A.D Vander Vliet, 2018-08-12
CONTENT:
Preamble:
I. Honouring our Past:
II. Treasure New Achievements:
III. Knowing the Other:
IV. Value Diversity:
V. Setting Our Common Goal:
References
Contemplative Story:
{ Rather then a formal meditation I share a relevant story and experience as an illustration of shifting values. }
Theme:
Migrations of the Holy.
Fifty-nine years ago, this date of August 12, I woke up in the Weston suburb of Toronto to start my first day as a newly landed immigrant in Canada, my country of choice.
To gain an appreciation of a fifty-nine year stretch of time and its change, I thought: ‘Let me go back fifty-nine years from 1959. That took me to 1900! This is before the two World wars I thought and then “My own parents were not even born yet!” So, going forward from 1959 to the present what has been some change for me?
Coming to Canada meant for me, going from my sovereign nation of the Netherlands to a Dominion, independent, but not sovereign! ‘Dominion’ I associated with ‘having dominion over the earth’ a charge that the Old Testament god gives to the created humans. Back in 1959 this meant that humans would cut trees, bring land into cultivation, build roads and exploit mines. There was plenty of that to be done in this ‘Dominion of Canada’ I felt!
Moving in time to around 1990 when my parents were visiting for their last time, my Dad referred back to this notion of ‘having dominion’. He asked me whether I knew what was meant by that. He went on to explain that we – humans – must take care of the earth and nature, such as fix the acid rain problem, the pollution of rivers and protect dying species.
With his question my Dad confronted me with a shift in values, one from exploiting the earth to one of caring for the earth and its animals. This kind of shift is what I mean by ‘the migration of the holy’. That is what was once the concern of the divine, is now a human responsibility.
End of Meditation.
Preamble:
A conviction prevailed during the second half of the twentieth century that religions were in the process of fading into some kind of general secular belief, if they would survive at all. Today we have a diverse multitude of firmly held beliefs each defining a uniquely held identity for its community and its believers, often based on handed down teachings that date back many centuries in most cases.
It is clear that these religions are here to stay and therefore need to be accommodated in our globalised society and this talk cum essay formulates a way to find such an accommodation. It is not the purpose to introduce a new belief but rather to offer a way to achieve mutual accommodation of these existing beliefs.
The two preceding talks, the first titled ‘World Belief Origin’ and the other ‘World Belief Conciliation’ laid the ground work. The first by tracing religions back to human origins, while the second showed the shared aspects of our human journey starting at that origin to the present.
In this essay we spell out the five required teachings to help us achieve a level of world wide mutual accommodation of our human religious beliefs and traditions while maintaining their integrity.
I. Honouring our Past:
Towards the year 1800, it became fashionable to neglect tradition and to some extend, this trend continued to this day. Early human cultures were dismissed as backward and considered best to be forgotten. However, contributions from anthropology and some political events – WW 1 & 2 – have done much to change this attitude.
Yet to better understand our current global human situation we need to give that early human experience our full attention. During the first 50 000 years humans related to their environment through revelations with the shaman acting as middleman between the world of daily life and the mysteries of the unexplainable. The powers behind the unexplained – such as a tsunami say – were imagined as sources of authority which needed to be pacified through worship.
Anthropologists agree that all human communities have had a belief in a revealing higher power which acted as a source of authority for the community. Revelations are specific in nature and unique in each instance. They need to be unique in order the be effective and are governed by specific time and place for each people in the situation of concern.
During the first 20 000 years that the first humans spread over the earth, they settled in relative isolation, which over time gave rise to a great variety of beliefs, revelations and shamanic ceremonies. Then about 10 000 years ago humans were able to start practicing agriculture at a large scale giving rise the various ancient civilisations with their formalised statehood type religions, with ancient Egypt as the best-known example and followed by the more recent Roman Empire.
Today we need to recognise these developments from those early times, all of which represent the various ways in which humans interacted with a poorly understood world. The forces and powers of nature were experienced as divine in nature, which could threaten the integrity of the community needed for survival. Over time many communities became larger and more complex until this very day. This represents a unique cultural accomplishment which we moderns need to honour and understand for our own survival today.
II. Treasure New Achievements:
Circa 1750 Isaac Newton called himself a ‘Natural Philosopher’ while one hundred years later he would have been a ‘Scientist’, that is some one who knows, not thinks. This name change signals a shift towards self assurance as to what nature is about and how it functions. Today we have explanations with proof of how the stars and planets formed, including our solar system. Gone are the time-honoured explanations of a creator god who fashioned earth and all there is in it. But, we can honour both these explanations by realising that each one has truth value of its own within its own context, because explanations change with time and with our understanding of things.
Today we must act on our modern knowledge if we are to be responsible conscious beings. To ignore or discount our own scientific discoveries leads to wrong decision making, which puts at least part of humanity in danger. If we celebrate our technology, we should do same for our sciences.
The responsibility that the creator took upon itself with creating the earth has now shifted to us humans as we are attempting to ‘have dominion’ over this earth, its eco sphere, flora and fauna. Knowing as we do that the oceans are filling with human made plastics, the onus is on us to act and not on god. We must add the findings of our modern discoveries to the teachings of the handed down traditions by recognising the values passed on to us from the proven past. It is not one or the other, as both combine into an amalgam of understanding and values.
III. Knowing the Other:
Our human culture knows thousands of beliefs and hundreds of religions, but for this section we will consider the four religions that have believers spread across the planet. The oldest of these four is ‘Hinduism’ dating back to about 2 000 BZ (Before the year Zero). Hinduism has several major subdivisions, each with numerous variations. It is polytheistic in nature and in this differs from the other three.
However, it is Brahmanism that is most senior to all the other and it has ‘purity’ as its most high value for a human to pursue. The Brahmin priest par excellence aims at this highest purity which allows him to communicate with Brahman the high god of Hinduism.
Buddhism dates back to about 500 BZ and developed in present day India in part as an alternative to Hinduism. Buddhism has its own variations which share many common precepts and teachings. Its highest being is ‘the Uncreate’ – creation in waiting – which might be seen as the totality of unrealized potential. Buddhism adapts to the various cultures where it is practiced, as is illustrated by variations in style of the Buddha effigies in the various nations.
The committed Buddhist aims at non-attachment to worldly affairs as a way to minimize suffering and to achieve a state of ultimate bliss. Buddhism allows converts to join its community of believers [sangha].
Next oldest is Christianity dating from 0BZ, although it was not until ca 350 that Christianity was established as an organised church. It too has many divisions, but with an established and shared canon – the bible. The supreme being is a triune god with Jesus as redeemer of all of human believers. The central teaching is forgiveness of wrong doings and the assurance of God’s love among humankind.
The latest religion is Islam dating back to ca 650. It has a closely defined canon (The Quran) and a unique prophet Muhammad sent as messenger by the high god Allah. The teaching emphasizes unity of the community and for the believer to live in accord with the teachings of the Quran and the traditions as recorded in the Hadith.
Generalising we might say that every one of these four traditions is a journey to achieve its set goal as defined by that belief, be it purity, non-attachment, love or unity. In this manner a human life is guided and a community maintained safeguarding human development as that has become defined over the preceding millennia. It is clear from the fore going that diversity of paths and values are the hallmark of this human journey that started 60 000 years ago.
IV. Value Diversity:
Some of the preceding sections show diverse religious beliefs with their value frameworks now existing side by side and being in direct contact with each other. This leads to ongoing conflict at various places such as in Egypt and Myanmar, among others. The problem often is that the dominant belief feels threatened by a local minority that is dominant somewhere else This is the case with the Buddhists in Myanmar and their Muslim and Christian minorities, which in turn have much larger communities of there own world wide.
Historically any given religion has been barely tolerant of another, if not openly hostile, as the other believer is viewed as competition to the resident belief community and each belief claimed exclusivity with respect to any other. This has meant zero tolerance to the other believer, which is a nonstarter today. In our global society we have to learn to tolerate each other even when we differ in our belief conviction.
Tolerance flourishes when people in the street are accepting of each other and when simultaneously the leaders of the various communities cooperate with each other in mutual respect and in cohesion when conflicts arise, as they will. i).
These are conditions that can be created through policy by governing authorities. In addition, at the personal level we can teach an attitude of tolerance by converting criticism of differences into respect and appreciation of such differences. There are many flowers in the garden and we rejoice in their diversity. So, where diversity may have been a threat in the past, in our global society this diversity is an asset and insurance, increasing our adaptability in changing circumstances.
V. Setting Our Common Goal:
There are several examples of cooperation among differing interests in the past as well as in our world today. One is the way Canada’s provinces in their diverse interests and identities do work together as a Nation. Also, the European Union is an example of established nations giving up certain powers to be able to act as a whole to mutual benefit.
These and other examples should serve as models for the nations of this world to pursue common goals that unite us as a human species on this planet. Such a planet wide identity is not a common value at this time, but it can be promoted to mutual benefit. The ground for such identity is our shared human journey over the past 60 000 years as the human species. This is a modern truth that we must make our common good.
Rather than wasting our resources in competion for dominance, let’s benefit from learning to maximise our diverse talents as a species in a common effort to improve our planet and reach beyond our Earthly Home.
END
References:
- i) “Pax Ethnica” - Where and how diversity succeeds. Meyer K.E and Brysac, Blair S. Public Affairs, 2012, N.Y, N.Y.
- C:\Users\Tony\Documents\My Talks\My-Talks-2018\World Belief Teachings.docx
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