• The Secret Garden has won the Dec. 2008 Jan. 2009 Fiction book poll!
• Thank you Ophelia!!! Your donation is MUCH appreciated!
• Thank you for your very generous donation Interbane!
• 5 members are now enjoying the new "Email Digests" feature. Click on the digests link on the right at the top of every page to learn more. This is a great feature for keeping updated on forum activity.
• Regular casual chats are back on the menu! Check out the calendar for the schedule.
Sierra Club is proud to present its first ever national report on the environmental engagement of communities of faith, "Faith in Action: Communities of Faith Bring Hope for the Planet." Highlighting one exceptional faithbased environmental initiative from each of the fifty states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, "Faith in Action" demonstrates the breadth, depth and diversity of spiritually motivated grassroots efforts to protect the planet. Sierra Club applauds the growing level of commitment and leadership among people of faith working to connect environmental awareness with widely shared values including stewardship, justice, and concern for future generations. We also recognize that lasting social change rarely takes place without the active engagement of communities of faith.
Environmental concerns continue to rise in prominence on the agenda of the faithful, with no sign of receding. As the implications of global warming and its disproportionate impact on the world's poor become increasingly clear, prophetic voices are being raised in religious communities around the globe. In the United States, 67 percent of Americans say they care about the environment because it is "God's creation."
Faith groups highlighted in this report lead the way in crafting creative and promising solutions to tremendous environmental challenges. Religious leaders and lay persons alike are "greening" all areas of religious life, including worship, education, community life, buildings and grounds, and increasingly engaging in grassroots education and organizing. In addition to crafting solutions to global warming, these groups also work to protect water quality and access, protect wilderness and endangered species, stop mountain-top removal coal mining and develop creative solutions to our nation's unsustainable and inequitable food systems.
I won't condemn using the brainwashing power of religion to help save our planet. Perhaps it can make up for a fraction of the misery it has caused humanity. Or the attempt will be botched by opposing monotheistic fanatics terrorizing the Earth instead of each other.
Interbane: I won't condemn using the brainwashing power of religion to help save our planet.
I can't think of any examples of where brainwashing helps anything: it traumatizes and disables, leaving the victim debilitated and emotionally distraught...prone to violent outbursts or secluded isolation. As I examine the report by Sierra Club, and the many other examples of religious environmentalism, I don't see much evidence of brainwashed victims: on the contrary, I see vibrant communities full of healthy vitality...actively engaged with the best of environmental science and ecological understanding, working to live an ecojustice ethic that requires critical thinking, political astuteness, ethical maturity and good old fashioned love of the earth....hardly brainwashed, hardly victims.
There might be no real need to ask this, but could everyone agree that if we are talking aobut screwing up the planet less, results are all that matter, and credit should be given to whomever produces results? It therefore couldn't possibly make a difference whether these people doing constructive things are monotheists or atheists. Religions happen to have an organizational base in place that make them potentially effective; on the secular side, governments and NGOs also have the organizational resources needed to get the job done.
DWill: but could everyone agree that if we are talking aobut screwing up the planet less, results are all that matter, and credit should be given to whomever produces results?
One risk with this position (and all positions are risky) are the dangerous possibilities that arise with a by any means necessary approach to any problem. For example, one way to curb human impact on Climate Change would be to eliminate a substantial portion of the human population: round up a select portion of the population (those least willing to change their behavior, for example) and, well, kill them. We would have to consider the environmental footprint such a genocide would create: but with proper scientific methods, we could clear out huge swaths of incorrigible, unteachable, unmanageable humans. And, we would achieve our desired results of curbing the impending Climate catastrophes...or at least be closer to the goal.
Why not engage in mass genocide in order to fight back the larger, more comprehensive catastrophe of ecocide?
DWill: Religions happen to have an organizational base in place that make them potentially effective; on the secular side, governments and NGOs also have the organizational resources needed to get the job done.
I think the organizational capacties of religious communities is an important point, and I think it can be most effective in getting mass numbers of religious adherents to fundamentally change lifestyle habits. Since a large majority of Americans self-idenfity as religious, and Americans are the largest per-capita consumers on the planet, then getting Americans to change consumption habits is crucial: and reminding them of their religious ethical obligations and theological narratives is proving to be a very effective approach...perhaps not enough. But I also think it is important to remember the numbers of religious people who work for the government, non-profit agencies and NGOs: who see their professional efforts as expressions of their religious vocational obligations.
I think another very important question is this: do the people involved in these kinds of serious, informed, ethical, ecologically responsible and loving efforts look like deluded individuals, hoodwinked and brainwashed, afraid to face reality and hiding in ancient superstitions at war with science?
NO. You can't possibly be advocating a genocide. I hope you are suicidal and take your own life to save the planet rather than continue presuming to be capable judgment on others.
I have previously brought up the problem in a manner that may seem to be suggesting the necessity for some form of population control. What I was really pointing to is the peril people face in the looming crisis where the earth is no longer capable of feeding our multitudinous numbers. The proportionally large numbers of poor will be effected first. Equilibrium can possibly be maintain when a broad realization of true sustainability is obtained by a drastically lowered human population. We cannot obtain balance with the planet by turning on our own propensity to find harmony with all life.
DH: "We would have to consider the environmental footprint such a genocide would create: but with proper scientific methods, we could clear out huge swaths of incorrigible, unteachable, unmanageable humans. And, we would achieve our desired results of curbing the impending Climate catastrophes...or at least be closer to the goal."
Of course you throw science in there in a bad light. You simpleton! There's a much easier answer! I say we rid the US of the separation of church and state, declare us a theocracy, and wait a couple of years. Religion will take it's course and we'll realize the infidels have to be wiped out and we go into world police mode and wipe em all out! Whammo, problem solved. Unfortunately that means most of the intelligent people on earth will have to be wiped out. That would leave a stupid, brainwashed world, and who wants that?
DH: "I think another very important question is this: do the people involved in these kinds of serious, informed, ethical, ecologically responsible and loving efforts look like deluded individuals, hoodwinked and brainwashed, afraid to face reality and hiding in ancient superstitions at war with science?"
No, they look like a bunch of deluded, brainwashed people jumping on the "green earth" bandwagon two minutes too late to make it appear their dogma is moral.
If you're not brainwashed by the verbatim definition, you're damn close. It's like you're possessed, spewing forth nonsense to support the cause you've been indoctrinated into believing. You completely ignore rational questions and reasoning and instead pick out small obscure phrases to quote and ramble on in another direction, like a caffeinated grade schooler with ADHD.
DWill: but could everyone agree that if we are talking about screwing up the planet less, results are all that matter, and credit should be given to whomever produces results?
One risk with this position (and all positions are risky) are the dangerous possibilities that arise with a by any means necessary approach to any problem. For example, one way to curb human impact on Climate Change would be to eliminate a substantial portion of the human population: round up a select portion of the population (those least willing to change their behavior, for example) and, well, kill them. We would have to consider the environmental footprint such a genocide would create: but with proper scientific methods, we could clear out huge swaths of incorrigible, unteachable, unmanageable humans. And, we would achieve our desired results of curbing the impending Climate catastrophes...or at least be closer to the goal. Why not engage in mass genocide in order to fight back the larger, more comprehensive catastrophe of ecocide?
DH, when I first read this post of yours I had to look twice, but of course your point is that an inhuman way to achieve goals should be rejected for its inhumanity. Looking at ways to achieve results to address climate change, it is possible to bring humanity into harmony with the planet without resorting to inhuman methods. If we planted out a million square miles of the ocean with algae, by raising deep sea nutrient on to enormous polymer sheets floating a few feet below the surface, we could rapidly reduce the amount of carbon in the air, restore empty ocean areas for fish, and use the algae for food, fuel and fertiliser.
RT: DH, when I first read this post of yours I had to look twice, but of course your point is that an inhuman way to achieve goals should be rejected for its inhumanity.
Yes, genocide should elicit shock and warrant a second look. And, if we take the approach that the ends justify the means, then if genocide can help us reach our goal of staving off ecocide, then why not pursue mass elimination of human populations? I don't think the ends justify the means. I think just means is how we achieve just ends. But, I think this is really a kind of faith, or at least a very strong hope...because it seems in a world where empire is the norm, and might makes right: then if the goal is stop ecocide, then why not simply eliminate those who get in the way?
I think those who say "NO!" to might equals right are offering an alternative that is deeply steeped in hope and faith. Why seek humane solutions to humanity's problems when an iron fist and gulag or concentration camp can get rid of the incorrigibles and undesirables? Why allow all these preposterous notions of human rights and humane responsibilities to get in the way? Why let these fantasies and hopes cloud the objective: if you don't get on board, you will be taken out of the way.
I know why I disagree with this...and it has a great deal to do with faith, hope and love...highly elusive notions that are terribly difficult to pin down with any sort of scientific or epistemological accuracy...but I don't know why others who disparage faith find any ground to stand on when faced with the imperial fist and gulag.
Are you suggesting people can't be nice to one another without some sort of faith/religion/belief? As though all that keeps people in line is some phantasmal father figure ready to punish us for eternity if we do Bad Things?
If so, that's pretty absurd. I don't think it takes a religious figure/religion to promote "the golden rule" as it were. Given human capacity for empathy/sympathy/compassion, I'm pretty sure it's an emergent property that's independent upon any sort of fantasyland invention.
I think a better title for the thread would be "Faith inaction: Bringing hope to the planet". Given the strings that are often attached to humanitarian aid from various religious institutions (help dependent upon conversion, etc), I think we could probably get by just fine without them.
Are you suggesting people can't be nice to one another without some sort of faith/religion/belief? As though all that keeps people in line is some phantasmal father figure ready to punish us for eternity if we do Bad Things? If so, that's pretty absurd. I don't think it takes a religious figure/religion to promote "the golden rule" as it were. Given human capacity for empathy/sympathy/compassion, I'm pretty sure it's an emergent property that's independent upon any sort of fantasyland invention. I think a better title for the thread would be "Faith inaction: Bringing hope to the planet". Given the strings that are often attached to humanitarian aid from various religious institutions (help dependent upon conversion, etc), I think we could probably get by just fine without them.
ZS: Your depiction illustrates how analogies for divine reality have taken on a greater meaning in the eyes of the religious than the reality which stands behind the myths. Proselytising for a ‘phantasmal father figure’ is useless and harmful. However, strategies for ecological sustainability should draw resources from all available areas, including religion. The religious ideas should be judged according to how they meet contemporary needs. I think the example of how the early church created the myth of Jesus as a prime weapon in their efforts to undermine Roman imperium is a really interesting example. With nations spending trillions of dollars on armaments and perversely destroying the security of the planet, efforts to conceptualise real security can usefully start from the Beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer and the Last Judgement. Conventional religion is widespread but shallow. Dialogue about its core texts can identify key themes for planetary transformation in order to deepen people’s understanding of the meaning of the message of the gospels.
RT: "However, strategies for ecological sustainability should draw resources from all available areas, including religion."
I think it's despicable that there are religious factions that are declaring that their bible is reflective of the green movement and that they are now interpreting it that way as propaganda. It seems to be an ulterior motive to appear noble in an attempt to brainwash more followers.
I won't deny the importance of all people and parties helping restore the planet, but using it as many companies have been to appear more ethical than they are is sad. Now religious factions are doing the same, but it's not only money(tithes) they are after, it's their brains. ("Muahahaha" says the Pope...)
