People And Planet

November 11, 2010

http://unprecedentedchange.blogspot.com

or google Marie Schickel Rottschaefer

Resume Blog 4

 From Resume Blog 3: “-- both science and philosophy are essential tools in constructing a post-axial age faith.  We need the evidence of science but the reasoning power of philosophy to correct possible errors of thinking and enhance our cognitive capacities.”

This sounds so intellectual, but yes, this is our evolution!  Words must be anchored in reality, ‘feeling good’ must find its rightful place, and behavior and action genuinely, purposefully productive.  Hopefully this is building the post-Axial Age faith phenomenon.  This is learning further the skills to express love (caring), to promote justice, to end the suffering, to bring healing, to restore as much as we can the goods and the services to profoundly deprived people and animals, to replenish the earth (land, oceans and waterways, the atmosphere), and to promote for our descendants and ourselves -- a better future.  This advances our evolutionary journey and step-by-step we travel closer to the Origin of our contingent being at least in understanding more and more our bequest of a universe.  Necessary Being sustains our contingent being as we discover our reality.

There are people to assist, knowledge resources available, a world of opportunities to re-enrich the planet and its inhabitants and hopefully mitigate the tipping point, the sixth mass extinction, climate change, and re-establish the earth’s homeostasis and the mechanisms that sustain it.

There is a handy resource that can teach us more about critical thinking skills.  After two millennia of indoctrination and questionable thinking regarding many assumptions in Catholicism, and Christianity in general, we could use some fresh ways of reasoning and discovering reality.  This tiny booklet was my clue for the need to advance in critical thinking skills as a beginning step.  I call it the art of correct thinking.  To construct a post-Axial Age faith phenomenon we need good thinking skills to distinguish between fact and fiction, myth from reality, and evidence from wishful thinking.  As a follow-up we can reference pertinent philosophical sources as needed.  Then we can examine the relevant science and use it for restoring planet earth to the best of our ability.  We have no time to delay.  The following is a quote that is over 10 years old!

“The Sixth Extinction

Niles Eldredge

An ActionBioscience.org original article

articlehighlights Can we stop the devastation of our planet and save our own species? We are in a biodiversity crisis — the fastest mass extinction in Earth’s history, largely due to:

␣ human destruction of ecosystems ␣ overexploitation of species and natural resources ␣ human overpopulation ␣ the spread of agriculture ␣ pollution.”

We have a multitude of resources; the political will and organization must be multiplied by the existing effort.