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The Nature of the Soul Doesn’t Change But Everything Else Does
One of the most poignant speeches by a political leader is that of Robert Kennedy given in Indianapolis in 1968, the night that Martin Luther King was assassinated. Robert Kennedy was himself assassinated 63 days later. As Robert Kennedy spoke, he recalled his own loss of his brother and the words of an Ancient Greek poet, Aeschylus. Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. Here is evidence, if we need it, that the nature of the soul has not changed – even after the passage of…
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Taking Things Too Literally vs. Interpreting Texts for the Oneness of Humanity
Taking things too literally – particularly religious texts – can be a problem – as we tragically see in our world. In some cases it contributes to murderous results. In other cases it creates irresolvable conflicts between communities and points of view. This article discusses how Bahá’u’lláh interprets religious texts to lay the foundations of unity. As noted in previous articles, the overriding purpose of Bahá’u’lláh’s life’s work is the fostering of unity and friendship among human beings. How we understand and interpret religious texts affects our ability to build unified harmonious communities. To take one dimension, overly literal readings of religious texts is one factor which holds back a coherence between scientific and…
