Talk:Baháʼí Faith/Archive 12

message: In the page it states that Bahá'u'lláh said, "Think not that We have revealed unto you a mere code of laws. Nay, rather, We have unsealed the choice Wine with the fingers of might and power." (Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, v. 5, p. 21). How is it then that the Bahai faith prohibits the consumption of Alcohol? Is wine not alcohol? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.63.34.242 (talk • contribs) .
:Indeed the consumption of alcohol and all other intoxicants is prohibited in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, in one place prohibiting "any substance that induceth sluggishness and torpor."   Abdu'l-Baha has also said that the Kitab-i-Aqdas prohibits "both light and strong drinks." Shoghi Effendi has also stated that the prohibition includes "everything that deranges the mind," and states that alcohol is only permitted as part of a medical treatment under presecription by a medical doctor.
:The reference to "choice wine" is in the verse is in the symbolic sense.  In another tablet Baha'u'llah wrote:  
::"Beware lest ye exchange the Wine of God for your own wine, for it will stupefy your minds, and turn your faces away from the Countenance of God, the All-Glorious, the Peerless, the Inaccessible."
:Thus the reference to the "choice wine" is that of spiritual ecstasy found when following the laws of God.  This use of the term in this way is not only found in Baha'u'llah's writings but also in the Bible and Quran.
:In some other tablets, Baha'u'llah identifies the "choice Wine" with his Revelation whose "musk-laden fragrance" has been wafted "upon all created things." He states that he has "unsealed" this "Wine," thereby disclosing spiritual truths that were unknown, and enabling those who quaff thereof to "discern the splendours of the light of divine unity" and to "grasp the essential purpose underlying the Scriptures of God."
:Hope this helps. -- Jeff3000 00:46, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction 

message: Wow, today seems to be 'prophecy day' for me. I was wondering why in the intro it says: "Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and other religions"...what was the purpose in providing these three in written form. If it is in relation to the the teachings of the Baha'i Faith or its relation with these religions then I am not even sure it is correct. Then we would have to include Judaism and Zoroastrianism. But if it is relation to the influence of the above faiths, which is probably what one would do in an encyclopedia article, then it should include Hinduism. For now I will add Hinduism making it even with 2 religions from west and two from east. Let me know what we all think. I just found it odd, thats all. Nmentha 23:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Quote: To Israel He was neither more nor less than the incarnation of the "Everlasting Father", the "Lord of Hosts" come down "with ten thousands of saints"; to Christendom Christ returned "in the glory of the Father"; to Shí'ah Islam the return of the Imam Husayn; to Sunni Islam the descent of the "Spirit of God" (Jesus Christ); to the Zoroastrians the promised Shah-Bahram; to the Hindus the reincarnation of Krishna; to the Buddhists the fifth Buddha. [The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 234]
Hindu's await the return of Krishna, the worldwide Avatar expected after Buddha by Hindu's is sometimes refered to as Avatai Kalki. Also take a look at the list of 10 Avatars here: Avatar#The_Ten_Avatars_of_Vishnu.2C_or_Dasavatara. Notice how Avatar Kalki comes after Buddha at the End of Times to usher in a new age. What will raise eyebrows to a Baha'i is the number referenced for the length of the "Age" described. It seems awfully close or similar in digits as the number given by Baha'u'llah as the length of His Cycle (500,000 years). Nmentha 09:30, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prophecy in Intro 

message: I am pure Inuyasha, I changed my name because i don't want to be branded with a advertisment. I'm just telling you this because i'm rather active on the talk pages here. Zazaban 20:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name change 

message: I'd like to suggest a small section reviewing some of the more extended uses of the Baha'i Faith in fiction. I have in mind two short stories of Tom Ligon ("The Devil and the Deep Black Void" in Analog (New York), v.106 no.1 (Jan. 1986), and the sequel "The Gardener" in Analog (New York), v.113 no.11 (Nov. 1993) ) as well as a general reference to the work of Maya Kathryn Bohnhoff - notably The Meri series which uses extensive quotes from Baha'i and other scriptures as well as some themes in the books and perhaps some of her short stores. In terms of references there are materials at several websites - http://www.adherents.com/lit/sf_bahai.html , http://www.angelfire.com/va2/TomLigon/Writing.htm , http://www.mysticfig.com/Maya_Books.htm —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Smkolins (talk • contribs) .
:Instead of putting the content in this article, you should just create a new article (like Bahá'í Faith in fiction), and then we can link to that article in the See also section.  Bahá'í Faith in fiction is not important to the understanding of the Bahá'í Faith to be included in a subsection of this article. -- Jeff3000 16:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And don't forget to mention the scene in the Simpsons, where lisa is searching for religion and sees a "Bed, Bath, and Baha'i" store. Cuñado  - Talk 17:40, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Sure, put it in the See also section. -- Jeff3000 03:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was actually thinking of the "See also" section in this article, and not the template.  What do other people think? -- Jeff3000 03:30, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I say don't put it in the template. --Twilightsojourn 05:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Baha'i Faith in Fiction 

message: A list of all the people recognized by the Baha'i faith as Prophets, prophets, seers, and the religions recognized as inspired because of the spiritual revelation of a new Prophet (don't know how to word it).
That and we need an article like Seer (Baha'i) or something of that nature. Zazaban 23:20, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Islamic prophets, and there is no such list as what you're talking about. See Manifestation of God. Cuñado  - Talk 23:40, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Well Manifestation of God would be a good place to start expanding and creating a referenced list. Cuñado  - Talk 07:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, Manifestation of God would be the ideal place, especially since lesser prophets are discussed there. -- Jeff3000 15:03, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

text: The fact that divisions exist is included in the section on the Covenant, with a link to the specific article that discusses the different divisions.  Note that from WP:NPOV#Undue_weight, "views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views."  -- Jeff3000 18:08, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some things I think there should be somewhere. 

message: A long discussion on the presence of YouTube has been archived (again) to Talk:Bahá'í Faith/archive11. Cuñado  - Talk 21:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The youtube discussion seems to have hit (another) concluding point, so it's archived again. One thing that should be brought back out here is a request from Cunado. He would like us to comment on this. -LambaJan 13:32, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The world is catching up to wikipedia's stance on copyright, look here RoddyYoung 11:27, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually Youtube's status in Wikipedia is now made more problematic and links to Youtube even in the external links are discouraged.  See WP:AN#External_Links_and_YouTube.  No Youtube. -- Jeff3000 14:12, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 11,000 Youtube links in wikipedia in one year and growing. I wonder if youtube are as concerned about videos on or of wikipedia in their collection. The comment that I think sums it up is the paraphrase that 'news papers' are the only reliable source of information for wikipedia. I can hear the cave peoples' conversation (our distant ancestors 50,000 to 12,000 year ago) when a person drew in the sand with a stick and said that we could represent sounds with symbols. 'No we must blacklist that stick symbol thing because how would we know who the idea comes from if we can not see the face where the grunt is coming from'. 'Only communication can come from people's bodies especially the face' they said. 'Not an authentic reliable source is stick sysmbols' they said. 'Blacklist them, no sticksymbols'. As we know in time stick sysbols became news papers, news papers become c# computer code, and C# computer code became two internet cave dwellers fighting over internet moral high ground on the one hand and viewership on the other, they are named wikipedia and youtube. Now the internet people (sitting in frount of an open laptap screen) can have youtube and see how others clubbed their mates with a shovel or how to catch fire to a friend without facing the challenge of being the next victom. Humans are hard wired to take notice virtually or otherwise of threats to life which are historic events that just keep attracting our human attention. Now people do not have to debate sticksymbols and can just grunt into a camera and post it to youtube and know that those words came from a face they can trust or can they. That way the language will remain pure  with no abstraction or can it. That way wikipedia will never have to achnowledge that with out people clicking onto it they would not have a forum or would they. I want to suggest that we see a disclaimer in wikipedia that says these audiovisual materials are unauthenticated but an audiovisualpicture is worth one thousand typed words not a static picture with out sound. I would continue 'Veiw at your own intellectual and moral risk, but you may learn something that relates to the wikipedia page here or here or here. Humor is an important part of learning and sifting true logic from fiction.  RoddyYoung 11:06, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  YouTube 

message: I was looking at the page with an idea of aesthetics:
White space - as it loaded and I noticed there was a broad white space on the bottom middle and right but that might be somewhat about resolution and screen size? I'm at 1440x900 on a 15" screen. I checked at 1024x786 and I still see a fair bit of whitespace I think. If these system can allow for screen shots I can share one. I think most are at 1024x786 followed by folk at 800x600 and 1280x1024....
Slightly wordy - I wondered about simplifying the first paragraphs as well as using the actual words of a central figure one way or another to have their inherent charm play a role in defining the religion even here. For the wordy part I wondered if the three onesess could be presented as an elaboration of the teaching of unity itself.
Essentially static - I wondered if some tasteful but animated graphic could serve - consider this as an example - http://homepage.mac.com/smkolins/images/graphics/justice.gif Perhaps one with the Seat of the House, the Temple of the Bab, and .... The broad idea is to get movement as well as more than one thing in the same space...
Anyway, the basic idea is to make the page more interesting, beautiful, etc....--Smkolins 00:52, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm on Firefox at 1024x768 and I think the page is ok with whitespace.  I know IE does things differently, so there definitely can be room for improvement (I refuse to use IE in any fashion so I can't check).  As for slightly wordy, I don't think it's a good thing to use actual scripture unless in certain cases.  Wikipedia prefers secondary sources over primary sources, and using secondary sources seems more neutral.  Remember, this page cannot be promotional.  In regards to the graphics, I'm not a fan of animation on webpages; it takes away from the content (same reason why banner ads have basically been put on the backburner on the web over text-based ads).  For the specific animation in question, I don't like it for many reasons, but mostly because it makes the page look promotional.  -- Jeff3000 01:02, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Jeff. The page has always looked pretty good to me, and I think that the use of secondary sources helps keep the page more neutral. The animation makes it look more amateur, I feel, especially the example given. The static image is more professional, and more encyclopaedic (the subject does not need to be illustrated with a moving graphic, which is more appropriate for something like lenticular technology (the image that used to be displayed in that article can be seen here), or something else that can be better illustrated with an animated .gif). Thanks for your thoughts, though! It's great that you're looking for ways to improve this already great article. --Twilightsojourn 01:16, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm on Safari. My screen of the top of of the article is right near 50% whitespace. That seems excessive. Between Safari and Firefox it's about the same though in Firefox it's slightly less whitespace (the font of the text is rendered slightly larger but thin whereas in Safari it's smaller but thicker letters.... While experimenting I noticed that the text flexibly wrapped as I drug the browser window around. Good and a consideration when formatting....
To give a feel of when the whitespace was pretty much gone, I noticed the picture size was pretty fixed. If you drag the window around the white space is gone when the left edge of the picture is under the "i" in Baha'i in the disambiguation line. Then bring the bottom of the window up to "cite this article" in the left side "toolbox". Leaving the window fairly open and just changing the resolution it seems that the window is filled up to around 800x600. Starting at 1024x768 there is noticable white space in the bottom right.
As for promotional... well I suppose that can be debated - beauty is itself a positive thing afterall. As for the graphic I posted - I did so specifically just to give an idea of a Baha'i oriented animated gif. It specifically wouldn't do I think. It was just an example, as opposed to a specific suggestion. BTW the author has a page here http://www.bcca.org/hawaii/gif/ but I don't think anything there is specifically right for this page. --Smkolins 01:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I think a screenshot is in order.  Do you mean the space beside the table of contents?  -- Jeff3000 01:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes that's it. I can see as far down as just past work ethic... now how di I post a screenshot here? Or do I have to post it on my home site?--Smkolins 01:43, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You could post on any of the free anonymous image uploaders like imageshack.us/   The space beside the Table of Contents is the Wikipedia style, and ways to reduce it include (1) click on "hide" in the ToC (2) reducing the number of subsection headings or (3) moving the ToC to the right (which has it's own set of problems. -- Jeff3000 01:49, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I see. A few moments and I'll post the pictures somewhere - my daughter wants to go to bed and have a story read. Give me a few minutes plus the overhead of posting them somewhere... and converting from pdf to jpg....--Smkolins 01:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

text: The Joseph Smith article has 8 images (all public domain), the Ankor Wat article has 13 images (all some sort of free license), End times has 2 images (both free).  Compare that to 8 images in this article, quite a few which are fair use.  So I'd say we're quite average in the number of images. -- Jeff3000 02:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the picture in the top block is a good thing and a fair number through the article is fine too. I was just looking around to see if anyone was really doing more than just a picture....--Smkolins 03:25, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aesthetic improvements? 

message: well taking a quick gander at Christianity, Islam and Judaism as a snapshot I note all are similarly wordy but have even less graphicness. The picture of the Seat is a quantum leap better in my view.... But it still seems to me that an internet based encyclopedia should have more than what a printed one can do....--Smkolins 01:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: and they all have the whitespace problem too - they all have one of the templates on the right opposite the contents list which kind of exagerates the empty middle....--Smkolins 01:48, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that there are people who don't want an image in the lead at all (see some of the Talk archives).  Also, too many images becomes disrputive to the reader.  Images should be very relevant, and be GFDL, as most images right now on the page are fair use, which is not great.  Someone could come and remove the fair use images right away. -- Jeff3000 01:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Despite aesthetics, I think it's important to keep a picture of the Seat of the House up front and on top. There are periodicly Covenant-breakers participating in wikipedia and the image is a flag waving, so to speak. Cuñado  - Talk 04:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah - but I bet that edit got reverted within 15 minutes! Obvious vandalism doesn't tend to last long around here... PaulHammond 23:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  aesthetics... of words and pictures 

message: I noticed the End Time featured page had a Baha'i section and two followups occur - first Return of Christ is linked but not there, and wondered if one more sentence would be good - something like "For example, it has been argued that the Battle of Armageddon has already passed." The reference I have in mind is two sections of http://bahai-library.com/bsr/bsr09/9B3_lambden_armageddon.htm .--Smkolins 02:57, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some content on that page would definitely be needed.  My understanding of the Baha'i end times I thought was very similar to the one that is now in the Babism article.  -- Jeff3000 03:49, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Some content added - and slightely amended the preterist section which had claimed an exclusive and unique interpritation that the end times were past. I also took note of the missing Seventh Day section in the talk section - didn't add that but then left very brief notes in Sevent-Day and Millerites that they were not unique in their acceptance of 1844 based on calculations.--Smkolins 04:19, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Baha'i prophecies and its talk page. There are good references that show `Abdu'l-Baha in 1912 saying that the battle of Armageddon described in the book of Revelation would begin in two years. Cuñado  - Talk 04:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I did see some of that... I've been casting about a bit trying to figure out how much to say - a lot in one place or alittle in lots of places.... I didn't want to just usurp a whole huge section of the article....--Smkolins 22:31, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  End Times content 

message: there is only 202 countries in the world and some of those wouldnt allow  it so i think its a false number —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bakerboy4 (talk • contribs) .
:The Encyclopedia Brittanica from 2002 gives 218.  I don't know what there definition of country is, but it could be a lot of things.  For example, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland could all be considered countries, or they could be included in one country the United Kingdom.  -- Jeff3000 20:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually they define country to be "sovereign and nonsovereign countries", so I would guess that places like England would be considered a country. -- Jeff3000 20:49, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: From List of countries "there are 243 entities considered to be countries". -- Jeff3000 20:54, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

text: What are you trying to say? 130.113.111.214 17:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  200 Countries 

message: Is anyone else having a problem with the second image on the page, the close-up of the Wilmette temple? I've tried it on multiple computers, and it doesn't load completely (leaving an empty white space where the bottom fifth of the image should be). --Twilightsojourn 06:54, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikimedia (the software that deals with Wikipedia) is having problems with thumbnails currently.  They are working on it.  I can fix the problem by changing the size to 199px from 200px.  -- Jeff3000 14:01, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photo not loading properly 

message: *Out of curiosity, I ventured over to this article and saw that the Baha'i reference was replaced.  I no longer monitor religion-related articles (other than various angels, and that is purely from the perpsective of a storywriter), so could someone take a look at that and see if it merits inclusion?  I'm a little concerned that an unofficial translation of a tablet by Bahá'u'lláh is used as a source. Danny Lilithborne 23:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Houri]] 

message: The Farsi Wikipedia website has the Baha'i Faith as the Main Page article. Unfortunately it's a poor article citing non-Baha'i sources, and evidently written by a non-Baha'i. The photo of Baha'u'llah is at the top of the page. According to my wife, the discussion seems to be between non-Baha'is, with a lot of biased (read: bigotted) comments. Several non-Baha'i Iranians are defending the Baha'is and the Faith. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it's unfortunate that an article considered non-neutral should be right up on the front page of a Wikipedia site. -- Parsa 03:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ( --dragfyre 03:22, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's unfortunate.  What's more disturbing is that I'm not surprised.  It is, however, quite noble of those editors who are not Baha'i who are trying to keep it neutral. -- Jeff3000 03:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Farsi Wikipedia Main Page Article