the problem with "eden"

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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There are two main forces that tell us life was better before.

One group tells us that two individuals existed in a perfect garden roughly 6000+ years ago, and that the animals were able to speak to them. Then through a “fall”, man lost immortality and animals lost intelligence, and we were able to reproduce. (in my opinion is true immortality.)

There will be a coming “judgement” and afterwards a “return to eden”.

On the other side, the godless group tells us, that when we were “noble savages” that was eden, we were in harmony with nature, we didn’t pollute and cause global warming. And now there will be a coming apocolypse, judgement, of global warming, afterwhich the survivors will have to “return to eden.”

The problem with both of these myths is that they pre-suppose we are at a low point right now, and that in the past we were “higher”. That’s opposite of the way the world works. Not only that, but only through our technology and advancements, were many of these people able to experience existence. Only through the religious “fall”, were we able to be born.

Both statements of the past are false. Mortality (death rates) were MANY MANY times higher in this “noble past”. Living with nature is NOT and never will be comfortable. You’ll constantly have to worry about whether the tiger is going to come and eat your baby. You have to worry about the bugs that are biting you aren’t going to give you some deadly fever.

So if both groups are wrong about the past, both groups are also wrong about the future. If global warming is going to happen to the extent they say (there’s no question it’s “warmer”, the problem is the models predicting the future.) we will adapt. When Siberia became inhabitable, the farmers just moved further south. When the temperatures become warmer, people will just migrate north. If the sea level raises, we’ll see more cities on the coast that have adapted the way the dutch have.

More CO2 in the atmosphere also means more plant life. There are already signs that the sahara desert is getting smaller.

The same thing is true of the religious apocolypse and redemption. God is not going to come and judge us. He is not going to take care of those that have wronged us. We have to manage that ourselves.

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In truth, any improvements or detriments have been cosmetic. The basic makeup of the human mind itself has not changed in many thousands of years and as such we will continue to have the same basic problems wrapped in differant situations until, I dunno, total enlightenment or the next stage in evolution or something…

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well, people need myth and that’s the truth. The judeo-christian and environmentalism share one thing in common… man is in a state of sin. The difference is in the sin.

The sin of judeo-christianity are a long list of things that are sinful. Some are truly common sense items. Some are detrimental to humanity to call sin.

The sin of the environmentalist is LIVING. By living we destroy the environment around us (the ultimate state of sin.) and produce the most sinful thing “carbon”.

Both myths aim to give us back control. If we just change our behaviour we can get control of our situation back, and the bad thing won’t happen.

Here’s the truth:

No matter how many muslims or christians prayed to god in India it would’ve still been devastated by a Tsunami, and no matter if the entire world was following the Kyoto protocol or better, Hurricane Katrina would’ve still devastated Louisiana/Mississippi area.

Myths contain an ounce of truth to them. Catastrophic events beyond human control (the one thing we absolutely desire is to have control over our situation.) happened that caused massive devastation and massive loss of life.

How to get control back? and explain these catastrophes?

God of course. By giving control to god, we are enabling ourselves. Later shamans came around that told us what we need to do to prevent future catastrophes. Of course those future catastrophes happened, and the shaman used it to his advantage to further control humanity.

Environmentalism is no different.

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Must disagree with your concept of myth and God, Scy, (nice Akira cycle by the way…)

The idea of God and Myth as mere wish fufillment has been used often by people dissmissive of such ideas, (note: I am by no means going to try to prove/disprove the exsistence of God or any of that shit, that would be stupid) and I think it’s true to a point, (most things are,) but I think the strain runs a bit deeper than that.

The God concept dates back probably to our pre-human days, the primative years when language was being contructed, people were constantly in danger for their lives from tigers and lions and whatever and horrible crap happened all the time. Now, if God had been created solely out of the need to give us control and protection, essesntially a tool, do you think people would have held on to that tool after the 20th time one of their friends got eaten? What about the 11th time their shaman totally fucked up a prediciton? Well you might say, “sure, people are willing to accept anything for sake of a feeling of control.” But instrinsic to the idea of God (western, anyway) is that he has the absolute control and you do not. No major relegion (Pat Robinson’s different, get to that later…) will tell you that prayer or ritual will garuntee a desired result, none. If anything the idea of God only adds to the helplessness, he/she/it becomes the force of nature/circumstance that is oversweeping you. Again, you might say “well, by shifting blame to themselves for not praying hard enough or whatever people are still attempting to assign some kind of control to themselves.” Once? Maybe. Time after time after time? No. If rationalization of events as a controllable God is indeed the sole basis for the God-notion, it would not have lasted as long as it has, stretching back into the annals of pre-history, surviving the Enlightenment and continuing to thrive in ever various forms today. Of course using God as a controlling agent is done, it’s an inescapable though very unhealthy aspect of the concept. People who do practice it, i.e. Pat Robinson, are indeed trying to use God as a comfort stool to a small group of people, but to mistake that as the whole of it all is a big mistake.

So what do I beleive is the need in man for God? Myself personally I think it’s a subconcious need for something higher, something other. Much like the need for romantic love, I think it’s a longing for completeness, in this case a complement of the baseness of man with a highness, a concept that over time, (once again, especially in the west,) we have seperated from ourselves into a differant altogether entity, resulting in all kinds of shit hitting the fan as far as confusion of subject and object. But that’s another topic for another time…

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The semitic “God” actually usedto be a key component for ancient monarchies. Semitic “God” was indoctrinated and used for the sake of control. The leaders behind it all thought themselves to be prophets, and they had a goal of the people being honest, morally pure, cooperative, submissive, etc.

The objective “god” is any sufficiently advanced organism of any form, in any universe. This “god” does not understand/care-about humanity, either…

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TheQuestion,

I was speaking more of the monotheistic god, and not the polytheistic notion of “gods”. The development was different and each element of life was assigned a different spirit or god.

The concept of god may run further back than even that. Who’s to say that animals don’t have some concept of god or spirits? we know they experience emotion, when something good or bad happens beyond their understanding, do they attribute it to some meta god?

I don’t think that matters, look at how much judaism, JW’s, Islam, christianity, mormonism and environmentalism have fucked up predictions.

Even though they’ve got it wrong in the past (some times HORRIBLY so) they still have devout followers… why? because the medium is only human and can therefore misinterpret god. (in the case of the environmentalist, god is the earth.)

What I was speaking about in general was the idea that religion developed into an idea that god lives near or by mountains. Zeus in Olympus, Adonai(AKA Jealous) in Mt. Sinai, and Thor in his mountain (forget the name of it.) these beliefs directly play into the evolution of environmentalism which has the home for the goddess (regardless of whether they use that language or not) as being the entire earth.

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Cats can sense spirits, but I doubt that a cat can communicate with a spirit life-form very well.

If you want me to put money on the best animal medium, I’d say a porpus or a dolphin, because they have far more intelligence then a cat, but their brain is very good at using frequencies for communcation, also.

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First of all, Dan you say the wierdest shit sometimes.

Second of all, scy, I too was talking about monothestic gods along with polytheistic. At core it’s the same thing, the differances are again really just cosmetic. At bottom people share the same relationships to their Gods no matter what the system they’re working in.

I too thought about the animal thing. I’ll ask my dog.

I also think Earth worship is a totally differant strain of God-system than the line of Gods you mentioned (Odin, Thor and the norse gods live in Asgaard by the way, not a mountain…) and could not have been any kind of evolution towards it. First of all, earth worship (what you call environmentalism though that’s not quite right,) is one of the earliest form of religion known to man, owing nothing to these later beings you mentioned. It’s also important to point out like you said that Earth dieties are almost always female since it is the earth (i.e. plants, animals and shit) that sustain us, from wence we come and to which we return, very litterally a “Mother Earth”. While female dieties always presided over agricultural societies, male ones presided over the more war like or more technology based societies. Some of the more balanced societies included both a male and female diety, though over time the male came to overshadow the female (i.e. Zues and Hera) So rather one being an evolution of the other, I’d really say they’re just two sides of the same coin.

As for this environmentalist thing, I think you’re a bit confused maybe between people who worship the Earth and people who just want to make sure we don’t fuck it up, (you don’t shit on the floor of your house after all.) Sure there are environmentalists that do worship the Earth in a way, (back to nature Hippies for instance or Wiccans,) but there is a definate differance.

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right, and the relationship of sin and redemption are the same.

well I oft wonder if my cats think I’m god, I do after all provide their food.

Earth worship is very very modern. Remember to the ancients, the earth was MUCH MUCH smaller, and elements of the earth were worshipped, not the entirety of the earth. Like for instance, the god Tiamat, worshipped by sumerians. He was the god of water, and controlled the seas.

Which is also a modern twist… in hinduism and buddhism there is a balance between the male and female, judaism (and the religions based upon it) are strictly patriarchal. The mother earth movement, is a rebellion to the strict patriarchs and neither is a balanced philosophy.

Our mothers sustain us, but cannot do so without the sustenance provided from the fathers hunt.

yeah, pretty much…

Except that judaeo religions and Earth religions don’t have that balance.

no, I don’t think I am… there’s no perspective of reality among the modern “environmentalist”. We are in the state of sin, and committing incest with the earth, and raping and pillaging it. (this is really what some of them believe). The best solution, is for mankind to have a massive die off, and this is why most of their fear propaganda suggests that this is what will happen unless we “change” and become free from our current state of sin.

Whether or not they see the earth as god, is irregardless to their actions. They TREAT the earth as god, and as more important than man.

They do in some countries.

meh, it’s pretty close regardless. The concept of sin and redemption is there, regardless of how “spiritual” towards the earth the enviro claims to be. It’s evil to build more oil towers, evil to log for resources, evil to help those suffering from malaria with DDT. Evil and sinful to do all of these things because they aren’t “natural”.

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First of all, I think cats just think we’re their bitches.

Second of all, no, entire Earth worship is ancient. You aren’t going back far enough. (Hold on, let me go get my copy of Hero with a Thousand Faces to get some examples,) the Maoris of New Zealand had Papa, the female goddess of Earth (all of it) along with Rangi-potiki, male God of the heavens, the Greeks had Gaia (mother earth) splitting off Ouranos (father heaven), the Finns had a virgin who birthed the continents. So you see, the idea of a Mother Earth is actually a very ancient thing. Rather than being a reaction to patriarchal relegions, it has exsisted as a counter-balance to it, sometimes subliminated within the patriarchal systems themselves, (the Virgin Mary is probably the best example.)

Once again, as for the whole environmentalist thing, once again I think you’re isolating a small group and blowing them up all out of proportion. There are people who find “unnatural” things sinful, but most environmentalists want technology that works to our benefit and keeps the ecosystem from getting all out of whack.