BAHA’U’LLAH’S STATEMENTS THAT ARE AGAINST SCIENCE AND REASON

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The punishment for Arson

Is this law about arson logical?

Should anyone intentionally destroy a house by fire, him also shall ye burn; should anyone deliberately take another’s life, him also shall ye put to death. Take ye hold of the precepts of God with all your strength and power, and abandon the ways of the ignorant. Should ye condemn the arsonist and the murderer to life imprisonment, it would be permissible according to the provisions of the Book. He, verily, hath power to ordain whatsoever He pleaseth.

Reference: Baha’u’llah, The Kitābi Aqdas, p. 203.

Baha’u’llah announces that arsons who destroy a house are to be burned alive or alternatively they can be imprisoned for life. No conditions have been specified whatsoever about the severity and extremity of the offence that will lead to this punishment. This law must be implemented irrespective of anyone dying as a result of this fire. This law is so harsh and illogical that in the complementary notes of the Book of Aqdas, the following explanation has been added:

The details of the Baha’i law of punishment for murder and arson, a law designed for a future state of society, were not specified by Baha’u’llah. The various details of the law, such as degrees of offence, whether extenuating circumstances are to be taken into account, and which of the two prescribed punishments is to be the norm are left to the Universal House of Justice to decide in light of prevailing conditions when the law is to be in operation. The manner in which the punishment is to be carried out is also left to the Universal House of Justice to decide. In relation to arson, this depends on what “house” is burned. There is obviously a tremendous difference in the degree of offence between the person who burns down an empty warehouse and one who sets fire to a school full of children.

Earth’s Age

Bahā’u’llāh claims:

The learned men, that have fixed at several thousand years the life of this earth [the age of this world], have failed, throughout the long period of their observation, to consider either the number or the age of the other planets. Consider, moreover, the manifold divergencies that have resulted from the theories propounded by these men.

Reference: Bahā’u’llāh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahā’u’llāh, p. 163. The original Fārsī quote can be found in Bahā’u’llāh, Muntakhabātī az āthār Ḥaḍrat Bahā’u’llāh, p. 109.

What we have placed in square-brackets is the correct translation of the original Farsi text that has been distorted by the Baha’i translation committee. There are more errors in the translation of this quote that we will ignore for now.

The fallacy in these words is that the learned men had noy fixed the age of the earth at several thousand years during Bahā’u’llāh’s life. The estimates ranged from tens of thousands to the millions. In the mid-eighteenth century, Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov—widely viewed as the founder of modern Russian science—concluded that earth had been created several hundred thousand years ago.

The French naturalist, Comte du Buffon, gave an estimate of 75000 years in 1779. The physicist, William Thomson of Glasgow, gave the estimate of between 20–۴۰۰ million years in 1862.

These are estimates about the “age of the earth.” The original Farsi words used by Baha’u’llah translate to “the age of this world.” Many scientists contemporary to Baha’u’llah believed that this world is eternal (not a few thousand years claimed by Baha’u’llah).

Bahā’u’llāh’s Opinion About the Book of Bayān

We showed in the previous sections the illogical and unreasonable orders uttered by the Bāb in the book of Bayān. Orders like beheading non-Babis, burning their books, destroying their monuments, massacring them, eating the leaves of trees, walking above the earth with legs, not consuming medicine, etc.

These instructions and orders are so inhumane, illogical, and unreasonable that they are never mentioned by Baha’is. When approached by questions regarding these matters, they respond by saying Bābism has been abrogated and what orders the Bāb gave, have nothing to do with Baha’ism. Bahā’u’llāh considers his own book the Aqdas as the abrogator of the Bayān:

The book of Aqdas abrogates all the decrees of the book of Bayān . . . everyone’s [religious] source is [now] the book of Aqdas not the book of Bayān. The decrees of the Bayān are [now] abrogated.

Reference: Asad-Allāh Fāḍil Māzandarānī, Asrār al-āthār khuṣūṣī, vol. 2, p. 106.

Nevertheless, the author of this violent, irrational, and unreasonable book is considered as the Starting Point (nuqtiyi aulā) and herald to Bahā’u’llāh. Baha’is celebrate his birth, rush to visit his shrine, and consider visiting his home (in Shiraz, Iran) to be like performing the Islamic Hajj. So how is it that they deny having any relation to the Bāb, and declare Bābism to be abrogated? Furthermore, Bahā’u’llāh had affirmed the status and position of the book of Bayān by telling his followers to refer to this book:

Refer to it, for a letter from it will suffice the entirety of the people of the earth. And surely God has stated all things in the evident book.

Reference: Asad-Allāh Fāḍil Māzandarānī, Asrār al-āthār khuṣūṣī, vol. 2, p. 102.

They have attributed to this Station (meaning Bahā’u’llāh)—by whose authority all [divine] Books speak— that he has abrogated the decrees of the Bayān. May the curse of God fall upon the unjust.

Reference: Bahā’u’llāh, Iqtidārāt wa chand lauḥ dīgar, p. 103.

I swear to God that if an individual from the followers of the Bayān mentions the abrogation of that book, God will break the mouth of the speaker and defamer.

Reference: Asad-Allāh Fāḍil Māzandarānī, Asrār al-āthār khuṣūṣī, vol. 5, p. 333.

Bahā’u’llāh had even stated that

I [swear by] He who in His hand is my soul and my essence, a single letter from the Bayān is dearer to me than everything that is in the heavens and the earth.

Reference: Asad-Allāh Fāḍil Māzandarānī, Asrār al-āthār khuṣūṣī, vol. 5, p. 333.