'Thinking Outside the Box' in 2012

[the_lyniezian]

Has anyone else ever notice that, historically, the majority of bouts of "economic growth" are directly preceded by land grabs?

It has been the case, though perhaps it's limited in the modern world. I know it's happening in China (farmers being kicked off hte land for new developments) and I know there's land being bought up in parts of Africa for farming which were not previously owned. Possibly the same may be true in the DODGY TAX AVOIDERS.

But in the "West" (excluding the global South), where's the land being grabbed?

[mobbsey]

Has anyone else ever notice that, historically, the majority of bouts of "economic growth" are directly preceded by land grabs?

Thomas Homer-Dixon examines that in The Upside of Down, although if you want the great exposition of that theory you have to read the "expansion and draw-down" arguments in William R. Catton's Overshoot.

[UndercoverElephant]

Due to demand from the people it's been unofficially passed onto, we've released the discussion paper from the Free Range Network's Summer Gathering:
http://www.fraw.org.uk/projects/ecologi ... he_box.pdf

Wow.

[biffvernon]

(Then again, I think the only real change can come through salvation in Jesus Christ, and ultimately His return to the earth, we can only do so much. The sin of all human beings is the root cause.)

The trouble with sentences like that is that those of who operate in a different paradigm find no meaning in it.

That's what I consider truth and I'm sticking to it. I would like to hope you believe it, but that's not for me to decide.

Not so much a question of belief, more a complete incomprehension of what phrases such as "salvation in Jesus Christ" and "His return to the earth" and "sin of all human beings" actually mean. To me there is no meaning in these words.

Does your religion say anything about an imperative to act in a way that maximises the well-being of future generations? Mine does.

[Ludwig]

Trying to undermine law for its own sake undermines the whole pronciple of law if you ask me- laws as a whole are there for good reason and underpin any civilised society. And laws have to be binding on everybody- you can't just pick and choose. Otherwise, what next? Will it be legal to murder people because they did something so bad that, in someone's eyes, they deserved it? To literally rob the rich to give to the poor?

Up to Victorian times, when Britain was still very much a Christian country, the State could murder you for stealing a load of bread.

Few people at the time seemed particularly troubled by this flagrant flouting of the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Christ.

Law does indeed underpin civilised society, but it can also underpin uncivilised society. Many laws passed in the last 15 years are dubious by any ethical standard, particulaly in the USA.

I don't fundamentally disagree with breaking the law to bring about positive change. On the other hand, you have to be pragmatic about it. The chances are that the Law will win. And one thing on which I am in agreement with The Lynezian is that I think the options are very limited; I don't think Britain can support 60 million people living in harmony with nature and one another, especially when the change is as sudden as it is likely to be.

[Ludwig]

Not so much a question of belief, more a complete incomprehension of what phrases such as "salvation in Jesus Christ" and "His return to the earth" and "sin of all human beings" actually mean. To me there is no meaning in these words.

Does your religion say anything about an imperative to act in a way that maximises the well-being of future generations? Mine does.

I don't know that much about religion, but as I understand it, most religions teach of some kind of "Judgment Day". Hinduism describes human history in terms of cycles called Yuga. The last cycle is the Kali Yuga: it is the time of final degeneration of civilisation:

Attributes of Kali Yuga

A discourse by Markandeya in the Mahabharata identifies some of the attributes of Kali Yuga:
[edit] In relation to rulers

* Rulers will become unreasonable: they will levy taxes unfairly.
* Rulers will no longer see it as their duty to promote spirituality, or to protect their subjects: they will become a danger to the world.
* People will start migrating, seeking countries where wheat and barley form the staple food source.
* "At the end of Kali-yuga, when there exist no topics on the subject of God, even at the residences of so-called saints and respectable gentlemen of the three higher varnas [castes], and when the power of government is transferred to the hands of ministers elected from the lowborn Shudra class or those less than them, and when nothing is known of the techniques of sacrifice, even by word, at that time the Lord will appear as the supreme chastiser." (Srimad-Bhagavatam (2.7.38))

[edit] In human relationships

* Avarice and wrath will be common. Humans will openly display animosity towards each other. Ignorance of dharma will occur.
* People will have thoughts of murder with no justification and will see nothing wrong in that.
* Lust will be viewed as socially acceptable and sexual intercourse will be seen as the central requirement of life.
* Sin will increase exponentially, whilst virtue will fade and cease to flourish.
* People will take vows and break them soon after.
* People will become addicted to intoxicating drinks and drugs.
* Gurus will no longer be respected and their students will attempt to injure them. Their teachings will be insulted, and followers of Kama will wrest control of the mind from all human beings. Brahmins will not be learned or honoured, Kshatriyas will not be brave, Vaishyas will not be just in their dealings, Shudras will be given jobs they are not qualified for.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_yuga

I've recently been reading Schopenhauer, and although he was not religious in any conventional sense, he argued that the fundamental principle of the universe is moral - because the ultimate truth is that everything is one, and that in hurting others we hurt ourselves. We might not notice it or care at the time, but deep within our souls we punish ourselves for our misdeeds, whether in this life or another or just in some dim sense that affects our "spirit" if not our conscious selves.

To make sense of all this you have to buy into the idea that our self-conscious selves are just the tip of the iceberg of all that there is to be known and felt.

To get back onto the subject: "Jesus Christ's return to earth" for Christians means, I assume, what it says. If, on the other hand, one chooses not to take the meaning literally, it simply means that Good will once again descend on the earth - after a period of terrible conflict. But this Good in my opinion is likely to be something more subtle than simply everyone once again living happy earthly lives: rather, it is the dissolution of all individuals into the single consciousness that they were originally born of. You might call this God, but IMO the Christian God as a man with a beard is just a personification of something that by definition has no form and therefore is not visualisable.

But I think this "God" can be intuited.

As for "the sin of all human beings": because individuality is an illusion and we all have a subconscious connection to all life, we all partake of the guilt of humanity as a whole. I think this is what Christianity means when it says "Jesus Christ died for our sins": he understood that by virtue of being human (and I will offend the Lynezian, I think, by stating that I believe he was human, though divinely inspired)... by virtue of being human, he partook of the guilt of all humanity.

I don't expect that to make sense to everyone... I think long and hard about all this stuff and there may be some lacunae in the way I've presented my thoughts - which are, I hasten to say, not my original thoughts but the thoughts of other writers that happen to make sense to me and chime with my own sentiments.

[biffvernon]

Sorry Ludwig but I'm none the wiser. Enjoy your Schopenhauer; bundle of laughs eh?

[the_lyniezian]

Not so much a question of belief, more a complete incomprehension of what phrases such as "salvation in Jesus Christ" and "His return to the earth" and "sin of all human beings" actually mean. To me there is no meaning in these words.

Ah, I see. I will attempt to explain. "Sin" is falling short of God's expectations, that is, being not as good as we could be. In and of ourselves, without God in our lives, without His help, we cannot hope to achieve that expectation. As a result, it is no surprise when human beings inevitably screw up. Furthermore, sin implies or leads to wrongdoing, to evil, so naturally the judgement of God would be upon us. Because we cannot save ourselves from this coming judgement, it requires the intervention of Jesus, who died on the cross in our place (as a representative of all those who would be saved by Him, literally dying the death we deserved). Jesus' return to the earth is literally that- after He died, we understand He came back to life and ascended into heaven- and when He returns, it will be to execute final judgement on the unrepentant and to rule the earth. Eventually, it would seem the whole of creation will be somehow destroyed and re-created. (This does not mean we have any right to destroy our environment- only God has that right!)

In context, basically we cannot expect mankind, by itself, to become in any way perfect nor can we expect it to be free of evil-doing. We can make the system slightly fairer, we might behave slightly better but we won't be perfect, and there are plenty of people who will alway tke advantage of the situation for their own ends. A complete change of nature is necessary, and only divine intervention can really accomplish that.

This doesn't mean we should do nothing, just have realistic expetations of what we can achieve and how much effort is really worth it.

Does your religion say anything about an imperative to act in a way that maximises the well-being of future generations? Mine does.

Well, in Proverbs 13:22 there's a proverb stating that a good man provides an inheritance for his children's children (though it also says the wealth of the ungodly is stored up for the righteous, whatever that means). So I guess it is fair to say that, Biblically speaking, if we are doing right, we will have the interests of our descendants in mind.

At the same time, in the New Testament it does say that Christians should be concerned more for today than tomorrow, and let God take care of the rest- so I suppose one must balance it with that. (I think if we focus on today, though, it will impact upon the future anyway. The point is more, don't spend time excessively worrying about the future and stop trusting God, not so much to use it as an excuse to leave future generations short.)

[UndercoverElephant]

The trouble with sentences like that is that those of who operate in a different paradigm find no meaning in it.

That's what I consider truth and I'm sticking to it. I would like to hope you believe it, but that's not for me to decide.

Not so much a question of belief, more a complete incomprehension of what phrases such as "salvation in Jesus Christ" and "His return to the earth" and "sin of all human beings" actually mean. To me there is no meaning in these words.

That's because mainstream Christianity lost the plot at some point during its history, resulting in a great deal of confusion between metaphorical and literal meanings. Jesus of Nazareth preached that anyone could do what he had done - that anyone could become one with God as he had done. "Salvation in Jesus Christ" should be taken to mean "becoming like Jesus Christ." "Sin of all human beings" is the result of us forgetting what we truly are and "falling" from our proper state as spiritual beings (getting lost in materiality and the sins of the flesh.)

If you want to understand Christianity then you have to look back at its roots rather than trying to unscramble the modern version. Jesus of Nazareth was a pacifist mystic, and Christianity is supposed to be a mystical metaphor, not an account of history or a literal prediction of future events on Earth. It's ALL symbolic. It is unfortunate and ironic that so many Christians fail to understand this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jesus_Mysteries

Just to make this clear: the above wikipedia article describes this book as "denying that Jesus literally existed." That is not quite right. It denies that the narrative account of the last weeks of Jesus' life is a literal account of historical events. It does not follow that there was no actual human being around which the mythology was built. There is an important difference between outright denying that Jesus existed and claiming that much of what is said in the Bible about Jesus isn't literally/historically true. What actually matters here is the nature of early Christianity, prior to political interference from the 3rd century onwards.

[the_lyniezian]

Note: I left this post incomplete, so decided to finish it.

Up to Victorian times, when Britain was still very much a Christian country, the State could murder you for stealing a load of bread.

Few people at the time seemed particularly troubled by this flagrant flouting of the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Christ.

Whilst I dispute your extending the definition of 'murder' to refer to the, albeit unjust, taking of life by the authorities to punish what is clearly a crime and justly so, it is not in anyway Biblical. Death, as I understand it, was never given as the punishment for theft, but restitution.

Law does indeed underpin civilised society, but it can also underpin uncivilised society. Many laws passed in the last 15 years are dubious by any ethical standard, particulaly in the USA.

Such as? (I can think of, say, anti-terrorist legislation which amongst other things, seems to make a mockery of haebeus corpus &c....)

And BTW, that's not what "civilised" really means. The Romans were "civilised", but had a lot of none-too-nice practices (crucifixion, the arena...) such as would make "barbarians" seem like saints. As far as I know "civilised society" in it's truest sense merely refers to one which is permanently settled with some degree of urbanisation, and highly structured, not to its moral sensibilities or concept of justice.

I don't fundamentally disagree with breaking the law to bring about positive change. On the other hand, you have to be pragmatic about it. The chances are that the Law will win.

The question is, what is "pragmatic" in practice? If not a question of, what is justified?

And one thing on which I am in agreement with The Lynezian is that I think the options are very limited; I don't think Britain can support 60 million people living in harmony with nature and one another, especially when the change is as sudden as it is likely to be.

It might, vaguely, be possible but it would require a complete change of lifestyle, thinking, farming practices, and far more...

[UndercoverElephant]

At the same time, in the New Testament it does say that Christians should be concerned more for today than tomorrow, and let God take care of the rest- so I suppose one must balance it with that. (I think if we focus on today, though, it will impact upon the future anyway. The point is more, don't spend time excessively worrying about the future and stop trusting God, not so much to use it as an excuse to leave future generations short.)

This is a problem with Christianity. Most religions, Christianity being a prime example, aren't very good at adapting to change. At the time it was being invented, nobody understood anything about ecology or could have had any concept of the sort of problems the human race currently faces. In a situation like that it is very important that people think for themselves about what is happening and come to their own moral judgements about what they ought to do and say rather than simply turning to the Bible for answers. Why should you expect to find in the Bible answers to questions that the writers of the Bible had never had any reason to consider?

This is my biggest remaining gripe with organised religions, especially the Abrahamic ones: they discourage free thinking and are very bad at adapting to new situations. I think that the appropriate response to this is to offer support to the modernists and reformers within those religions rather than trying to generally undermine or attack religion(s).

[emordnilap]

Getting BOT:

• If poor families are spending a large proportion of their income on food, let's find under­utilised land and help them garden it in order to meet their needs for fresh cheap food;
  
  If people need help with repairs or training, irre­spective of the health and safety laws which pro­ hibit the general public from undertaking certain activities (e.g. building regulations), let's find ways of training them/certain local people to undertake such activities safely within the local community;
  
  If people are in need of housing or temporary shelter, let's find underutilised buildings or space and create shelter for them;
  
  If external economic forces are bleeding wealth from the local economy – such as supermarkets – then we do our best to avoid, destabilise or extin­ guish those forces within the local community in order to favour more localised economic systems;
  
  If people who have been forsaken by the present economic process wish to set up their own sub­sistence economies through small low impact de­ velopments in rural areas, let's help/support them by lending our labour (and in the process learning the skills required to do this ourselves).

Excellent points all. As noted further down, in doing such things, laws prohibiting them will surely follow and that is probably a Good Thing. Eventually, a booting out of such absurd laws must come about through genuine paradigm shift.

Addressing debt might be another tack, as might tackling the compulsion to work for someone else, though I know you touch on it.

Well done; keep up the good work. Get rid of all the style changes and hyperlinks (which interrupt reading flow), print a few million and give a copy to everyone.

[Catweazle]

This is a problem with Christianity. Most religions, Christianity being a prime example, aren't very good at adapting to change.

On the contrary, Christianity has proven very capable of changing the "interpretation" of the bible to fit in with modern scientific facts. Proof, if any were needed, that the bible is a work of fiction that needs constantly updating as the flaws are discovered.

Whether there is a God or not is an unanswered question, but it's pretty clear to me that the bible was written, and continues to be used, to keep the masses in order whilst the ruling classes get their rewards on Earth, safe in the knowledge that there is no hell for them.

[UndercoverElephant]

This is a problem with Christianity. Most religions, Christianity being a prime example, aren't very good at adapting to change.

On the contrary, Christianity has proven very capable of changing the "interpretation" of the bible to fit in with modern scientific facts.
Proof, if any were needed, that the bible is a work of fiction that needs constantly updating as the flaws are discovered.

No, I think you are confusing some people's flawed understanding of their own religion with the religion itself. The Bible was never supposed to be "factual" in the way that both you and they are trying interpret as. On top of that, I was actually talking about early Christianity - specifically before the contents of the Bible were decided upon by the Conference of Nicea. That was the point that it stopped being interpreted metaphorically and started being mixed up with historic fact.

It is all too easy to attack anti-scientific creationists. Those people are idiots. But you can't use them as examples of what the whole of their religion is about. Talking about "flaws in the Bible" is just silly. It's not supposed to be a scientific theory. It's about morality and spirituality.

I speak as a person who hated religion for many years, especially Christianity. I fully understand why you don't like it, but it's not all bad. There are some babies in there with all the murky bathwater.

Whether there is a God or not is an unanswered question, but it's pretty clear to me that the bible was written, and continues to be used, to keep the masses in order whilst the ruling classes get their rewards on Earth, safe in the knowledge that there is no hell for them.

One of the reasons religions exist was always in order to try to get people to behave better. There has also always been a tendency for people who want power and have a political agenda to use religion for their own ends.

[Ludwig]

This is my biggest remaining gripe with organised religions, especially the Abrahamic ones: they discourage free thinking and are very bad at adapting to new situations. I think that the appropriate response to this is to offer support to the modernists and reformers within those religions rather than trying to generally undermine or attack religion(s).

I often think I would like to lend my support to tolerant, modernised organised religion. But ultimately there are either some conventions you don't like but have to swallow, or there are none: if none, it's not really religion any more.

Numerous times I have mentioned to Christians that I have thought of joining the Church even though I don't see any reason to believe in the virgin birth, have doubts about the existence of Heaven and Hell, and don't think there is anything morally wrong with homosexuality. The response was always a firm, "Then we don't want you". Some Christians seem to have no real concept of conscience, they are only interested in rules.