Enlightened rants...

[downbeatplumb]

-abbreviated because who gives a shit?

So that's a big giant no, then, huh.  You tell us we need guides, the guides then fail to materialize.  What's the point?

This is a good question. The point is what are we supposed to when such a guide doesn't materialize.

I believe the following is what Quran advocates:

"No giving authority to anyone else in that time" which means democratic anarchy, which is the form of "government" or "organizing society affairs" I came to believe during my time as a Deist.

It means no clergy class, but we all must come to learn the religion, teach it to others what we know and learn from others, through insight, not authority top-down structure.

And this is necessary, because, the Guide will not materialize if his materialization is not beneficial but the opposite to humanity.

So if such a Guide is not present among the people but hidden, we have to ask why?  And the Quran elaborates why.

But what we Shiites have done is do everything Quran and the family of Guidance warned not to do, we given religious authority to fallible people, attributed purity to people without clear proofs from God, and we follow innovations instead of what God has brought down and the elaborated by the Messenger and guarded by those who truly possess the authority from humanity.

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And the point is, it is saying, we did something wrong when the Guides were present, and it is a time to correct ourselves or further perish, as a test from God.  We have failed the test and until a generation stops following the previous generations in their way of misguidance, we will continue distance ourselves from the Guide and God.

I think that like all religious books it can be made to mean what you want it to.
Look at ISIS, they have taken your nice book and made it the bedrock for horror.
And you know what, they aren't wrong and neither are you, because there is no "real" Islam any more than there is a "real" Venusian society.
Its all just made up.