Dear Joe,

I was referring to God, not to gods. There aren't any gods in my world anyway and I am not preoccupied with heaven or hell either (didn't even cross my mind). I also have no monopoly on peace love and compassion.

The notion of people serving each other, which is commendable, is empty unless you can tell what they serve each other for. If man has no direction, then nor would the aggregate of mankind have any.

I am not trying to say that you are doing anything wrong, something which you should not, or fail to do something that you should - it is only that you lack the philosophical framework to explain and provide meaning to what you are already doing anyway.

Now if your notion of God is repugnant, then I suggest that you change that notion, wherever you got it from in the first place, because it does not serve you. Find yourself a different notion that will inspire you. God wouldn't care in the least - because God is not a notion.

Yuyutsu,

When I say "sky"- God, I'm using the sky as a symbol - meaning an entity that does not dwell in our material realm - but you already knew that - you're playing semantics.

"Oh man is now enlightened, so we must not sustain him any more...."

What's that supposed to mean? You twist my meaning or misunderstand it.

Of course the earth still sustains us. But man has drifted away from his innate connection with it...and that is not a debatable point. Over half the world's population now dwells in urban conglomerations.

Yes, I'm saying that "enlightened" man, who does not now depend on a hands-on relationship with the earth, has lost knowledge, respect and reverence for that which ultimately sustains him.

Poirot,

Sometimes, maybe usually, we can't see what we are in the midst of. We take what's around us for granted. So your statement that

"... "enlightened" man, who does not now depend on a hands-on relationship with the earth, has lost knowledge, respect and reverence for that which ultimately sustains him."

could be absolutely rubbish. Let's be honest here: the environmental ethic is amazingly contemporary. Setting aside national parks has occurred only in the last 150 years or so. Yes, Europeans have been re-planting forests for many centuries, but people didn't consciously think much about what human activity was doing to the environment before 1900, anywhere in the world.

It could well be that precisely because most of us now live in cities, we can stand back and understand what we have removed outrselves from, and what people have unwittingly done over the millenia - over-stocked and over-grazed hillsides, chopped down vast forests for firewood and building, for example, on every continent. We know that now - but it took people like Aldo Leopold and Carl Sauer to point it out.

And certainly not in areas occupied by hunter-gatherers: when you tread lightly on the earth, due to your extremely limited technology, it would not occur to anybody in a million years (well, in sixty thousand) that your firing practices, for example, were having a permanent impact on the nature of the environment.

In any case, kill all of the animals you like (or are able to, with very limited technologies of capture) and then just carry out a ceremony, and everything will come good, sooner or later. That's hardly an informed environmental ethic.

Joe

Joe, as usual, your in-sights are out-standing. However, this question has intrigued me.

"Question: if there were no gods in your fantasy world, no heaven or hell, would you believe ?

The human condition through evolving wonders from the separation from beast to man, the transition covering the journey, has made man the singularity species, from which no other's exist in the animal Kingdom.

Just the shear notion of our specialised condition, proms us just to think we are, by design. When coming back to your question.......Does me, myself, and I....qualify that for certainty,...well yes and will man be forever under this great umbrella of why............Iam absolutely positive, I think:) ( as far as my primitive brain will carry me:)

Mother earth. Its not a religion as such, well you can make it one I guess like all the rest. However, As like all other organisms that seemly enjoy harmony without our curse, I cant help but not thinking we are in an a evolutionary trap, from which our minds can not escape from. Now! If god were true, and we do end up in front of him, whats he going to say..........it was just a joke? I didn't mean to fool you? Iam sorry! Thats just the way I made the world and its creatures?

Mother earth is NOT a change from father in the sky....Earth is a visual experience. You can feel and love every part of it, like where it used to come from, before the transition. You can embrace in ore, at its complexities without invention.

And last but not least.......can anyone think of a better belief, than the one that gives you life? If all peoples around the world believed as much as they cared for old Gods that only gives emotional security, I bet the world today, wouldn't be in such a mess.

LEAP

Considering this discussion is about UN principles concerning Humankind's treatment of the planet, introducing the eventual extinction of the Earth in 4 or 5 billion years is a nonsense argument; no more than a red herring. Humankind's environmental activities today can have absolutely no impact on that eventual extinction.
Loving and honouring your mother has nothing to do with religion, even in part, after all:
"Religion's sole purpose is to draw closer to God and ultimately unite with Him."
Children raised in an entirely secular manner without even a concept of god would still love and honour their parents.
"Compassion is wonderful, but informed compassion is even better than blind compassion."
Is it? Says who? This is one of those 'rational' statements, which -relying on the axiomatic superiority of 'rationality' over 'irrationality' sounds irrefutable; yet when teased apart actually says nothing. The word compassion is defined as:
"a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering." That's all.
For someone who appears to hold religion in high regard, you (Yuyutsu) seem to have utterly missed the (traditional) point of religion.
Doing good for others was never about the welfare of the 'others' so much as improving your own soul. All the rules laid down by most religions are about self improvement. Doing the right thing makes you a better person. The societal effects are secondary (and inevitable, if enough people adopt the same philosophy).
Jesus merely sweetened the pot by offering eternal life to those who most successfully improved the condition of their souls.
The most radical aspect of Jesus' philosophy was to extend compassion even to one's enemies, as the only way to end the cycle of retribution. In this, the putative Jesus was clearly more than 2000 years ahead of his time, as we still have so called Christians fighting wars in the name of their God.

I'll give you an example of compassion that is uninformed, Grim:

You see an old lady standing at the edge of the footpath next to a road with heavy traffic, so you take her arm, stop the cars and lead her safely to other side... only to find out that she was heading towards the pharmacy on the original side of the road.

You are right that 'rationality' is a secular criteria. I prefer wisdom. Compassion that comes hand-in-hand with wisdom is superior than compassion on its own. Doing good for others is indeed for the welfare of one's own soul, but you should better check first, whenever you can, that the action is indeed good for others.

My statement about the extinction of the Earth in 4-5 billion years was not related to the UN and their environmental quest. It only intended to defend my earlier reply to Pelican to which you objected in a way that was already then out our (me and Pelican's) context.

Yes, Jesus said to love one's enemies - and he was right, but that doesn't mean that you don't fight them if they keep attacking your family. You love them, yet you pull the trigger, you never stop loving them but you do your duty anyway (if that's indeed what God calls you to do).

"Children raised in an entirely secular manner without even a concept of god would still love and honour their parents."

-Certainly so, and that would be part of their religion: it would draw them closer to God, irrespective of whether they believe in Him or not.

Poirot,

I agree with what you just wrote, I just cannot see how possibly the Earth, a physical thing which sustains our physical bodies, can also sustain our spirit, which is non-physical.