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Being Mostly To Do With Science

By John Taylor; 2008 Apr 01, 12 Baha, 165 BE

I am working on my long-unfinished book proposing infrastructural reformation in preparation for world governance. This is long term, more-than-one-day work, so for the time being the Badi' Blog will have fewer serious essays and mostly consist of links to things I find interesting.

I am intrigued by Seth Roberts, author of The Shangri-La Diet. The diet is interesting enough, but his characteristic self-experimentation method is especially interesting. Check out, for example, his blog entry connecting the ideas of Jane Jacobs with the drug companies.

http://www.blog.sethroberts.net/category/jane-jacobs/

His methodology seems like a scientific version of the first Baha'i principle, search for truth.

I heard about Roberts from an article in Scientific American called: "Self-Experimenter Freed Himself from Insomnia, Acne and Love Handles," By J.R. Minkel. Seth Roberts says the key to self-help lies in the scientific method

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=self-experimenter-free-from-insomnia&sc=WR_20080325

Science is the same method, seeking God, knocking and listening for an answer, that religion uses, that King Solomon applied in his reign,

"You, Solomon my son, know you the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for Yahweh searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts: if you seek him, he will be found of you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever." (1 Chronicles 28:9, WEB)

One reason I am forcing myself against my inclinations to get back into this airy-fairy book is a realization -- pushed on me by my frustrated daughter -- that this is my calling. No, more than that, the very fact that we are in climate crisis means that this is not just my calling, it is everybody's calling. When I say calling, I am thinking of the last of the Hidden Words,

"O My Servant! The best of men are they that earn a livelihood by their calling and spend upon themselves and upon their kindred for the love of God, the Lord of all worlds." (PHW 82)

The challenge is simple: find a way to make a living from this yet to be written book, somehow. How can you, dear reader help? Ask me questions. Ask me to speak to your group, however small. The more often I go through this, the clearer it will get, the sooner the book will be written.

I have been reading William Hatcher's "The Science of Religion." Here is the full reference:

Hatcher, William, S., The Science of Religion, Baha'i Studies, Vol. II, Canadian Association for Baha'i Studies, 2nd Ed., March, 1980

I enjoyed this publication when it came out, but left it at that. However, later on, one thing that impressed me was the fact that Dr. Muhammad Afnan, who was not only a descendant of the Bab but also a working scientist, a microbiologist as I recall, put great stock in this little book and carried it around and referred to it often. So, I am going through it again.

In it, Hatcher makes an interesting comparison between faith and a scientific theory. He suggests that they are very close to being the same thing. A Hindu holds to Hinduism in the same way that a biologist, for example, holds to the theory of evolution.

"Sooner or later, we are led to seek some global context, some point of view, which can infuse a sense of purpose into the external events of everyday life, events which often seem to have no meaning in themselves. In sum, we seek what science calls a theory, a consistent set of hypotheses involving abstract concepts which describes a model of reality and which allows us to deduce and thereby explain the known facts. In religious terms, we seek a faith, which is simply a theory to which we add a high degree of personal commitment and emotional investment." (Hatcher, William, S., The Science of Religion, p. ii)

Then Hatcher goes on, I think, to lay the groundwork for a new definition of fanaticism or fundamentalism. These are, as it were, beliefs with hats on them, hats made of what he calls "meta-belief."

 "However, the multiplicity and diversity of belief systems do not, in themselves, necessarily produce conflict. Rather, it is the distressing tendency of belief systems to drift into competition with each other which most readily leads to conflict. This tendency is greatly accelerated when, as is often the case, each separate system includes among its articles of faith the meta-belief in its own absoluteness."  (Hatcher, William, S., The Science of Religion, p. ii)

Niels Bohr is quoted as saying that "the common aim of all science is the gradual removal of prejudices." Considering what Hatcher says above, you could define the common goal of religion and science as the removal of meta-beliefs. Or at least, it should be.

A Badi' Blog reader by the name of Steve Marshall left a comment on my post, "The Baha'i Way, Truth and Light." This was an essay on purity. He commented that, "This saying, that `a believer lives in this world and the next at the same time,' it is wise always to bear in mind. You may be interested in an exploration of this theme in "The Tablet of the Right of the People":

He pointed to a provisional translation of this tablet, as well as several other articles on the excellent site "OJBS: Online Journal of Baha'i Studies" (http://www.ojbs.org). The tablet itself is translated by Mehran Ghasempour in, "Baha'u'llah's Lawh-i-Haqqun-Nas, Provisional Translation,"

<http://www.ojbs.org//issues/issue_1_2007/OJBS_1_Ghassempour_Haqqun_Nas.pdf>

Plus, Jean Marc Lepain's, "An Introduction to the Lawh-i Haqqun-Nas" is as excellent a backgrounder as you could ask for. I learned a great deal from this Tablet. It could be given a lighthearted sub-title: "Salvidor Dali Meets The Scales of Justice." It is truly a mind bending re-examination of the question of divine balancing of wrongs done in this world.