Religion in a Modern World
Pete Peterson: Be a good, helpful human being.
http://www.bigthink.com/faith-beliefs/350
I think it is important to realize that making-the-world-a-better-place has a specific meaning. It means human-centric, as in making the human experience in this world better.
Eco-terrorism, for example, could see excessive human activity on this planet as detrimental to the environments and creatures of 'this world,' and seek to make this world better by attacking human civilization.
So then, the purpose is not to improve this planet (this world), but to improve the human experience on this planet. Thus 'this world' is a specific term which refers exclusively our experience of and the evolution of human culture.
Unfortunately for that philosophy, human culture is subject to many diverse influences. For example Christian Evangelicals could work towards realizing Armageddon, as a final mutually destructive confrontation between Islam, Judah and Christianity, which will hasten the second coming of their Lord. Obviously when Jesus is here, the world will be a much better place.
So what are we left with then? What are the parameters for making-the-world-a-better-place?
Perhaps we could focus on the individual and improving the individual's experience. But isn't that kind of like the American Dream, where the individual has free reign to rape and plunder the earth in whatever way they can get away with? That brings us right back to the eco-terrorist who seeks to eliminate mindless individualism.
I think that we need to focus exclusively on the Human Song: where we can from, where are we going, and what are we doing. Do we really need to be a 5-car family? Do we really need Jesus that badly? Do we really need to believe that death will be better than life?
I think that the-world-will be-a-better-place only when we sing a better Song. The Human Song is the genetic and cultural coding through which humanity is expressed: the Human Logos.
Discuss
Musycks on March 27, 2008, 10:21 PM
firstly.. the code to reply to this coversation was ‘seeke’… haha…
anyway.. if I am part of the Human song, by returning to the earth in the form of dust.. I’m content with that. All else is poetic variations on death as far as I can tell.
Someone has likened human activity on this planet to that of a virus.. and we have behaved like a cancer in some ways.. endlessly consuming and growing.. but to the benefit of the host organism? poor mother earth I think….
Mary Coyote on March 28, 2008, 6:56 PM
musycks posted;
Someone has likened human activity on this planet to that of a virus.. and we have behaved like a cancer in some ways.. endlessly consuming and growing.. but to the benefit of the host organism? poor mother earth I think….‘
Mother earth will swallow whatever damage we inflict and in a few million years it will be like humanity never was. We are incidental to Time.
Isn’t that the metal-monster thing in Dr. Who? That life is a virus that needs to be exterminated? That Machine-life was perfect? No, wait: The Terminator. Humanity has a history of Wendigo stories. Part of the Human Song.
Larry Wright on March 31, 2008, 1:27 AM
My captcha says rubAue which I believe is French for ‘hick from the sticks’. Not trying to make any association there. I just wanted to play along.
musycks I am curious to know why you rated this idea negatively. It seems compatible with your view. Is poetry your only complaint? Being an atheist doesn’t mean poo-pooing everything that isn’t science. As a musician/writer I’d expect you to have a greater appreciation of expressionistic ideas.
Musycks on March 31, 2008, 8:22 PM
OGR, I didn’t rate this idea negatively at all… don’t know how that works?..
and I find most of Coyote’s posts interesting and engaging.. I am only able to find the sublime and trancendant in human endevours… love, family, poetry, music, art etc..
science does not have all the answers, and the search for meaning will not always overlap with what current science can divulge.. but it sure stands a better chance of uncovering most mysteries than any other discipline we know..
the beauty lies within us.. whatever it is.
Edward C on April 1, 2008, 9:17 PM
Please visit: “What is the Difference between Men & Women?”
Musycks on April 2, 2008, 7:39 PM
Coyote… you’ve shape shifted!
Not unlike an Australian wild dog we have called a dingo?
keep howling.
Mary Coyote on April 3, 2008, 2:48 AM
Coyote wears many masks. What are the coyote stories that your aborigines tell?
Musycks on April 3, 2008, 3:37 AM
haha… I’m stuck with the one shape!
The Aboriginals are pretty amazing… we have marginalised them and treated them so poorly (that word again) it’s amazing they don’t appear to hate us whites.
They basically have a view of life called ‘The Dreamtime’, it centres around mostly native animals, like the Rainbow serpent taking part in ‘creation’ stories around places of life, like water holes in deserts etc.. they are lovely stories, some gentle, some harsh.. but they have engendered this belief in the race, that they are not seperate from the land, the land is them. Quite beautiful I think.
When the Brits landed in 1788, it must have felt like the end of the world… they passed a piece of legislative conceit called
‘Terra Nullius’ basically saying the land was unoccupied and promtly started selling it off! 220 years later, we apologised in Parliament to them. It was an amazing day and I was in tears listening to it.
Hopefully it is the start of better times for them.
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