Thanks for the comment.

You are right in what you say but I believe you are confusing the word belief with ‘religious mythology’.

A belief in the earth and in our place among its grand systems is not a mythology, but fact. Instilling that belief in our culture and our daily practices will greatly aid the earth and humanity at large.

Thats why I prefer the term belief or belief system.

When people argue that religion is the cause such destruction and death and that to remove it would remove all that conflict, they really have no clue about human history or about the history of war itself (or they’ve never seen the South Park double bill with Richard Dawkins – genius).

On a personal level I agree with people when they argue against inventing a bunch of stories about stuff we dont know in order to make us feel safer, knowledgable of more important, espcially in this day and age. Its not good enough to invent or take on certain rituals and beliefs just because you think its a good thing to do so.

But I aint talking about that here. What I am saying is we have a spirituality (anyone who argues against that is not human) and its healthy to express that physically in a communal way. Its like your sexuality, nice to do it alone, great to do it with other people.

Let’s face it: secular society hasn’t proven to be that much better at making the world a better place than a purely religious society. Our connection with nature, if anything, has only gotten worse since we abandoned seeing God in nature (I have post about that on my blog, but I won’t post the link so you don’t think I’m spamming ).

That’s not to say that we should revert back to premodern religion. That’d be silly. But I do think that we should move forward, and integrate the best parts of a secular society with a religious one. Seems reasonable enough to me, even if it would be difficult to do.

What i will say is that we have a basic spirituality, it is good, it is healthy, it is very human and it should be explored.

It should be explored on an individual basis, it would be great if it could be explored in a communal way, and it think rituals (and i aint just talking about incense and recycling) are a great thing.

Forget all this green washing bullshit that you hear now, remove yourself out of contemporary arguements and prejudices.

Imagine instead what it feels like to sit with a group of friends on the edge of the Grand Canyon at sunset, admiring the greatness in front of you and feeling like you belong. Thats the kind of belief system I am aiming at here.

Aren’t you just trading old men in beards who tell us what to do and believe that we are a bunch of hellbound sinners for another bunch of old men with beards telling us what to do (though shalt recycle!)

Won’t we end up with the quick run down to the bottle bank turning into some bizarre ritual where we light candles and crap?

http://onlymoments.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/why-where-who-and-whens/

Keep up the open thought process!

Cheers,
Nick

However, I think you’re right to point out that empirical evidence is hardly worthy as the basis of a human belief system or religion. There’s something inside humans that call them towards something more metaphysical and transcendent.

Anyway, interesting ideas.