BAHÁ’Í WORLD CENTRE — The online publication The Bahá’í World has released two new articles.
“Whither World Peace?” revisits three moments in the past century when humanity appeared to be reaching for lasting peace. None succeeded. Proposing that the obstacles to peace run deeper than institutional failure, the essay considers what stands between humanity and a durable peace and explores how the implications of the foundational Bahá’í principle of the oneness of humankind, understood not only as a moral ideal but as a conception of global society itself, might provide the foundation that has so far proven elusive.
The second essay, “Understanding Neuroscience and Human Nature Through a Historical Lens,” considers how findings from neuroscience inform our understanding of human nature without exhausting it. Because the brain is continually shaped by experience and culture, the essay states, current findings can be read as descriptions of how brains function at this stage of humanity’s collective development, rather than as fixed statements about human nature. It reflects on what the Bahá’í concept of the complementary roles of science and religion suggests about what we might yet become.
These essays join other articles posted on the website over the past year, including “The Art of Collaboration” and several pieces from Volume 35 of The Bahá’í World, among them “Women and Social Progress: Building Communities Based on Dynamic Partnership,” “The Bahá’í House of Worship: The Dawning-Place of the Mention of God,” and “A Global Community.”
The Bahá’í World website features a collection of essays that examine the most vital issues of our time and seek to contribute new insights from the Bahá’í teachings and from the experience of the worldwide Bahá’í community.
