What might our greatest creation be?

I asked myself tonight: what is the greatest creation we can ever create? Some of the answers that came up were: our lifetime's accomplishments, our love and dedication to others, our children. Now all of these are great answers, surely, but ask yourself "what would really be the one thing, the one creation, accessible to all, that could encompass and surpass them all?" While you're pondering that, here's what I came up with.

As the only creatures in God's creation endowed with full and complete freedom, our greatest creation would be to create in ourselves a pure and radiant heart in which the divine light of love is reflected upon all humanity, to transform ourselves (or allow ourselves to be so transformed) so as to mirror forth all the names and attributes of God that are potentially latent within us. Wouldn't you agree that such a goal is attainable by each and every individual since the dawn of time and into the unfathomable future, regardless of our background, circumstances or station in life?

"Is any larger bounty conceivable than this, than an individual, looking within himself, should find that by the confirming grace of God he has become the cause of peace and well-being, of happiness and advantage, to his fellow men? No, by the one true God, there is no greater bliss, no more complete delight!" - 'Abdu'l-Bahá

What caused scientific progress?

My good friend Gabriel sent me the following:

From a speech by UCLA computer science professor Judea Pearl:

What Galileo showed us is that you cannot have one honesty without the other; scientific truth demands scientific honesty, and scientific honesty demands intellectual honesty overall.

We all remember the 1000 years of zero scientific progress through the middle ages -- what caused it?
The conventional answer is that the Church was repressive of scientific discourse. But this could not be the whole story, there was no repressive Church in the Muslim world. And Muslim scientists had access to the richest libraries of the time, well-funded astronomical observatories and all the writings of the Greek and Roman philosophers. So why didn't a genius like Galileo emerge in Cordoba or Alexandria or Baghdad in the 8th or 9th century?

Why was science held back, in almost total stagnation for 1000 years, until, as though by miracle, the genius of Copernicus, Vieta and Galileo emerged in dark-ages Europe, of all places? Can you imagine where mankind would be today had the renaissance and the scientific revolution taken place in the 5th century instead of the 15th?

What Galileo taught us is that permission to read, translate, observe and use fancy equipment is not enough; the development of Science requires a restless and rebellious spirit, a spirit that puts the individual at the center of the universe and proclaims: "I don’t care about Aristotle and his fancy books, I want to see these two rocks dropped from the tower of Pisa, and I want to see them with my own two
eyes."

In other words, what Galileo showed us is that you cannot truly search for the truth unless you are free to rebel against the detractors of truth: conventional wisdom, peer pressure, sacred cows, wishful thinking, revered authority and hidden agenda, in short, free to perceive yourself as an AGENT, in control of your destiny, not an OBJECT, at the mercy of destiny.

Remarkably, this Western perception of man as a free agent, sometimes called the "scientific philosophy", it not always taken for granted, even today.

and here is my answer:

There's something to be said for this professor's opinion. Here's another thought (credit goes to others who first proposed it):


The Revelation of Baha'u'llah required certain scientific and technological developments to be already in place so that His Cause could reach the whole world, as it was intended to do. (Note that the Spirit of Baha'u'llah has been eternally alive and has directed the course of human affairs since the beginning of history.)

Without the ease and speed of travel that enabled Abdu'l-Baha, Martha Root, and others to undertake their world-shaking journeys, the constant, reliable and near-instant communication between the center of the Faith and the followers of the Faith scattered throughout the world, the inexpensive mass-production of literature, and the rise of a global media network, among many such requirements, the Faith of Baha'u'llah could not have grown and blossomed as it has nor reached the thousands of citizens around the world whose lives are being transformed by His redeeming message of unity and peace.

This is why science flourished when it did. In my experience, scientific insights are not the result of a person's "own unaided efforts"–they are a divine gift entrusted to a receptive soul. The purpose of study and effort is to purify the soil so that the seed of insight may take root. How many and which kinds of seeds are planted is up to God–whether they are cared for and flourish is up to us.

In summary, we have to accept that we are objects of mercy and bounty while at the same time acting as free agents, responsible for the portion that has been given us in this life.

Two excellent TED talks

Steven Pinker on the myth of violence:
Steven Pinker: A brief history of violence

Robert Wright on (cynical) optimism:
Robert Wright: How cooperation (eventually) trumps conflict

I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind
Got my paper and I was free

- Closer to Fine, by Indigo Girls

If evolution is the response, what is the stimulus?

Evolution and natural selection are the best descriptors of the process that results when a certain set of conditions are established and maintained in the physical world. This raises the question: how were these conditions established and maintained?

Untitled

What are the pieces
and how do they run?
Who put them together
and made them all one?

Stare at the beautiful
pieces that run.
Admire the web
He has lovingly spun.

The future

Five thousand years ago, the Egyptians built a civilization whose greatest art and science survives to this day, inspiring us with beauty and awe, a testatment to the capacities of the human spirit. If they could produce such marvelous works that have withstood the test of time, how much more should we, who are the inheritors of the entire world’s cultural, artistic, scientific and spiritual heritage, contribute our share of beauty and creativity to posterity. Today, in spite of our technological advancement, we are far from accomplishing anything even remotely as wonderful as what the ancient Egyptians have created.

The eradication of poverty and preventable diseases, the provision of employment and sufficient and nourishing food for all, the end of war and conflict, these are easy problems to fix. These are the easy questions. These are but the beginning of the rest of our collective life. What we do next is the real challenge.

Our duty is to work for the unification of the human race so that we can set ourselves to the more serious task of building a civilization whose works will bear testament to our capacity to work as a unified humanity and survive into the furthest reaches of time.