Is global warming and other environmental degredations an "outward reflection of an inner condition"?

Question

I just saw the 11th Hour the other day and it had some really fantastic interviews as well as images. At one point one of the interviewees mentioned that the problem is not any one environmental problem nor all or them but rather to put it in my own words a spiritual deficiency.

Answer 1

No, it is more of a religion than anything, a religion with faithful followers in the media, and the closed-minded left.

Answer 2

some people are scared of there own future

Answer 3

nope. it's called a myth.

Answer 4

I you feel it in you know in your heart that global warming is caused by spiritual deficiency then you make at least as much sence as the people who think it's caused by atmospheric CO2.  

They know in this in their heart also - no science is required.

Answer 5

You may be on to something.  Viewing the world from a perspective of self-loathing (blaming man for any real and imagined problems) is very likely a symptom of a deficiency in logic.  Those who find themselves in this condition should try reading "Atlas Shrugged" and hope it's not too late to discover the greatness within each of us.

Answer 6

You're about 42 steps ahead of the average contributor here.

The short answer is yes.  For the long answer, read "The Last Hours of the Ancient Sunlight.".

Don't worry, Superman will come down and save us.

Answer 7

Is Global Warming a consequence of years of spiritual ignorance? Maybe the effects of bad karma are unavoidable after all, which is why there is so much environmental chaos.

Answer 8

No.Then again it all depends on what aspects of global warming you are speaking of. I am one who would be inclined to regard environmental issues as caused by man ignorantly and deliberately. But I'm only one person's opinion.

Spiritual Deficiency? It sounds intelligent to me and there's probably some signifigance behind it, but to me it sounds like another excuse to put the blame on something rather than someone and a particular group.

Answer 9

Yes.  The problem is a world view that is not correct.  We currently have a world view that is one of a mechanistic reductionist universe.  This the root of our extreme materialism.

And that materialism leads to the kind of thinking where everything is just "stuff"  so who cares.

Sometimes I see that expressed here by a few of the skeptics.  "Who cares about the future, who cares about the earth, who cares about other species or ecosystems.

And that kind of thinking has led to our current brand of capitalism, that I call consumerism on steroids.   It is extremely destructive of the environment, wasteful of our resources and economically.    To see what I mean, watch the video-  The Story of Stuff.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

This is not an easy subject to discuss.  In doing so, you risk offending both the scientific and the religious minded.   The tremendous success of science, since the Age of Reason and the beginning of empirical science has led to this view.

Science does a very good job of describing the physical universe and how it works, including evolution.   It is valid.   Validity is not necessarily truth however.  A theory or method of study is valid if it is useful.  Science is very useful.

Our modern world with all it's technology is proof of this.  Science achieves this by constructing models.  In fact, the entire description of the universe as put forth by science, is a model.  

Now, models are valid tools for understanding phenomena and because of them we can manipulate the physical world successfully and use them to further our understanding of the world.

But a model of the universe is not the universe.

Just  like a map of a continent is not the continent.

"Models are to be used, not believed."  

H. Theil `Principles of Econometrics'

So now we have this polarization between those who believe science has all  the answers and those whose  religious beliefs contradict those ideas. The debate about evolution verses creationism or intelligent design exemplifies this polarization.

As I have said in other posts, the debate is very limited by the concepts clung to by both sides.

Both sides are talking about a severely limited concept of God or what God might or might not be.  

Throughout history and indeed prehistory, man has had experiences of what I would call the transcendent, the infinite, or God.  The problem arises when people try to define this transcendence.  This is what religions have always done.   Each religion has a mythology, and a picture of God that is colored by the time in which they live and what else constitutes their world view at that time, and by the culture and the worldview held by that particular culture at that particular time in history.  What it all boils down to is man's feeble attempts to describe the indescribable.  An infinite God cannot be known by the reasoning mind.  It cannot be described or named, whithout lessening it.  Infinity cannot be conceptualized, named or described by a finite mind of reason.  So now we have people fighting wars over various religious concepts and descriptions of God, none of which could possibly be all inclusive, of an infinite God.

Here's something that very few will understand or agree with.  Spirituality is not about belief.

It is about experiencing that infinite transcendence.  That is not to say that belief and spiritual experience are mutually exclusive, but that belief is not a prerequisite.

Werner Erhardt has said that "the biggest obstacle to experiencing God is the belief in God".

He is right.   Enlightenment is the proccess of letting go of all preconceived notions.  Otherwise, you are experiencing your beliefs and your rigid version of reality.  We create the reality we experience, based on our own concepts and beliefs.  The universe (God) doesn't care what our concepts or beliefs are.  It just is.  Very few people ever experience "what is".

The reality we experience in normal everyday consciousness is in fact a description of reality, and not the thing in itself.  This can even be proven on a physiological level.  The mind or brain creates a picture that is an interpretation of what the senses send to the brain.

  Plato explained this in his famous story of the cave.

The people in the cave assumed that what they were experiencing was reality.  What they were actually experiencing was their own projections of their own concepts on the cave wall.  One day one of them ventured outside the cave into the light of day and experienced the real thing.  This is what enlightenment is about.

And as William Blake said "a fool and a wise man don't see the same tree"

Reality is a perception. Not a fixed rigid thing.

Shakespeare, another wise man, said the same thing . to paraphrase since I don't have it here in front of me, "The universe is far more than your philosophers could possibly dream of"

Life is a dream! some people wake up from the dream. Blake and Shakespeare were among those who wake up.

Calling the Age of Reason- the Age of Enlightenment is a misnomer.  It was not only scientific progress that was suppressed under the Holy Roman Empire, but also spiritual progress.

In one of Carlos Casteneda's books, his mentor, Don Juan explains it thus.

"We are luminous beings. We are Perceivers. We are an awareness; we are not objects; we have no solidity. We are boundless. The world of objects and solidity is a way of making our passage on earth convenient. It is only a description that was created to help us. We, or rather our reason, forget that the description is only a description and thus we entrap the totality of ourselves in a vicious circle, from which we rarely emerge in our lifetime.....a description that was told to us since the moment we were born....We, the luminous beings, are born with two rings of power, but we use only one to create the world. That ring which is hooked very soon after birth, is Reason, and it's companion Talking. Between the two, they concoct and maintain the world. So in essence, the world that your reason wants to sustain is the world created by a description and its dogmatic and inviolable rules, which the reason learns to accept and defend."

and

"the internal dialogue is what grounds us...The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so."

So how do we view science then, as in the debate about global warming?   I would answer by paraphrasing another statement by Don Juan.

When in the realm of science and the physical, no room for irrational c**p.  and when in the world of the transcendent or spiritual, no room for rational c**p.

Different cultures in different ages have interpreted the experience of the absolute, or God, in different ways. It's outward expression in their religions is going to take a form that is an expression of that culture at that particular period in time. How the people think, what their concept of reality are, what's important in their culture; that kind of thing. Because the experience is always filtered through the psychy of the person from that culture and time, it is naturally colored differently than that from somone in another culture and time period. That's why religions are so different and seem so alien to each other's churchgoers.

And it's because of these superficial differences that people fight wars over religion. But the mystics from all of them are of one mind. These are people who have achieved some degree of enlightenment. I have lived among a group of people who had followed all different paths, Yoga, Budhism, Sufis, Christian mystics, Jewish mysticism, etc and there was no difference.  All understood the same.

God is too big to fit inside one religion. God is infinite. All religions have a concept or concepts about God. God is beyond concepts. God is infinite.

If more people understood this the world would be a lot saner. They are all good. None have a monopoly on God.

"We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are."    Talmud QBLH

"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand."Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924)

"The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth.  To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of  ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle."  Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

" I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy."Richard Feynman -a famed physicist

"I think I can safely say that no one understands quantum mechanics."

    Richard Feynman

"What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more livable."Louise Nevelson



"Specialization is the process of knowing more and more about less and less."

  from a handyman's Stepvan

"The most  beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical.  It is the sower of all true science.  He to whom this is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand wrapped in awe is as good as dead.

  To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms, this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness."

    Albert Einstein

Answer 10

There are disagreements between scientists of the cause(s)  of global warming.  One is that it is a normal phenomenon of its long cycle and the other school of thought is due to polluted environment due to industrial waste matters and other man-made pollution that affected the ozone layers.   Whether it is an outward reflection of an inner condition would require scientific investigations.

Answer 11

emotional and intellectual deficiency maybe.

'man's dominion over nature' encouraged by hierarchal religions, and the individualism and tunnel thinking of the enlightenment combine to make us supremely arrogant and out of touch with our environment.

we have to start thinking more holistically, about systems and links instead of individual processes. and start using our emotions more again, they are there for a reason!