One can analyze in the tumultuous evolution of the life of humankind one thread, among others, that has been present and steadily advancing for thousands and tens of thousands of years. Perhaps human history can even be conceptualized as a … Continue reading A Final Step in Humanity’s Evolution
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
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
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
How great is our capacity for change? The endpoint of our progress is as difficult to imagine as space travel is to cavemen. Social reform will outpace our technological ingenuity. Freedom fighting at present is dwarfed by the liberties of … Continue reading Spring Showers onto Hard Earth: Prevailing Theories of Human Nature, Alterable?
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?
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
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
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?
All human beings are endowed with certain basic spiritual capacities – derived from the soul, which is the element of the individual that is responsible for spiritual nature. Chief among these capacities is that of intellect, consciousness, the power of … Continue reading The Concept of a Concept
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
Having explored the nature of knowledge and its generation, thought must now be given to the nature of one who generates knowledge, a seeker of knowledge, a scholar. How do we view those who have or seek knowledge? Revelation and … Continue reading Scouting the Truth
achieving coherence 