The Baha'i Temple in Chicago is one out of only 7 Baha'i Temples in the world. After the discussion in class today about some aspects of the Baha'i religion and then looking at the website for the temple in chicago a few things stood out to me that correlated within both sources of information, and some information from the website was slightly different then i had originally interpreted it from class. Some things that definitely correlated was the continual discussion with system of symbols within any religion. Talking about the symbols importance to the development of a religion in class then reading an active source site helped to clarify and round out my understanding of these symbol's significance. Such as the Nice-pointed Star, The Ringstone, and The Greatest Name. Another thing i found really interesting was the slogan for the home page of the Baha'i sight, "Baha'i Faith, Religion Renewed for a changing World". This concept has a large correlation with the discussion we had in class just today. We discussed how religions are social constructs and are evolved as our societies evolved. How much of the evolving of a religion is consistently evaluated by those within the religion though? Critics are made all the time by outsiders and rebels from the religion but its an interesting concept to completely believe in something yet know its only based on the social environment so if that changes then the beliefs are altered as well. It almost reminds me of Chuang Tzu's values and beliefs with the idea of honoring and excepting change. Not accepting change one is not excepting anything within life because everything is in constant motion and interaction within themselves.
You make a great point with talking about Chuang Tzu believing in accepting change...it's similar to what St. Augustine talked about when he said that the world is always changing and people change with it, therefore religion is bound to change as well. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteThe acceptance of change is one of the most important aspects for a religion I think, so that it can keep alive and not become stagnant, changing in accordance with the world around it is essential for religion if it wants to keep getting new members and not die out.
ReplyDeleteCritics are made all the time by outsiders and rebels from the religion but its an interesting concept to completely believe in something yet know its only based on the social environment so if that changes then the beliefs are altered as well.
ReplyDeleteThere certainly are such critics and critiques. But the marker of when and how things change isn't really arbitrary or just a matter of the process of history. It's signpost is in fact quiet clear over historical periods. Short term it is a matter of judgement that can be wrong but in very large scales people remember some and forget entirely others. Moses is well known but the Pharaoh involved is more obscure. And so on. Prophets set the course of the religion and the people adapt. At least on the scale of hundreds of years this seems to me to be true.