The Badi Blog

Our Monthly Fireside Makes Page One

2009-11-09T09:43:00.001-05:00

Shirlee Smith spoke in October of her harrowing experiences as a descendant of escaped slaves living in Toronto, and of her eventual discovery of the Baha’i Faith. Our monthly meetings are always covered extensively in the local paper, but I do believe that this is the first time we have made the front page. In the photo, Shirlee is showing a photo of her when she won an essay for Black History

Simplicity and Works; Medications against Fundamentalism

2009-11-09T09:09:00.001-05:00

Final notes on the Comenian Cure to Fundamentalism By John Taylor; 2009 Nov 08, Qudrat 05, 166 BE The threat of imminent climate dislocation demands a quick response from us all. Scientists are beginning to worry that their training is too specialized and theoretical to address the challenge of the present hour. Some

Inducements, Real and Virtual

2009-11-04T13:13:00.001-05:00

More on the Three Sub-Currencies of the Terra; Eduterras, Ecuterras and Paxterras By John Taylor; 2009 Nov 04, Qudrat 01, 166 BE Economics is not just for economists. Monetary policy should broaden its scope to include more than profit, growth and other merely economic values. With proper organization, the money supply can be used as a positive reinforcement for moral worth

Flushing Fanaticism

2009-11-03T09:41:00.001-05:00

The Comenian Cure for Fundamentalism By John Taylor; 2009 Nov 03, Ilm 19, 166 BE The Reformation was the result of a general realization that change in religion was unavoidable; unfortunately efforts at reform often cause yet more disagreement, disputation and even war. John Amos Comenius's solution to fanaticism was a systematic

What the Bastinado Feels Like

2009-11-02T11:57:00.001-05:00

Passage from: Marina Nemat, Prisoner of Tehran Marina Nemat was kind enough to come to speak at our Human Rights Day commemoration in Dunnville last December, and I purchased her memoir, Prisoner of Tehran. I noticed lately that it is still on the Canadian Bestseller List. It is the story of how just after the Iranian Revolution this Christian schoolgirl in Tehran was arrested for

Corrupion of the Cradle, I

2009-10-30T13:19:00.001-04:00

Two Unworkable Pieces of Marble By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 30, Ilm 15, 166 BE Baha'is believe that the Manifestation of God always comes to the most corrupt place in the world. This is how God proves His expertise as teacher and reformer. It is like that messed up, split, dirty, ugly hunk of marble that ordinary sculptors found unworkable. They left it aside until along came the greatest

Ethics, Reward and Finance

2009-10-29T16:44:00.001-04:00

Money as Root of All Good A brief theoretical interlude about ethics, reward and finance By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 29, Ilm 14, 166 BE In this series we are speculating on the possible introduction of local monetary schemes using three universal currencies based on trades and professions. Today we back off a bit in order to look at the right and wrong uses

A Pause from the Three Terras; Eduterras, Ecuterras and Paxterras

2009-10-28T15:21:00.001-04:00

Money As Motivator By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 28, Ilm 13, 166 BE This series asks what monetary policy might be like under a decentralized world government. We often forget that the extreme centralization of power that is the norm today is not inevitable. Rather, it is a symptom of the corruption and slow death of the sovereign nation, which jealously guards every jot and tittle of its own

Voyager Ends

2009-10-26T14:29:00.001-04:00

Voyager Notes By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 26, Ilm 11, 166 BE It has taken over a month but now at last we have viewed all seven seasons of Star Trek Voyager. On the day when we watched the last episode I dreamed a sort of fan-fiction Voyager scenario. There was a big explosion and one of the shuttles was obliterated, along with several central characters. Captain

Eduterras: An Educational Economy

2009-10-25T15:10:00.002-04:00

Eduterras By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 25, Ilm 11, 166 BE Yesterday we broached the possibility of a Comenian world government instituting a world currency called the "terra," with three semi-exchangeable sub-types, the "ecuterra," the "paxterra" and the "eduterra." The first sub-currency is the ecuterra, a currency overseen by interfaith institutions at every level of society that are

Paxterras, Eduterras and Ecuterras

2009-10-23T15:18:00.001-04:00

A Three Part, Unidirectional Currency By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 23, Ilm 09, 166 BE This is part of a series of essays on John Amos Comenius's idea of universal reform, or "Panorthosia," and how it might be applied today. Today let us continue our discussion of a Comenius-inspired idea for three new forms of currency. John Amos Comenius proposed a world government unlike any other. He saw

Terras or Locas?

2009-10-22T11:18:00.002-04:00

Three New Types of Currency By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 22, Ilm 08, 166 BE I have been looking for a precedent for the new types of money that I have been contemplating for the UCS, Universal Civic Society -- that is, the world after the concurrent formation of continental, global, familial and neighbourhood governments. Here is what I learned after wading through several Wikipedia articles on

Validation

2009-10-20T20:49:00.000-04:00

Other Baha'i bloggers have noted how this sheds light on the holy words: "A kindly tongue is the lodestone of the hearts of men..."

Baha'u'llah on the Bab

2009-10-20T10:12:00.001-04:00

Baha'u'llah on the Bab By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 20, Ilm 06, 166 BE On this holy day, the Birth of the Bab, it is helpful to recall what Baha'u'llah wrote about the Bab. In the Ishraqat, He wrote, "Praise be to God who manifested the Point [the Bab] and caused to proceed therefrom the knowledge of all that was and shall be.... He is that Point which God hath made to be an Ocean of light

Yet More Escutcheons

2009-10-19T14:16:00.002-04:00

Groups, Boffins and Beauty By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 19, Ilm 05, 166 BE Escutcheons for Groups and Institutions We have been looking mostly at personal escutcheons so far, but in reality that is only the beginning. Personal escutcheons are the foundation for a set of standard reforms to be introduced at every level of society, from the individual to the household, company, school,

Dashboards and Escutcheons

2009-10-18T12:38:00.001-04:00

More on Escutcheons for the Individual Families and other institutions often connect themselves with medieval tradition by adopting a coat of arms, also called an escutcheon. This sometimes includes a Greek or Latin saying along with a set of symbolic images in the visual language of heraldry. In his posthumous work, "Panorthosia or Universal Reform," John Amos Comenius proposed that a

An Escutcheon of my Own

2009-10-14T11:54:00.001-04:00

Beauty in the Escutcheon 2009 Oct 14 Let us return to one of the most important innovations of the 17th Century educational reformer and world federalist, John Amos Comenius, author of Panorthosia, or Universal Reform. In an earlier essay called "Escutcheons for Social Diversity" we talked about his suggestion that a world government use short mottos or slogans to spread knowledge,

Money Tracers

2009-10-12T11:52:00.001-04:00

Ending the Tyranny of Opinion, of Money and of Things There are many kinds of imitation, prejudice and ignorance in the world but one of the most oppressive and difficult to eradicate is the tyranny of opinion. John Amos Comenius suggested a systematic, scientific technique for eliminating the tyranny of opinion that has a strange resemblance to what Immanuel Kant later

Basic Incomes

2009-10-11T12:24:00.001-04:00

Basic Incomes and Social Credit By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 11, Mashiyyat 15, 166 BE I have been mildly sick for the past few days. To keep my mind off my misery, I found myself listening over and over to the series of videos available at the Money Myths website. This guy, Brian Leslie, is an advocate of what I believe is called social credit. In most of his videos he offers an

BPS DIY "How to" Series

2009-10-08T15:02:00.001-04:00

New Essay Series: The DIY on the BPS I have been lurking on the Lulu.com self-publishing website for years, but over the past week I have made a serious study of their best-selling books. The site displays an all-time bestseller list, and a monthly and weekly list of their best selling works -- and curiously, they do it all without mentioning exactly how many copies each book managed to

People without Borders

2009-10-07T16:09:00.001-04:00

Introducing People Without Borders By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 07, Mashiyyat 11, 166 BE Our current essay series is about the monetary, economic and financial aspects of Comenian governance and its immediate outcome: hillside infrastructure. Over the past few days, however, I have been moved to begin a book proposal for

Stop Greenhouse Emissions Fast

2009-10-05T23:48:00.001-04:00

From Drop Box

A True, Blue Fundamentalist

2009-10-05T11:30:00.002-04:00

Fundamentalism, Good and Bad Prologue for Baha'is The present use of the word "fundamentalist" comes from a publishing initiative by a body of protestant clergy that took place right around the time the Master toured North America. A body of scholars who had met in Niagara Falls tried in this way to set up a body of doctrine upon which all of them -- that is, not all people but all

Natives Host the World

2009-10-04T10:52:00.001-04:00

Desert Colonization and Aboriginal Hosting By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 03, Mashiyyat 07, 166 BE Seeing Earth From Space Viewed from space, our planet looks blue because most of its surface is covered in ocean. However, if we look closer and restrict ourselves to the land, fertile regions look green and deserts look grayish brown. A surprisingly large

TED: Tim Brown urges designers to think big

2009-10-02T10:57:00.000-04:00