gilgamesh: I had never really read about the IPU before (League's predecessor) and its history reminded me even more of how silly the whole prophetic application is.
For some more background on the League of Nations, it roots can actually be traced back to the Hague Convention of 1899.
The peace conference was proposed on 24 August 1898 by Russian Tsar Nicholas II.[8] Nicholas and Count Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov, his foreign minister, were instrumental in initiating the conference. The conference opened on 18 May 1899, the Tsar's birthday. The treaties, declarations, and final act of the conference were signed on 29 July of that year, and they entered into force on 4 September 1900.
What is interesting about Tsar Nicholas' motivations in establishing an international court, is that the Baha'i's claim input into the start of that idea. Before Nicholas took power, his father, Alexander III, had a friendship with a Baha'i man. According to Baha'i history, this man influenced Alexander on ideas of international peace and the methods to be followed in order to see that fulfillment (modeled on the Baha'i's "International House of Justice"). When Alexander died prematurely. his son Nicholas took up his father's mission to establish an international court of peace.
The Baha'i faith is considered to be an apostate sect of Islam. They share many similarities in structure and doctrine to the WTS (and many differences too)
There have been three attempts in the past to implement Baha'u'llah's plan for a Universal House of Justice.
Czar Nicholas II of Russia made the first attempt in the late 1800's. He had many of Baha'u'llah's principle writings translated into Russian and had studied the Plan for the UHJ. At the first Hague Peace Conference in 1899, the Czar proposed the idea to have a World Court represented by all of the nations to solve the difficult problems of the world. Those present thought it was a wonderful idea and they eulogized the Czar so much that it all went to his head and he failed to proclaim Baha'u'llah, the Author of this wondrous Plan. Because he failed to do this, the World Court became very secular and we had WWI.
American President Woodrow Wilson made the next attempt. Wilson's daughter was a Baha'i, and many of Baha'u'llah's works outlining the UHJ were in the White House library, which he had studied. He decided to try to form the League of Nations, but couldn't get the U.S. to join, so all of the nations weren't represented, and again Baha'u'llah was not proclaimed, so this body also became very secular and didn't solve anything and we had WWII.
Finally we come to Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). He and his wife, Eleanor, were secretly Baha'is. They attended fireside classes for three years in the home of a Baha'i physician in Washington DC. FDR became very deepened in the Faith and wanted to form the United Nations. The atom bomb was very near to being perfected at that time. His plan was to call the heads of state to the Nevada proving ground, explode a nuclear device, proclaim Baha'u'llah, and give this bomb to the UN so that all of the nations could simultaneously disarm. Well, Roosevelt died before he had the chance to do this, and when Harry Truman stepped into office, and they asked him if he'd follow through with FDR's plan, he said, "Hell no, we've got the bomb… the other nations can dance to our tune!" So now the UN is completely secular and solves nothing! It is a house of Injustice! ...