Please be patient and understanding when interacting with others, and avoid getting frustrated or upset if someone does not respond to your posts or if a discussion does not go as you expected. Remember that everyone is entitled to express their own perspectives. Furthermore, even when you don't entirely agree, try to benefit in some way from it.
- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy❤
No. of Recommendations: 1
I apologize in advance. Please read this without preconceptions.
I often read statements like "humans are destroying the planet" and wonder if they should say "white people and the cultures who imitate them" (namely Japanese, Chinese and Indians in that order).
It's true that prehistoric humans managed to make most big fauna extinct wherever they went. But before the Industrial Revolution, the human ability to harm the planet depended on animal power at best. Waterwheels and the like mechanical devices existed but not enough to cause harm. Fossil fuels fed the Industrial Revolution and really gave humans a so-far-unlimited energy source . Strip mining the earth, huge trawlers raking the seas, fossil fuel burning for locomotion (cars, trains, buses) - none of this was possible before.
Couple that with the unlimited greed - sorry, mercantile spirit tgat Europeans have. Fatal combination.
I don't know if following a monotheistic religion played a part in this.
White may not be a real biological race but in this context, it can be taken as one.
Apologies again for rushing in where angels fear to tread.
No. of Recommendations: 4
Regarding religion, a relevant point is that taming your passions is not emphasized as much in Abrahamic faiths as it was in the old pagan religions. "Excess in moderation" for Greeks, or controlling the six enemies (desire, anger, greed, obsession, arrogance and envy) in Hinduism and maybe Catholicism. Maybe honored in breach but honored nonetheless.
Whereas Yahweh/God/Allah often shows unbridled violence without remorse. Almost as if strength is better than virtue. Protestants, Jews, Muslims, listening to the Bible or Koran as kids, might have absorbed the same attitude. Plus the dominion over fish and fowls thing in the Bible.
No. of Recommendations: 5
Regarding religion, a relevant point is that taming your passions is not emphasized as much in Abrahamic faiths as it was in the old pagan religions.
I dunno. You're not supposed to fornicate, you're not supposed to covet (a thought-crime, by the way), etc. Except when the Big Guy tells you to slaughter that group of people (and take the maidens for yourselves).** Of course, the Abrahamic tomes are a mess...you can find support for pretty much any position you care to take.
I have heard some religious people say that we can do whatever we want to the Earth because Jesus is going to return and restore it to "perfection".
**Which, if he was truly all-powerful, he could do himself.
