I think there's some insight there, but what are the human population forces that tend to keep thing stable? There's a balance at play. Why prejudice chaos over stability? Just because we have created fragile systems and so those are all of our cultural and ecological cues at the moment, discounts the reality of that vision and consolidation that gives meaning to people's lives and equips people to establish good and resist evil.met wrote: st, what do you think of this Maggie Ross quote? (She is an Angican "anchorite" - a contemplative in Julian of Norwich's tradition - who also lectures sometimes at Harvard and Oxford.)These problems are but irruptions of a more fundamental problem: in any human population there are those who are far more interested in accruing power and control than living in an integrated way that requires a certain tolerance of, if not reliance on, uncertainty and ambiguity. They are interested in short-term results, even if is at the expense of long-term survival. Institutions, especially religious institutions, tend to follow a trajectory that might generally be described as moving from vision to consolidation, and then through institutionalization, encapsulation, fragmentation, and finally to decline.
The religion is finally reduced to strategies to make people feel safe and confirm them in their own prejudices, instead of .... leading them into the true security of what may feel like free-fall into the love of God.
Also, on the longest time scales everything dies. So...I dunno. Not much really being said there, I guess.
Peace,
-sgttomas