate.
After all, do you SERIOUSLY believe that whole groups of Baha'is, charged BY their Godhead to be obedient to the government of their nations, have been totally disrespectful of those Teachings and, in the Cradle of the Faith, begun 'spying for Israel' ??
Out of all that Ahmadi-nejad says and does, do you think THIS governmental report is somehow TRUE ??
Allowing the public, on-blog examination of these and other aspects of the fulfillment of Jewish, Christian and Islamic prophecies would be a powerful weapon in our battle to eradicate ignorance, prejudice and unjust imprisonment for people no matter where they are!
Because as strange as it may seem, freedom-loving people see that what we want to apply to US must be applied BY us to others, namely "There is NO coercion if the Faith of God" so you are entitled to respect and courtesy afforded all other humans.
Even the humans arrested by the Iranian mullah-government and imprisoned in the infamous Evin Prison for their beliefs, primarily their beliefs that the al-Qaim and al-Mahdi HAVE COME in the Persons of the Bab and Baha'u'llah.
If aligning WITH the mullahs and imams who say "No, no Holy Messenger from God has come since Muhammad!" is part of a larger strategy for you and LGF, we would love to hear more of that strategy, inasmuch as PUBLICLY denouncing those misogynist-mullahs at LGF would SEEM to be more appropriate.
After all, do you SERIOUSLY believe that whole groups of Baha'is, charged BY their Godhead to be obedient to the government of their nations, have been totally disrespectful of those Teachings and, in the Cradle of the Faith, begun 'spying for Israel' ??
Out of all that Ahmadi-nejad says and does, do you think THIS governmental report is somehow TRUE ??
Allowing the public, on-blog examination of these and other aspects of the fulfillment of Jewish, Christian and Islamic prophecies would be a powerful weapon in our battle to eradicate ignorance, prejudice and unjust imprisonment for people no matter where they are!
Saturday, May 23, 2009
May 23, 1844 Revisited (to Icarus Johnson, Blog Owner de Luxe)
| From a Comment May 23, 2009 CE at LGF |
ie: #40 offendi
Devotion to Islam requires its follower to be militantly anti other religions. Mohammad was a warrior. Islams prophet, its messiah, was a blood thirsty warrior. That isnt my perception, its fact. It isnt my anti Islam thoughts surfacing. Its fact. Other religions have three choices in the face of the truly devout muslim. 1. Submit. 2. Die. 3. Fight back.
By limiting comments at LGF to the above 3 choices -the logical and all too real options presented by Islam today- dialogue is restricted to only those three options, even if there are more.
But before examining why a blog-owner would choose de facto alignment with mullahs and imams who declare, with every ignorant, power-hungry rant in their mosques, "al-Qaim has not come, but when He does... and al-Mahdi has not come, but when He does..." it could be more informative to examine some of the very real 'coincidences' introduced yesterday, and factually recorded in historical records.
May 23, 1844 saw so many 'coincidences' that it does violence to the concept, the very word 'coincidence' to dismiss these as 'coincidence' but here they are, historical facts presenting us with a chance to discard our biases and EXAMINE THESE with a rational, open mind.
First came 1844 itself, marked by a majority of Spirit-filled Christians world-wide as 'the Year of the Great Expectation' because (among other Scriptural prophecies) it COULD be seen to be fulfilling Jesus' prophetic utterances about the coming of One, like unto the Son of Man. Those 3 promises are recorded in Matthew 24:14, Luke 21:24 and Matthew 24:15.
1844 was the year that 'the time of the gentiles' was fulfilled, the Jewish Diaspora was ended and the Jews once again allowed to live in the Holy Land, after western nations forced the Edict of Toleration on the Caliphate. The Edict was signed and went into effect March 21, 1844. This COULD be seen (no one HAS TO see it) as fulfillment of Jesus' promise.
1844 saw the spreading of the Holy Gospel 'to every nation as a witness', with widespread, systematic missionary work culminating in 1844 when the Gospel was taken, for the first time in history, to every nation of humankind, even taking the light of the Love of God to 'darkest Africa' with David Livingstone, et. alia. This COULD be seen as fulfillment of Jesus' second promise about the coming of One, like unto the son of man, at THAT TIME.
1844 also ended the 2,300-year prophecy known as The Abomination of Desolation, given by the prophet Daniel, and invoked by Jesus of Nazareth, who charged us to 'stand in the holy place' when we consider this promise and its fulfillment. Which CAN BE SEEN to have come to fruition THEN, 1844, thus reinforcing the Christian zeal for the Return of Christ, in His new name (Rev 2:17, 3:12); having a visible body that every eye could see, like Jesus, and speaking with a normal human voice that every ear could hear, like Jesus.
As 1844 continued, a deeply pious religious student in Persia was finishing 40 days of fasting and prayer, in hopes of seeing The Lord, when he paused in the market of Tabriz where, shortly before evening (Muslim) prayers, he was approached by a young man who invited the student home, for refreshment and prayers.
There, at 2 hours and 11 minutes after sunset, May 23, 1260 AH ("...time, times and half-a-time...") the young student listened, awe-struck, as his host answered the questions the student had decided, IN HIS HEART, that he would ask of The Promised Qaim, but he never had a chance to ask them, ere they were answered. The student fell to his knees in tearful adoration of the One in Whose presence he believed himself to be.
At that same moment, around the world in America, Samuel F.B. Morse was -just coincidentally- ending the old world by publicly demonstrating the telegraph, the first electronic communications device and one which sent 'lightnings, from west to east'... and ended forever the world of news at the speed of horse.
That very same night, in a strange coincidence, 'Abdu-l Baha was born, the son of One Who, in but a few years' time, would come to learn the He was the Mahdi, the Promised One of All Religions.
There are more 'coincidences', but you're not dull or in need of repeated pounding. The facts are there for you to investigate, even knowing that we are both uninterested in 'a new religion' even while we demonstrate values closely-aligned with this, the Renewal of the Religion of God.
If we posit, for the sake of discussion, that there IS an All-Knowing, All-Loving Creator Who makes It's will known to humankind approximately once every thousand years or so, then we can see how the Coming of Baha'u'llah, and His Forerunner The Bab, fulfills and proves the words and the hearts of His Chosen Ones, who accepted privation and ridicule and, sometimes, death in order to share true Life with humankind.
In brief, rather than become sidelined by history while waiting for Jesus to come down out of the sky, we become more and more central to the matters of importance today, after recognizing that the Righteousness that is Christ came down out of Heaven, May 23, 1844.
How central? Judge for yourself. The Bab, taking His message to the Muslims and Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians of Iran, raised up such a Community of Followers (the 'i on the end of the word means 'follower of', as in Bab'i and Baha'i: Follower of the Gate, Follower of the Glory) that the Muslim clergy sought to silence Him, just as the Jewish clergy had sought to silence Jesus.
July 9th, in a barrack-yard in Tabriz, He and one believer were hung by the wrists before the hostile gaze of 10,000 citizens and curious onlookers, and readied for execution by the decree of the Muslim clerics. Execution by rifle-squad, they ordered, and (reminiscent of Jesus' ignominious 'hanged from a tree') they ordered that The Bab be executed by Christians, BECAUSE they knew of Islamic traditions stating that when the Holy One came, He would be killed by Muslims!
So when the 750 Armenian Christian riflemen fired, point-blank, intending to kill Him and his follower, it was with shocked surprise that the onlookers watched the gunsmoke blow away to reveal The Bab gone, and the ropes hanging from the walls AND from the wrists of the unscathed follower!
The Christians had done their duty to man's law, and marched out. Muslim riflemen were quickly found and they killed the One promised by Jesus. The mortal remains were cast on the side of a moat and Muslim guards placed over them, so it was only at extreme risk to their own lives that Bab'is retrieved the holy remains and secreted them in safe places...
...during the pogroms carried out against Bab'is, during which 20,000 were killed, men, women & children, often in as brutal and painful a manner as the mullah or imam could devise...
...until the remains could be interred on Mount Carmel, in the Holy Land, which served at that time as the single most disgusting, filthy, abominable region of the Turkish caliphate, and was thus suitable for forcing Baha'u'llah there, in chains, in the late 1800's.
So when today's Iranian government claims Iranian Baha'is are 'spying for Israel' it is a coded reference to THIS. When Iran writes its Islamic constitution to include all Iranians EXCEPT Baha'is, it is because Baha'is -by their very existence, their very obedience to Messengers of God more recent than Muhammad- pose the ONLY Islamic-sanctioned challenge to the imam's and mullah's stranglehold on the hearts and minds of Muslims: the Coming of al-Qaim and al-Mahdi.
If one were to forbid discussion of this ONE CATALYZING ELEMENT of Islam, forbid public discussion of the reality of the possibility that the Promised Ones of Islam have come, one would not only side in this matter with the misogynist, superstitious, anti-science mullahs and imams of Islam, one would be able only to SLOW the advance of the Light, slow the spread of the Glory of God, but not STOP it.
Do I expect you to declare your faith tomorrow? Hardly. But in deference to your position as the creator of a very powerful channel for examination (of reality) and sharing (of observations of reality), it is my sincere hope that you will, prayerfully and determinedly, investigate the events of May 23, 1844 for yourself, and come to see that they are, indeed, too many and too interrelated to be tossed off as 'coincidence'.
Kerry Dean, posting at Little Green Footballs as Karridine
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Open Letter to Charles
Following your online efforts more or less closely for some time now, I am deeply respectful of the technical skill Little Green Footballs, as a blog, demonstrates. Having modest programming experience myself, I know good work when I see it and experience it online. Well done, Sir.
On the eve of a world-wide celebration of the events of May 22-23, 1844, I took this opportunity to follow your suggestion and address some issues raised at LGF, addressing them here.
You and I appear to have been born into pretty much the same post-War America, where 'everybody knew' Jesus was Christ, and voiced that unexamined assumption every time they spoke about Jesus of Nazareth by calling Him 'Jesus Christ'; and everybody knew that black Americans (in the 1940's and 50's) were just, well, different from whites...
And everybody knew that Christ had not returned, but would someday, and until then 'the business of America IS business'.
White, middle-class America wasn't an evil reality, it simply embodied and reflected the knowledge and ignorance of the day, despite the Civil War, despite World Wars I and II and the racial, racist aspects of those conflicts. The Great War was over, Korea wasn't yet a Communist rape of a free nation and America was counting its blessings.
Life was pretty good, Charles.
So as this examination of some remarkable coincidences unfolds, please don't read it as a criticism of you or of America, my beloved homeland. Setting context and establishing some benchmarks helps keep this as short as possible but still coherent.
1980 years ago, as Jesus of Nazareth walked this Earth, speaking with a human voice 'that every ear could hear' and living in a human body 'that every eye could see', He may have been the Christ, but 'everybody knew' He was not.
Everybody except a tiny handful of humans, fringe zealots or zeal-filled saints, depending on your choice of views. The descendants of those unbelievers have continued to this day, living lives of moral value WITHOUT 'taking Christ as their personal savior', and believing -if pressed on the issue- that Jesus existed, but did not fulfill the Scriptural prophecies the way THEY expected them to be fulfilled.
So when we were young, there was an exception to the 'everybody knows' received and common knowledge. Agnostics were a fairly quiet minority, godless Communists were anathemized and ostracized, and there were hardly ANY Muslims in America.
So how does this background inform the main story here?
In Abraham's day, Krsna's day, Moses' day, Zoroaster's day, Buddha's day, Jesus' day and in Muhammad's day, there were certain shared characteristics that all of them had. News -and CHANGE- traveled at the speed of horse. Less than 2 people out of every hundred humans could access or wield the POWER of reading and writing, ciphering numbers and accessing records. Those 2% fell, themselves, into two distinct groups, the kingly caste and ecclesiastics.
The other 98% of humankind was engaged primarily in agrarian tasks to feed humanity, and because of this were serfs or slaves or otherwise disempowered members of humanity, living out their days in a milieu rich with oral tradition. In Jesus' day the great majority of people learned what they knew either by direct experience or by shared speech... parables, stories, myths, songs, poetry, plays and recitations.
But some of the oral traditions sprung up from Moses' day and others from Jesus' day got carefully written down, so that it was easier to keep them in their undistorted form, as close to originally spoken as possible.
And that is where we can start to note some of the truly fantastic 'coincidences', tomorrow.
On the eve of a world-wide celebration of the events of May 22-23, 1844, I took this opportunity to follow your suggestion and address some issues raised at LGF, addressing them here.
You and I appear to have been born into pretty much the same post-War America, where 'everybody knew' Jesus was Christ, and voiced that unexamined assumption every time they spoke about Jesus of Nazareth by calling Him 'Jesus Christ'; and everybody knew that black Americans (in the 1940's and 50's) were just, well, different from whites...
And everybody knew that Christ had not returned, but would someday, and until then 'the business of America IS business'.
White, middle-class America wasn't an evil reality, it simply embodied and reflected the knowledge and ignorance of the day, despite the Civil War, despite World Wars I and II and the racial, racist aspects of those conflicts. The Great War was over, Korea wasn't yet a Communist rape of a free nation and America was counting its blessings.
Life was pretty good, Charles.
So as this examination of some remarkable coincidences unfolds, please don't read it as a criticism of you or of America, my beloved homeland. Setting context and establishing some benchmarks helps keep this as short as possible but still coherent.
1980 years ago, as Jesus of Nazareth walked this Earth, speaking with a human voice 'that every ear could hear' and living in a human body 'that every eye could see', He may have been the Christ, but 'everybody knew' He was not.
Everybody except a tiny handful of humans, fringe zealots or zeal-filled saints, depending on your choice of views. The descendants of those unbelievers have continued to this day, living lives of moral value WITHOUT 'taking Christ as their personal savior', and believing -if pressed on the issue- that Jesus existed, but did not fulfill the Scriptural prophecies the way THEY expected them to be fulfilled.
So when we were young, there was an exception to the 'everybody knows' received and common knowledge. Agnostics were a fairly quiet minority, godless Communists were anathemized and ostracized, and there were hardly ANY Muslims in America.
So how does this background inform the main story here?
In Abraham's day, Krsna's day, Moses' day, Zoroaster's day, Buddha's day, Jesus' day and in Muhammad's day, there were certain shared characteristics that all of them had. News -and CHANGE- traveled at the speed of horse. Less than 2 people out of every hundred humans could access or wield the POWER of reading and writing, ciphering numbers and accessing records. Those 2% fell, themselves, into two distinct groups, the kingly caste and ecclesiastics.
The other 98% of humankind was engaged primarily in agrarian tasks to feed humanity, and because of this were serfs or slaves or otherwise disempowered members of humanity, living out their days in a milieu rich with oral tradition. In Jesus' day the great majority of people learned what they knew either by direct experience or by shared speech... parables, stories, myths, songs, poetry, plays and recitations.
But some of the oral traditions sprung up from Moses' day and others from Jesus' day got carefully written down, so that it was easier to keep them in their undistorted form, as close to originally spoken as possible.
And that is where we can start to note some of the truly fantastic 'coincidences', tomorrow.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
The Last Christmas for Hannah Faith
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2008/12/20/
There's the link to Chris Muir's "Day by Day", and to the explanation about Hannah's brain-devouring disease and how YOU can help Hannah feel some joy these last few days of her life!
Click it NOW!
There's the link to Chris Muir's "Day by Day", and to the explanation about Hannah's brain-devouring disease and how YOU can help Hannah feel some joy these last few days of her life!
Click it NOW!
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
If Only We Had a Messiah!
If you were a Messiah, Obama, you could lead with your words, your deeds and your actions, couldn't you?
You, Obama, would have an example promised to humankind in the Holy Bible, in the person of One, like unto the Son of Man. His coming May 22, 1844 was marked by the advent of the electronic age, yes, but even the telegraph was yet too young to send lightnings east and west, to carry word of His glorious, meteor-like rise, His self-abnegation, His purity, His teachings and even too young to carry word of His mock trial and His execution before a hostile crowd of 10,000 on this date, July 9th, in the year 1850.
You, Obama, could show Americans the purity of heart, chaste virtue of character and complete humility that marked Him in His ministry, couldn't you?
And you, Obama, by the dynamic force of example, could release into the world a healing force so powerful, so unifying and so transforming that you, too, would calmly await being shot to death by 750 Armenian Christian riflemen, as He did, wouldn't you?
Because you, Obama, godlike in your wisdom, would recognize the transient, fleeting nature of this world and its riches, the cheap and worthless reality of worldly power and human vanity, and you could demonstrate publicly your disdain for these things, couldn't you?
Because if you were to do these actions, if you were to offer up your life for all humankind, then you, too, could withstand the first volley of 750 musket rounds at pointblank range, and have the rifle rounds cut the ropes restraining you, as the rifles did July 9th, 1850, wouldn't you?
And then, when the Muslim government called in a Muslim rifle regiment to do the dirty work that the Christian Armenian regiment had prayed fervently to be relieved of doing, God might answer YOUR prayers too, and when the guards came to your cell once again to bring you out before the gaze of 10,000 jeering onlookers, now grown silent from the miraculous nature of your first 'execution', why YOU would willingly let the Muslims hang you up to be shot to death yet another time...
As He was, there in Tabriz, Iran, July 9th, 1850.
And maybe your remains would have armed guards placed over them, to keep YOUR followers from retrieving them, at great personal risk, before dawn on the third day after your martyrdom, Obama...
But would YOUR mortal remains be taken to their final resting place and interred on God's holy mountain, Mount Carmel, in Haifa in the Holy Land?
Would YOU, Barack Obama, have the courage to even carry His message to Americans thirsty for the water of truth and hungry for REAL sustenance?
Would YOU, Barack Obama, have the personal integrity and authenticity to die for YOUR beliefs, as
The Bab did, July 9th 1850?
Grum P. Murrican
You, Obama, would have an example promised to humankind in the Holy Bible, in the person of One, like unto the Son of Man. His coming May 22, 1844 was marked by the advent of the electronic age, yes, but even the telegraph was yet too young to send lightnings east and west, to carry word of His glorious, meteor-like rise, His self-abnegation, His purity, His teachings and even too young to carry word of His mock trial and His execution before a hostile crowd of 10,000 on this date, July 9th, in the year 1850.
You, Obama, could show Americans the purity of heart, chaste virtue of character and complete humility that marked Him in His ministry, couldn't you?
And you, Obama, by the dynamic force of example, could release into the world a healing force so powerful, so unifying and so transforming that you, too, would calmly await being shot to death by 750 Armenian Christian riflemen, as He did, wouldn't you?
Because you, Obama, godlike in your wisdom, would recognize the transient, fleeting nature of this world and its riches, the cheap and worthless reality of worldly power and human vanity, and you could demonstrate publicly your disdain for these things, couldn't you?
Because if you were to do these actions, if you were to offer up your life for all humankind, then you, too, could withstand the first volley of 750 musket rounds at pointblank range, and have the rifle rounds cut the ropes restraining you, as the rifles did July 9th, 1850, wouldn't you?
And then, when the Muslim government called in a Muslim rifle regiment to do the dirty work that the Christian Armenian regiment had prayed fervently to be relieved of doing, God might answer YOUR prayers too, and when the guards came to your cell once again to bring you out before the gaze of 10,000 jeering onlookers, now grown silent from the miraculous nature of your first 'execution', why YOU would willingly let the Muslims hang you up to be shot to death yet another time...
As He was, there in Tabriz, Iran, July 9th, 1850.
And maybe your remains would have armed guards placed over them, to keep YOUR followers from retrieving them, at great personal risk, before dawn on the third day after your martyrdom, Obama...
But would YOUR mortal remains be taken to their final resting place and interred on God's holy mountain, Mount Carmel, in Haifa in the Holy Land?
Would YOU, Barack Obama, have the courage to even carry His message to Americans thirsty for the water of truth and hungry for REAL sustenance?
Would YOU, Barack Obama, have the personal integrity and authenticity to die for YOUR beliefs, as
The Bab did, July 9th 1850?
Grum P. Murrican
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Squidoo Lens for Nutty Squirrely Teacups!
Here's a Squidoo lens for info on Teacup Chihuahuas and Bushy-tailed Nut-Busters!
Leave a comment there, if you please!
Leave a comment there, if you please!
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