Ronn! wrote:
Complete article:
Op-Ed Columnist - Heaven and Nature - NYTimes.com -
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
http://tinyurl.com/ye43c8x
He concludes:
Religion exists, in part, precisely because humans aren’t at home
amid these cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and
half outside it. We’re beasts with self-consciousness, predators with
ethics, mortal creatures who yearn for immortality.
This is an agonized position, and if there’s no escape upward — or no
God to take on flesh and come among us, as the Christmas story has it
— a deeply tragic one.
Pantheism offers a different sort of solution: a downward exit, an
abandonment of our tragic self-consciousness, a re-merger with the
natural world our ancestors half-escaped millennia ago.
But except as dust and ashes, Nature cannot take us back.
I see it a bit differently. We stand half outside the natural world
and half inside it because, in part, of religion. Intelligent humans
found that they could use their intelligence to manipulate and control
other humans including the more traditional leaders, those who used
their strength and size to their advantage. The race began to select
for intelligence and voila, here we are.
And I further disagree that there is no escape upward. You survive;
your DNA survives when you reproduce and further if you do a good job
of parenting, your ideals are perpetuated.
I don't know about pantheism, but I see a balance with nature as vital
to our survival and perpetuation. We may conquer nature here on
earth, we may even go on to conquer nature on numerous planets but we
will never, ever have the wherewithal to conquer all of the natural
universe.
What always bugs me about religion is how it seems to excuse the rape
and destruction of the natural world that they believe that their god
gave to them as a precious gift. Imagine spending hours of your time
and the depths of your soul to create something for someone and then
seeing that person trash your creation with little regard for what
went into it.
So while I don't believe that there is any place where I can stick my
pigtail into a magic tree and awaken gaia, I think we have much to
learn from nature, I have a tremendous appreciation for the geological
and biological creations nature has taken millions of years to
construct, and I think it is tremendously important to take care of
our environment for our own sake.
Doug
___
http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
