Your Religion, Politics, and This Actual World
Do you live in the real world, is there a real world?
Politics and people, possession and obsession
When we read about injustice, we are often outraged. Yet, quickly, once we complain about it amongst ourselves and our agreeable tribe, we usually move on.
People, so divided as we are right now politically, very quickly grow weary of causes and even our most passionate obsessions. Human energy can only be sustained for so long before we are distracted. We also have bills to pay, chores to do, and bodies to care for.
Whereas it is true that we all should stand up for equality and justice, we are human. We wear out.
Yet not everything in the world is made of organic things.
Whereas it is true that corporations and profit machines are made up of human beings, they are also something larger that is fed by even the most reluctant workers.
Those who would possess the world, can in effect be things, or entities for further self-promotion while living beings that feed those machines are inter-connected life forms that feel. Thus, we get tired, weary, of both being possessed, and of having possessions.
No matter what belief system you have, what political affiliation to which you subscribe, and no matter which tribe you feel you belong to, you fall into the reality of being human in both an abstract world, and an artificial world of technology and entities larger than each of us individually.
The world is abstract because we live by made-up things like money, borders, supremacy over other beings, and thousands of faiths.
The world is artificial because the sum of all the machines in the world collecting your data, and generating ads to keep you consuming, is comprised of all our technological hardware and mined materials, as well.
Rapture and the end times
Not long ago, a loved one advised my partner and me not to worry about finances, health, or global climate catastrophe. Her plan (and by implication, our plans as well) should be to be ready for the Rapture.
The Rapture, in case you do not know, is the end-times expectation that salvation will unfold during a tumultuous time on Earth (now??) wherein only those who believe with a certain faith will suddenly “beam up” toward eternal life. Those left behind will face all the storms and wrath of fire, floods, earthquakes, suffering, pestilence, and sin.
Raised as a Christian, I was troubled by this. Jesus always reminds us to consider the birds and the flowers of the fields.
I cannot believe in a Rapture that does not include them. Nor can I consider a kingdom that is beyond here. That is, for many Christians, the kingdom of God is within you, not somewhere beyond the stars.
When we think of heaven as an Eden far beyond this one, we can create a fiery hell out of what we are given in the first place.
Here and now on an actual Earth
Lao Tzu, Jesus, Buddha, and others along our human spiritual path these last few thousand years, remind us to be kind to one another. This is expressed by Lao Tzu when he reminds us that softness is more powerful than hardness.
He most often gives the example of how water can penetrate mountains and Earth, and shape it. Create all. We can be hard, mean, and judgmental, but it is only when we yield to the existence and connection of all other beings that we can be strong enough to shape long-term outcomes.
Buddha reminds us that all living beings have a Buddha nature and can be Buddhas. Modern pagan religions teach us that nature, the animate, or spiritual, is interconnected with all living beings.
Ecopsychology, my field, teaches us that science, a process that reveals truth through hypotheses and data, has helped us establish that indeed, in every actual sense we know of, the world is real.
What our empirical senses tell us — unless it’s a vast Matrix-like illusion — is that we are related to all known beings, comprised of star chemistry, and interconnected by our needs to eat, reproduce, and survive.
Even if we are living in an illusion, our senses, and what we feel to be real is real enough for most of us.
It seems apparent to most of us that the actual Earth is worth preserving. And that the heavenly ideal of harps and angels may not be supported by enough evidence that we should risk losing this one.
Yet, we still have to deal with our weariness. We all have to look to that which sustains us spiritually to find strength and resilience.
Ironically, for some atheists and agnostics, that is truth and knowledge. Having faith in these, as the famous movie Contact displays is what we must continually refresh to quench what Sagan called our thirst for wonder.
