All too common diseases, the vast majority of which are preventable and becoming more prevalent, are not befitting the inherent nobility of a human being. The imperative of health care is to empower patients with the knowledge, the insights, the understanding, … Continue reading Thoughts on Health Care
The worldwide Baha’i community is dedicated to a systematic long-term process of learning how to translate the principles of the Revelation of Baha’u’llah into reality and engaging more and more people in an “exploration of reality that gives rise to … Continue reading From the Animator to a World Civilization
One hundred years ago today, a sixty-six year old traveler from the East, an exile and prisoner since the age of nine, with no formal education, in broken and failing health, having never faced a public audience, and unfamiliar with … Continue reading America’s 1912 Election
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
Human nature has been misinterpreted. We are not selfish and competitive by nature, but rather, altruistic and cooperative. Human societies to some extent actually represent an anomaly in the competitive theory of the jungle. Humans demonstrate a detailed division of … Continue reading Economic Theory: Competition, the Key to Prosperity?
The universe is pregnant with these manifold bounties – bounties mysteriously emerging from the intricate interplay between the micro-cosmic visions of various actors on the world stage, each pursuing their own selfish advantage, and yet all mysteriously contributing to the … Continue reading The Universe is Pregnant
Discourse on the following topics has brought these themes to the point of being reconceptualized. Certain foundational principles have emerged and crystallized from ongoing discourse. Principles we now believe in in a new way are: 1) Unity of all Humankind 2) … Continue reading Discourse and Politics: Blood in the Arteries of Governance
Is it possible that a “debate” leads us, the listeners and watchers, to truth? Can a mode of dialogue such as contestational or confrontational debate assist others and people interested in the issues to discover the truth or learn more … Continue reading Can Debate Lead to Truth?
The endowment which distinguishes the human race from all other life forms is summed up in the reality known as the human spirit, or the rational soul. Of this soul, the diverse faculties of the mind constitute its most brilliant … Continue reading Progressive Revelation: Historiography and Civilization Dynamics
As has been a central theme throughout the discussions on this blog, our current stage of human history is defined by global interdependence. All forms of government and organization that divide one group against another are simply outdated, ineffective, and … Continue reading Oneness, Justice, and Governance
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
Operating under the assumptions that human beings, by nature, are cooperative and not competitive, and that there are spiritual sources of power that can unleash the latent capacities of individuals towards contributing to the advancement of civilization, the model of … Continue reading Neuromuscular Power
With the understanding that the human being is a potential instrument for the expression of spiritual powers and capacities within social realty, just as a lump of iron has the potential for the expression of magnetic forces within the physical … Continue reading Structures of Contest
Any minority pursuing development on behalf of the collective foists its values onto, and often disturbs, the very population it purports to serve. Subsuming collective prosperity to their personal values of progress, and sacrificing the participation and engagement of whole segments of … Continue reading Truth, Civility, and Consultation Part III
The history of philanthropic movements recounts many instances of people who believe in noble ideals and strive to fulfill their vision of what they think the world ought to look like. One may reasonably ask however, whether what they considered … Continue reading Truth, Civility, and Consultation Part II
How does the body’s cardiovascular system determine blood flow in a way that transcends the limitations of unfettered individualism, which places value on the organ at the expense of the organism, on the one hand; and suffocating collectivism, which confuses … Continue reading Cardiovascular Justice – 2
Current human rights philosophy maintains that personal prerogative defines social structure, and individuals can refuse any moral ties that they haven’t chosen. Institutions are seen as necessary insofar as they interface common interests of atomistic individuals; they simply provide procedures … Continue reading Rights and Duties
Justice is the ruling principle of social organization, and the advancement of civilization depends upon its universal application. Conceptions of justice have been explored for centuries, and today, are highly numerous and variable. In our current crisis of civilization, confusion … Continue reading Justice in the Context of Oneness
The concept of the oneness of humankind provides an ideological foundation upon which humanity can understand its own reality in a way that conduces to its prosperity and harmony. It is an ontological truth of reality, a teleological end and … Continue reading Freedom
In previous posts, we read about various fragmented and incoherent conceptions of the individual and her or his relationship to society. We also looked at an example of the evolution of conceptions of the individual over a historical perspective. The … Continue reading History of the World, Part 1
Society is plagued by a cult of the individual that has gone so far as to see association with other human beings merely as a means through which an individual acquires commodities that satiate his private desires. Presuppositions of the … Continue reading Cult of the Individual
Following the last post’s foundational conviction that society should be organized according to the principles of reciprocity, cooperation, and interconnectedness, that oneness is the operating principle of civilization – as well as following a previous post’s idea that oneness is … Continue reading Oneness through Time and Space
achieving coherence 