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I was feeling a bit of nostalgia today for our beloved Science and Religion course, so I thought it would be cool if those of us who took the class could dig up an old writing assignment and post it on here. If you're unable to do so or if sharing your work makes you ill in the stomach, then your alternate assignment is to draw a sketch of your favorite deity and bring it to the next meeting (and remember, any obscene or blasphemous image will result in an automatic F.... for Freethinker!)
Don't be bashful, don't be shy...
“Love not the world, for all that is in the world is not of the Father.”
The above statement is attributed to Jesus Christ and can be found in the Book of John, chapter two, of the Christian Bible. It is an impassioned call for all of humanity to live out of their collective spiritual nature and to identify themselves not with the passing sorrows of the day-to-day world, but with the transcendent reality of God. When read as a metaphorical concept with real-life significance, it is capable of motivating a person to travel inward to the deep recesses of the human mind (or “soul”) in an attempt to find within his or her self that which is eternal and beautiful -- the Ultimate Source of all that is, which in Christian thought is referred to as “the Father.”
However, many followers of Christianity have since interpreted it as a command to renounce the external world altogether: nature is seen as something to be overcome. It is fallen, corrupt, full of temptations and distractions that seek to lure a person into Satan’s Kingdom, and one must confess one’s innately sinful character if one wishes to leave the wickedness of this world behind for everlasting life in Heaven.
It is unfortunate when a Christian today ignores the beauty and sacredness of the Creation in favor of a life-denying fundamentalist outlook. When that Christian is the leader of the United States of America and has the last word on major environmental policy, it becomes dangerous. For example: the Bush Administration’s anti-environment agenda includes oil drilling in the Alaskan wildlife refuge, logging of formerly protected forests, loosening of the Clean Air Act, and arrogantly disregarding the advice of scientists who have warned the administration about the dangers of global warming.
To be fair, religion alone cannot be blamed for the environmental problems of our time. Ian Barbour, in his book Nature, Human Nature, and God, makes note of the misconception that Christianity is responsible for man’s disrespect of the natural world, and cites other important reasons for our modern-day dilemma: first, the dualist separation of the body and spirit which originated with Greek thought and Western philosophy, second, the rise of capitalism, and third, the onset of the technological and industrial age (121). The most problematic and deep-seated of the three is the first one -- the very root assumptions of Western thought, which include a reliance on “conventional” knowledge and mental abstractions, or symbols, such as language, that we have come to believe are the only means of determining what in the world is of value. Such a mindset is limiting because it fetters contemplation to that which can be represented or communicated from man to man, and it ignores the vehicle of spiritual consciousness: the intuition.
Christianity, though it appears on the surface to be a religion of externalities (God as a separate entity, Heaven as an external reality, Jesus as a historical figure, etc.), nevertheless embraces one’s ability to perceive that which is not available to the senses. When one speaks of the body as a vehicle for the “Holy Spirit”, one is referencing that system of thought which allows for a unity of the mind and body, one that is transcendent of the ego. Consider the words of Lao-tzu, an Eastern philosopher who embodies such thinking: “The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing. It refuses nothing. It receives, but does not keep.”
The point of emphasizing religious thinking in environmental issues is simple: man’s environmental consciousness and spiritual consciousness are one and the same. The very definition of spirituality, according to www.nature.com, is: “An inner sense of something greater than oneself. Recognition of a meaning to existence that transcends one's immediate circumstances.” Therefore, human beings will not gain a sense of collective responsibility for the well-being of the planet until there is first established a collective spiritual consciousness among the entire human race. It will not require gods or laws or belief in anything outside of the physical realm; only an acknowledgement of and reverence for the earth, and a joyful participation therein, through which we will all be elevated to a plane of awareness that will fulfill the most basic function of any religion: that of lifting us out of the bonds of the ego and allowing for the fullest expression of man’s creative and spiritual powers.
Don't be bashful, don't be shy...
“Love not the world, for all that is in the world is not of the Father.”
The above statement is attributed to Jesus Christ and can be found in the Book of John, chapter two, of the Christian Bible. It is an impassioned call for all of humanity to live out of their collective spiritual nature and to identify themselves not with the passing sorrows of the day-to-day world, but with the transcendent reality of God. When read as a metaphorical concept with real-life significance, it is capable of motivating a person to travel inward to the deep recesses of the human mind (or “soul”) in an attempt to find within his or her self that which is eternal and beautiful -- the Ultimate Source of all that is, which in Christian thought is referred to as “the Father.”
However, many followers of Christianity have since interpreted it as a command to renounce the external world altogether: nature is seen as something to be overcome. It is fallen, corrupt, full of temptations and distractions that seek to lure a person into Satan’s Kingdom, and one must confess one’s innately sinful character if one wishes to leave the wickedness of this world behind for everlasting life in Heaven.
It is unfortunate when a Christian today ignores the beauty and sacredness of the Creation in favor of a life-denying fundamentalist outlook. When that Christian is the leader of the United States of America and has the last word on major environmental policy, it becomes dangerous. For example: the Bush Administration’s anti-environment agenda includes oil drilling in the Alaskan wildlife refuge, logging of formerly protected forests, loosening of the Clean Air Act, and arrogantly disregarding the advice of scientists who have warned the administration about the dangers of global warming.
To be fair, religion alone cannot be blamed for the environmental problems of our time. Ian Barbour, in his book Nature, Human Nature, and God, makes note of the misconception that Christianity is responsible for man’s disrespect of the natural world, and cites other important reasons for our modern-day dilemma: first, the dualist separation of the body and spirit which originated with Greek thought and Western philosophy, second, the rise of capitalism, and third, the onset of the technological and industrial age (121). The most problematic and deep-seated of the three is the first one -- the very root assumptions of Western thought, which include a reliance on “conventional” knowledge and mental abstractions, or symbols, such as language, that we have come to believe are the only means of determining what in the world is of value. Such a mindset is limiting because it fetters contemplation to that which can be represented or communicated from man to man, and it ignores the vehicle of spiritual consciousness: the intuition.
Christianity, though it appears on the surface to be a religion of externalities (God as a separate entity, Heaven as an external reality, Jesus as a historical figure, etc.), nevertheless embraces one’s ability to perceive that which is not available to the senses. When one speaks of the body as a vehicle for the “Holy Spirit”, one is referencing that system of thought which allows for a unity of the mind and body, one that is transcendent of the ego. Consider the words of Lao-tzu, an Eastern philosopher who embodies such thinking: “The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing. It refuses nothing. It receives, but does not keep.”
The point of emphasizing religious thinking in environmental issues is simple: man’s environmental consciousness and spiritual consciousness are one and the same. The very definition of spirituality, according to www.nature.com, is: “An inner sense of something greater than oneself. Recognition of a meaning to existence that transcends one's immediate circumstances.” Therefore, human beings will not gain a sense of collective responsibility for the well-being of the planet until there is first established a collective spiritual consciousness among the entire human race. It will not require gods or laws or belief in anything outside of the physical realm; only an acknowledgement of and reverence for the earth, and a joyful participation therein, through which we will all be elevated to a plane of awareness that will fulfill the most basic function of any religion: that of lifting us out of the bonds of the ego and allowing for the fullest expression of man’s creative and spiritual powers.
posted by Joe at
6:43 PM
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