Part of Great Pacific Garbage Patch
By now, many may be wondering if I will be tracing every human ill to religious fanaticism, mania, pathology and psychosis. On a global scale, there is much to be said for the notion that religious delusion has created a tremendous amount of suffering, including and significantly as concerns environmental degradation. Those who are too young to remember the predominant attitude of the past several decades, and who now see a complete turnabout from many of the religiously devout regarding our Mother Earth, may not be able to fathom the degree to which this contention is true. In reality, the current green sentiment from the religious segment of society is a very new phenomenon, albeit a highly welcome one. Just a few short years ago, those of a fanatical religious stripe were virulently anti-environmental, as many continue to be to this day.
This Stinkin' Earth
Although I have been fascinated by religion and mythology since I was a child, my work exploring and exposing the origins of religious thought was inspired in significant part by constantly butting heads over the decades with religious fanatics who expressed unvarnished contempt for the earth after I attempted to raise the issue of polllution and environmental destruction. A recent disturbing article about the "sprawling mass of garbage-littered water, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where most of the plastic looks like snowy confetti against the deep blue of the north Pacific Ocean" instantly brought back memories of these numerous unpleasant encounters over the many years I've been on this planet.
Some years ago, I blogged one of the most appalling of these confrontations, calling the post "This Stinkin' Earth." That was the phrase a devout Christian threw at me when I spoke out about all the paper being wasted in a law office in which I was working at the time. This loving follower of Jesus practically foamed at the mouth while ranting that he was not part of "this stinkin' earth" but was "born of the Lord." This bad attitude towards our planet, its resources, flora, fauna and environment was shared by many millions at the time, having been expressed most malignantly and vocally by various political and religious leaders.
What would Jesus do?!
U.S. Secretary of Interior James G. Watt
During the Presidency of Ronald Reagan came an anti-environment assault that offended to no end and that was continually justified as actually being necessary to precipitate the Second Coming of Christ! In explaining his cavalier attitude towards the earth, Reagan's Secretary of Interior James G. Watt cited his Christian faith, including his belief in the eventual "return of the Lord." Watt's aggressively exploitative management of natural resources was so resented that it was summed up thus: "After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." Watt denied having made this statement directly and objected to this categorization of his policies, but this mentality was all too common among the evangelicals who burst forth during the Reagan Presidency.
Indeed, this apocalyptic and self-defeating Christian attitude caught on like wildfire, appealing, it would seem, to humanity's tendency towards laziness and self-indulgence. After all, if Jesus is coming back, why should we care about destroying our environment, polluting our water, air and land, depleting our natural resources and creating the conditions for drought, famine and climate change?
As an environmental activist going back to childhood, when I was taught about recycling, biodegradable detergents and many other aspects of responsible stewardship, I can attest that things have changed considerably, as the Green Movement we see today was barely in existence and was regularly resisted by all manner of rebuff, including vitriol and calumny, such as deriding Earth-lovers as "tree huggers" and "heathenish Pagans." The end result of this "stinkin' earth" stubbornness, of course, is what we see all around us in ecological degradation, including such abominations as the horrendous Great Pacific Garbage Patch. So long as religious fanaticism dictates that we are separate from our planet and can use and abuse it without regard, including reproducing at will without any concern—citing the biblical edict of "being fruitful and multiplying" (Gen 1:28)—we will not be able to address the coming enormous challenges and to ameliorate them.
Instead of relying on Jesus the Christ, the 12th Imam, the Jewish Messiah or the Ascended Master Sananda to come rescue us, we must do it ourselves. But first we must get rid of our "stinkin' earth" mentality resulting from the mania and delusion of organized, mainstream religions. One way to restore a healthy perspective of the earth and our place on it is to explore the ancient astrotheological origins of religion and mythology, which reveals a profound appreciation of the natural world that surrounds us and serves as the only home we know.
Sources & Further Reading
Pacific Ocean garbage patch worries researchers
This Stinkin' Earth
The Astrotheology of the Ancients
Comments
You are correct, DM. In my lifetime I have watched the opinion of Christians in British Columbia go from "I don't believe in dinosaurs" (1970s) to "of course dinosaurs existed." Most even realise that they existed millions of years ago, but even the minority who claim they existed a few thousands years ago, staggeringly stupid as this is, at least no longer deny their existence. One of the best examples of social evolution is religion, which is ironic given it is the only thing that actually fights against the concept of evolution!
We have none of these problems in Planet Earth 2.0 ...A new world that future generations can sustain and a planet that can sustain future generations.
Check it out at several new sites (just Google "Planet Earth 2.0) including our new Facebook group by the same name.
It is a remarkable new idea.
Putting a picture of Sec.Watt in your article was like a big chunk of pollution swirling around in the middle of it.
Seems all that junk in the ocean represents the junk in people's minds. We are the hi-tech generations and lo consciousness left over from previous centuries. As the gap remains and even grows, we destroy all gains. Recycling should should be left to conscious choices for the environment and not
recycling of past centuries ignorance.
"Instead of relying on Jesus the Christ, the 12th Imam, the Jewish Messiah or the Ascended Master Sananda to come rescue us, we must do it ourselves. But first we must get rid of our "stinkin' earth" mentality resulting from religious mania and delusion."
Fantastic article! Theists never even consider what might happen if they're wrong about the return of their savior. Critical thinking doesn't ever make it into to their thought process.
Bravo!
Wow, that was a stretch. What actually causes the majority of pollution? Waste management companies, factories and farming. It is the unwillingness to spend the extra money it costs to run these facilities with minimal impact on the environment that is the problem.
Let's not forget the 'green' movements are also largely funded by the corporate raiders. Why does rockefeller fund greenpeace, sierra club, wwf, etc? The ones who make billions on polluting the planet DO play the other side of the issue. Why, so you will believe that the killing of the planet can only be solved by more restrictions, restrictions that limit freedoms, but make others billions in the process.
Another law is another law. Just get the corrupt gov out, a representative and responsible gov in to enforce laws already in existence, and further, laws that are NEEDED and do not benefit the billionaires.
The green movement should be individuals being taught in schools the importance of our planet, not that profit is the most important aspect of biz beyond all consideration--as is the case.
Manipulators manipulate and do one hell of a job; it is all too easy these days thanks to the pollution of body, mind, spirit, planet and the lack of responsibility of 'leaders'.
There was a fascinating article in last month's Mother Jones about pollution. Industry accounts for roughly 70% of pollution. Municipal pollution ( things you and I create) accounted for less than 5% ! It's a fascinating article pick it up if you get a chance.
Great ending to this article Acharya :-)
When Jesus comes back he will not like walking on polluted water!
Ignorant preachers (IPs) have taught their sheep that the christian god can be leveraged into advancing the time schedule for the rapture if they destroy the ecosystems and exhaust the energy resources of the Earth, causing world-war over the shrinking resources. (The IPs and sheep no longer have patience for only prayers to work.)
So, what happens if their god is displeased by their unneeded help and keeps to the original time schedule -- you know the one: "thy will be done" and not accelerated by ignorant sheep? Then everyone suffers, and there is no rapture to save the Earth's rapists.
No ignorance exceeds that of a preacher who would leverage his all-powerful god.
This world ain't my home. My home is in heaven with sweet Jesus. All you athiests are going to regret that you put faith in your humanistic ideals. Alan Watts,Charles Darwin,Oprah Winfry,and Mary Ann Williamson won't be able to save you come judgement day. Turn to God now before it's too late. Jesus is the ONLY way to God. Turn OR burn! It's your choice.
Carlos, if you're just a guest here, why trash the place? Is that the attitude you have when you're a guest at another's house? You can trash it because it's not your home?
Great article again. I do believe the Green movement is catching on and there are even some christians who have become environmentalist. There is hope.
Good artice!
I'm utterly surprised that the USA put so delusional persons in key positions of the government.
About the origins of the religions, there have been emerging recently investigations, which explain it also by a ritualistic usage of entheogens.
do you ever post something that doesn't try to sell one of your books?
Where does she try to sell any of her books? I don't see it here or anywhere else. Do you go around writing nasty lying comments to everyone?
Bravo, Acharya! Keep up the great work.
I have always been green minded. It's kinda something they instilled in me since Kindergarten. Acharya is right just last year our synagogue took the green challenge and started going green. Shutting lights off, using dishes instead of paper, e-mailing newsletters etc. Some temples even installed solar paneling! Our temple even goes as far as sorting through the garbage and using the food and paper for compost. I wouldn't say the green issue isn't new to Jews..it's been a part of our tradition for centuries.
http:/hardtruth.navhost.com covers the subjects of lawyers, the fake rapture, montauk, , the black pope, the illuminati , etc. no one is coming to save us, we must save ourselves.
To Quote mt SON: The planet is ready to wipe its ass and we are in it
Good article, as usual, guaranteed to draw deluded cockroaches like Carlos and David Y out from under their garbage piles to spout their idiotic ideas. Have another drink, guys!
what about the web its importment to have connections the web stop giving us viruses it is better to have it living. To speak with each other to have some connection. Please from Danne in sweden.
The alleged Jesus was to return during the life time of some of his apostles. He's been a long time dead, that is if he ever existed. I see the universe itself as a means of cleaning up planet earth with another Ice age in some future time and with it a shifting of the poles.
Nobody here is afraid of your impotent, ugly, hate-filled god, Carlos. Peddle your garbage to the brain addled, superstitious bumpkins that are your peers.
Just in case some scriptural fanatic reads here, this is what has been foretold will happen:
Rev 11:18 And the nations were angry....and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
My own toxic junk pile in da name o' da Lord.
My own life, my home, my credit, my body was littered with junk back when I believed in the fabrications of the Roman Empire Church.
I though I could pray my way to physical fitness while eating junk, "be given" beautiful healthy women while being a slob, pray my way into a mansion while my one room apartments looked like a hurricane went through it. It didn't really matter anyway because this lifetime didn't even count for anything, the real party starts when I get to heaven .
Around three years ago I gave up my TV viewing (junk) and used most of my free time to explore Bible contradictions. (just google the name of your holy book of choice and "contradictions")
I realized that my delusion of making this lifetime unimportant had left me with a life that pretty much sucked, a life of trash that was supposed to be vacuumed & cleaned by angels, but was negligently trashed.
My life is MUCH better now.
Recycle your Holy Books.
Hi Acharya, thanks for these perceptive comments. A deeper reading of the Bible can see that ecological stewardship is at the core of the doctrine of God, while the rapture theory of Reagan and Watt is a deluded and evil self-serving error, like a Calvinist tumour of capitalism, twisting the text to serve monetary gain. The return of Christ is the return of the tree of life (Rev 22:2 = Gen 2:9) as a symbol of nature including the cosmic vision of the zodiac. The fountain of the water of life (Rev 22:1 and Rev 22:17) can be read as a vision of how the Pacific Garbage Dump and all the waters of the earth should be cleaned up, through the free gift of water. God loves the world, and sent Jesus Christ to save our planet, not condemn it (John 3:16-7).
After reading your works and living nearly 70 years on this Earth, I have to paraphrase Pogo, "We have met the Messiah, and he is us."
http:/hardtruth.navhost.com covers the subjects of lawyers, the fake rapture, montauk, , the black pope, the illuminati , etc. no one is coming to save us, we must save ourselves.
To Quote mt SON: The planet is ready to wipe its ass and we are in it
Hi Acharya, thanks for these perceptive comments. A deeper reading of the Bible can see that ecological stewardship is at the core of the doctrine of God, while the rapture theory of Reagan and Watt is a deluded and evil self-serving error, like a Calvinist tumour of capitalism, twisting the text to serve monetary gain. The return of Christ is the return of the tree of life (Rev 22:2 = Gen 2:9) as a symbol of nature including the cosmic vision of the zodiac. The fountain of the water of life (Rev 22:1 and Rev 22:17) can be read as a vision of how the Pacific Garbage Dump and all the waters of the earth should be cleaned up, through the free gift of water. God loves the world, and sent Jesus Christ to save our planet, not condemn it (John 3:16-7).
I see something of a contradiction when Christians will disregard the environment to hasten the arrival of their messiah, yet no expense is spared by some of them when it comes to their own health or correction of a bodily ill of some sort. Their eagerness to leave this world is questionable at best even as they can't be bothered to take care of it either directly or by their votes.
Well said Acharya!
That was a lovely Sermon Mr. Tulip. "...twisting the text to serve monetary gain." And your twisting and wrenching the text to conserve your own phychosis. "...and sent Jesus Christ to save our planet, not condemn it (John 3:16-7)." Jesus is a Mythologcal "Symbol" It was all written before 0 AD. The pre 0 BC Ancient world is full of Crucified Saviours! Why don't you start to LEARN what the Philosophy IS behind all these Mythical saviours! You might actually LEARN something in the process!
I think they should turn around the Hubble Telescope and Fry off the backs of these poor people--that don't know any better--that lying body of (to use Acarya term) "Fanatical" Leach Preist Craft.
They incarcerate people who smoke a joint to get out of this world for 30 minutes. The Preistcraft hallucinates and drugs the dumb driven cattle faithful into another world--for LIFE!
Praying
Faithful to God: "Dear God please: Gimmie This; Gimmie That; Gimmie This; Gimmie That; Gimmie This; Gimmie That; Oh and please: Can you fix Aunt Martha's Hang Toe nail--it has been bothering her lately!"
GOD to faithful: "Can't you see I'm busy you lousy beggar! Get up off your damn knees and quit begging. Can't you see I have a Universe to keep together."
"Preistcraft to Faithful above:"Oh come over here my little darling, I can help you with your wants and wishes! We take American Express; Visa; Mastercard; Legacies of Widows; etc."
I love a certain writer of the last century who once said,"If you go looking for the Historical Christ. You will only find an IMAGE of yourSELF" Now replace the Mythos Christ with all the other Ancient worlds Crucified saviours! The faithful have been gaping like insane morons Outwards and Backwards! to Judea 2009 years ago! Balling and Weeping in the front of the Priestcraft Monster Astro Dome Hell Holes of Insanity! Waving their hands around, eyes shut!(Minds too!), like the most rediculous dumb driven cattle they are! Tithing to the cess pool Mobsters, of the most embarrasing phycotic waste of Human Intellect! When all the while they should have been looking Inwards and Forwards!, to deep within their own Concious SELF. He is a MYTHOLOGICAL SYMBOL of YOU!
To think that God, his co-equal Son; creator of the Millions of Galaxies; and Atomic structure of the Universe; could cram all this Cosmic Beauty! into the Virgin Womb of a HUMAN Historical St. Mary/Isis--is so INSANE!
Why is it that Acharya is so spot on all the time?
You complained about: "...the paper being wasted in a law office..."
Please take a moment to get informed. Virtually all paper is made from FARMED TREES. Worrying about running out of trees to make paper is like worrying about running out of potatoes to make potato chips. Only FURNITURE is made from old-growth etc.
Furthermore, forested area in America has INCREASED because of tree farms. Using more paper = planting more trees = less C02 = less "global warming." Even Penn and Teller did a whole episode of BS about this.
Secondly, it pollutes MORE to recycle paper because of the bleaching process, the pulping and all the gas required to run all the trucks which cart the stuff to recycling centers.
That large, loutish man was actually benefitting the earth MORE than you were, you self-righteous dolt.
"Only FURNITURE is made from old-growth etc."
Gee, that's much better. As concerns paper and old-growth forests, perhaps YOU should study the issue further before you start making obnoxious remarks displaying your own ignorance.
"One of the primary uses of BC old-growth forest is found by your telephone and on your doorstep. Millions of metric tonnes of newsprint are extracted from the great forests annually. Thousand year old trees are used to make telephone directories, the Yellow Pages and newspapers."
That "loutish man" was spewing hatred for the world, but in your obviously twisted mind somehow he is helping to save it.
Waste is waste.
I don't know what bogus study you got your false information from, but try typing this into Google "where do we get the trees to make paper?" And also try googling "more trees in the US than 70 years ago." Guess what? It's true. All those 1960s and 1990s environmental scare tactics are exactly that: lies. Paper comes from sawmill waste (about 50%) and tree farms, not old growth and national parks. Do some research.
Finally, who gives a damn what that "loutish man" was SAYING? What he was DOING was NOT hurting the earth. But paper recycling takes more energy than making new paper and, hence, a larger carbon footprint. I know you're just going to cover your ears to this and that none of it will get through your environmentalist brainwashing, but that is the damn truth.
"I don't know what bogus study you got your false information from"
While you're recommending that I google something, you could do the same to find out where that information came from.
Again, you need to take a long look in the mirror before you go around spewing criticism and hatred at others.
Wish I could post links. The only old-growth = paper articles I could find were about toilet paper, not office paper. Only 1 article regarded office paper and it was about Japanese firms, not American ones. If you want to complain about the Japanese, be my guest. They have a rampant disregard for the environment etc.
My point is that you were dead wrong and that excessive paper recycling is much worse than simply growing new trees and making new paper. It's like harvesting potatoes: you don't run out.
"Again, you need to take a long look in the mirror before you go around spewing criticism and hatred at others."
Why? I never understood why people say this. I am right; you are wrong. Paper comes from tree farms, recycling paper causes more pollution than making new paper and there are more trees in the US than 70 years ago despite increased paper production.
"My point is that you were dead wrong"
Actually, I never said anything in this article about recycling office paper, so it is not I who am wrong. You have continually make inaccurate statements and raised up straw men in order to be nasty and insulting. You had an agenda of attacking me personally from the getgo, as you have also displayed on my other articles.
My point about proper care of the planet certainly is not wrong. You are arguing with yourself. And wasting my time, which is too valuable for such things. As concerns the old-growth forests being used as toilet paper rather than office paper, I see no reason to be happy about that at all. Perhaps you need to track down the source of the quote and stop harassing me.
Cheers.
Right on point Archarya. I hear it all the time how Christians don't believe in global warming and that the Earth is temporary and Jesus is coming to destroy it. It's so sad that they care more about the after life than the life they are living right now. Earth is a free for all, get yours while you can attitude, without any regard for the Earth and it's inhabitants.
Christianity:
The belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...
Yeah, makes perfect sense.
Religious activities or belief should bring us closer to ideal and comfort environment, stinkin people create stinkin earth, fanatism in religion promote it more
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