Relevance of Abdu'l-Baha's Secret of Divine Civilization and Treatise on Politics on the Future of Iran, The
First presented at the Irfan Colloquia Session #132
Center for Bahá'í Studies: Acuto, Italy
July 2–5, 2015
(see list of papers from #132)
The appreciation and practical implications of the concept of Modernity and Renewal in all aspects of humanity seems to be at the core of creating a New World Order as `Abdu'l-Bahá envisions for the future of the World as a whole and the future of Iran in particular.
The multidimensional crisis of our age all seem to be rooted in upholding the ancient, colonial, nationalistic, and value free belief systems that have no practical universal applications in our day to day lives as an individuals and society as a whole. Most if not all of the standards that humankind uses today are inheritably flawed as far as the requirements of the New Age is concerned. Hardly we can find any arena of human affairs that is not affected by these ancient and value-free doctrines and belief systems. Crisis in Political systems and governance, challenges posed by the current systems of education, the obvious irreverence of ancient and traditional meanings assigned to the metaphysical concepts such as God, Religion and Ethics contributing to the escalation of Fundamentalism, Fanaticism and Radicalism across the World. the Crisis in Family, The lack of proper understanding of the definition of Liberty and its association with individual and social responsibilities, the prostitutions of Art and Sciences, The dangers of Institutionalized religions employing indoctrination the souls and minds of humanity yielding to mental & spiritual slavery where individual has lost its vitality as the Nobel being and has been reduced to a aimless and robotic creature; biased based governing systems resulting in the abuse of powers by their members, The erosion of middle class and economical imbalances and shifts in the definition of ownership of the wealth of nations; The improper conclusions of Darwinism leading to reductionism are just a few examples of the crisis of our age.
The purpose of this presentation is to examine how Abdul Baha Abbas in some of his major works such as Treatise on Politics, Secret of Divine Civilization, and Some Answered Questions and his talks across Europe and America addresses majority of the aforementioned crisis and then reflect on some of his new revolutionized ideas that he has offered that may result in creating new set of mindsets for understanding and addressing these most challenging issues resulting in a new World Order in which the rights and the responsibilities of individuals and society can be safeguarded.
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