Bahais Online 
Syrian refugees that certain politicians call a "swarm" and "scum".please share this photo
Posted by Ray Brocklesby on Thursday, 20 August 2015
As the Confederate flag of South Carolina goes down literally and figuratively and others, like Mississippis and Alabamas, and even previously revered collectibles like the famed Dukes of Hazzard General Lee Confederate Matchbox Car, fall with it in rapid succession, many of us stand in awe that such a change is actually happening.
While these moves were unimaginable just two weeks earlier, my thoughts inevitably turn to the nine slain worshippers in the Emanuel AME church of Charleston, who deserve the honor bestowed upon martyrs for racial equality and justice. The fact that President Obama broke out in song during his moving eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney attests to how profoundly he, along with a quiet majority of humanity, have been moved not just by the tragedy of the loss of those innocent worshipers, but also by the faith, fortitude, and forgiveness shown by the victims families, and by the wider community of Charleston coming together for a greater good that mustabsolutely mustbe realized.
Great Lakes Naval Training Center has dismissed a number of civilian volunteers who offered services for a handful of minority religious traditions, including Unitarian Universalism, the Baha'i faith, Buddhism, Christian Science, Church of Christ and Earth-centered traditions, also called nature worship.
The ouster, conveyed to volunteers last month, echoed a similar expulsion last May in which Muslim leaders were dismissed. That decision was rescinded a month later, with a caveat that if uniformed personnel were available to lead, volunteers would be asked to step aside.
Critics of the latest decision, including leaders of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit that in the past has sued the Pentagon for ignoring policies that ban mandatory religious practices, said Tuesday the dismissal trounces the recruits' constitutional rights.
"They're basically deciding who are the religious winners and who are the religious losers and desecrating religious protection," said Mikey Weinstein, head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. "This is absolutely establishing religion in direct denial of the First Amendment."
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But not every religious volunteer affected by the policy change plans to fight the decision. Doug Marshall, 62, of Highland Park, said he enjoyed sharing Baha'i teachings with curious recruits, especially during such an intense time in their lives. He doesn't understand the Navy's motivation, but Baha'i teachings include respect for the government, so seeking court action is not likely, he said.
{josquote}It was great while it lasted.{/josquote}"We were their guest," he said. "We're always told to be obedient to our government, and the Navy is part of our government. It's their choice. It's the Navy's game. They invited us up there 12 or 15 years ago, whenever they started having it. It was great while it lasted."
A young black man, Nicholas Thomas was gunned down on March 24, 2015. Iraj offers a few Baha'i prayers on healing and justice ... and ultimate forgiveness of those who repent in this gathering of family and friends of Nicholas in Smyrna, Georgia on March 31, 2015.
Albert Einstein endures as the quintessential modern genius for his seminal contributions to science, but he was also a great champion of human rights. In fact, despite having taken a backseat to his scientific legacy, Einsteins strong humanistic and political convictions are no less notable and revolutionary amid the assumptions of his era. Nowhere do they shine more brilliantly than in his lesser-known exchanges with people of radically different backgrounds and beliefs, always deeply thoughtful, irrepressibly respectful, and driven by an earnest desire for mutual understanding and encouragement including his conversation with the Indian philosopher Tagore about science and spirituality, his correspondence with Freud about violence, peace, and human nature, and his letter to a little girl in South Africa on why her gender shouldnt hold her back from pursuing science.
Some might assume that Einsteins compassionate outlook and unflinching commitment to equality were shaped by his own experience of being on the receiving end of historys deadliest anti-Semitism. When Hitler took over Germany on January 30, 1933 twelve years after Einstein earned the Nobel Prize, which had already exposed him to anti-Semitism he had just left Berlin with his wife Elsa to spend their third winter at CalTech, where Einstein had been invited as visiting faculty. The trip may well have saved his life mere months later, the situation in Germany became inhumane, then gruesomely lethal, for Jews.
