Part of my timetable this year is teaching some RE. It’s been a fascinating change. One of the things I’ve been covering is the Genesis story with a group of 11 year olds.
Reading through the story and analysing the day-by-day creation, one student commented on the environmental obligation that the text suggested. In the following discussion, the deep symbolism of the story really began to strike me: the pattern of the days rolls from separation of water into sea and rain, the appearance of land, the plants, the animals and finally mankind.
And the way this pattern of the days is creeping into reverse.
Possibly hundreds of species becoming extinct each day, rain-forests decimated… and the sea rising again to take the poisoned land back.
I was talking to someone at dinner at a wedding on Saturday – a research biochemist – and he was explaining his support for Richard Dawkins. His view is the planet will survive, and some new form of life will evolve. We are simply hurrying an inevitable new ice-age.
I’d obviously argue that a key point of the birth of consciousness has been missed – a unique intervention that breaks into this cycle and leaves us with a responsibility to take care of this amazing gift we’ve been bestowed with.
It’s a gift we’ve been completely trashing. The meeting of the World’s Top Polluting Countries is a crisis meeting. Real action has to be taken at inter-governmental level. And what is depressing from the initial conversations is that many are saying ‘sorry, our economies have to come first.’ We can’t afford to save the planet. Money has finally won. Seems Dawkins’ ‘Selfish Gene’ was about right after all.
Technorati Tags: Civilization, Environment, Sustainable Growth, Technology
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3 responses to “Creation>Preservation>Destruction | Genesis in Reverse?”
The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.
The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.
Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.
Subject : Environment can never be saved as long as cities exist.
Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.
If there are no gaps there is no emotion.
Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.
When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing.
There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.
People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.
Emotion ends.
Man becomes machine.
A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.
FAST VISUALS /WORDS MAKE SLOW EMOTIONS EXTINCT.
SCIENTIFIC /INDUSTRIAL /FINANCIAL THINKING DESTROYS EMOTIONAL CIRCUITS.
A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY CANNOT FEEL PAIN / REMORSE / EMPATHY.
A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY WILL ALWAYS BE CRUEL TO ANIMALS/ TREES/ AIR/ WATER/ LAND AND TO ITSELF.
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sushil_yadav
Dude, what 11 years olds you teach?
Mine just yell, “that’s bullshit, we all came from aliens. STFU sir and go get a proper belief.”
After discussing which aliens we come from – general consensus is usually Krol and Khan from the Simpsons, the lesson ends with me writing endless Incident Slips.
Kang, not Khan.