Comment

Comment by Lester Unega Waya on April 21, 2013 at 11:58am

Michel.

Re;

"there's no separation between what you call the spiritual and material worlds."

You are correct. In the Bible it is stated that as it is on Earth so it is in the Heavens, (worlds invisible to the naked eye).

The problem is that there are those who neglect the spiritual and just focus on the material. Hence the climate issue which is Nature reacting to exploitation to the detriment of conservation.

With the deforestation of the rainforests, Nature is saying, "you want drought and deserts, you shall have drought and deserts".

Exploitation harmoneously merged with conservation is connecting with both worlds.

Comment by Michel on April 21, 2013 at 11:29am

@Lester - You are absolutely right!

Except for one thing with which I disagree: there's no separation between what you call the spiritual and material worlds. There's the natural world - in which, under certain conditions, awareness arises. But that's another topic =)

The next big step we humans need to accomplish, now that we've realized our true impact on the world, is to use our basic solidarity instinct to correct our behavior. By extending our peerdom beyond its usual frontier, to incorporate the whole planet, we'll make the issue of impending global doom more personal for more people.

Comment by Lester Unega Waya on April 21, 2013 at 11:28am

Don.

Spirituality is connectiveness with Nature or put another way, motion invisible to the naked eye.ie, thoughts that come to mind is invisible motion.

Spirit comes from the greek "Spiritos" meaning "breath" which is air in motion.

All in Nature is in constant motion.

Comment by Don on April 21, 2013 at 11:09am

What do you mean by a "spiritual world," Lester? 

Comment by Lester Unega Waya on April 21, 2013 at 11:01am

Nevertheless, the spiritual and material worlds must come together and interconnect; for they are two sides of the same coin. Thus, spiritual values and principles have to be grounded and applied to life in all its various aspects. After all, the great humanitarian and welfare movements, and those many individuals and organisations that continue to work to alleviate human suffering, have their roots in higher values and the sacrifice of self-interest. Now, the environmental crisis is providing an added impetus towards more altruistic behaviour and is forcing humanity to think imaginatively of ways to live more in harmony with the planet. The many individuals and groups whose motives are founded on a spirit of mutual co-operation and responsibility-in-action are living testament to the finer values that underpin true democracy. It is challenging to consider that in a time of high intellectual achievement, the next step ahead for humanity is to become more receptive to those higher values that will enlighten the material world.

http://www.lucistrust.org/en/layout/set/print/service_activities/wo...

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on April 21, 2013 at 10:01am

I agree Davy. Becker is often too Freudian in my unqualified opinion, but sometimes he hits the nail on his head. His legacy is probably more important than his actual works, as many of the ideas he put forth have likely been updated and modernized.

From Wiki: 

In the 1960s, Becker and Thomas Szasz were part of a challenge to the pretensions of psychiatry as a science and themental health system as a successful humanitarian enterprise. Their writings, along with articles in the journal The Radical Therapist, were given the umbrella label anti-psychiatry. This critical literature, with an associated activist movement, "emphasized the hegemony of medical model psychiatry, its spurious sources of authority, its mystification of human problems, and the more oppressive practices of the mental health system, such as involuntary hospitalisation, drugging, and electroshock".^[2]

Becker came to the position that psychological inquiry inevitably comes to a dead end beyond which belief systems must be invoked to satisfy the human psyche. The reach of such a perspective consequently encompasses science and religion, even to what Sam Keen suggests is Becker's greatest achievement, the creation of the "science of evil". In formulating his theories Becker drew on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, Norman O. Brown, Erich Fromm,Hegel, and especially Otto Rank. Becker came to believe that individuals' characters are essentially formed around the process of denying their own mortality, that this denial is necessary for us to function in the world, and that this character-armor prevents genuine self-knowledge. Much of the evil in the world, he believed, was a consequence of this need to deny death.

Becker also wrote The Birth and Death of Meaning, which gets its title from the concept of humankind moving away from the simple-minded ape into a world of symbols and illusions, and then deconstructing those illusions through our own evolving intellect.

Also see: http://www.ernestbecker.org/

Comment by Don on April 21, 2013 at 9:50am

Yeah, but without the "so to speak" part. The metaphor stands on its own.

Comment by Davy on April 21, 2013 at 8:31am

A well stated quote Dallas!

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on April 20, 2013 at 9:58pm

Ecological devastation is the excrement, so to speak, of man's power worship.  -- Ernest Becker

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on April 18, 2013 at 11:59pm

Possibly worth reading.

Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness

Welcome to Blubberland--a world of quadruple-garaged mansions, vast malls, gated communities, stretch limos, and posh resorts. Blubberland is a place, but it is also a state of mind: we expect to be happy (trophy house, SUV in the driveway, home entertainment system, pension fund, cosmetic surgery), but in fact we've grown increasingly bloated, bored, and miserable. In Blubberland, award-winning critic Elizabeth Farrelly looks at our "superfluous superfluity," our huge eco-footprint, and asks why we find it so hard to abandon habits we know to be destructive. Why can't we build human-scale cities, design meaningful public spaces, eat reasonable meals, and stop assaulting nature? Farrelly, trained as an architect, begins this story with architecture, urban sprawl, and housing, but she does not end there. She also looks at "affluenza," childhood asthma, diabetes, addiction, beauty, ugliness, narcissism, climate change, mega-churches, big box retailers, sustainability, depression, anorexia, and the links that collect all of these issues under the same roof--the roof, as it were, of the McMansion. As "big" becomes more and more pervasive, and success is seen in increasingly measurable and material terms, the goal of happiness jeopardizes our survival. Blubberland is a smart, thoughtful, and stylish argument for turning things around. Elizabeth Farrelly is one of Australia's liveliest and most provocative writers on architecture and the environment. The winner of the CICA International Critics' Award, the Pascall Prize for Critical Writing, and the Marion Mahony Griffin Award, she is a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald, a commentator on Australian television and radio, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Sydney.

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