August 10 2022
THE GREAT TABOO.
Why am I, why are you, why are we all here on this small ball floating in eternity, with no other life detected anywhere else? Is there a purpose for us in being born, live a few years, and then die, perhaps remembered by a few people?
The title poses a situation we’d rather not discuss, because, basically, it is a religious, and thus unpopular, matter. There’s a catch: we can’t avoid it. We instinctively know that our world cannot continue on its present course. We also know that change is impossible, which really means that there will be an abrupt end. Then what? No consequences? We, just a puff of dust?
Back some decades.
Some 75-80 years ago, part of the church I attended, we had a youth group, some 20 high school teenagers, led by a university graduate, meeting after the second Sunday service. Believe it or not, there, we young men, discussed that sort of situation. Perhaps the then brutal German occupation from 1940-45, made that topic more acute, because ‘after the war”, the urgency evaporated and ‘religion’ faded away with the onset of the Carbon prosperity.
But how about today?
Today we again have wartime conditions: our total war against Creation, against God. Against God? Yes.
Dr. Sabine Dramm, in her book, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an introduction to his thought, summarizes her findings concerning this German theologian with:
“What Bonhoeffer presents as specific to the Christian faith is the perception of God and the world as one”.
I believe this to be true: we are what we do: abusing creation, means abusing God, Climate Change being the outcome. Believe me: In our fight against God, we are the undisputed underdog, fighting a losing battle, no matter what we attempt. I do everything to minimize energy use: it’s constantly on my mind, 24/7. But we – me too – have sold our souls to the false Carbon God, and must face the consequences.
Relevant questions.
I read the following items in a scientific journal, outlining our dilemma:
1) What is the potential assessment for climate change to drive mass extinction events?
2) What are the mechanisms that could result in human mass mortality and morbidity?
3) What are human societies’ vulnerabilities to climate-triggered risk cascades, such as from conflict, political instability, and systemic financial risk?
4) How can these multiple strands of evidence—together with other global dangers—be usefully synthesized into an “integrated catastrophe?
The ‘world’ is asking the relevant questions. Are we? The signs are everywhere. It’s time that we face reality. We can see the End. We are on a track to total collapse. We are in the last days, which entails ‘Judgement’, that terrible word, the Great Taboo.
Bonhoeffer faced death continually, having been implicated in a plot to kill Hitler. This is reflected in his writings, calling himself an Anthropos Teleios, a human taking his cue from the End of Time. Today, 2022, endings are the topic du jour.
How then shall we live?
Dr. Barry Commoner coined the four laws of ecology: memorize them:
- Everything is connected to everything else.
- Nothing disappears.
- Nature knows best.
- There is no free lunch.
Today we pay the price for disobeying these laws. As God is revealed in creation, serving creation as our dearest possession and honoring the Creator as the origin of life, is the only way out. Jesus did not start ‘the Christian religion’, he taught us ‘how to live’, in full symbiosis with creation. That’s why Jesus died: he died on the cross to restore creation, and make it possible for us to live there eternally.
That’s why John 3: 16 is in the Bible:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
I know. I have said this before. Loving ‘the world’, the ‘cosmos’, means loving what God loved. Loving creation means loving God, the creator. Believing that Christ offered himself to buy back creation, implies that we must do the same. There is a simple song, not so easily implemented: “I want to follow Jesus”. To walk in his footsteps means doing everything possible to save creation.
Why am I, why are you, why are we all here on this small ball floating in eternity, with no other life detected anywhere else? Is there a purpose for us in being born, live a few years, and then die, perhaps remembered by a few people?
Yes.
This passing life is a proving ground for eternity. We are being tested whether we are fit to live in the New Creation, of which the last Bible book gives us an inkling. LOVE JESUS: LOVE LIFE, EMBRACE ETERNITY.