A movement away from religion in the West starts with people. How did we get to this point? I agree that Western society has shifted from small towns and communities centered around a church to a more diverse and spread out landscape that really isn’t preoccupied with religious fervor. But I ask, again, how did we get to this point? You can’t use the social pendulum argument because look a society 50, 100, 200 etc etc years ago…. those people were crazy religious- I mean people would get beaten because they were left-handed and were deranged enough to try to write with their dominate hand! What spurred this social change? Is it the technology that seems to invade our lives more everyday? I think that has something to do with it- what do we do when we get home? We turn on the TV, skype, get on our laptops and listen to music and generally try to avoid living in the ‘real’ physical world. Back in the day people came in from the fields cleaned a goose, ate, and read The Bible- I mean what else was there in those days?
So I’ve established that I think technology has something to do with it- but people being people ultimately have a choice to make. They can either come home and wander down aforementioned technological route or if they are religious at all they can choose to spend some of their precious time off learning more about their faith and teaching a younger generation the values that were bestowed upon them when they were young by people in similar situations. Nowadays most people (who are religious) are choosing not to spend time on their faith and spirituality. But do I think it is a problem?
Interesting question. A few years ago my answer would have been an emphatic ‘YES’, but now I’m split 50/50. People should be able to do what they want- that’s the great thing about a personal spirituality. However, since most people are separating themselves from any sort of religion and spirituality in their lives I do think morals are generally on the decrease- and since that dynamic of the small community centered around a church has changed we as people have lost touch with other people and get into these crazy arguments over 3 dollars- or suing someone because my kid slipped in their store. Come on.
As for the African and Latin America argument, religion is a huge part of people’s lives over there (at least it is in South Africa, Mozambique, and Swaziland) Even though they are becoming more westernized I think those strong communities that existed here at one time now exist there- and I don’t think it is because they aren’t fully westernized because pre-westernization these people were completely tribal and secluded from one-another unless warring. Now, people of different tribes can gather in these religious communities and have some sort of camaraderie. But we will just have to see how it goes with them when they become more technologically advanced.
God, I feel so much better in life if I come home from work or school and don't just spend all night on the computer. I feel so much better if I spend that time reading or playing guitar. I fear what being obsessed with technology will do to our society. Zach(Zack?)'s article was interesting about how the Internet is killing our attention spans, and how we can only now read short blurbs. This is proven when I hear that half the people who read our blog can't even focus enough to read the longer articles by Daniel or me. Come on, they aren't even that long! They are no longer than a New Yorker article--not even close.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to hear about the other parts of the world, but I am not as hopeful as Daniel, and I fear that with time they too will become more and more like us. After all, every day they are becoming more like us (I think). Globalization means that we can come into contact with more and more people from around the world, but a side effect of it is that all of our cultures gradually blur together into one big one. There is certainly proof that many, many different cultures around the world are being destroyed and there is simply becoming one big, global culture based around materialism, secularism, th Internet, and of course one thing above all else--MONEY. Daniel is definitely a lot more optimistic than me. It's hard to even see humans surviving that far into the future with the rate we are growing. Certainly, there is a limit to how big our population can grow to (it must be getting close to 7 billion by now), and eventually the world's resources will be used up, and frankly I don't think scientists are able to fix this problem as fast as we are exhausting them. But that doesn't mean the world won't go on. Just humans might not. After all, millions of species have become extinct before us; why are humans immune to this role? That prospect doesn't scare me too much, because after all we will be dead. And what makes humans more special than any other species, by the way? We had a period of dominance, but on the larger scale of things, we haven't been around as long as a lot of other species, and I don't think we'll be around forever. If we died out, would there be other intelligent animals springing up? I would imagine eventually.
I don't understand why some people think that humans will be around forever. We clearly are good at short-term survival, much better than other species, since we will do anything to keep our population growing and because of our intelligence, we can outperform all other animals. But we are not too good at looking forward towards the future. Our population is growing so motherfucking rapidly that we have completely no way to sustain it. It's crazy how fast we are growing. And there is only finite resources on this planet. I genuinelly think humans don't have that much longer to survive. At least most of us. Perhaps some will remain around, but I suspect there will be a large-scale destruction of our race soon enough. We have dreams about finding resources and space on other planets, but come on, does this really seem likely? It takes so long to travel to any planet outside of our solar system--lifetimes and lifetimes even if you are going light speed--and there is no planet of us for us in our solar system. We kinda blew our shot here on Earth, because we are such a fucking greedy species (but then again, aren't all animals greedy? Wouldn't all animals do the same as us if given the opportunity? I hate those who act like other animals are morally superior to humans just b/c they don't have the abilities that we have to spread their populations at such a rate as we do...all animals would do the exact same as us if they could--it's just how life works). You know how fucking much better the world would be if people simply didn't have as much children? I can't even begin to fathom how many human lives would be better if people could simply have less children. This is one of the great moral problems of our time, and one that doesn't get talked about for some reason. Do people not understand how many less would starve to death if they simply had one or two less children? God, that greediness disgusts me. But things are how they are. I think that is a much bigger issue than coming up with an electric car or something. We could do so much more to save the Earth's resources by limiting the population growth instead of our feeble attempts at environmental control, which are frankly too little too late. None of that fucking shit matters if our population continues to grow at a simply astonishing rate. Do we really think electric cars will do even a tiny bit of difference if our population is 10 billion? I guess people can continue to think that they are changing the world, but in reality they aren't. The only way to really change the world is to shrink our population--that's it.
ReplyDeletehttp://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/are-you-addicted-to-the-internet/?nl=learning&emc=learninga2 A New York Times article linking depression with teens who use the Internet a lot. I would tend to agree with this--I am a lot unhappier if I'm just on the computer all the time. Bleh.
ReplyDeleteHo Boy. Talk about covering a lot of ground. First off, my hopefulness doesn't extend to all this. I didn't mean to implicate the rest of the world or even the survival of humanity into what I said before. I was basically talking about there being a way forward spiritually for the people who are beginning to emerge from the battle between those that praise religous deities and those that praise the internet. My hope (not even a complete optimistic belief, but a hope) is that more and more people will find themselves crushed by the control the internet and technology has over their lives (as I blog on a computer to tell you this), and will rediscover the things that return them to feeling human again, such as art, music, history, science, and other humans in the flesh! Granted technology has entangled itself so parasitically into those things, but it's a matter of having a real discussion with a friend or friends over the internet rather than typing acronyms and emoticons and predetermined greetings, which can bring us back to what's important. Because in actuality technology is not evil, it only becomes corrupt when we lose ourselves in it. One of my favorite aspects of Wall-E was that they didn't blanket all machines as good or bad. There both sides fighting, with humans sitting fat and stupid in the middle (only later do the humans actually come to life). The scariest thing about technology is its ability to captivate us. We throw our emotions so easily into as many inanimate and non-living things we can find from clothes to stuffed animals (pet rocks) to cars to buildings to PHONES to fucking internet browsers and "apps". This wouldn't be such a problem if we didn't just give over complete control to our inherent desires and dreams, expecting something beautiful and loving in return, but instead receiving nothing but (exactly as Edward described it) materialism, secularism, the Internet, and of course one thing above all else--MONEY, as well as (to add more of my own) sarcasm, cynicism, and a complete loss of innocence from the world. This is when it really doesn't matter if the species dies off, because if we go that far in forfeiting our souls to the internet and money, their won't be anything left anyway.
ReplyDeleteSo on a more hopeful note, I know there's a good crowd of people who know that there's more to be had and who want more out of life than the shit they find online, or even if these people don't know it yet, maybe they can rediscover it with the help from those who do know. Again, all the things that we too easily forget the power and importance of, such as art, knowledge, humor, faith, games, music, food, sleep, anything worth being passionate about really. Seek it out, and never stop.
so many typos and left-out words (hangs head in shame)
ReplyDeleteI think that humans will not die out- we will simply find news ways to utilize resources that no one considered to produce energy. When challenged with a problem humans are incredibly good at figuring out a new way to do this or a new resource to take advantage of. Think about writing a paper a month before it's due or channeling some brilliance down at the wire a few hours before it is due. Not saying everyone can do it, but some people can and humans will. Plus there is sooooo much open land here in the U.S. and in Africa- Land isnt an issue- food, shelter, energy are issues, but i think that they wont be once we inevitably run out of the resources we depend on now.
ReplyDeleteYeah, i was never implying that you were a blind optimist. Although I do question whether the MAJORITY of people will ever loose themselves from the bonds of technological, masterialistic slavery that they are now beginning to become more and more strangled by (this has been taking place over a period of centuries). I don't care that much, though, since it is true that in the grand scheme of things, humans really don't matter. All that matters is how we live our own lives, which comes back to the issue of religion, philosophy, and existentialism. We must try to seek out beauty in our own lives, which can often come from helping others, or from the above-mentioned puruists that Daniel said, such as art, humor, sex, whatever. Myself, I am an aesthete, and the arts are what is most important for me. Creation of and ingestion. Others might find their meaning elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with Daniel, and this is a very important distinction for me. Technology isn't bad or evil. Just like drugs aren't inherently bad. It is what we do with these things that determine our viewpoint on them. I hate those who blame other things. Like meth is evil--it destroyed my life. You are the one who let meth destroy your life. I have sympathy for you, but it's not the drug's fault. You have no one to blame but yourself. Take strength and fight it. Same thing with technology (I'm turning into Daniel talking about this all the time...if you don't believe me, please read his names sometime and you'll see the full brunt of his obsession with this topic--I'm going to guess it's because he was a science major and around people who were presumably very deep into technology a lot).
But I do stand by my point about human "progress" and how it's all pointless if our population keeps growing. That is the single biggest factor when we talk about the long-term future of our society and species itself. It cannot sustain itself forever. If people really cared, they would talk about population control. But for whatever reason, no politicans ever seem to focus on this. Whatever, if they want to keep growing and have five or more children families, let them. But just keep in mind that you are causing other people to die around the world because of your greed. I can't say that such things trouble me honestly, though. If we let all of that stuff trouble us, how would we ever go on living?
so families of 7 are greedy and are a cause for death around the world?
ReplyDeleteEh, I'm not saying that, because in all honesty we are ALL greedy. Everything we do takes something away from something else. And I don't really think of big families as being greedy despite what I posted. I do think that population control is far, far more important to the survival of our planet than any steps we are making in other fields, though. I recognize that is a fact of life, though, and don't tend to think about it, because like I said I won't be here. For whatever reason I seemed pretty angry posting that. But yes, I realize that the human population will continue to grow until the point where it's too big and the environment can no longer sustain it, at which point--well I don't know what will happen then. My only point is that I don't really see any of the energy crap we are working on mattering if the population continues to grow at its current rate (and its current rate is increasing exponentially constantly).
ReplyDeleteHaha, but yes, Jim, your family in particular is a cause of death around the world. Everyone knows it.
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