Death is the reason you will never change the world (would be an awesome name for a metal song)
I think that we live in an age of humanitarian illusion. Whether it be from pulpit or racial or political party, everyone is out to change the world. It's just a shame that no one told the world that it was going to change.
A few weeks back I read a post from Fr. Stephen Freeman about how no one is going to change the world because this change is dependent on individual humans. The idea behind it was strangely echoed again in the show "Legend of Korra" when a character exclaimed that as much she had fought crime and arrested people, new criminals continued emerge.
Maybe the ideas behind irradiating injustice come from the belief of evil being a behavior only or mainly. This plays into our highly materialist way of living (that is only being concerned with the physical world. This does not constitute ideas but a way of life for indeed we all have our "spiritual ideals").
This also explains the decline in devotion to organized religion in our society. Much of this seems to be founded on the inaccurate interpretation of history mixed with the idea to get back to early spiritual roots (which is impossible. The rift between the present and past is infinite. There is no golden age or gap). This I find equal to trying to get to the roots of a tree through a broken, dead branch. But many do so with the loose hope of ironically finding structured hope in.
It is estimated that the homo-sapien species has been upon the earth for roughly 150,000 years. And throughout its history no single group of people have ever eradicated disease, violence, war or injustice. And above all, no one has eradicated death.
Death is the one thing that makes every effort to build anything lasting or meaningful not simply seemingly worthless, but actually worthless. Many early Christian monks saw this which is why they abandoned the notions of advantage and affluence, seeing how easy we cling to such things and how absurd it was to do so.
We'd like to think that we matter to this world and that our legacies do as well. But thoughts as these are foolish hubris. But it is because most of us think oppositely that we cling to affluence and wealth and comfort as little gods. It is why we have a consumerist economy. It is a result not of the fear of death, but the illusion of outrunning it.
And it is only an illusion.
A few weeks back I read a post from Fr. Stephen Freeman about how no one is going to change the world because this change is dependent on individual humans. The idea behind it was strangely echoed again in the show "Legend of Korra" when a character exclaimed that as much she had fought crime and arrested people, new criminals continued emerge.
Maybe the ideas behind irradiating injustice come from the belief of evil being a behavior only or mainly. This plays into our highly materialist way of living (that is only being concerned with the physical world. This does not constitute ideas but a way of life for indeed we all have our "spiritual ideals").
This also explains the decline in devotion to organized religion in our society. Much of this seems to be founded on the inaccurate interpretation of history mixed with the idea to get back to early spiritual roots (which is impossible. The rift between the present and past is infinite. There is no golden age or gap). This I find equal to trying to get to the roots of a tree through a broken, dead branch. But many do so with the loose hope of ironically finding structured hope in.
It is estimated that the homo-sapien species has been upon the earth for roughly 150,000 years. And throughout its history no single group of people have ever eradicated disease, violence, war or injustice. And above all, no one has eradicated death.
Death is the one thing that makes every effort to build anything lasting or meaningful not simply seemingly worthless, but actually worthless. Many early Christian monks saw this which is why they abandoned the notions of advantage and affluence, seeing how easy we cling to such things and how absurd it was to do so.
We'd like to think that we matter to this world and that our legacies do as well. But thoughts as these are foolish hubris. But it is because most of us think oppositely that we cling to affluence and wealth and comfort as little gods. It is why we have a consumerist economy. It is a result not of the fear of death, but the illusion of outrunning it.
And it is only an illusion.
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