--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "PaliGap" <compost...@...> wrote: > > "Apocalyptic scenarios are a diversion from real > problems poverty, terrorism, broken financial > systems needing intelligent attention. Even > something as down-to-earth as the swine-flu scare has > seemed at moments to be less about testing our health > care system and its emergency readiness than about the > fate of a diseased civilization drowning in its own > fluids. We wallow in the idea that one day everything > might change in, as St. Paul put it, the "twinkling of > an eye" that a calamity might prove to be the longed- > for transformation. But turning practical problems > into cosmic cataclysms takes us further away from > actual solutions. > > This applies, in my view, to the towering seas, > storms, droughts and mass extinctions of popular > climate catastrophism. Such entertaining visions owe > less to scientific climatology than to eschatology, > and that familiar sense that modernity and its > wasteful comforts are bringing us closer to a biblical > day of judgment. As that headline put it for Y2K, > predictions of the end of the world are often > intertwined with condemnations of human "folly, greed > and denial." Repent and recycle!"
Amen. I've always noticed that the same people who become hung up on apocalypse fantasies are also the ones most invested in "Beam Me Up Scotty Syndrome." They're always looking for something *outside themselves* to resolve things for them. And for many of them, the world ending resolves them quite nicely of responsibility to solve things themselves. I've also noticed that a lot of the people who get off on apocalypse fantasies buy into the concept that the purpose of life is to extinguish life. That is, they really buy that "the ultimate goal of life is to get off the wheel of incarnation and rebirth." Not my idea of much of a purpose. I think such a world view was promoted by people who were always *afraid* of life and more driven by narcissism and their own desires than by caring for others. And that includes IMO any spiritual teacher in history who preached "avoiding rebirth" as the "goal" of living. How is that point of view NOT narcissistic and self-serving? It's basically a way of saying, "My bliss is more important than yours. Why should I stick around to help others or teach them anything if I can just dissolve into the ocean of bliss?" It's basically the spiritual counterpart of the "Me-first-ism" we see preached by the Capitalists here. Having as one's goal the cessation of the incarnational process is essentially a way of saying, "Fuck you! All that matters is my own eternal bliss." I like the teachers and traditions who think about enlightenment the least, and spend the majority of their time trying to do as many nice things for others as possible. Those people don't tend to focus on "getting off the wheel" and "avoiding reincarnation." They don't get hung up on apoca- lypse fantasies as a way of hoping that non- incarnation happens sooner. They *look forward* to the next incarnation as much as they look forward to the next day. Both provide a new opportunity to do for others. Only someone who cares more about "doing for them- selves" looks forward to the next day never coming. Or worse, never coming again. Just my opinion...
