Maybe, if our society can’t be salvaged in a political or economic sense, such as preventing a police state or preventing a civil war, or whatever the case may be, one thing that may be feasible and that can motivate us, so that we’re not mentally defeated by despair, maybe something to focus on is planting the seeds for a new type of ‘spirituality’ or a new type of collective human self-understanding, in terms of what it means to us to be lifeforms of the Earth?
Maybe if that is not something that we can enjoy, it may be something that motivates us in terms of our concern for the well-being and survival of our prospective descendants. Maybe to have sanity, peace of mind, and courage, in the face of whatever, this sort of vision is necessary.
This type of thinking can be, in at least some respects, compatible with patriotism or one’s identification with various religious, ethnic, and other cultural communities, but it’s a good ethical foundation to have a sense of common ground as beings of Earth, so as to have a sense of the big picture, regarding the possibility that our democracy, our materially-intensive way of life, and our very lives, might not be saveable, but that we may be able to, so to speak, plant the seeds for a more egalitarian and ecologically responsible way of life that our prospective descendants might enjoy.
This is, in some respects at least, similar to having an other-worldly focus, such as Hindus, Muslims, Christians, or Buddhists concerning themselves with an afterlife of one form or another. Such as person of religious faith may be motivated by her or his beliefs about states of being beyond ‘this world.’
Humans at various points in the human tenure on Earth have demonstrated a striking, awe-inspiring ability to maintain focus and peace of mind while experiencing extreme trials. That doesn’t prove the correctness of their religious, political, or scientific beliefs, but it does demonstrate the sort of mental strength one can achieve if one has a basis of motivation that extends far beyond the here and now.
This is a matter of having a vision regarding a possible future that is worth acting in accordance with right now, in order to help make that vision come to fruition, even though we may not live to see that future, which our prospective descendents might experience.
There is a sort of strength or power in the human psyche, regarding working for something that goes beyond our lifetime. This is part of having a sense of purpose. The payoff to this is that focusing on this with our optimism and with our ‘faith in humanity’ if it makes sense to refer to it as that, is that we get as much peace of mind, and satisfaction from life as possible, out of the life we are experiencing right here and now.
You might call this a secular or non-religious sort of faith in that it’s based on working on bringing into fruition a positive vision for a possible, though by no means guaranteed future, in the ‘material world’ not in some non-material realm that may not exist.
Though I don’t have evidence with which to be sure such a positive vision of the future will come to be realized, I still somehow think it’s still worth integrating it into my daily life as for something to work toward.
It doesn’t involve believing in a heaven or hell or in karma or some New Age idea of spiritual evolution, or otherwise involve believing in non-material states of being. But it does involve looking beyond the here and now.
To what extent could we describe this as ‘rational faith’ or ‘secular faith’ in that our psychological risk-taking is based on a sense of possibility, ( though not certainty) that is congruent with our knowledge of the laws of nature, whereas with ideas of karma, as in Buddhism or Hinduism, or of heaven and hell, as in Christianity and Islam, human imagination seems exerted beyond the established rules of what human beings know?
To what extent might ‘eco-spirituality’ be the next step, coming after humanism ? To what extend is it necessary to distinguish secular humanism from non-secular humanism ? As for a term, how about ‘post-humanist ecocentrism’ or ‘earthlingism’ ?
Maybe with an earthlingist or ecocentric mentalty, humans are less focused on sizing one another up, in addition to outgrowing the idea that human beings are necessarily more important than nonhuman earthlings?
The possible paradox may be that we improve our prospects for quality of life and survival if we outgrow anthropocentrism. But as for not sizing one another up, maybe with an ecocentric mentality, fame and material wealth and power over other humans and power over nonhumans will be less alluring.
Maybe with an earthlingist mentality, we likely will still appreciate various types of art and science, athleticism , and other human achievements, but maybe we won’t look upon them, such as a bridge, a building, a tower in quite the same way, given that we’d have outgrown our collective self-aggrandizement?
Maybe our fascination and awe is better placed if it’s based in lifekind in general. Maybe thereby more kind, loving, and less systematically abusive social systems will emerge? But there are wild cards to thinking about this, such as the possible consequences of nuclear war, ecological disaster, energy descent, political collapse, economic collapse, and so on. We don’t know what thte future will hold, but we can work right here and now according to what we think are the best values we can conceive, in the face of probable emerging scenarios, regarding civilization. It may be useful to compare and contrast the ideas of humanism over the centuries with key concepts in ecocentrism.
Ecology may involve a new type of spirituality and it may be the next step of moral development beyond humanism, that does a better job of brining forth the good things about reason and science while bringing forth the good things about theology and ‘spirituality.’
One might call this ‘post-humanist ecocentrism.’ Maybe with an earthlingist mentality, human beings are much less focused on sizing each other up, less focused on fame, or being remembered in history, not worried about laboring in obscurity (though still concerning ourselves with being effective at promoting lifekind well-being), and not having this excessive fascination with ourselves as human beings, as a species. Maybe it’s better if we have a fascination with lifeforms in general and not just human beings, or not an inordinate focus on human beings, to the point where we inadequately concern oursevles with other species.
Maybe some of our wonder and awe in terms of great art, great music, archetecture, scientific discoveries and technological marvels is not a bad thing, per se, but maybe we as a species are more likely to survive and thrive if we outgrow our collective human narcicism.
Maybe we’ll have more kind and loving societies and civilizations if we’re less focused on our having a sense of greatness in terms of comparing ourselves with one another? There is a good case to be made that much of the harmfulness humans have toward one another stems from various forms of self-aggrandizement, individually and in terms of groups of human beings. Also our delusion of separation, be it based on conceptions of race, class, religion, and so on, is a key part of what detracts from our willingness and ability to politically organize loving kindness. To what extent is it the case that no human achievement, however great, can match the grandeur of nature? How does that ecological sense of humility compare with theologically-derived humility?
Maybe one definition of ‘spiritual’ is that it is an organized sense of purpose that goes beyond the economic and political senses of purpose that someone can have. Even if someone is not self-consciously politically involved, he or she is economically involved in the world at least in the micro-economic sense of trying to make a living, unless they are a child or otherwise dependent on someone else. There are some gray areas but I’d say that sense of purpose for me is based on ecology and that that pertains to my obvious, indisputable dependence on Earth and my indisputable interdependence with other humans and lifekind in general.
To what extent might human beings live more fully if we imaginatively bend our minds around non-existence ? Or is it a matter of imagining the peop;le we love, what they may experience, what future generations, if they exist, may experience when we no longer exist?
New Testament, James 1:2-12. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.”
The idea that we can experience spiritual joy regardless of our circumstances intrigues me. That joy is based on having a deep sense of purpose. In turn, having that purpose, in my mind and maybe others,’ requires reason and science-based spirituality.
By ‘science,’ I mean taking an experimental and open-minded approach to our pursuit of truth, free of claims of immutability and infallibility which we find in most religious doctrine.
I don’t agree with those who say evidence-based standards don’t apply to spirituality as they do to ‘science.’ We can use evidence-based, rational measures for how well our beliefs contribute to promoting well-being and reducing suffering. We have recorded human history as one of our tools, as well as social sciences.
Spiritual joy might result not from our physical and mental pleasure, per se, but from our ultimate sense of purpose. In turn, that sense of purpose seems, to my knowledge at this point in life, to be based on harmony between reason and our intuition and feelings. With much of organized religion, there’s an uneasy coexistence, not harmony.
Maybe faith is a matter of striving to build commonground based on all of us being inhabitants of the Earth, and that sort of
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