godisclimatechange

[godisclimatechange]

It’s always kind of a trip seeing American fantasy and sci-fi authors who have zero familiarity with any religion other than the one specific flavour of Evangelical Christianity that they grew up with try to depict the weirdest alien religion they can possibly think of and proceed to independently reinvent Catholicism.

[godisclimatechange]

The Goal:

Build an intentional, permaculture-based community network of mindfulness practitioners and climate activists.

Steps

Build the community

Grow community into a network

Raise money

Purchase land

[godisclimatechange]

Autumn Equinox: God is Climate Change – Earthseed

[godisclimatechange]

Earthseed

by Octavia Butler

Here we are– Energy, Mass, Life, Shaping life, Mind, Shaping Mind God, Shaping God. Consider— We are born Not with purpose, But with potential. All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change. God Is Change.

[godisclimatechange]

Earthseed

This project is ultimately about exploring the present and future of religion, and one way to imagine religions place in the future is through things like works of science fiction, which speculate about what the future will look like for all of us. One such work of science fiction is the work of Octavia Butler, particularly her Parables series, which follows an invented religion called Earthseed and its founder in a then-distant, now-near future. By exploring Earthseed’s attributes, and how it fits into this future, we are better able to understand what makes a successful religion, and the place of religion in our own future. 

In the world of the series, where the country is divided by drought and food insecurity and climate change and violence, Earthseed provides a unifying force for people, and ultimately becomes one of the major religions of the world. It does this by providing a feeling of closeness with and power over God through structure and spirituality, actions for each individual practitioner to take to “shape God”, actionable goals for the continuation of the human race (comparable to the security belief in an afterlife provides), and a sense of human connection.

Earthseed is wildly successful within the world of the books because it meets people’s needs within the story, but it is also being practiced today by people around the world. During difficult times, people turn to religion to meet their needs. Religion isn’t going anywhere--it’s still doing the same things for people that it always has. The success of Earthseed is evidence of that.

(https://malvernbooks.com/2018/02/27/staff-picks-octavia-e-butlers-parables/)

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The President of the House of Deputies: “The Chair recognizes the Secretary of the House of Deputies to hear messages from the House of Bishops” The Secretary of the House of Deputies: “The Secretary has not yet received any messages from the House of Bishops.” The President of the House of Deputies: “The Chair thought that the House of Bishops was organized for business.” -laughs and oos from the deputies- The President of the House of Deputies: “The Chair loves the House of Bishops and the Presiding Bishop.”

The General Convention of the Episcopal Church. I love my church. (via thepotentiallyreverend)

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The people of jonestown were NOT gullible fools who couldn't think for themselves. Many of them were very educated and intelligent. Please look it up. There's a reason that it managed to convince 900 people to die for it. The church, the People's Temple, was progressive, highly respected, radical. It was running for almost 20 years with good publicity by the time they formed the commune in Guyana. They controlled its followers with drugs, sleep-deprivation, isolation, financial control, lies, and intimidation. You don't have to be stupid to drink the kool-aid. You can be very smart. All it takes it being vulnerable, and for someone to come along with the right tactics, hit the right buttons. You are not better than the victims of Jonestown. You are not too smart to be a victim of a cult.

[godisclimatechange]

Moral authority

In addition to providing things like a structure by which to live your day-to-day life, religion also often serves to provide more wider reaching moral and ethical standards to live by. This is often where criticisms of religion come from as well, as authoritative positions often attract a certain kind of person, who wants to abuse their power. 

There are as many different religious power structures as there are types of religions. There is the infamous, such as Jim Jones’ (of the infamous Jonestown massacre) People’s Temple, of which he was the soul authority and leader; there is the Episcopalian democratic model, where priests are hired and fired by their congregations and church and diocesan business is decided upon by democratic vote; and there is the Quaker structure where every decision is made by unanimous consensus. 

(Jonestown, pictured from above https://www.ucpress.edu/blog/39913/jonestown-forty-years-on/)

There are many things which distinguish these religious traditions from each other, but the churches which have stood the test of time as moral authorities are often those which employ the most ethical and equitable power structures. So, religion provides a moral and ethical sense of authority for people, and some of the most successful religions also employ liberatory power structures which prevent ethical scandals and allow them to maintain that sense of authority over time.

[godisclimatechange]

Picture people running around, sneaking up behind one another with a big ram’s horn, giving it a blast, as if to say, “Wake up! It is upon us again.” The liturgy of Rosh Hashanah is designed to get you to wake up and pay attention not only to who you are, but to who you have been and who you mean to be.

Yom Kippur is not eating, not drinking, not sleeping very much, not having sex, not dressing in fine clothes and looking in the mirror and seeing what you’re going to look like after you’ve died. And the most joyous noise a Jew can hear is the sound of the shofar announcing the end of Yom Kippur, because it means you have lived through the day of death and not died.

Rosh Hashanah is about reverence and gratitude for life, the mother lode of all religious insight. Yom Kippur is about telling the worst truth about yourself, and getting new life from that. 

- Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, in Living a Jewish Life, by Anita Diamant

[godisclimatechange]

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard."

Isaiah 58:6-8 (NIV)

[godisclimatechange]

Ten Ways to Acquire Allah’s Love

1. Recite the Qur'an with reflection, and understand its meanings and what is intended by it, like a book that someone memorizes in order to explain the author’s intention to others.

2. Draw close to Allah by performing the voluntary acts of worship after fulfilling the obligatory acts of worship.

3. Constantly remember Allah in every situation, with the tongue, the heart, and the actions. The person will attain Allah’s love in accordance with his remembrance of Allah.

4. Give preference to what Allah loves over what you love when being overcome by desires, thus ascending to what He loves even when the ascension is difficult.

5. Contemplate the beautiful names and attributes of Allah with the heart, and roam in the gardens of this knowledge and its fundamental concepts. The one who knows Allah by His names, His attributes, and His actions will inevitably love Him.

6. Observe and recognize His kindness, benevolence, favors, and blessings, those that are hidden and those that are apparent; this is surely from the causes of His love.

7. Completely submit your heart in front of Allah the Exalted, and this is from the greatest means (of acquiring Allah's love).

8. Seclude yourself during the time ofthe Divine Descent and turn to your Lord, and recite His speech. Contemplate with the heart and adorn yourself with the manners of a worshiper in front of Him, and conclude all of this by seeking forgiveness and repenting.

9. Accompany those who truly, sincerely love Him. Collect the best fruits of their speech just as one would pick only the best fruits. Remain silent except when you are certain there is more benefit in your speech and when you know it will better your condi­ tion and benefit others.

10. Stay far away from everything that will come between your heart and Allah the Exalted.

✨By way of these ten means, those who loveAllah havereached the level of attaining His love. And this can all be achieved by two matters:

1) Preparing your soul for this affair.

2) Opening the source of your insight.

By: Ibn Al-Qayyim

Source: One Hundred Pieces of Advice

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Structure and spirituality

One of the day-to-day benefits of religion for many people is that it grants access to both a structural framework by which to live their lives, and a sense of spiritual connection to something greater. Many religions provide some degree of both of these things, but there are also people who merge together different belief structures such as Buddhism and Catholicism to better reap the benefits of both. These people describe their reasons for doing so as being rooted in a desire for either more structure from Catholicism, or a greater sense of spirituality from Buddhism. The structured day-to-day practices of Buddhism give Buddhist Catholics a better framework by which to access the rich spiritual teachings of Catholicism. This complimentary relationship between the two religions has led to a great deal of fellowship in some cases, and is also evidence of the way that these two benefits of religion compliment and build upon each other. 

(Pictured above is Pope Francis with a Buddhist monk https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/vatican-calls-catholics-and-buddhists-work-together-promote-nonviolence)

This is also why many different religious practices have times of fasting and abstinence, such as Ramadan, Lent, and Yom Kippur. The intensely disciplined and structured nature of these times allows for a sense of deeper and more meaningful connection to the spiritual aspects of religion.