"Role of Religion in Todays Society" a Talk by Tom Price
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ก.ค. 2018
- Tom Price delivers a talk titled ‘The Role of Religion in Today’s Society’ at the Hornsby Baha’i Centre of Learning in Sydney, Australia on 3rd Jan, 2015.
Tom Price’s talks have been extremely popular on Baha’i Blog, and a lot of our readers have been requesting that we post more Baha’i-related talks, so check out our Playlist of talks here: bit.ly/2ia1Yxp
You can also listen to this talk on the Baha’i Blog Soundcloud page here:
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Special thanks to Qi-Jie of Nonagon Productions for helping Baha’i Blog capture the talk, and to Bobby Azami of Fiona+Bobby Photography for the photo.
Happy listening!
The Baby and the bath water exampld was just priceless. Thank you Tom.🙏🙏🙏🙏
Absolutely perfect! Every word was well thought of and used in the right context. Loved it!
Very inspiring talk .
Very inspiring and motivating
Love Toms talks.
Beautiful. Inspiring. Thanks for posting.
Thanks, Alexandre! If you haven't seen it already, you might be interested to check out our playlist of Baha'i talks. You can find it here: th-cam.com/play/PLePDtgwcyKAR-YtCDQomfurBPiEKxPPQg.html
Hey. I'm a Christian from Germany. Recently I became friends with an Iranian guy who is Baha'i. Now I got interested and watched this video. I took some notes and want to ask some questions about the 7 principles.
1 Relevance for the presence
I completly agree and find Christianity being as relevant to our modern day as it has ever been, since our human condition in sin has never changed and only in the death and ressurection of Jesus we find forgiveness for that. I don't see the same relevance in Baha'i faith.
2 Harmony with science
Since science deals with the measurable, physical realm and religion deals with the methaphysical, spiritual realm I don't understand how those two have to relate. Of course, if religeous writings make scientific claims they can be dealt with accordingly, but I don't see any of the stories in the bible making scientific claims. No human was there at the creation, why do people think that it is a scientific account? I don't see it that way. Also, I found it interesting that it has to be in harmony with science but not with philosophy, which would be much closer in terms of nature.
3 Source of unity
Since we will talk about truth later I'll leave the part about the truth claim for later. I absolutely agree that a true religion has to produce unity, but I would be really carefull in setting this as a measure point for "the true religion". In the bible Jesus says this interesting sentence " I did not come to bring peace, but to bring the sword. And father will rise against his son and the son against his father and the mother will rise against her daugther..." and so on. The point is, if someone commits himself to a cause he will be different to those who oppose the cause. Baha'i themselves experienced exactly what Jesus meant when they got persecuted in Iran. To unite means to seperate from that what seperates you. Some people do that and some chose, not to. My hope is that one day all men will unite and see the truth in Jesus (again, we talk about truth later), but those who don't chose to follow God, God will not force them, neither should the followers of God.
4 Purity of the teaching
I do and don't agree with this point. Yes, the religion has to be firmly and completly founded on the basis God set. But I also believe that there is a tradition to religion which is very important. For young religions like the Baha'i faith there is not so much of a tradition to build on. For Christianity on the other hand it is crucial, that the teachers and priests study and understand, where our traditions come from. Without them we would start all over again with the discussion if Jesus was God or man. We wouldn't have the New Testament, and ultimatively we couldn't accept the Bible in the first place since it was written by men, not dictated by God as in Islam. The Bible is a collection of stories and writings people wrote down. Over time, humans with the help of God destiled those which are the most important and coherent. By the way, I also found it interesting that none of these points is "the true religion must be coherent", but I guess that's implied.
5 Truth is relative
Talking about truth is difficult since it seems like everyone makes up his own definition of truth. I agree that from different perspectives, truth can be different. However one thing doesn't change and that is if someone makes a truthclaim he has to say others are false. In saying, the true religion has to support relative truth, who says that the claim of relative truth is more true than the claim of absolute truth? Relative truth rules itself out. What Tom was really talking about here was a critique on people qho believe have figured everything out. If a prophet says he got the revelation from God we will test and see if that is true or not by looking at what God has revealed before. Now if God has revealed to Jesus that he is the son of God and to Mohammed Allah has no sons, one of them must be true and one false.
6 True religion affects the actions
A claim that goes throught the entire bible, faith without works is dead. Still, the best argument against Christianity is the Christians. We are sinners, but no Christian should ever claim to be more. Only Jesus is perfect, we only strive to be like Him.
7 It has to naturally unite all religions
Is that not just a claim the Baha'i faith has in it's agenda? I don't know of any other religion that would say everyone is right.
Hi Natan,
I'm not sure if you'll see this reply (since it is a year late), but wanted to say I appreciate the points you made above. I only have time to address the first item: a religion must be relevant to the current age.
1) All the major world religions have both eternal spiritual teachings and timely social teachings. Eternal teachings include recognizing a single God, loving your neighbor as yourself, and God's forgiveness of sin (as you mentioned). Timely messages are things like the Jewish laws, e.g. various criminal punishments and Kosher rules. Christ updated, annulled, or clarified many of those timely laws, but reaffirmed all the eternal spiritual messages.
The speaker in this video is pointing out that the Baha'i Faith talks in terms of world unity, the equality of women, economic justice, universal education, etc. These are all social teachings very relevant to the current age, but wouldn't have been very relevant to people 2000 years ago. They weren't a key focus of Christ's teachings because He shared other truths the society needed at that time.
Students (i.e. humanity) can only absorb so much new information at one time, so God periodically sends a new teacher to continue the lessons.
Hi Natan, as for your 7th point
"The door of the knowledge of the Ancient Being hath ever been, and will continue for ever to be, closed in the face of men. No man’s understanding shall ever gain access unto His holy court. As a token of His mercy, however, and as a 50 proof of His loving-kindness, He hath manifested unto men the Day Stars of His divine guidance, the Symbols of His divine unity, and hath ordained the knowledge of these sanctified Beings to be identical with the knowledge of His own Self. Whoso recognizeth them hath recognized God. Whoso hearkeneth to their call, hath hearkened to the Voice of God, and whoso testifieth to the truth of their Revelation, hath testified to the truth of God Himself. Whoso turneth away from them, hath turned away from God, and whoso disbelieveth in them, hath disbelieved in God. Every one of them is the Way of God that connecteth this world with the realms above, and the Standard of His Truth unto every one in the kingdoms of earth and heaven. They are the Manifestations of God amidst men, the evidences of His Truth, and the signs of His glory."
As to your 5th point, if you're still there, the term "Son of God" is symbolic, IMHO, especially given that the Bible says Adam was the Son of God. If you were to take his story literally, he's clearly more of a Son of God than Jesus was since God literally created him. Of course, Baha'is believe that is symbolic also since Genesis 1 says God created mankind before Adam is mentioned, and Genesis 5 says the name Adam actually means mankind. In Islam, they were taking the term Son of God literally when they criticized the terminology instead of seeing the symbolism of a Messenger of God being close to God, speaking for God, having the knowledge of God's message, etc., except the son is not the father and is usually considered to be under the father.
You might want to consider that Jesus said he would return with a new name in the Glory of the Father. Baha'is believe that is Baha'u'llah, who suffered 40 years of persecution of every conceivable kind yet never wavered in his determination to bring his message, this time in writing, and we still have the originals. The history of the Faith was written down as it unfolded since it appeared to people who were literate. If you want to know whether the Baha'i Faith is true, you can read the eyewitness histories, you can read the original writings (translated or in the original languages), and decide for yourself. Baha'u'llah affirms the Divinity of Jesus and offers new insights into his life and teachings. You might find it interesting. I sure did! :)
Happy NAW RUZ 178
Please pray for the 17 thumbs down!!!