Time for God - as iGod is running out of steam, materials and markets

[David Pinnegar]

Hi!

Yesterday a film group gave me a wider view of what we have been hearing in the news . . . It was a fashion shoot and, being fearful of having to listen to their own thoughts, they had an iPhone linked up to a pocket speaker as a noise source which emtted an apology for music. . . The iPhone looked a little tired around the edges and I commented to its owner that these gadgets are fine until the hard disc goes . . . and then they are junk. The lady told me that she would only have it for two years in any event.

Apple have produced the ultimate iMust have gadget which has sold in billions in sales that have literally flashed around the world. Think of all the energy needed for transport, manufacture, transport of raw materials and energy in mining and destruction of the environment around mineral and energy mines. All to produce a product that no-one needs - do people really _need_ them - that caused all older products to be thrown away, only themselves to end up as junk - costing energy in transport and disassembly if possible for materials recovery or as landfill.

Is that the way to treat the material environment, the planet upon which we depend, whether made by an anthropomorphised God or as a wider view of God as the laws of the Universe which all in harmony have to obey from which the whole of matter and the material world is created?

Isn't this this ultimate example of materialism requiring people drunken dizzy on the materialist merry-go-round in the words of the Delai Llama buying stuff they don't need  . . . for the purpose of impressing others who they don't even like.

In the case of the iPhone, this drunkenness has brought material riches and power to a company now with more material cash than the whole liquidity of the United States.

What our economic news is telling us is that it's quite apparent that our capacity to produce exceeds our need for consumption and availability of raw materials and energy to turn them into marketable, transportable, saleable products. The signs were there in the 1980s when intelligent lads who formerly would have been artisans making things started to make imaginary products, such as life insurance.

We've gone through three, four or five decades, arguably, when the protection and satisfaction of the "I" has reigned supreme.

We're now in sight of money difficulties, materials difficulties, energy difficulties. The sooner we start to turn the ship, the more gentle will be the crash into the quayside. . . .

Direction - the only direction is "Knowing". Knowing not an illusory anthropomorphised god . . . but the Invisible, All Knowing, All Powerful system by which all the universe in harmony works and was made. That differentiation, raising up a figure by name or image was the reason for the injunction against worshipping statues - and this is the reason why a church in Zurich

has only a spiritual doorway, the injunction to love God with all thy heart and thy neighbour as thyself, and all flooded with white light . . .

Without a personification of God, the Chief Rabbi is worth listening to . . . http://www.chiefrabbi.org/ . I understand that recently he has been commenting that a society based upon importance of the I, the individual, rather than the common good, the collective, is in trouble . . .

There is possibly much from which we can learn from the collective of our branches of Christianity, such as the church interior photographed above, and possibly the collective of our broader base of brands of religions which may bring us to a wider understanding and a knowledge of God beyond indsutrialism and materialism to lead us through. Take materialism away and God is the only rock . . .

In time, all of this will be viewable merely as a matter of common sense, just as in the discovery that Neutrinos can travel faster than light we will look back and wonder for why our "science" assumed that matter independent of electric charge should be confined to a law of electromagnetism about the speed of the travel of electromagnetic waves . . . Other types of matter, other dimensions beyond that which we see all exist and what we are conscious of is only a partial view - of the All That Is.

All human knowledge therefore must end in mystery rather than certainty . . . What we experience as certainty can only at best be an illusion . . .

Best wishes

David P

[Holditch]

Hi David

Unfortunately the human race as a whole does not live in harmony with the earth like other species on this planet. Humankind is more akin to a parasite; it spreads across the earth using up its natural resources at an exponential rate. Our politicians say we are doomed without economic growth, but why do we need growth to just use up more and more of Earth's bounty? The reason is that the human race is every expanding, it is growing over generations and so requires more and more to sustain it. Is this a good thing? No. Should people stop having children? Possibly yes.

I would be interested to know your thoughts with regards mankind's ongoing relationship with the earth, do you think religion is the answer, or is the realisation that fundamental problem is the issue of our planets ability to sustain our ever increasing numbers.

Materialism is one thing, but there are more basic issues here with regards to food, water and general sustainability


Best Regards
Marc

[David Pinnegar]

I would be interested to know your thoughts with regards mankind's ongoing relationship with the earth, do you think religion is the answer, or is the realisation that fundamental problem is the issue of our planets ability to sustain our ever increasing numbers.

Materialism is one thing, but there are more basic issues here with regards to food, water and general sustainability

Dear Marc

I suspect that we all agree. However I go slightly further as we see areas which appear to be different strands, fraying in different directions, but it is my belief that an understanding of God can pull them all together. By God, I do not mean a personified, anthropomorphic entity (the concept of which, however, like anything if not taken too far [dogma], can be a useful tool) but in looking at "The Invisible" "The Eternal" "The All Powerful" "The All Knowing" we might come to what is describable as the operation of the matrix of interaction between matter and circumstances throughout which all that is is created.

There are connexions hidden within the matrix, and hidden dimensions too, and Einstein was conscious of these in talking of mystery . . . Jesus' teachings are seen easily to explain the ways in which these work for harmony in the human realm but food, water and general sustainability are issues of our relationship with the matter around us, our environment, which without having to look for an anthropomorphised creator can be regarded as a function of the operation of the matrix - all that results from the physical existence of all matter and forces. Jesus connected the two in his dual commands to "Love thy God, and thy neighbour as thyself" - "God" being "the all that is" - and that includes the environment in which we find ourselves, "our planet" and more.

Were more to encompass both of Jesus' commands, to be aware of them, then both our social problems and our environmental problems would start to defuse as people work together who understand . . . "loving" both. It's a world in which the requirement to impress others who we don't like by the buying of gadgets which we consider to be the latest "smart" status symbol do not cause the plundering of the earth for its minerals, material treasure and stored energy.

So in this way, "loving" in both ways that Christ commanded start to sort out the planet's problems, in the realms both of resources and activity: the two go hand in hand, activity being "world peace" and "domestic peace" too. Religion in its truest sense is all encompassing, not dominating, but all inclusive, a way of thought and a way of life.

On a personal level, my search for faith and belief is one that leads one to seek closer harmony with all around us. In my opinion, no-one has the right answer, light in one dimension possibly causing serious disturbances in another, and therefore there being no place in the world of Heaven for divisions or denominations, all such being the work and focus of man and not of God.

In religion and organs, however, provided all understand the spirit of goals to which they work, diversity can be celebrated to create sounds and thoughts of great delight. To that end, should another Symposium be organised, Zurich with its number and diversity of churches is a place of great inspiration. It's been a place http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lelio_Sozzini hosting crossroads of religious thought for centuries and as such boasts as great a diversity of churches as it does organs. For the present, it was the Predigerkirche that had most spiritually clinical concept of Christian teaching:

and a doorway

of understanding unencumbered by dogma which turns people to rejection.

Hoping that these ideas are helpful,

Best wishes

David P

[David Pinnegar]

Hi!

The modern buzzword about a source of inspiration and the benefits of its application is "mindfulness". It has been the subject of published psychology research in recent years and makes interesting reading - http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/09/the-mindfulness-chronicles The effect was studied of a simple insidiously mindchanging exercise to some old people in a nursing home - giving them some plants to care for . . .

The point about making a connexion between our environment as a function of "God - the All That Is", materially and behaviourally (spiritually) and then link with our neighbours, animate and inanimate, is that it creates a state of mindfulness, awareness, in the connexions between cause and effect and thought processes which lead to the creation of harmony in the wider arena, realms and context . . .

It creates parallel rather than linear thoughts and the apparently separate strands become a cable that communicates one with another and binds all together.

Another strand in that article was the effect of fixed ideas in childhood which become "internalised". This is the importance of sowing the seeds of the knowledge of God in childhood, rather than the violence and discord of computer games. "Internalised" thought processes are the substrate upon which more thoughts and actions are built - rather like an interpreter language in computers which sits on top of machine code. Where wisdom is received in childhood, it sets a direction for life and the words of wisdom passed down orally from generation to generation become the living word.

Can this idea better answer your question?

Best wishes

David P