Just a few thoughts from one of the contributors to this blog. A document titled “One Common Faith” writes: Religion is religion, as science is science. The one discerns and articulates the values unfolding progressively through Divine revelation; the other … Continue reading A video on science and religion
The Word of God dictates the dynamics of civilization over history and dominates the destiny of events. It is our privilege as souls and individuals to participate and contribute to the inaction of God’s Will in the history of humankind as it … Continue reading Baha’u’llah’s Solution for Religious Fanaticism
Paragraph#: To the Baha’is of the World 1 – 3 years down. 2 to go. 2 Movements reinforced by youth conferences. 2000 Programs of growth (PG) remain of the goal.2 – 3000 PG’s. Many simple lines of action; some intensified … Continue reading Ridvan 2014 Message Summary
The Problem . ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY is a term used to describe the condition in which masses of people are deprived of their bare necessities, while wealth, resources, and infrastructure exist in sufficient proportion to provide for all. The amount of … Continue reading Artificial Scarcity & The Baha’i Faith
A few days ago passed the 120th anniversary of the first mention of the Baha’i Faith in the Western hemisphere. At last, the spiritual forces released by Baha’u’llah’s Revelation had an “initial conversation” through which they could be channeled. Many … Continue reading 120 years of discourse
For thousands of years, beginning with the birth of the family – the smallest unit in the scale of human organization – humanity’s evolution has been characterized by a process of integration, which although far less spectacular than the parallel … Continue reading The Power of Truth
A ‘prescription’ is that which is laid down as a rule, an order, a precept. A ‘description’, on the other hand, is a statement that indicates and notes observations. Common to both words is ‘script’, which denotes a law or … Continue reading A De-scription Pad
“In the young people of the world, then, lies a reservoir of capacity to transform society waiting to be tapped. And the release of this capacity should be regarded by every institute as a sacred charge.” “In an age consumed … Continue reading Advent Youth Conference
According to Abdu’l-Baha, wealth inequality, can be attributed to the “extreme greed and rapacity of the manufacturers and industrialists.” He furthermore identifies the root cause of income disparity as the defunct operations of the legislative branch of government: “The principal … Continue reading Abdu’l-Baha on Economic Policy
Partisanship is a bane to effective governance. Identifying with a political party exacerbates a bitter partisan divide that threatens the very fiber of social order and governance. Motivations of civil servants should be only the good of all people and … Continue reading Double Cure: Eliminate Parties and Campaigning
Science is in its infancy. It will evolve, change, and grow until it achieves a more mature form. To date, the human experience suffers from an underdeveloped understanding of the nature and scope of the scientific enterprise. Those who suffer … Continue reading The Structure of Future Scientific Revolutions
Paragraphs: 1- “The Book of God is wide open, and His Word is summoning mankind unto Him. Incline your ears, O friends of God, to the voice of Him Whom the world hath wronged, and hold fast unto whatsoever will exalt His … Continue reading Summary Ridvan 2013 Message: Growth and Discourse, A Dynamic Coherence
Development as an enterprise will fail until it studies the inter-penetration of reason and faith, the same way that students who memorize by rote repetition will always be 2nd best to the genius who understands the essence of composing music. Just ask … Continue reading The Scientist Believer
1. I feel like science is that family that screams at each other all saturday night long waking up the whole neighborhood and then shows up to socialize at a local potluck pretending like nothings wrong and acting like no … Continue reading 5 Aphorisms on Science, Religion, and Development
People have been inquiring as to the connection between the concepts of the circulatory system and the beauty of language. The human cardiovascular system is the symbol for justice in the world of nature. The means of distribution and circulation … Continue reading The Circulatory System and the Beauty of Language
Please join us June 14-16th for a weekend of study of the Messages from the Baha’i World Center. This session is a space to build capacity to participate in the prevalent discourses of society. The Universal House of Justice has asked the … Continue reading Discourse: Session at Bosch
National and Regional Training Institutes throughout the world offer a course called Ruhi Book 5, “Releasing the Powers of Junior Youth,” designed for the training of “Animators” who mentor youth between the ages of 11 and 14 years. Ruhi Book 5 builds the capacity of Animators to develop in junior youth the mental structures to weigh the world’s problems in the balance of advanced moral reasoning. It equips them with noble moral principles, together with the linguistic, mathematical, scientific, and social skills requisite for translating them in practice into their community, society, and institutions. The resulting moral framework developed in … Continue reading Releasing the Powers of Junior Youth
Poverty is as ineradicable as the house-fly! The misguided conviction that material resources exist, or can be created by scientific and technological enterprise, to entirely eradicate poverty is a myth of global scope. Social scientists are hardly necessary to uncover the reason … Continue reading Poverty and Revelation
“…Should anyone deliberately take another’s life, him also shall ye put to death…” The world of man is a terrifying place. A world constructed on violent notions of masculinity. A world where power is the only rule, and law is … Continue reading The World of Man: The Rape of Women
If other people were carrying guns in the Newtown massacre they would have been able to intervene and stop the mentally ill killer — Or so the argument by gun owners goes. The reason why this argument is false is that mental … Continue reading Guns and Moses
In discourse, thought, reflection and action are intimately interdependent. Action is coherent only when it is not merely rote but also consultative, that is, when it is not dichotomized from reflection. Reflection, which is essential to action, is implicit in the … Continue reading Spiritual Re-Education and the Power of the Masses
Paragraph#: 1. Learning sites and associated clusters (31 in total) contain half the current junior youth groups and participants. 2. Universal youth response to serve as animators. Ruhi 5 releases reservoirs of commitment to social change. Program expands beyond resources within Baha’i community. 3. Benefits … Continue reading Summary of 14 November Message
People say they want an end to violence. What they mean is, they want their opposing party to yield in deference to their will. Everyone wishes for world peace, but so many who wish continue to exacerbate conflict and contention. … Continue reading Ideology, Service, Change: Is Peace Possible Without Sacrifice?
Every intelligent mind that evaluates the causes for global warming concludes that human-induced green-house gas emissions are responsible for Earth’s atmospheric average temperature increases. The only people who disagree with this are fringe scientists and few in number. For mysterious … Continue reading Climate Change and Political Partisanship: Why is the Truth So Divisive?
Paragraph#: 1. Abdu’l-Baha’s Temple-ground piercing Centenary. Diverse participants then and now. 2. Divine civilization beyond mere adjustments to present order. 3. Erroneous assumptions of human nature, justified by failings, disallow spiritual potential. 4. Imprisonment enables sympathetic hearts. 5-Year Plan (5YP) … Continue reading Summary: Ridvan 2012 Message
Paragraph#: 1. 10 new Regional Councils (RC’s). 5-Year Plan messages foundation of action and study. Familiarity with dynamics of growth increases with core activities. 2. Dichotomy of neighborhood and centralized children’s classes (CC) transcended. 2 Junior Youth learning sites. Expansion/consolidation primary task of RC’s. … Continue reading Summary of August 9th Message
http://educationunderfire.com/ More than ten thousand souls were slain, and a great multitude of women and children, left without protector or provider, dispersed and confounded, they were trodden down and destroyed. This occurrence was brought about by the arbitrary decision and … Continue reading Lamps of Truth and Purity
From agencyandchange.com http://agencyandchange.com/2012/10/19/discourse-on-religion/ . Continue reading A New Discourse on Religion
One of the most fundamental characteristics of human nature is a soul’s desire to explore reality and search for meaning in the universe – the mind longs to understand. Language is the medium by which we can think about and … Continue reading The Beauty of Language
Reality has physical and spiritual dimensions. Indeed, the world civilization that beckons humanity is one that will achieve a dynamic coherence between these two requirements of social life. If reality is more complex than just the physical universe, then a … Continue reading Language and Civilization
Historically and currently, the relationship between power and knowledge has been strained and complex, to say the least. Recently, “modernism” – which has constructed systems of knowledge around truth-claims about social reality – has come into critique by “post-modernism” – … Continue reading Beyond Modernism and Post-Modernism
That one who generates knowledge can be likened unto a scout evokes images of walking a path, which perhaps can be an analogy to the process of generating and applying knowledge. Let us expand on this analogy. Firstly, walking a … Continue reading Walking a Path
Wisdom – the unification of knowledge and action – is a spiritual capacity of every human being. The origin of an individual’s wisdom is the acknowledgement and embodiment of the teachings of God through the Manifestation of God. The Manifestation … Continue reading Wisdom, Science and Religion
Currently, there are some who resist the reconceptualization of science and religion. They fragment science and religion, and dismiss one for the other, claiming that only one or the other has led to humanity’s successes. How often is it that we hear religion caricatured … Continue reading Fanaticism and Ridicule: Science and Religion
The last post mentioned some equivalent basic assumptions that underly science and religion as systems of knowledge. All of these assumptions or articles of faith cannot be empirically proven, but rather, their validity is shown over time as they are … Continue reading Fruits of Assumptions
There are commonalities between science and religion as systems of knowledge that help conceptualize them as complementary and reciprocal. The first is that they both derive from assumptions and articles of faith. Religion assumes the existence of a Divine and … Continue reading Underlying Assumptions
The advancement of a civilization aiming to achieve a dynamic coherence between the material and spiritual dimensions of reality recognizes that science and religion are the two reciprocal knowledge systems that impels its advance. History gives rare, yet significant instances … Continue reading Crisis of Knowledge
All human beings have spiritual capacities that can be revealed to contribute to humanity’s development and betterment. This process of empowerment occurs through access to knowledge, both self-knowledge and knowledge of reality. This knowledge is in two repositories of science … Continue reading Science and Religion
Humanity’s social life is evolving towards fruition of a world civilization. This process is propelled by two complementary systems of knowledge and practice – religion and science. Both of these systems advance human insights into the same reality. Both use … Continue reading History of the World, Part 4
achieving coherence 