Tag: science

Categories
- Education Health Care Knowledge

Evidence Based Practice

Reality is vast.  Yet, action requires knowledge.  So over time, we have created systems of practice and knowledge by which we can understanding reality and effectively do something.  Clearly, then, the way in which minds are training within systems, and the relationship between knowledge and practice, is crucial.

 

Medicine is one such system of practice and knowledge that has an associated educational process.  There have been many criticisms leveled against medical education, to varying degrees of validity.  However, arguably the most damaging outcome of the current medical education system is a certain biased way of thinking: that practices are determined by theoretical pathophysiological reasoning more so than adopted from evidence garnered from the field.

 

There is a certain receptor found in heart cells, a beta-receptor, that increases the speed and strength of the heart’s pump.  “Beta-blockers”, they are called, a class of medicine that blocks the workings of this receptor, was frequently used, logically so, for patients with high blood pressure.  And when a patient has heart failure – ie, the speed and strength of the heart’s pump is no longer adequate enough – it seemed, from knowledge gained through pathophysiological reasoning, the worst possible practice to administer a beta-blocker.  Yet, over the last few decades, the system of medicine has learned, through evidence, that the opposite is true: beta-blockers are first-line medicines for heart failure and generally fourth-line at best for high blood pressure.  And I’m not quite sure why (probably because I didn’t pay enough attention in medical school).  But, ironically, that might be a good thing – reasoning through the basic science of the cardiac system leads to an ineffective practice.  Knowledge of experiential evidence leads to an effective practice.

 

Now, this doesn’t mean that theoretical knowledge isn’t important; in fact, conceptual understanding contributes to an agility of mind that can use creativity to solve difficult problems and explore reality to contribute to systems of knowledge.  Yet the theoretical must be moderated by the practical.  If too much emphasis is given on theoretical reasoning (as in the case with the training of physicians in medical education), it results in arrogance, extreme individualism, lack of standardization, and stagnation.  When there is too much emphasis on training in technique without conceptual understanding (as in the case with the vast majority of educational programs), the result is passivity, blind obedience to protocol, lack of creativity, and, again, stagnation.  It seems the only way to progress forward is to understand how to move between conceptual and practical in a healthy way.

 

Analogous to scientific systems of knowledge and practice (like medicine), there is religion, a system that seeks to gain knowledge about the Word of God and spiritual dynamics in order to put it into practice into individual and social progress.  Again, the same insights can apply.  It’s true that the Revelation has transformative effects on both individual hearts and society as a whole.  Yet the practice – ie, the interaction with the Word of God – is something that cannot be reasoned through by simply reading the Writings and coming to conclusions; for 10 people will have 10 interpretations, just like 10 medical students will have 10 preferences of which blood pressure med to start with.  And the question is not “does blood pressure medicine work?”, just like the question is never “does interaction with the Word of God lead to transformation?”; obviously the answer to both is “yes”.  Rather, a good scientist will put the question of “what kind of interaction with the Word of God” to the field of experience, in the same way that a good physician will survey two decades of actual patient experiences to try to learn “what kind of blood pressure medicine?”.

 

Enter the Ruhi Institute.  Of the many, many, curricula that were developed over the years, each fostering a certain kind of interaction with the Word of God, it proved through experience to be the most effective.  And probably because it wasn’t the brainchild of a group of people who worked very hard and very sincerely to come up with a set of courses based on their theoretical understanding; rather it emerged from decades of practical experience trying to learn about effective methods.  Its system of knowledge and practice is based on evidence.  So maybe we don’t exactly know why it works, but we know it does.  And that a practice works is great foundation place to start to gain knowledge, to learn more about reality, answering the “why” questions.

 

At the end of the day, reality is vast.  It is presumptuous to think we can reason through it and then determine best actions.  Rather, let proven practice guide our quest for knowledge.  We know beta-blockers are effective treatments for heart failure – given this, what, now, can we learn about the relationship between myocardial contractility and neurocardiac receptor feedback?  We know that the Ruhi Institute’s sequence of courses effectively fosters individual and collective transformation – given this, what, now, can we learn about the elements of interaction with the Word of God and the spiritual dynamics of the environment within which it takes place?

 

As we build a conceptual understanding from effective and rich practices and experiences at the grassroots, we learn to exercise moderation and avoid extremes.  We avoid arrogance and passivity and instead become active protagonists with a humble posture of learning; we avoid blind obedience and extreme individualism and instead become empowered through cooperative action towards collective betterment; we purposely exert creativity within fruitful areas of inquiry; and, as is the pattern since humanity’s birth, learning propels progress.

Categories
- Empowerment - Primary Care - Religion - Science Development Discourse Health Care Justice Knowledge

The Structure of Future Scientific Revolutions

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 from this misunderstanding are scientists themselves most of all. Popular culture imagines science to operate at a superficial level of significance, with technocratic objectives, outlandish methods, and esoteric membership rolls. Scientists strive for this image sometimes, and so perpetuate an unwelcoming stereotype, despite the fact that they are privileged to be engaged in a noble enterprise that is the heritage of the entire human race. Above all, one would anticipate that scientists would know its worth and potential and lead the way in democratizing the generation, application, and diffusion of knowledge to encompass all people.

By restricting membership in a scientific community to an elite circle of like-minded personalities, who share a particular culture, upbringing, and socio-economic status the scope of what questions emerge to scientific investigation is narrowly restricted. This hierarchical structure is maintained by the use of elaborate accreditation systems (such as MD, PhD, and the like) and exclusive membership policies in professional societies. The structure is reinforced by a disciplined academic hierarchy, not unlike those of a church order or ecclesiastic organization, like the Vatican or Caliphate. Though their subject matter differs, their use of dogma and ritual to perpetuate it, does not. As a result only a tiny minority pose the problems to be researched for the benefit of humanity. These questions arise from the interests of a miniature subset of the collective brain power available to humankind, and in the process skew the representation of humanity’s fundamental interests.

The foregoing analysis explains the structural impediments preventing the scientific enterprise from attaining its full stature as the driving force and bulwark of human welfare. This will change in the future. Statistical power is born of the sample size of the population being studied. By restricting research subjects to the interests, purview, and aspirations of an elite, the questions really needing answers, the life-and-death circumstance facing humanity have been relegated out of the research agenda. Research topics of infectious disease, sanitation and fresh water, agriculture and irrigation, public health policy, and vaccinations are some of the most important issues in medical science today, affecting millions.

Statistical power in defining specific problems facing the largest number of humans in the most severe way should be the ideal. Therein should science find its priorities defined. Instead decision-making power lies in the hands of individuals at the top of grant-lending and fund allocating agencies, or in the personal vantage point of chief editors of peer-reviewed journals. The number of people polled in the decision as to what questions deserve investigation in this way never exceeds a handful of individuals, and these are often in competition with each other or finally coerced by market or governmental forces that displace their decision-making even further from what matters, the well-being of the majority. This structural arrangement is inadequate to address complex and wide-sweeping needs.

Whether this scientific structure has arisen due to unregulated expedients accumulating inadvertently over time to define who sits at the decision-table or if it is the direct result of corrupt forces on regulatory mechanisms like the cultural analogue of corporate money on politics, the fact of the matter is that scientific goals are driven in large part by popular consumer values for technologically enhanced entertainment and consumer-satisfying commodities like iPad’s and video games. No doubt these are useful to a subset of individuals who seek to have their work efficiency enhanced or their children pre-occupied and off the streets. But what cannot be denied is the selfishness of this position, and the motivations that lie at the bottom of this type of science. What is needed is conscious effort to engage in discourse regarding issues of scientific reform and encourage ongoing dialogue on the nature and structure of the premises underlying the agenda of science and its priorities.

Science cannot reform its own structure from within, because it responds to market pressures and consumer demand. Economics has run rampant determining western middle classes destiny politically, economically, and scientifically. An external influence is necessary to prescribe in part to science its core values and give it direction. Science is the machine, it must be given a directive. In the absence of clear public interest, obscure private interests co-opt the machine and employ it to selfish ends. While allowing science to recommend its own opinions of what remains possible and tactically feasible, an understanding that values must be prescribed from an external source, and cannot be left to emerge naturally from within the field itself is necessary. Dysregulation always implies corporate co-optation as a rule — as evidenced by politics, finance, globalization, and now science. The parasite is familiar, the host is diverse.

In the process of structural revolution, the democratization of science will require us to insulate funding agencies and influential scientists from financial forces in the industry, academic pressures from the university, or market pressures as healthcare becomes increasingly monetized. The democratization of science will mean that it is determined by universal participation in a survey of human needs. The generation of knowledge regarding research priorities bubbles up in response to the appropriate system of training grassroots initiatives to engage laborers of all kinds. Systems for grass-roots training will allow the masses to build consensus on the most pressing demands of their respective industries, synthesize response in the form of experimental interventions, and coordinate solutions in segments before extrapolating to global practice. Only in this way will the enterprise of science become informed by the diverse needs of the real humankind.

A process of increasing democratization in which fewer and fewer individuals call the shots for what is on the list of priorities and an ever-increasing number of unskilled laborers engage in dialogue that allows the organic assimilation of the experience of millions into an objective representation of what concerns humankind. These should then come to dominate public discourse, resource earmarking, priority setting in scientific agendas, and the daily concern of scientists. This is the transformation that so crucially beckons science into the 21st century.

In an age when social constructs are being torn down all around us, religious dogmas uprooted, social conventions systematically dismantled, gender roles questioned and experimented with, rules of personal conduct and language utterly recreated, and the very tempo of life on the internet re-envisioned — is it possible to constrain what constitutes the most powerful force for progressive civilization behind a veil of anachronistic and outmoded stereotypes of self-righteous elderly males donning lab coats and scheming over a slew of chemistry beakers and petri dishes, erlenmeyer flasks and bunsen burners? Is this image even tenable in any age of internet traffic and lightning media, of the democratization of skills, of the open-sourcing of software, and the free-flow of knowledge ? Why have we allowed stereotypes to restrict the prospects obvious to a dreaming and visionary world that can see the potential application of science to the betterment of the whole of humankind with participants numbering in the millions from every walk of life and every cultural persuasion? Such a prospect ought to invoke in the mind of an objective observer the promise of human longevity wrought by universal participation in the task of researching and discovering solutions to global impasse’s, with completely open source modes of disseminating research conducted and methods employed.

Ownership assumed across a representative spectrum of the human species would allow the generation of sufficient data to converge on statistically adamantine findings — discoveries the like of which humanity could never before have found, and which humanity could never before have felt so confident would benefit all equally. We all await the rise of science, the last great democracy.

child getting water

Categories
- Religion - Science Development

The Scientist Believer

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 that guy who was jealous of Mozart in the movie Amadeus.

Materialism has an exclusive claim on rational approaches to development the same way that Desperate House Wives have a claim on their husbands: They scream as loudly as possible about how’s he’s faithful to them, but everyone watching kinda knows that there are alternative rational approaches to development.

Scientists stating their religious beliefs explicitly are not saying other views are wrong, anymore than people posting beautiful pictures of their travels on facebook are saying other landscapes are ugly or should be removed. The vastness of truth prevents conflict between anything more complex than religious fanaticism and ideological fundamentalism.

The freedom from criticism enjoyed by science under the aegis of moral relativism is like the mass shooter who killed off all the annoying people at his postal office before he finally turned the gun on himself. Like a loose cannon, moral relativism is beginning to question the assumptions at the foundation of the scientific enterprise.

 

super nova

 

 

 

 

Categories
- Religion - Science Development Justice

5 Aphorisms on Science, Religion, and Development

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 one knows they’ve got issues. Each scientific field claims their version of the scientific method is the “correct” one — like teenage girls. News flash: you can’t all marry Robert Pattinson.

2. I feel like avoiding discourse about the values underlying scientific research because God and the soul can’t be proven, is like avoiding talking about morals with your children because you can’t control everything they’re going to do when they grow up anyway — so why try?

3. I feel like development needs to avoid thinking of native religions like a cultural idiosyncrasy of the people, the same way we’ve outgrown the notion that racial dialogue is the emotional need of African-Americans. Wake up call privilege: There’s truth to people’s perspectives.

4. I feel like because the poverty gap is getting bigger than ever before, development needs to come up less with grand projects and listen more to the needs and potential of indigenous people. Remember the middle-aged mom who forced her 3-year-old girl to compete in beauty contests? Hey mid-life crisis: your failed goals are not your daughter’s misfortune.

5. I feel like the separation of church and state in development is like the separation of truth and justice in the legal system. Truth comes out of attorneys paid to represent their client the same way that prosperity comes out of westerners paid to trivialize the beliefs and motivations of indigenous people. Rethink your model: Motivations and Outcomes are connected, in the courtroom and in the farmland.

 

lightening over the sun

Categories
- Governance Development Discourse Justice Power

The Universe is Pregnant

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 continuing flow of a unified destiny, and to the onward march of a common history. The child of earth’s multifarious nations and leaders, are all woven inextricably into a historical fabric that is the narrative of history, increasingly united in families from before the caveman, to the village and tribe in ancient societies, to the city-state and the rise of modern governance, to the nation-state scheme currently languishing under the mounting evidence of our collective contracture into a global neighborhood with the rise of technology and transportation and communications. Economically, politically, culturally, and medically, we have become one organism – trustees of the common homeland known as earth. We share in its travails, we all suffer if global warming wreaks havoc on the climate. Posterity belongs to all of us, and it is threatened by our disregard for global issues.

The world is moving on. Political realities shift with bewildering rapidity. Only a short while ago it was normal for parties to subjugate their partisan agendas in favor of national well-being. Today partisanship is committed to gridlock and national demise if power does not go their way. The whirlwind of social unrest in education reform, scientific controversy, climate change, religious fanaticism, economic travail, are all swift and alarmingly violent. The destiny of all people is being drawn against their isolationist and inward-looking dogmas into one common vortex – a vortex of trials and difficulties, but also, a vortex to be followed by one common rebuilding and society melding reconstruction. The potential storm centers are military in nature with the prospect of world war, but also economic with the selfish practices of financial corporations and the influence of corporate incentives in legislative processes that are supposed to be immune from this sort of ulterior motive. Dangers, undreamt of and unpredictable, in terms of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, AIDS, infections, and cancers of various kinds all threaten our collective prosperity and way of life – both for those steeped in materialism in the west or those seeking to attain it in the African and Latin American continents. Governments and peoples are being gradually enmeshed in the coils of  recurrent crises of economic fluctuations, medical inequalities, political oppression or corruption, and social disintegration.  The world is contracting into a neighborhood. America, willingly or unwillingly, must face and grapple with the problems and potentials of all other nations, and learn to grow together with them for international peace and prosperity. For purposes of national security, let alone any ideal of the oneness of humankind, all nations must bind together to protect each other from the assaults of any aggressor and unite to safeguard international security as if it was their own. Paradoxical as it may seem, our only hope of extricating ourself from the perils gathering around and within us is to become entangled in the very web of international dialogue regarding our collective destiny being woven by the hand of an inscrutable Providence. Amidst the chaos, a clear course of human progress can be discerned. Despite various disparate actors vision’s, a collective destiny emerges beneath our feet.

The United States can serve its own interests by striving to apply the system of Federalism to the whole word, which it has applied to the governance of its own country since its inception. The unification of all nations in an international federation, under a single global government is the next step in political history. Federalism, underlying the government of the United States, should be applied to the relationships existing between the nations of the world and a world government. The ideals that fired the imagination of America’s tragically unappreciated President Woodrow Wilson betoken the day when absolute unity and peace will reign on earth, its global government, and amongst its constituent nations. The promulgation of the Divine Plan, now in its 4 of 5 five year plans, designed to expand and consolidate the boundaries of those laboring for the erection of a New World Order, is the key which Providence has placed in the hands of the American believers to fulfill this momentous and unshakably glorious vision.

“The universe is pregnant…awaiting the hour when the effects of Its unseen gifts will be made manifest in this world, when the languishing and sore athirst will attain the living Kawthar of their Well-Beloved, and the erring wanderer, lost in the wilds of remoteness and nothingness, will enter the tabernacle of life, and attain reunion with his heart’s desire.”

Categories
- Religion - Science Knowledge

Wisdom, Science and Religion

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 quickens the spiritual condition of humanity and empowers the capacity of wisdom; the teachings enable humanity to acquire knowledge about reality more fully, to understand its meaning, and thus provide opportunities to exercise wisdom.

Wisdom is the proper use of knowledge – towards betterment. An individual seeking wisdom is constantly informed from the twin systems of knowledge: science and religion. True religion must be distinguished from traditions, and true science from dogmatic materialism. A community’s practices are not equal to Revelation itself. Humanity strives to understand meaning in the Revelation, and this understanding has limits. It is this understanding – which we term the system of religion – that can degenerate into superstitions unless weighed in the light of scientific reason. And scientific assertions are not equal to the Laws of the physical and biological universe. Humanity strives to understand physical reality, and this limited understanding – terms the system of science – must be directed and illuminated by true religion lest it becomes idle.

All can manifest the quality of wisdom through applying the knowledge of religion and science towards individual and collective transformation.

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Please refer to Figure 2

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Categories
- Consultation Discourse Knowledge

Study, Consultation, Action, Reflection

An approach to the generation and application of knowledge within a learning mode occurs through a process of study, consultation, action, and reflection.

Science and religion are the two systems of knowledge and practice that strive to describe reality, and are studied in an ongoing and systematic manner, with humility and with the understanding of their complementarity. This study is undertaken for the purpose of informing action, to apply insights generated.

As reality is multifaceted and complex, and every individual has a unique perspective on some aspect of reality as an object of study, then consultation is the method by which a more accurate depiction of reality can be created. For consultation to be effective, the individuals participating must have purity of motive, humility, truthfulness, patience, and detachment. In an atmosphere of openness, mutual respect, and commitment to truth, individuals can exchange diverse views on reality, offering them to be critically and frankly examined, in a dispassionate and courteous way. The more individuals that contribute perspectives, the more facets of this highly complex reality will be illuminated.

Tentative insights into reality, through study and consultation, must be tested against reality for learning to advance. A goal and purpose of study and consultation is action – in particular to not only effect individual and collective transformation, but to learn about it. Thus, action in a learning mode must be unified and accommodate diversity, must reconceptualize mistakes as opportunities for growth, must aim to build capacity in all participates to become protagonists of learning.

For learning to actually take place, reflection on action is essential in order to analyze observations, modify conceptions previously held, and adjust subsequent action. This is both an individual and a collective endeavor – individually, realizing one’s capacities and how best to manifest them; collectively, as just with consultation, each person’s diverse views can provide a unique perspective.

Study, consultation, action, and reflection are interwoven aspects of a single coherence process of learning.

What are your reflections on reflection itself?

Categories
Development Discourse Human Nature Justice Knowledge Oneness

Conscious Choice

Beyond the highly propagated fragmentation of science and religion in current thought, and the resistance to reconceptualize these complementary systems of knowledge and practice, there are, in general, voices that resist change, especially at the level of principle.  They refuse to believe that the assumptions they hold dear are not useful.  Yet, civilization is in crisis.  The fruits of outworn assumptions have gone rotten.  If long-cherished social assumptions are no longer bearing the much needed fruit, and are no longer promoting the betterment of the world, then what is stopping us from simply discarding these assumptions and adopting new ones to operationalize?  After all, the value and validity of assumptions lie in the results garnered from applying them to social reality – assumptions are all equal until they are tested through application.  Let us apply science in the realm of civilization-building itself; let us be evidence-based.  If assumptions no longer serve humanity’s developing requirements, then they are no longer valuable or valid; and new assumptions need to replace them.  Change is an immutable law of our reality.  What is the harm in adopting the assumption that humanity is one?  That science and religion are complementary?  That human beings are noble?  That beauty directs our purpose?  That individual and social well-being are inextricably linked?  That a world civilization beckons humanity, one that will be governed by justice, one that will achieve a dynamic coherence between the material and spiritual requirements of life, one that will be rich with knowledge from all people?

Tell, which do you prefer: the assumptions that led to our current crisis of civilization, or those listed above?

Categories
- Oppression - Religion - Science Knowledge

Fanaticism and Ridicule: 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 as a superstition of idle fancy, or a hollow ritual of football-detracting compulsion. How often is it that we hear the thunder of ‘hail to science’ with the glorification of the latest cell phone mobile technology; and how often is it that we read of principle-compromising cover-ups of Church-father molestation scandals. If Thor ‘God of Lightning’ was real, one would think that we worshiped him as he flowed in our power cables.

 

A Mendelian punnet square emerges with fanaticism and ridicule on the Y axis and religion and science on the X (Figure 1). People often fall into habits of speaking fanatically about the exclusivity of science as a source of human betterment, or the monopoly that religion exercises over truth. Both are caricatures of reality, and neither adequately describes it. A discourse that ridicules religion as an empty ritual and a superstition for the ‘masses’, co-exists with a view in society that mocks science as a) a theoretical preoccupation of the disconnected elites, or b) a dangerous and heretical arrogance before the angry, angry Lord. The dichotomies of this punnet square are to be utterly and wholly discarded. The present discourse pays no attention to these ways of compartmentalizing our epistemic experience and collapses these dichotomies under the view: reality is one, knowledge of reality is multi-factorial, and ultimately represents only diverse views of a single entity.

 

We propose an alternate schema that reconclies these epistemic systems (Figure 2). We start with the understanding that reality is one (R1=S1). Science and religion are two systems of learning about it. Religion offers the Revealed Word of God and its authoritative interpreters (R2), and science offers the physical universe as an experience of facts and laws we can all observe (S2), as the first level of the two great systems. The interpretations and methods for justification of ethical commands in religion (R3) and the standards and justifications offered by the scientific method (S3) are the next level of knowledge offered by these two systems. Practical knowledge of daily spiritual disciplines as an individual and cultural norms of the collective within a community (R4), and technology and practical knowledge of scientific inquiry in application (S4), constitute the third layer and final of these two knowledge systems. They both intertwine to produce the harmony and betterment of the human condition and human society.

Categories
- Religion - Science

Fruits of Assumptions

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 operationalized – in other words, put into operation and practice.  The fruits of science, under these assumptions, have yielded their fruit – advances in communications, abilities in the health field, mass transit, to name a few – and we now have confidence in the premises of science.  Thousands of years ago, however, when the scientific enterprise began, these assumptions would have appeared radical and would not have been empirically verifiable.

The fruits of religion are less obvious, and the corruptions more apparent; leaving in many observers a skeptical stance.  However, religion’s positive contributions to humanity’s history cannot be overstated.  It is the leading force impelling civilizations, moral codes, unification, and many of the world’s moral, intellectual, artistic, and social advancements.  It has been the chief source of meaning, order, and guidance throughout human life.  Historically, religion’s generating influences have been geographically concentrated, progressively widening in scope in a punctuated manner with the advent of new religions, extending from the tribe to city-state to nation.  In time, through the continued operationalization of its underlying assumptions, the fruits of religion will be self-evident in the form and function of a world civilization.

Both science and religion are based on articles of faith, which can only be verified over time and through putting them into practice and application.  What fruits of assumptions do you see in daily life?

 

Categories
- Empowerment - Religion - Science Development Knowledge

Science and Religion

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 and religion – for capacity building is concerned both with the qualities of the mind and the unique endowments of the soul.  For example, seeking unbiased truth is a scientific skill, but this skill’s contribution to civilization’s advance requires detachment and truthfulness.

Thus, the advancement of civilization is propelled through these two systems of knowledge, religion and science.  Both evolve over time as humanity has evolved.  Both are practiced collectively by communities.  Both operationalize underlying assumptions.  Religion discerns values through Divine revelation, that define the goals of humankind’s advancement; while science is the instrumentality through which the mind explores reality and attains these goals.

Science without religion looses proper direction and, as we have seen, results in a destructive materialism.  Religion without science looses connection with reality and, as we have seen, becomes blind imitation and superstition.

What are some instances now or throughout history when science and religion have been in harmony?

Categories
- Empowerment Development Knowledge

The Centrality of Knowledge

The advancement of civilization is propelled through increases in knowledge, as has been mentioned multiple times in previous posts.  Every human being is a protagonist of humanity’s maturity, and all can contribute through a process of building on their latent capacities.  Empowerment – which is a manifestation of justice – happens through knowledge, both of self and of reality.  Thus, the generation, application, and diffusion of knowledge is not only a duty upon every person, but central to social life.

On a spiritual level, intellectual investigation, the use of the mind, and expansion of consciousness are unique spiritual endowments associated with powers of the soul.  Science is the first emanation of God to humanity, and the capacity of understanding is one of God’s greatest gifts to us.

Developing our latent capacities and acquiring knowledge can only occur through a process of education.  Our current educational systems – which have assumed responsibility for this process – are increasingly conceived in fragmented ways.  Little wonder, then, that education is seen as a means to secure a job to uphold an economic status quo; that academia has become preoccupied with tending to its machinery of dissertations, publication credits, and grants; that learning is divorced from the values that underlie it.

What type of knowledge is useful?  How can we develop a coherent understanding of the transformative potential of knowledge?  How do we foster a culture of learning?  How can empowerment and capacity building be fostered?

Categories
- Oppression Justice Knowledge

Oppression

One of the major causes of injustice and oppression is lack of knowledge and perpetuation of ignorance.  This is done through words, actions, and policies of self-interested governments, leaders, corporations, media, clergy, etc.  They seek to retain their power; and because knowledge empowers, they block its access, stifle its generation, and manipulate its meaning.  When an individual lacks or has a twisted perception of self-knowledge, then one cannot see through one’s own eyes; when an individual is coerced – through adversarial policies and oppositional practices – to accept notions by those in power, then one cannot know through one’s own knowledge.  This is injustice.

What does it mean to fight for justice?  To struggle against injustice?  We know our methods must be unifying, yet this does not mean passivity.

One approach, that was mentioned earlier, is empowerment.  This takes the form of empowerment in the access, generation, application of knowledge towards a prosperous world civilization – becoming active participants in one’s own learning.  This includes knowledge of true self and talents, knowledge of humanity’s nature, knowledge of science and religion, and knowledge of physical, spiritual, and social forces that operate in the world.

Categories
- Religion - Science - Three Protagonists Development Knowledge

History of the World, Part 4

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 similar faculties of the mind and soul, such as reason, imagination, attraction to beauty, and commitment to truth.  Both have underlying assumptions, a language, methods, and both progress over time.  Science without religion becomes blind materialism, and religion without science becomes superstition.  Together, they advance civilization.  What are some examples of past societies where the two were in harmony?

The source of true religion is, has been, and will continue to be the Manifestation of God.  Thus, the ultimate cause of the advancement of civilization is the education given to humanity by the Manifestations throughout time.  They bring teachings according to the requirements of the age, and their teachings unfold progressively over time.  There is but one religion, as there is but one humanity.

We know that humanity’s evolutionary process is cyclical in nature, like seasons of a year.  These Manifestations bring periods of spiritual vigor, akin to a springtime.  We are currently living in such a transition time of regeneration, where there is an interplay of two sets of forces.  The first is the disintegrative force – bringing turmoil, suffering, destruction, and at the same time, collapsing the obstacles and breaking down hindrances on the path towards world unity.  It is haphazard and chaotic in its application, and mysterious in nature.  The other is the integrative force – systematic, steady, calm, persistent, as it gives rise to new systems founded on oneness and justice.  It is manifest through cooperation, reciprocity, and mutual aid, and through the spirit of world solidarity we increasingly see.

This cyclic, organic, evolutionary process of the advancement of civilization – propelled by knowledge, vitalized by the Manifestation, shaped by integrative and disintegrative forces – is nonetheless largely determined by human agency.  It is on the will of our three protagonists – individuals, communities, and institutions – that depends the outcome of our unfolding drama.