Since I last posted. Things are continuing on as normal.
My brother, his wife Catherine, and daughter Ella (2 years old) were here in Israel last week. I finally got a chance to tour around Israel!
I saw the ancient water port of Caesura on the Mediterranean with waters that I've only seen in photographs, it was that beautiful. Then we continued up the coast to Haifa and saw the B'Hai Temple. That place has money flowing out the waz-oo. Beautiful gardens. Try asking them what their faith believes and it sounds something like, "we believe in everything!" Don't exactly know what that means but they do believe in every prophet and every writing. The only thing is that every prophet outside of each religion says something different (Jewish, Islamic, Christian...) that they must pick and choose what they want to believe. Kudos. Kind of like baloney meat...made from many different parts of many different animals.
Then we spent two days in Tiberius on the Kinneret (known to the world as the Sea of Galilee). Talk about beautiful! Surrounded by mountains and desert, the air was crisp and cool. Tiberius has the spiritual element of water. Israel, which is in the worst drought it ever had, looks like it could use more of that element. I joked that considering how low the water level was, even I could walk across the water. (Tiberius is adjacent to the town where it is told Jesus walked across the water and performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes).
Went up into the wine country of Golan Heights...beautiful.
Went to a utopia with light green waters coming out of a natural spring that made a waterfall where people could swim. Beautiful.
Went to the Dead Sea. People, if you don't go to the Dead Sea and float on the waters, you're missing out on an experience. It is IMPOSSIBLE to sink. I kid you not. You can't sink. You don't float in the water but float ON the water. Supper trippy.
Then we went to the desert fortress of Messada overlooking the Dead Sea. It's hard to believe the magnitude of that place being so high up on top of a mountain where there was a city!
After all was said and done, I came back to school. Apparently my brother wants to buy a house in Israel now :)....who would've thought?
Now I must go do, that voodoo, that Jews do!
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Yo dude, its Chin from back home. Just started reading your blog. Sounds like an awesome trip.
ReplyDeleteB'Hai Temple. That place has money flowing out the waz-oo. Beautiful gardens.
ReplyDeleteThey are beautiful gardens, styled as "paradise gardens" - a modest amount of money being spent over years, with a lot of recycling too. It's "Baha'i" and the building you saw was the Shrine of the Bab.
Try asking them what their faith believes and it sounds something like, "we believe in everything!" Don't exactly know what that means but they do believe in every prophet and every writing. The only thing is that every prophet outside of each religion says something different (Jewish, Islamic, Christian...) that they must pick and choose what they want to believe. Kudos. Kind of like baloney meat...made from many different parts of many different animals.
Perhaps it would be instructive if we let Baha'u'llah speak for himself:
“These principles and laws, these firmly-established and mighty systems”, Bahá’u’lláh asserts, “have proceeded from one Source, and are the rays of one Light. That they differ one from another is to be attributed to the varying requirements of the ages in which they were promulgated.”
That sounds nice. However, to all come from the same "Source" runs into at least on big technical problem.
ReplyDeleteIf you believe that G-d is perfect (if not, don't continue reading), then you would believe that G-d doesn't change or need correction. Change implies something that was lacking from the previous state that requires something new or different. The fact that there have been different teachings between the prophets, some completely contradictory, you must solve how the previous prophets who performed G-d's will were in need of change that we see in prophets following the Jewish prophets (in the Tenach or as some refer to as the "Old Testament").