Blog #176--Seeking a New Paradigm

Yes! Magazine published an article by Richard Schiffman on 3/1/2015 entitled “Bigger Than Science, Bigger Than Religion.” Schiffman speaks eloquently on the way humans are destroying their environment and what might be done about it before it’s too late. In his mind, we need to change our thinking in basic ways.

Schiffman includes quotes from the late Father Thomas Berry that point out how the Judeo-Christian belief system has contributed to the problem. Calling it the “Old Story,” Berry describes how we have come to accept the notion that humans are apart from Nature and are supposed to conquer it. Berry says the quote from Genesis in the Bible, “subdue the Earth...and have dominion over every living thing,” has contributed greatly to the problem.

Berry reminds how people have been functioning as mere children, lacking conscious awareness of the harm they cause with their selfishness:

“I say that my generation has been autistic. An autistic child is locked into themselves, they cannot get out and the outer world cannot get in. They cannot receive affection, cannot give affection. And this is, I think, a very appropriate way of identifying this generation in its relationship to the natural world.

“We have no feeling for the natural world. We’d as soon cut down our most beautiful tree, the most beautiful forest in the world. We cut it down for what? For timber, for board feet. We don’t see the tree, we only see it in terms of its commercial value.”

Berry argued that humans need to tune more into their hearts and feelings to gain a broader picture. Schiffman agrees, explaining how science has made significant progress and has become its own religion of sorts. While religious people look to their creator for answers, others rely on science and technology to fly in like Superman to prevent us from harming ourselves and our world. Unfortunately, the growth of science and our increasing dependence on it has created an imbalance that is pushing our environment to the edge of extinction. This is especially true for those who misuse science for their own purposes.

Berry saw connections between past, present and future and between himself, all other humans and the rest of the universe. Much like responses I’ve received for my book “It’s a Secret, So Pass It On: a Toolbox For Life,” others have found Berry’s vision difficult to conceptualize and apply practically. Sister Miriam MacGillis, one of Berry’s friends and students, admitted to many years of confusion trying to understand his vision. She is beginning to make considerable progress:

“The pictures I had of God were too small, too parochial, too much a reflection of the ways humans think. We made God in our image!...We need to realize that we are the universe in the form of the human. We are not just on Earth to do good ecological things. That is where the religious perspective takes us with the stewardship model—take care of it; it’s holy because God made it. That hasn’t worked real well...The idea of stewardship is too small, it’s too human-centered, like we can do that. It’s really the opposite. Earth is taking care of us.”

These are ideas I and a number of other people have concluded. We are in the minority, but if these concepts are true, everyone has them available for discovery and application. As I describe in my book, conscious awareness requires a balance between our two opposite brain halves. This is synonymous with the unification of science and religion. If both decide to work together for common purpose, perhaps a better solution can be found. Schiffman describes what we need to discover:

“We need a powerful new story that we are a part of nature and not separate from it. We need a story that properly situates humans in the world—neither above it by virtue of our superior intellect, nor dwarfed by the universe into cosmic insignificance. We are equal partners with all that exists, co-creators with trees and galaxies and the microorganisms in our own gut, in a materially and spiritually evolving universe.”

More than likely, selfish people will continue to see the rest of Nature for its utility and not its oneness with them. They can’t help being who they are. Whether we can ever become enlightened enough as a species to reverse the harm we have caused the Earth over the centuries remains to be seen. But regardless of that battle, love, acceptance and forgiveness are possible once we attain conscious awareness of our connections with the rest of Nature. At that point, our treatment of our environment will be equal to how we treat ourselves.

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