How can those of us who contribute to the destruction of creation come to terms with humanity's predicament?
We need to address it by harnessing greed for the greater good.
I see us free, therefore, to return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue —
- Avarice is a vice.
- The extraction of usury is a misdemeanor, and the love of money is abhorrent.
- Those who walk most faithfully in the path are those who are most true to themselves.
We'll choose the good above the useful once again.
We will honor those who can teach us how to virtuously and well pick the hour and the day, the pleasant individuals who are capable of enjoying direct pleasure in things, the lilies of the field who neither toil nor spin.
However, use caution! I warned you, all of this isn't yet the right moment.
- We must lie to ourselves and everyone else for at least another hundred years that fair is foul and foul is fair, since foul is useful and fair is not.
- For a little while longer, avarice, usury, and prudence must be our gods. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight. And perhaps never.
Market arrangements not only minimize the need for coercion as a means of social organization, they also reduce the need for compassion, patriotism, brotherly love, and cultural solidarity as motivating forces behind social improvement.
“Behold the lilies of the field,” Jesus is said to have said (Matthew :), but this is not the same as “Look at those lilies!” “Behold” is a delicate term that implies that things have their own wonderful authenticity and integrity.
- To behold is to stand among things with a respect for life that does not wear an arrogant cap as it walks through the realm of the non-self.
- That's correct, a rhetorical acknowledgment of a basic ecological concept of man, whose father is God but whose brother is the whole of Creation.
We need to call into question the idea that man is the center of the universe is so apart from the rest of God's creation that he may treat it with Olympian arrogance, as if it had no inherent selfhood.
The newest expression of humanity's dilemma is the arrogation of the biospheric economy by a monetary system founded on self-interest.
Religion as an evolving primitive proto-science can become more whole, relevant and worthy only with an increase in Truth born in Knowledge and the Human Understanding of it.
- Religions combat self-interested arrogance by fostering awe for life in all of its wonderful beauty and integrity.
- Religions may also help people deal with their problems.
- There are religious answers to the issue of society going down a road we don't want to go down—one that leads to the destruction of creation and the environment.
- These answers have the potential to mend the rifts that exist between science, ethics, and practice.
- Scientists who are bold enough to describe things as they are;
- Journalists, writers, editors, and publishers who are bold enough to describe the human predicament as it is revealed in the present;
- Ethicists who are forthright enough to engage in pursuit of what ought to be;
- Builders, engineers, economists, designers, planners, and managers who are disciplined enough to confine their work within the limits of what ought to be the natural reality we strive for in creation.
In response to the cosmic demand made to us,
- By the way things are,
- By the nature of nature,
- And by God, a self governing omnipresent intelligence, who orders creation and holds all things together with integrity, religion in its entirety.
When existence is known rather than merely perceived as the binding together of science, ethics, and praxis, can thus nurture the passion both to live right and to spread right living in response to the cosmic demand made to us by the way things are.
Only when Religion and Science meet nearer their true entirety can we nurture the passion necessary to resolve the Human Predicament in this reality we inhabit.
You may also want to read more about Spirituality here.
Be sure to check out my writings on Religion here.
