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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Do we deserve to survive?
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I have recently finished reading Elaine Storkeys excellent and traumatic books "Scars Across Humanity", and it makes me realise that such a lot of humanity is, in fact, utter shit.
I started reading Naomi Klein "This Changes Everything", but have temporarily paused it. This book is about our total lack of concern over climate change, and the fact that we are now at or beyond the tipping point.
Which makes me question whether humanity, being as utterly and unrepentantly shit at being responsible for ourselves and our planet, deserves to exist. Whether the planet would be better off without us. And theologically, whether our being made "in the image of God" means that a)God is also an abusive shit or b) our disappearance would make God less.
Or if you want, what are the theological implications of humanity becoming extinct?
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Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
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Posted
SC, this puts, very succinctly, the fears that I try and stuff down and keep a lid on quite a lot of the time now. Whether this discussion thread will increase or allay my pessimism, well, we'll see.
Posts: 2208 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2015
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
The planet will be fine with or without us.
Survive? Well, we've been very good at it so far to the detriment of the rest of nature. No doubt we'll adapt to the crazy weather patterns which we are partly responsible for.
'Deserve' is a bit of a strange way of putting it - species survive because they can, not due to any favours for good behaviour.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doone:
SC, this puts, very succinctly, the fears that I try and stuff down and keep a lid on quite a lot of the time now. Whether this discussion thread will increase or allay my pessimism, well, we'll see.
'Increase' probably if I get posting here ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
The popular secular theory is that we are just apes who got lucky. Or we are just bags of chemicals floundering about. Or, as D. H. Lawrence put it *humanity is a mistake of nature*.
But one thing is undeniable even if our perfectness is not, and that is we are unique. Well, given our knowledge to date.
A peaceful visitation by some other intelligent life form from outer Space would change that perception overnight, and maybe there will come a point whereby humanity will need this to happen in order to stay sane.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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molopata
The Ship's jack
# 9933
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Posted
Cognitively, would the planet even exist without our perception of it? Would it not simply be just another unnamed ball floating through space with complex organic chemical reactions running on its surface?
In other words, without us to behold and evaluate Earth, can there be a better or worse off? Would nature not just be running its course with animals and plants feeding upon one another as they draw energy from the light of the sun to sustain their biological processes?
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... The Respectable
Posts: 1718 | From: the abode of my w@ndering mind | Registered: Aug 2005
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doone:
SC, this puts, very succinctly, the fears that I try and stuff down and keep a lid on quite a lot of the time now. Whether this discussion thread will increase or allay my pessimism, well, we'll see.
Sorry. But I think it is a very real issue.
The thing is, I have seen and read a lot a SF/post-apocalyptic stuff, and most of it is based around the "95% die, but the rest fight on bravely", which is what most people seem to assume will happen. But I also see the fallacy in this. If we break the world, the chances are that none of us will survive.
The "deserve" issue is about whether, given the depraved nature of people that the Storkey book reveals, we can claim any special rights - theologically, have we given up any claim to divine protection by the lack of compassion and consideration for each other.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Technology gives some people a chance of survival. We already have the technology to allow small numbers of people to live for short periods in the most severe environments on Earth - Antarctic, deep sea etc, even in space. It's not beyond reasonable speculation that we can create artificial environments capable of allowing a larger number of people to survive indefinitely regardless of the wider environmental conditions. It will take a lot of money, and military force to create and protect such environments. Of course that means that these refuges will be the preserve of the wealthier portions of technologically advanced nations - the same nations responsible for the global environmental degradation, and those who have most benefited by it. So, the least deserving of a refuge from the environmental catastrophe of their own making.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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agingjb
Shipmate
# 16555
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Posted
The weather is unpredictable, often vile, and probably getting worse. Are we causing climate change? Probably yes. Can we affect it? Possibly. Will we affect it and reverse it? Probably not.
But, are we causing the Holocene Extinction? Yes. Can we affect it? Possibly yes. Can we reverse it? No.
Are we a species that will become extinct? Possibly. Do we know enough to say whether we will be swept out with the extinction? No.
If we did know, could we avoid that fate? Possibly? Would we act to survive? Probably not.
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Refraction Villanelles
Posts: 464 | From: Southern England | Registered: Jul 2011
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
The "deserve" issue is about whether, given the depraved nature of people that the Storkey book reveals, we can claim any special rights - theologically, have we given up any claim to divine protection by the lack of compassion and consideration for each other.
The premise here is that "divine protection" is based on what we deserve. That's not true in many (most?) Christian theologies. We don't earn our survival/salvation. It's a gracious gift of God.
You don't have to take the story of Noah literally to take the message that God is committed to restoring/redeeming what is not wiping out and starting again with something new. And again you don't need to be a fundamentalist or a wacky interpreter of Revelation to see it as saying the we, humanity, will be there at the end. Yes there's a "new heaven and new earth" but it is populated by those rescued from the old.
Of course there's a lot of collective and individual guilt for awful things we've done to each other and the planet, and we need to reflect on that, repent and change - but one way to interpret the message of the Bible, is as God saying, "I can and will fix this. Come be a part of that."
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
The planet will be fine with or without us.
Survive? Well, we've been very good at it so far to the detriment of the rest of nature. No doubt we'll adapt to the crazy weather patterns which we are partly responsible for.
'Deserve' is a bit of a strange way of putting it - species survive because they can, not due to any favours for good behaviour.
Seconded.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Paul.:
Of course there's a lot of collective and individual guilt for awful things we've done to each other and the planet, and we need to reflect on that, repent and change - but one way to interpret the message of the Bible, is as God saying, "I can and will fix this. Come be a part of that."
I am all with that, but what when we say "We can't be arsed to do anything about that." I want to make things better, but those in power don't.
I know that divine protection is not strictly earned. But Noah was identified as being a holy and spiritual person. And when nations are corporately sinful, it seems that God is quite happy to destroy them.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
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Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I've often felt, when various things happen on the world stage, that I want to grab God by the lapels and shake Him and say, "What the f*** were you thinking rescuing Noah & his sons? You should have drowned the whole bloody lot of us."
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
See, that is part of the fucking problem. Besides ignorance and greed and selfishness, the idea that there is anGid who has, and might again, save humanity from disaster is not a good thing.
More proof that the short, but full and complete, answer to the OP is No.
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Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by molopata:
In other words, without us to behold and evaluate Earth, can there be a better or worse off? Would nature not just be running its course with animals and plants feeding upon one another as they draw energy from the light of the sun to sustain their biological processes?
Absolutely, I think this is the key thing.
The OP makes the assertion that the planet is falling apart in front of our eyes and we are the greedy demented donkeys who have brought this disastrous situation about. Quite understandable, and this is what most of us are increasingly coming to believe Is the case.
Yet that view is only relative to what humanity has experienced in a mere, what? 100,000 yrs,( being generous). Before that we were not here to make sense of, or blame ourselves for a whole series of catastrophic upheavals battering the Earth from the day the moon formed out of a vast globe of freshly melted mineral, gas and what-have-you. Not to mention all the various life forms preceding us whose only purpose seemed to be to eat each other.
Maybe we will survive in one form or another to witness the Sun expand and turn everything to ash, maybe we won't. It could be that a small group will Space hop to another part of our Solar System to eke a few more generations.
Taking the entirely irreligious overview, it matters not to anything/anyone else in the Cosmos as to what we get up to, for to best of our current knowledge even if other advanced life forms do exist then they are way way to far away to know, even give a shit.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
My own take on this, currently, may be revised, is that the ones who will survive will tend to be the ones who can afford to survive, the ones who have caused the mess and done nothing to alleviate it, cruising around on their superyachts to where they have cached their food under mechanical protection. (Can't rely on armed bodyguards with the training the top dogs have not got to use the arms.)
And then they will realise that they don't have any skills, that they can't survive themselves, either, and they die too.
I suppose it is possible that some people like the uncontacted Amazonian tribes could carry on.
[ 18. February 2017, 19:24: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
From a biblical perspective surely we don't 'deserve' anything, do we? We exist due to the mercy of God, not due to any special goodness of our own.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I suppose the think is, many of them have money and not a lot else (because money can provide them with most other things). And if their money is meaningless, they have nothing else.
Yes, they have probably stashes, but no real plan It is not a survival plan, it is a retreat plan. When there is nothing left, they will not survive (as you point out).
And there is a lot in me that says lilBuddha is right - we don't deserve to survive, and we probably won't. We are likely to all die, and be unlamented by all other life and divinity.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Pancho
Shipmate
# 13533
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Posted
My feeling is that if someone asks me "Do we deserve to survive?" I answer, "You first". Nobody ever offers to take himself out first for the sake of the planet, or the universe, or whatever.
[ 18. February 2017, 23:09: Message edited by: Pancho ]
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“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’"
Posts: 1988 | From: Alta California | Registered: Mar 2008
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Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Besides ignorance and greed and selfishness, the idea that there is anGid who has, and might again, save humanity from disaster is not a good thing.
Or the idea that a changing climate is proof of the prophecies in Revelation so the Second Coming must be around the corner. So perhaps lets hasten it... [cf those mad types wanting a war in the Middle East for the same reason].
After Chernobyl I read loads of stuff saying as Chernobyl translated as "wormwood" -- cue more Revelation quoting -- it was a sign of Christ's Return. Still waiting.
I think it pains God's Humanity taken up in Christ, not sure I feel confident enough to say Divinity, to see what we are doing to His Creation. And ourselves in the process.
Depending on how you view the Second Coming's literal interpretation, it seems to indicate humanity will be here at the end. Not sure if that is wishful thinking on my part...
From a biological view the planet may be fine without us. From a theological view, given it was gifted to us to care for and exercise stewardship, I do not think so. What that exactly means in terms of God's Plan I'm not sure.
Posts: 7800 | From: On the border | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
My feeling is that if someone asks me "Do we deserve to survive?" I answer, "You first".
You're not answering the question that was asked, then.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
I've wondered whether Earth would be better off without humans. And it might, except...
I lean towards the idea that everything is alive, in some way. Earth is a being, organism, living system, what have you. So we're one of its constituent parts, just as we have cells, a gallbladder, skin, and hair.
If we suddenly died off, that might do Earth harm, like removing a body part.
OTOH, given the way humans have treated Earth, it might decide we're like an angry gallbladder, and need to be removed...
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Pancho
Shipmate
# 13533
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
My feeling is that if someone asks me "Do we deserve to survive?" I answer, "You first".
You're not answering the question that was asked, then.
You're right but the point remains ("Nobody ever offers to take himself out first for the sake of the planet, or the universe, or whatever."). I do think that when the question is usually asked it's almost rhetorical and the person asking already has an answer to the question.
If you really want to know what else I'd say to that question it's "yes" (humanity deserves to survive) and to this:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
Which makes me question whether humanity, being as utterly and unrepentantly shit at being responsible for ourselves and our planet, deserves to exist. Whether the planet would be better off without us. And theologically, whether our being made "in the image of God" means that a)God is also an abusive shit or b) our disappearance would make God less.
Or if you want, what are the theological implications of humanity becoming extinct?
I would say that I don't like some of the implications of this statement. It's saying all of Humanity is equally responsible whether someone is powerful or powerless, rich or poor. It presumes to know better than God after God made Man, started over with Noah and the Flood, promised not to do that again, and then sent his Only Beloved Son Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to fix it once and for all. It implies Christ's Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection was in vain. I'm tempted to say it commits the sin of despair, except that the despair seems to be about the state of the Earth rather than about the state of one's soul so maybe it's really committing sin of idolatry as it seems to set the Earth above everything else.
[ 19. February 2017, 06:20: Message edited by: Pancho ]
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“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’"
Posts: 1988 | From: Alta California | Registered: Mar 2008
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
SC:
I wonder of you took from Storkey's book what she intended? Of course I could read it and may do so. But my to-read list is quite long already.
I guess, since she was successor to John Stott and the Inst for Contemporary Christianty, she is more or less a mainstream evangelical, a bit Tom Wright-ish. Stott was definitely conservative.
So I guess she would say that the HR no more deserves to survive any more than it deserves salvation, and possibly also that the eventual extinction of life on this physical planet is a standard part of christian eschatology, and in the long run inevitable, based purely on science.
And that by nature all mankind is radically depraved aka shit.
So bog standard evangelicslism.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
You're right but the point remains ("Nobody ever offers to take himself out first for the sake of the planet, or the universe, or whatever.").
This is stupid on several levels, but let's start with this: The people most likely to think the world is better off without humans are the ones least likely to be causing the problems.
quote:
It implies Christ's Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection was in vain.
if it was meant to cure humanities unworthiness, then yes it was. But, ISTM, that wasn't its purpose.
quote:
I'm tempted to say it commits the sin of despair, except that the despair seems to be about the state omf the Earth rather than about the state of one's soul so maybe it's really committing sin of idolatry as it seems to set the Earth above everything else.
Dude, we are making the place God supposedly gave us a hellhole for the people he supposedly created. If that doesn't say volumes about the poor condition of humanity's soul...
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
anteater:
Mankind does not need to be fundamentally depraved, only selfish. Which we are, fundamentally.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
SC:
I wonder of you took from Storkey's book what she intended? Of course I could read it and may do so. But my to-read list is quite long already.
...
So bog standard evangelicalism.
No, she is not standard (i.e. conservative) evangelicalism. I did take from it more than just this, but the book is bleak and dark, however you read it.
Pancho - you really don't know me do you? Yes I am
quite desperate, depressed and often suicidal. So really don't try that line.
And yes, we do all have a responsibility. We fucking well elected the dickheads who make stupid decisions. We elect and support the rich and powerful. Yes, we all have a responsibility, and we have all blown it.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
If we suddenly died off, that might do Earth harm, like removing a body part.
OTOH, given the way humans have treated Earth, it might decide we're like an angry gallbladder, and need to be removed...
If we're to run with the analogy of humanity being a body organ, then I think the evidence is beyond conclusive that whatever organ we represent has turned cancerous and metastasized throughout the body.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
anteater:
Mankind does not need to be fundamentally depraved, only selfish. Which we are, fundamentally.
As is every other species on the planet.
But we can, and do, rise above it. People are actually very good at living in relative harmony with each other - big cities and small villages would not function without an enormous degree of cooperation.
But, as far as caring for the planet goes, every one of us is selfish. This is because the consequences of our actions (taking a holiday in Spain by plane etc) are far removed from the actions themselves. We can't see the harm so it's very hard to live in a planet-friendly way. Some people succeed better than others. My son is one. He lives on very little, cycles everywhere, has only one pair of shoes and never buys anything without considering its environmental impact.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
What's all the woe, woe and thrice woe about? We're half way. AMHs (anatomically modern humans), the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, is 200,000 - two hundred thousand - years old. 40 times older than history. Barring a total nuclear exchange, the risk of which is unquantifiably small, the Doomsday Clock's 150 seconds to go will chaotically oscillate, damp down for centuries, millennia.
We will learn to live more sustainably, more equitably, more intelligently. We will become healthier, smarter. Those oscillations up will occur because they can. At 0.1% up a year minimally. With no absurd sci-fi developments, no fusion power, no space elevator let alone worse fantasy. We'll start thousand year conversations with ET of course. In a thousand years.
The first social upswing has to be liberalism embracing illiberalism. Not uselessly self-congratulatedly self-righteously woundedly whinging against it.
Oh, and Christianity will actually become incarnational. Meaningful.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
I lean towards the idea that everything is alive, in some way. Earth is a being, organism, living system, what have you. So we're one of its constituent parts,....
That is pretty much my sentiment on a good day.
We, and our activity, is not much different from the stromatolites which first colonised the planet and created gases which the whole flaura and fauna later came to depend upon.
Yes we are doing a load of crap stuff, and could do more if we decide to have a grand fireworks display with all our nukes. Even this would not though destroy everything, as didn't the asteroid wallop which kissed goodbye to the dinos.
Humans need the Earth more than the Earth needs us, things would rumble on whether we collectively zap ourselves tomorrow or not.
< wb. Martin >
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
George Carlin turns it all on end: quote:
The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?”
Plastic… asshole.”
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
LilBuddha: Agreed. Depraved as it is commonly used today is not the intent of the reformed belief in total depravity, and selfish is good enough.
I was just hearking back to my Calvinst former self.
Schroedinger's cat: Well I did try to contrast what I called motr evangelical with John Stott who is indeed a conevo, albeit a bit controversial in his rejection of Hell.
But I confess to reflecting Wkipedia here, and assuming people associated with Stott and McGrath were evo of some stripe. Presumably she is a recognisable believing christian.
Plus nothing in you post contradicted classical reformed evangelical christianty, which itself is quite dark.
.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
So I'd like to make a more considered response, since I had wrongly assumed that the book being referred to was more generally dealing with human sin, from the standpoint of a believing christian, which Elaine Storkey surely is.
And it is true that this is in no way at variance with christian belief, which does indeed create a dark picture of the human race, especially if you go to the more reformed end with the doctrine of total depravity, which quite a few christians consider to be overblown.
I can see that the book would be dark, as it deals specifically with the issue of sexual violence towards women. Having already read "The origin of mysogyny" and the even more depressing book whose title and can't get by googling but was something like "The history of the warfare of men against women", and can see how this would make anybody wonder whether it's worth carrying on. I've often thought that if I were God, I'd pull the plug, and this is reflected in the biblical myth of The Flood.
What I don't know is the extent to which Storkey looks to Christianity for answers. I am current reading a book recommended on this ship "Humanity" by Jonathan Glover, and that book is definitely from a non-believing perspective.
But I still don't think any of this undermines christian theology, since it's already included as part of the world view that the human race, if it deserves anything, deserves the Wrath of God.
That doesn't mean that there's not a more hopeful side.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
I like Martin60's approach here.
Like St. John describing the end what we do not need is logic or philosophy. The theological approach has always been for wild acts of fantasy and imagination.
The Revelation of St John defies a logical explanation. Sit back and visualise the imagery — it is Picasso meets Dali, but stunning.
If you want a logical approach to the end of the world, I recommend watching the Terminator series of films. Nothing answers What If questions like SF.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
Elaine was an early supporter of feminism within Christianity, and so was never entirely acceptable within the more conservative end. She is without doubt a clearly identifiable Christian, but not at the criticising and condemning end.
And yes, the book is particularly about one area, but it highlights to me the fundamentally broken nature of so many people. I wrote more in my blog if you are interested, so I won't go on here.
Which is why the "deserves" issue comes in. Given the way that people behave - and not just a few, not just occasional incidents, but hundreds of thousands across the world - and if (as the Klein book seems to consider) we are trashing the world, deliberately (we have been warned, we have been given an explanation, nevertheless, we persist) why should any deity care to let us continue? Even a kind, generous and loving one?
And Martin - I admire you optimism. But I think I have run out of it. I think this is Deus ex Machina answer, and the Deus isn't going to help, because any such magic conclusion is purely in fiction.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
Schroedinger's Cat:
Your post raises many thoughts, but here are two, which are totally unrelated.
1. Wherever does Christ, the Bible or the Tradition talk about what the Human Race deserves, in any favourable terms? It's almost as if you believe a book shining the spotlight on the Sin of Man is casting doubt on a belief system which has that right at its centre.
I can well see that the sheer weight of the suffering of mankind (to which I would add animals, as I'm sure you would) just makes the whole things too depressing for words, and could lead to a Hume-like decision, who whenever he looked so hard at life that all coherence and meaning was likely to vanish, he took a break with IIRC Port and Backgammon. One can do worse.
But Christian faith is always a light shining in darkness.m When Julian said that All shall be well, I'm sure she was under no illusion about how it was at the time.
2. Because I'm very influenced by (admittedly westernised) Buddhism, one of my gurus is the ever popular Matthieu Ricard. In his book on happiness, he discusses the view that it is almost obscene to be seeking happiness in a world with so much suffering, but in the end that is what he goes for. It's a while since I read it, so beware possible filtering.
To me, to still find happiness and tranquility in a world that is as it is is a genuinely worthwhile goal. We'll all find different paths and I suspect you are more sensitive to the suffering of others than I am. Christianity helps, but so does (in my case) music, croquet good friends and laughter. And that's not a crude attempt to offer self-help (before you tell me to STF up) it's just a statement that happiness is also there in the same world that is so full of shit. And shits.
(You don't by any chance work for CSC? I'm more relaxed now I've gone).
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I have recently finished reading Elaine Storkeys excellent and traumatic books "Scars Across Humanity", and it makes me realise that such a lot of humanity is, in fact, utter shit.
I started reading Naomi Klein "This Changes Everything", but have temporarily paused it. This book is about our total lack of concern over climate change, and the fact that we are now at or beyond the tipping point.
Which makes me question whether humanity, being as utterly and unrepentantly shit at being responsible for ourselves and our planet, deserves to exist. Whether the planet would be better off without us. And theologically, whether our being made "in the image of God" means that a)God is also an abusive shit or b) our disappearance would make God less.
Or if you want, what are the theological implications of humanity becoming extinct?
An awful lot of things about humanity are utter shit. Unbearable shit, PTSD nightmares.
And an awful lot of things about humanity are the exact opposite, too good, too bright, to be borne. This morning we had a homeless ill ex-offender at communion. The pastor noticed he didn't come forward and asked his friend (who did) whether he wanted to receive, and brought it down to him in the pew. Afterward a group of people gathered round him to hug him and talk, and a safety net to get him back off the street is beginning to form (may have formed already, I'm trying to find out as I'm not in that loop).
This is my problem with the world, and with humanity. It's unbearable in either direction, evil or good. I don't feel built to handle the extremes.
No, we don't deserve anything, but by God's mercy we still keep some of God's image. And I'm looking forward to the complete finished redemption.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
...
And Martin - I admire you optimism. But I think I have run out of it. I think this is Deus ex Machina answer, and the Deus isn't going to help, because any such magic conclusion is purely in fiction.
We've come this far without magic for two hundred thousand years. We will therefore go much further.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
@Lamb Chopped. Inspiring. Incarnational. And DESERVING, all round. We deserve God's love. We've got it. To give. To all.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
We who are depressed or manic don't see the world as it is. But then again who does?
My forbears threw their shit in the street, and then someone came around and collected it. They put some on the fields, but most of it went in the river. Does that still happen somewhere on the planet?
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I'm of strong opinions on this. I am not sure we will win with logic and preaching to the converted.
How do we reverse species loss, climate change, toxins, pollution, general over usage of the Earth? We have the science, and the people I talk to about it in university and industry say that humanity at the large does not have the political will. That our's is a pre-ecological political world. The native people wonder how we are so disconnected from the natural world, those who haven't adopted another way. That all our conversation is corrupted by mad clinging outmoded ideas. Just as we use 19th century ideas of nation states, all selfishly pursuing self interest, just as outmoded capitalism encourages selfish self interest.
Maybe we have to be patient. It might take 5 generations to change.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
How do we reverse species loss? Can we reverse species loss?
We can stop the processes by which we cause species to become extinct.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Species extinction happens all the time, and has done since millions of years before our ancestors first evolved opposable thumbs. The ecology changes, the species that were adapted to it die, and new species that are adapted to it take their place.
So yes, the polar bears will go extinct. So will the elephants, the rhinos, the cats and the humans. And the continents, for that matter.
And eventually, when the sun exhausts its fuel supply and expands into a red giant, the planet itself will be destroyed. Of course, by then our silly little species with all its self-important waffling about whether we're somehow destroying the planet will be further in the past than the dinosaurs are to us.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Species extinction happens all the time, and has done since millions of years before our ancestors first evolved opposable thumbs. The ecology changes, the species that were adapted to it die, and new species that are adapted to it take their place.
So yes, the polar bears will go extinct. So will the elephants, the rhinos, the cats and the humans. And the continents, for that matter.
And eventually, when the sun exhausts its fuel supply and expands into a red giant, the planet itself will be destroyed. Of course, by then our silly little species with all its self-important waffling about whether we're somehow destroying the planet will be further in the past than the dinosaurs are to us.
Yes that is the deep time version, particularly of no help when we look at rates of extinction and our human created, greatly accelerated rate. That is one of the attitudes which encourages doing little or nothing. I understand how people can think this way. It facilitates living as you will without caring about others and the planet. Or perhaps is empowered by individualism. Or would you explain?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
How do we reverse species loss? Can we reverse species loss?
We can stop the processes by which we cause species to become extinct.
Many rivers in this country were deemed dead at the height of the industrial revolution and beyond, they are now teeming with life.
That isn't to say that once a particular species is lost worldwide then it is lost forever. This happened with large mammals like sloths when are ancestors were mere beginners. If anything we are better placed to hang on to gene pools now.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Yes that is the deep time version, particularly of no help when we look at rates of extinction and our human created, greatly accelerated rate. That is one of the attitudes which encourages doing little or nothing. I understand how people can think this way. It facilitates living as you will without caring about others and the planet. Or perhaps is empowered by individualism. Or would you explain?
Some people think we're right at the start of the sixth (or seventh, depending on who you ask) mass extinction event in planetary history. The last one was about 66 million years ago, which is not an unprecedented gap. Of course, there have been many other, smaller, extinction events throughout history - and in terms of extinction events caused by life forms themselves we're very late to the party as the first such event was due to the oxygenation of the atmosphere by photosynthesising cyanobacteria roughly 2.3 billion years ago.
Those horrid selfish cyanobacterial bastards, doing whatever they wanted with no thought for the effect their atmosphere-polluting ways would have on the obligate anaerobes they were sharing the planet with. History will judge them harshly. Except, of course, it won't because them killing off most of the other species of their time also created the conditions for future life to thrive.
All I'm saying is, it's entirely possible that if we're doing the same thing now then it may have the same result. Sucks for the species that will die (which may well include our own), but it's great for the ones that will rise to take their place. Life goes on.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Yes, multiple mass extinctions. But not of our preventable doing. Do you think we should no try to intervene in our own human destructiveness?
I am an optimist by nature. I think we will probably eventually sue all the oil and coal companies to extinction, redesign renewably, no more cars. The best idea recently coming to my attention is "embodied costs", which means making users pay the full and real costs of things. Example, a car costs about 6 years equivalent in emissions to manufacture. So the price must reflect this. So must price of fuel. Perhaps a fee per mile or km travelled as well because roads are not carbon neutral.
Travelling right where there is a fuel carbon fee. Gas is 20 cents more because of it per litre than home, roughly 80 cents per gallon. It isn't near enough to change driving behaviour, but it is a start.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Yes, multiple mass extinctions. But not of our preventable doing.
The Quaternary Extinction Event (the one that did for the mammoths, amongst many others) wasn't one of the big six (or seven), but it was at least in part due to overhunting by our ancestors. This isn't even the first such event that we've caused.
quote:
Do you think we should no try to intervene in our own human destructiveness?
I think we should, yes. But that's for
the purely selfish reason that I'm quite fond of the human race, rather than some vague concern for the rest of life on earth.
And I think that a lot of the stated concern for other life is rooted in a desire to keep the planetary ecosystem exactly the same as it is now, as if the period in which we live is some kind of culmination or endpoint of the planet's evolution. But it isn't, and the species that are alive today are no more worthy of everlasting preservation than any that have gone before or will come later.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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