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
It would be unrealistic to adhere to a retrogressive and romanticized notion of a “simple” life, in which technology is non-existent, and humanity subsists in some type of passively blissful coexistence with nature. It overlooks at once the inter-personal needs … Continue reading Technology: Good or Bad?
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 ‘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
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
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
It was said: “It hath been forbidden you to carry arms unless essential” “beyond that which is necessary to insure the internal security of … countries.” Good “people need no weapons of destruction, inasmuch as they have girded themselves to reconstruct … Continue reading Weapons – A Statistical Update
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
Our theory of economics is predicated on the assumption that people and wants grossly outnumber opportunities and resources in our society. This is why competition is the basis for our economic system. Biology is as much a testimony to this … Continue reading Economics and Human Nature
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?
Considering how difficult it is to judge objective statements about social reality, it is even more challenging with spiritual reality. However, spiritual reality exists, human language can attempt to describe it, and therefore, it is possible to make objective statements … Continue reading Objective Spiritual Reality
The physical and material aspects of our complex reality are not the only ones with objectivity – the human mind is able to make objective statements about all of reality, including social and spiritual reality. As an example related to … Continue reading Claims About Social Reality
Notwithstanding that all social conventions, including language, are built from shared understanding that are to some extent ontologically subjective, they are not completely arbitrary. Language – as well as social reality – is built upon objective reality itself. Words and … Continue reading Objectivity and Reality
In understanding the role of objectivity in language, two types of statements have been presented – personal preferences, which are entirely subjective; and social conventions, which are subjective in their creation or existence yet objective in their influence and knowledge. … Continue reading Language as Social Convention
Objectivity – another desired quality of the language of science – is a term loaded with connotations and interpretations; it’s rarely a straightforward concept. It helps to contrast it with subjectivity. An entirely subjective statement is one of personal preference, such as “daffodils are the prettiest kind of flower” – this might be a consensus among a large group of people, but is not in universal agreement. Something that is in agreement with others is not necessarily objective, nor is it necessarily truth. There are certain things, however, that are somewhat objective because of their agreement amongst individuals. Social conventions … Continue reading Social Conventions – Objective or Subjective?
The statements of a language that seeks to be rational must also be internally consistent. Obviously, premises and claims cannot contradict each other, otherwise, truth could never be sought, and reality could never be adequately assessed. The importance of consistency … Continue reading Consistency
In addition to clarity, another important characteristic of the language of science is rationality. Again, as language informs thought, using rational language helps create reasonable thought. And because words and thoughts influence actions, a language that seeks rationality will translate … Continue reading Rationality
Human beings understand reality through conceptualization. For material and concrete objects, language naturally defines them easily. As concepts become more abstract – such as regarding the social and spiritual reality – this becomes more and more difficult. The language of … Continue reading Clarity
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
Ideals are wonderful as they are, but what really can we say are the practical implications for speaking or believing in a principle as lofty as the spiritual concept of ‘Justice’? Are its implications for social and economic development really as … Continue reading Defender of the Interests of All Humankind: Justice
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 