On Sports and the Baha'i Faith: Sports as evolutionary
The modern Games have de-emphasized this martial model of athletics and instead gravitated toward two kinds of spectacle that, to the Greeks, would not have seemed to be contests at all. Team sports, a phenomenon utterly unknown to the ancient world, have claimed an increasing share of the Games themselves and an ever-greater percentage of their televised avatar. The same is true of competitions like diving, figure-skating, and gymnastics, in which athletes perform solo, in serial displays, before a panel of judges.
But what will sports look like in the future, as humankind continues to evolve -- as the Baha'i Writings assure us it will? The link below constitutes the best discussion of sports from the perspective of the Baha'i Revelation that I've come across.
Yet every Olympics also seems to rekindle the debate about the importance of sport and athletic competition in relation to other human endeavors. Are the Olympics a laudable venue for the celebration of physical prowess and the unification of countries, or does the fierce competition kindled by the Olympics simply reinforce the competitive mindset that often leads to conflict and contention among nations? How much value should we place on winning, or losing, in such competitions? And what is the role of sport and athletic competition in general in the broader scope of human affairs?Lots of dedicated wrestlers -- including several Eastside Tacoma junior youth program participants -- came out for the end-of-the-wrestling season combine at Foss High School last Saturday. -gw
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