A Sermon

Originally posted by @rwingett
Ah, so we come to the crux of the matter - technophilia as the de facto religion of the secular age.

No. I said technology can save us, not will. That's why I used words like "hopefully".

As for exploring new planets on the chance that we should render this one uninhabitable, it is the stuff of science fiction. I would conjecture that in reality interstellar space travel is an impossibility. The reason is that the amount of resources necessary to sustain a space faring civilization is more than any one planet can provide. Such a civilization would deplete its resource base and crash before it could successfully relocate itself across space. In short, there is no 'Planet B'.

We can start with interplanetary travel. Earth be destroyed before Mars, due to being 50, million KM away. Even if interstellar travel isn't possible, interplanetary travel and terraforming will could at least lengthen human survival. During that time, resources can be gathered from at least two planets and 3 moons between them. Or, maybe we can figure out a way to conserve energy through some kind of medically-induced stasis.

As for "science fiction", you never know. That idea of humans traveling to the moon would've seemed akin to Greek mythology only two hundred years ago. Two people from opposite sides of the planet talking to each other through a screen also would've seemed seemed like science fiction.

And I think pantheism may be the only path available that can successfully challenge the twin dictates of technology and capitalism.

I disagree. Anytime humans start to abide by ideas of God, problems ensue. For example, would a Pantheist agree to drilling for oil in order to turn an impoverished nation into a prosperous one? That's certainly a possibility. Once people start believing that the earth is God (or that everything in earth is God), there lies chance that the earth will be considered more important than people, and the needs of humans will be secondary to protecting the "gods" all around the earth.

This already happens with religious parents putting their beliefs ahead of the health of their child, like with Jehova's Witnesses and blood transfusions, or parents who refuse giving children medicine due to faith-based reasons. Pantheists surely would have slowed scientific and technological progress had they been the dominant religion, due to likely objecting to things like burning coal when railroads were first produced, or gas to power cars.

Adding "god" to anything needlessly complicates things, it almost never helps.

Originally posted by @rwingett
I don't agree. I think the problem is systemic in nature. No matter how many times you run that simulation, or who you put in charge of it, technological societies will inevitably follow the same path to self-destruction. The problem is that technology is not neutral, as so many would have us believe. All technologies are embedded with certain values. Thei ...[text shortened]... less room their is for personal agency in deviating from a path dictated by technological needs.

Why do you think "technology is not neutral"?
Technology is no different than anything else man uses, we can do good things with it, or
bad, but tool itself has no say one way or another in how it is used. It doesn't automatically
run out and ruin the planet or people's lives. Computers did away with the need for
typewriters that did not make computers bad even if you invested heavily in typewriters.

Originally posted by @kellyjay
Why do you think "technology is not neutral"?
Technology is no different than anything else man uses, we can do good things with it, or
bad, but tool itself has no say one way or another in how it is used. It doesn't automatically
run out and ruin the planet or people's lives. Computers did away with the need for
typewriters that did not make computers bad even if you invested heavily in typewriters.

The automobile, for example, is not a neutral technology. It has a host of values embedded within it. A society that begins to adopt automobiles is compelled to reorganize itself in certain ways. It has to build a highway system across the land. Its labor force has to be regimented into the factory system. It has to develop a fossil fuel industry. It affects the way we perceive distance and mobility. There are a whole host of values and actions that follow necessarily from the adoption of that particular technology. These items are not extraneous from the technology, but are contained logically within it. Every society that adopts that technology will be changed in very similar ways.

Originally posted by @rwingett
The automobile, for example, is not a neutral technology. It has a host of values embedded within it. A society that begins to adopt automobiles is compelled to reorganize itself in certain ways. It has to build a highway system across the land. Its labor force has to be regimented into the factory system. It has to develop a fossil fuel industry. It affec ...[text shortened]... cally within it. Every society that adopts that technology will be changed in very similar ways.

Are you Amish? Sounds like you'd fit right in, they don't even believe in zippers. I used to
live near two Amish communities, great food, cheese alone was worth the trip. Let me ask
you, do you think cars have given us a better life than we would have had without them?

Originally posted by @suzianne
It may surprise you to know that most preachers will have it wrong by the end, also. Whole congregations being turned over to the authorities for execution.

Why would that be in your world view, entire congregations executed? For what? I would love to see the egg on your face 50 years from now when it is business as usual just with more advanced gadgets and maybe the CO2 problem a thing of the past, where things actually get marginally better instead of catastrophically worse. Of course I won't be around to see that but you may remember my words on the subject.

Originally posted by @kellyjay
Are you Amish? Sounds like you'd fit right in, they don't even believe in zippers. I used to
live near two Amish communities, great food, cheese alone was worth the trip. Let me ask
you, do you think cars have given us a better life than we would have had without them?

I think with an environmental apocalypse staring us in the face, that industrial technology, including cars, will prove to be a Faustian bargain. It will ultimately cost us far more than it delivers. Amish society is the only one that dictates its will upon technology, rather than the other way around, and I think it would behoove us to take a page or two from their book in that regard.

Originally posted by @rwingett
I think with an environmental apocalypse staring us in the face, that industrial technology, including cars, will prove to be a Faustian bargain. It will ultimately cost us far more than it delivers. Amish society is the only one that dictates its will upon technology, rather than the other way around, and I think it would behoove us to take a page or two from their book in that regard.

They without a doubt would not be negatively affected to much by the loss of the power
grid, since they take no part in it or anything that runs on power.

That said, I don't agree with your assessment that all technology is bad, the line on what is
good and bad isn't that something else is required. You living has it own sets of
requirements such as you need water, food, shelter, and so on. This affects the world
around you, you setup your life to manage those needs as all life does. We build our
niches and we live in them not much different than any animal den, or beaver dam, or
insect hive. Our homes just happens to have a better sound systems, nice comfortable
couches and chairs, warm cloths and so on.

Originally posted by @rwingett
I think with an environmental apocalypse staring us in the face, that industrial technology, including cars, will prove to be a Faustian bargain. It will ultimately cost us far more than it delivers. Amish society is the only one that dictates its will upon technology, rather than the other way around, and I think it would behoove us to take a page or two from their book in that regard.

I also agree with you when it comes to taking a page out of their book too.

Originally posted by @kellyjay
They without a doubt would not be negatively affected to much by the loss of the power
grid, since they take no part in it or anything that runs on power.

That said, I don't agree with your assessment that all technology is bad, the line on what is
good and bad isn't that something else is required. You living has it own sets of
requirements such as ...[text shortened]... ens to have a better sound systems, nice comfortable
couches and chairs, warm cloths and so on.

I didn't say it was all bad. I said the bad will outweigh the good. And I think the bad and the good are inseparable from one another. Modern dentistry goes hand in hand with oil spills and global warming.

Originally posted by @rwingett
I didn't say it was all bad. I said the bad will outweigh the good. And I think the bad and the good are inseparable from one another. Modern dentistry goes hand in hand with oil spills and global warming.

Since I'm not a believer in global warming I'm not overly concern with that, and I'm not
interested in going several rounds about it either. All of life is a series of good and bad as
we look at it, if it just in the eyes of the beholder I doubt we are really talking about good
and bad.

Originally posted by @rwingett
All religions are man made. Yours is no exception. But I am not asking for pantheism to be adopted in order to make anyone feel good about the way things are. Quite the opposite. It's to make them outraged at the way things are. The solution to our problems, if there is one, will be man made, as pantheism does not posit any supernatural beings to solve them for us.

The solution to our problems, if there is one, will be man made, ...

Why should we not consider this your man-made religious belief ?

When it is your hope, well, that is not a man-made religion of sorts ?
Your belief is the exception?

Originally posted by @sonship

The solution to our problems, if there is one, will be man made, ...

Why should we not consider this your man-made religious belief ?

When it is your hope, well, that is not a man-made religion of sorts ?
Your belief is the exception?

I don't have any idea what you're talking about. Pantheism, however, would be a man made religion in that it has no supernatural components. Instead, it is about altering how we choose to view and interact with nature.

Originally posted by @rwingett
... Pantheism ... would be a man made religion in that it has no supernatural components. Instead, it is about altering how we choose to view and interact with nature.

While I agree that there will have to be a sea-change in how mankind views and inhabits his habitat if h. saps is to survive another few centuries, I see a few problems with introducing a new religion, pantheism or any other.

One is that people who already have a religion won't have any incentive to jettison theirs in favor of a new one. Another is that people who don't now have a religion won't have any incentive to adopt one just for the sake of having one. A new religion never really catches on until it demonstrates that it deals with certain pressing spiritual issues better than its rivals, or it gets some huge advantage over its rivals such as happened when the Emperor Constantine de-criminalized Christianity and declared Christianity to be the state religion of the Roman Empire. That isn't likely to happen in today's world; state religions have a very bad track record and no one in the Western world is going to sit back and let any gov't advocate a return to the bad old days of state religions.

Second, while I agree with you that degradation of the habitat is a pressing issue, it is hardly a spiritual issue. Of course, if we extinct ourselves, that would be an 'adverse event' in terms of the spiritual life of humanity, not only in terms of the biological life of h. saps. But so is indigestion an adverse event, on a smaller scale; that does not make indigestion a spiritual issue.

I can understand why you might think that new religion might fit the bill, because traditional religions tend to be formulated as absolutes which cut across political and economic boundaries, and it would indeed take something like a religion to deal with the degradation of the habitat, something which does indeed cut across political and economic boundaries. Still, degradation of the habitat is not a spiritual issue, per se, so I don't see how introducing a new religion is going get any traction on the issue. Vested interests would have to be persuaded that they can keep their economic empires under the new religion, otherwise they would fight, by any all means, including violence, to protect their investments-- but it is exactly those vested interest groups which are plunging head-long into exploiting natural resources as if we had a spare planet in reserve.

Third, as someone once said, there is enough religion in the world to make people hate each other, but not enough to make them love each other. Adding one more to the brew is liable to add more to the hate-and-intolerance side of the matter than to the opposite, even supposing anyone took a new religion seriously.

Fourth, any new religion is liable to be taken as not-serious by the majority of people, and is liable to be co-opted by freaks, charalatans, fools, and money grubbers. Viz, Scientology, Osho, etc. Beware false prophets!

Originally posted by @moonbus
While I agree that there will have to be a sea-change in how mankind views and inhabits his habitat if h. saps is to survive another few centuries, I see a few problems with introducing a new religion, pantheism or any other.

One is that people who already have a religion won't have any incentive to jettison theirs in favor of a new one. Another is that ...[text shortened]... aks, charalatans, fools, and money grubbers. Viz, Scientology, Osho, etc. Beware false prophets!

Degradation of the habitat may not be a spiritual issue at the present time, but it desperately needs to become one. It is clear that environmentalism, as it currently exists, lacks the motivational force necessary to overcome the inertia of global capitalism in its ongoing despoliation of the planet. Environmentalism needs to reframe its battles as spiritual ones, with acts of ecological destruction being seen as blasphemies against the earth. The alleged risks of introducing another religion into the mix pale in comparison to the magnitude of the environmental crisis at hand. If pantheism fosters a fervent hatred against polluters, then so be it. And if pantheism could displace our current religions, it would be worth adopting on that score alone. Indeed, the incentives for people to change would be that those religions are hopelessly out of step with the times and that the environmental problem is the existential crisis of our era. All other crises pale in comparison. Continuing with business-as-usual is going to have disastrous consequences.

Originally posted by @rwingett
...
What is needed is a new religion. A religion that isn't continually at odds with science. A religion that meshes seamlessly with scientific knowledge, while steering science away from being the willing accomplice of ecological destruction. That religion, brothers and sisters, is pantheism. ...

Oh yes. Our universe is alive. This is a nice foundation.