Green Spirituality - a rant

Yeah, I love you too. Prolly cuz your cool or something..

Ahh. I love God, want what is best for God and God's children. Be it green or a wasteland that God's children need, God will cause the best to happen. Maybe the world turning into a wasteland will open your eyes to the spirit of God? I do not know, but God does..

Harmony with the divine is acceptance of God's will. If you can't see it in all around you (your words to me, my words to you), the divine interplay of darkness and light, you are blind to the whole picture, your attention focused so much upon one detail that you need to be shocked, or the detail removed from you so that you will step back and see it's true splendor- the detail beside it's contrasting detail- love of the forces of preservation and change.

Just love. Don't worry.

 

I'm not saying we should all get into an anxiety state over this - quite the reverse. We have to be calm and peaceful, and find a harmonious way of being.
A major factor in most cases of anxiety is the whole artificiality of the environment in which people live, and the artificial and superficial life-styles that have evolved in such an environment. If they were to connect more deeply with Nature and the earth herself, connect with reality, a great deal of the anxiety in people could be removed.
Cut off from nature, cut off from themselves, how can people come to any kind of deeper spiritual realization?
So much of modern life is simply stress, stress, stress. Look for instance at the 'joys' of the motor car. When you're not stuck in a jam choking on fumes, you're constantly at immediate risk of serious injury or death because of the bad or iresponsible driving of others. Small metal boxes whizzing about inches away from each other at 80 mph. Stress?
The thing is, all the time, pumping out co2 and other environmentaly unfriendly substances. And the screwed up nature of society with it's emphasis on phoney 'prestige' dictates that you better buy a big 3 or 4 litre job, or you haven't quite 'cracked it'. And you'll get some moron who has bought one driving 3 inches from your rear.
And how long can it go on? Burning up limited supplies of fossil fuels in a wasteful manner is obviously something with a definite cut off date. To ensure that it doesn't come too soon, wars can even be perpetrated to garuntee the supply. But when it's gone, it's gone for good. And it won't be very long.
Meantime, just to ensure the uninterupted flow of oil, both America and the UK suck up to regiemes like the Saudis, who stay in power only through a vicious reppression of their own people, in the name, of course, of God.

With all this , and worse, including the whole phenomenon of climate change, loss of bio-diversity etc going on all around the world, love would seem partly to consist in seeking to act for change. It doesn't show much love to just accept the abuses.

 

Yup, if they realise that God controls all, they aren't cut off from God. Teaching people to worry about nature and the environment, 2 things which God controls, is not going to solve the deep seated spiritual problem- which is why it will never solve the problems of neglecting the environment (which is simply God, and God is all powerful and can take care of God's self). At most, it is a dirty bandage for the soul that will cause deeper spiritual rot.

Yup, for those who lack faith in God.

Are you willing to accept discipline from God that will awaken you to the truth about God if this will cause the environment (God) to "get better"? Make a commitment.

 

I'm not trying to teach anyone to worry about anything. Anyone with their eyes open can't help but already be concerned. Concern and worry are different things.
I am not trying to teach - I'm simply saying what I say.

God is not the environment. The environment is something that exists for a limited space of time on one small planet. God is said to be eternal, beyond time & space etc. The absolute. The environment is an expression of God's creativity. An aspect of God's being perhaps.
I don't think we can harm God - but we can harm ourselves, and our own best interests. If we continue to screw up the delicate balance of nature, we will pay the price - or our descendents will.
I would go further, and say that anyone with any real spiritual experience can't help but be concerned not only over the possible consequences for the future of our actions now, but also the state of human existence under industrial capitalism in general. It is dismal.

I don't think discipline from God is even on the agenda. Self discipline is what counts. Nor do I think suffering and pain and misery are conditions imposed on us by God. Happy people living in harmony with the earth are far more likely to be open to the Spiritual. Spiritually open people are more likely to create an harmonious life here on earth.
It is humans who create most of the problems. Only humans can solve them.

 

An expression of God's will.

Lol... You're silly.

It is.

Not at all. Man doesn't accomplish things of himself, God accomplishes things with man. Experience of God's will is the only discipline you need.

Then you don't know God.

Not if they don't notice God.

No. Spiritually open people are more likely to perceive the harmony that already exists on earth.

It is God that causes all the 'problems' and only God can 'fix' them.

 

I think you asleep Kharakov. Dreaming of a 'fix it all' god who creates what amounts to a hell, where no-one can do anything but wait for him to sort everything out. Once again, I think that all you say would make us meer pupets - pupets with feeling if you like, but still nothing more than automata.
And such a god would be simply a dictator. A being we would have to regard as an enemy of mankind. A cruel being who inflicts suffering on the innocent, and deliberately starts wars, and all the other negative stuff you say he creates for us so we can get to know him. It's an attempt to evade responsibility and nothing more.

 

I like sleep, well, not sleep, but what comes after and before. And it's neat to find things different when you return to conciousness...

Ahh, but with an infinite maker, we can run into the wind. Our maker can make our path 'one of many branches'- a road that is straight but of such variety as to seem to be many roads.

That would be true if God thought like men. God turns God's power to making those God creates feel free as possible, while still giving them a structure that allows them to know that God controls all. You live within an infinite mind, one that pulls you from experience to experience to give you a sense of freedom. You can come to the enlightened conclusion that this mind can provide you with a sense of freedom at the same time that it 'controls' your every move. You have a sense of freedom now, although you know that you are bound by physical law, your desire for food, comfort, to 'clean up the environment', political influence, financial influence, social law, and every other limit that you live with.

God is a being that you should regard as the creator of all. Then again, all children know that their parents only punish them because they are cruel, and all children are correct about this. I mean, you punish your kid for smoking crack so that they stop smoking crack? What the fuck kind of parent are you, making your kid feel bad about doing something they like! It didn't hurt them yet!
After all, a child is far wiser than their parents, and they are especially wiser than the God that made them and their parents!

No, that's my mom and dad you are describing. I remember being a teenager. How they deliberately brought up topics I was not comfortable talking about with them. How they deliberately grounded me for breaking laws! How they deliberately made me follow rules within their household that made them comfortable, without considering my need to listen to super loud music at 4am and drink beer with my friends! How could they?

Anyway, I think you are right about God. God is an asshole for making us do things that God wants us to do.

God is completely evil to want God's children to acknowledge God, especially if God can make the children perfectly happy by lying to them about where they come from, make them think it was a cosmic accident and they are the true lords of the universe, just quietly stay behind the scenes running everything while all God's children think they are the ones in charge. Nahh. God wouldn't get lonely while every single thing God does is credited to one of God's children, when God's children love eachother for the things God does for them, crediting eachother instead of having a love for their creator. Nahh.. God can live eternally without your love. That's fine with God. God will just stay behind the scenes creating war and misery between different factions that do not acknowledge God for eternity. Stay in hell fuckers! Someone will always want power on the one side and someone will always want to preserve beauty on the other. Temporary truces will form, unnecessary sacrifices made, but the war will last for eternity.

That's all your green thing is. You evading your responsibility to acknowledge and show love to the one who has raised you from birth. You disgust me.

but I love you anyway...

 

I think your idea of god is totally false. There is not much else to be said.

 

You do recognize the humor in my posts, don't you?

Anywho, God made "your" posts as well as "mine" so it's all good. Nice bit of contrast between the two.

 

I do see humour there yes - and although once more, I don't agree that god made my posts, this has all kept the Green issue near the top of the list on this forum for a few days.

 

^unfortunately, few people are really even talking about the "green spirituality" but are instead are talking about Kharakov's ideas about his god. Fine and good, but it obscures the point of this thread

There'd always be trees, but a tree farm isn't a forest. It's basically a place of death: trees in straight lines, all the same age, very little wildlife among them. It is not acceptable. (by the way, when they say "there's more trees now than such and such years ago, it's true but misleading, many of the "new trees" are tree farms).

 

Yes, it does obscure the point. But K insists on posting here so I guess he's free to do so. I wonder how serious he is anyway.

Excellent point about tree planting. I live quite close to the Welsh border, and up in the Cambrian mountains of mid-wales during the 50's through to recent times, massive areas of forestry were planted of mainly quick growing conifer speices, spaced, as you say, in regimented straight lines. And that's been true over much of the British Isles. Such woodland is quite eerie. It seems somehow lifeless in comparison to areas of natural woodland that do survive in pockets here and there.
But now, there is a move towards more sustainable and 'natural' woodland. More native deciduous trees like Oaks and Beech are being planted, and in general, the move is towards a better, and more environmentally sound kind of forestry management.
Of course, over here, there is virtually no ancient woodland left, but at least the old speices of trees can be gradually built up again. And the bio diversity associated with deciduous woodland can also hopefully begin to re-appear.

 

K blows! I felt very annoyed by K! It frustrates me when people are idiots and they don't know it.
Oh God!

 

It's partly my fault for taking the bait. But I wonder about K - as I said before I disagree very much with his ideas expressed here, but I wonder if he's not really a bit of a comedian. Even a funny comedian can get annoying at times though.

And it does draw attention to another set of beliefs which are oblivious of green issues. Call it fatalism or determinism - so that, along with fundamentalist ideas about man 'dominating' nature, and naive scientific materialism, there are at least three sets of ideology that need to go. And probably a whole lot more.
We need to replace these out-moded beliefs with something more realistic and in tune with nature.

 

It frustrates idiots when people expect them to realise they are idiots.

 

The point is to discuss that which will help the environment. The green agenda is against true environmental health, which is seeing God's power everywhere.

Hell no. It'll be many centuries before it even begins to return to normal. Check out the woods in northern Cali, all the manzinita underbrush, etc. Not many native plants around anymore. Even places that haven't been logged in 80 years aren't the same.

Way up high on shasta ~1-2 thousand feet below the treeline, you can find some old patches of virgin timber. Now that is awesome. And you know what? Not a lot of biodiversity: all huge trees, pine needles, etc. Not much in the way of ground cover- the ground hasn't seen direct sunlight in 200 years or more in some places.. Mushrooms though. Lichens... etc. God will destroy the virgin timber with an eruption of Mt. Shasta right after environmentalists win a battle with logging companies over rights to log that land. Just to show you what's up.

Anyway, peaceful protest will get you nowhere. You will be given tiny concessions here and there as the powers that be wittle away at the 'few beautiful places left in existence', gathering power to themselves. This is what happens to the environment around those who lack faith in God.

 

Crap.

I said it would begin to recover - I didn't set any time-scale. But maybe it is too late -

Thats what they said to Ghandi too.

 

Never too late. Only 10,000 years ago, the British Isles, my state of Michigan (along with most of the midwest and New England) were all under huge sheets of ice. For another thousand years or two, it was tundra, a frozen "waste" of bare rock, lichen, and some low shrubs perhaps. Within a few thousand years, we ended up with massive forests covering all of this part of my country (I'm not sure about the UK, if it was all forested or not).

you bring up a point. You say we need to change our spirituality. I agree, in part. It's not so much our spiritual views that have to change. It's our consciousness. People can mouth all kinds of philosophies, but unless they live it, it's for shit. The spirituality will follow (if an enlightened person even needs spirituality). first, we must have the inner revolution; without that, all external revolution is worthless (as has been shown through history. like the Who song: meet the new boss, same as the old boss).

Because even Ghandi failed, in a way. Not only were there violent uprisings while he was doing his nonviolent thing (which may have been a major contribution to Indian independance), but look at India now. They have nukes, are often ready to go to war with Pakistan, they have all kinds of problems. Ghandi was a great man, a true hero, but outward protest is worthless unless you have inner peace. I say that should be our focus, the rest is just details.

 

Which is what plant's grow upon.

There was a time in the far past when Archaeons 'ruled' the earth. Their crap was oxygen. Eventually, another life form was created from a similar blueprint that took this crap and created CO2. God kept on introducinging 'new' life forms when the time was appropriate to create the ecosystem we see today.
First there were the bacteria that produced oxygen. Then there were bacteria that consumed the oxygen (Archaeon crap). When the balance shifted to the other side again (CO2) the pendulum's gradual slowing was marked by the explosion of new life that produced more oxygen then it consumed.
One beings 'environmental destruction' is another beings oppurtunity to step into place to consume the 'waste' of the one being. We need both environmentalists and oil mongers to have a balanced ecosystem, something for both parties to do. A balanced approach to consumption and production.

It's always right on time. No worries.

You're right, and that's why I said it to you. I don't want to take your childhood from you. There is always time to learn of God, but for now, you have an earth to fight for.

 

Not too late for the earth in general, but perhaps too late for this so called civilization - that's whatt I meant.
England, and most of Europe, was covered in woodland 1,000 years ago.

I agree that changing our philosophy won't do, it has to be deeper - as you say, a change of consciousness, a new consciousness is what is needed.
I also agree that without the inner paece and inner vision, action is likely to create more problems rather than solve them. But I think too that we have to 'go with what we've got' on this issue.
Ghandi's non-violent approach was, I agree, flawed, and it hasn't led to the results he envisaged.
But if people can somehow wake up, and see what's going on, perhaps they can act on green issues on a personal. micro level, so to speak, whilst still exerting pressure for change at the 'macro' level of big business, lobbying governments etc.
We do have to focus on finding inner peace, I agree fully. But on a planet rendered toxic, as our earth may be in the future, and living under the wholly artificial conditions of modern life with all of its un-natural stresses etc, I think it is hard for people to find much peace.
I think that the solution would be a radical change of most of our patterns of living. If a more harmonious society could be created, people would perhaps be more likely to find some connection to the spirit.
In a way, it's a chicken and egg situation.
What I think is useless in the context of contemporary problems is to take the attitude common among some 'religious' people that all we can do is turn to an inner reality, or turn to god, and everything will be fine. He will sort everything out for us, and if he doesn't it doesn't matter because this world is meant to be fucked up, and only in some kind of afterlife will we be happy or have a harmonious existence. Meanwhile, the followers of some religions think it's perfectly acceptable to ignore the warnings of climate change etc, and just to carry on with more of the same old shit.
It's because humans are too subjective, focused on a narrow band of reality that surrounds them personally, and can't see at all what Buckminster Fuller called 'the big picture'.