how a religious motivation and preserving the environment are related

[Thats my opinion]

Yesterday beginning at 6 AM construction began on a new Superadobe building with an Indian ceremony getting a reading on the sun at the summer solstice. Present were native Americans, an astronomer, an ecologist, an architect, friends and Nancy. I asked her about our DU conversation on the nature of her faith. She chuckled and said, “My faith? Watch what I do! By the way, I will spend all day here, praying.” I was reminded of the 13th century Francis of Assisi who remarked when he was asked a similar question, “Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary use words.”

Here is a copy of my syndicated column on environment and the building. It appeared in DU two weeks ago under “editorials.” Pay particular attention to the last paragraphs.

MAYBE IT’S ONLY A DIRT BUILDING—OR MAYBE IT ISN’T

Fossil fuel’s role in transportation is probably the greatest culprit in the generation of global warming. A close second is the way we design and construct buildings. Around the country you will see a host of new facilities with a LEED certification, (Leadership in Energy and Engineering Design) indicating excellence in green ways to build. To be certified, points must be accumulated dealing with energy conservation, water use, site development and more.

A new office building and community center is currently under construction in Southern California. It is the first of its kind in the United States and so far surpasses every LEED category that it cannot even qualify as LEED certified! “Greenspace” is a “superadobe” building. The design was originally developed by Nader Kihilili, an Iranian architect. From the ground breaking to completion, the carbon footprint will be zero. Solar panels will supply the electricity needed during the construction, and on completion solar power will generate more energy than the new building will consume. Passive heating and cooling will be used throughout, and all interior daytime lightning will be natural. Using newly developed techniques, water use will be minimal.

Superadobe is a structural system which uses the on-site dirt as 90% of its construction material. The earth, mixed with a little water and cement, is packed into long polypropylene bags, wound into vaults like potter’s clay and held in place by barbed wire.

Building costs are about a third of traditional stick or steel construction. Funds for the building have come via a grant flowing from a class action suit related to pollutants generated in the reformulation of gasoline! The building, on the site of a United Methodist Church, will be the home of “Uncommon Good” a wide-ranging non-profit social service agency. Last month’s groundbreaking was the topic of world-wide press attention.

I have gone into what may appear to be a semi-interesting pedestrian development because I am passionately concerned with global warming. “Greenspace” provides a tiny ripple of hope. With few exceptions the world’s leading scientists have warned us that unless we turn the corner and stop the excessive generation of wastes from hydrocarbons, civilization as we know it cannot continue to exist. I know this doomsday prediction may sound like hysterical ranting, but it is a warning we ignore at our peril. The ice caps are melting. The oceans are rising. Weather systems are out of control. Why are there so many floods? Warmer air holds more moisture, and that means storms. On the other hand, some parts of the world are experiencing the opposite, with droughts expanding the deserts at an alarming rate.

While part of the warming may be the natural result of long-term changes in temperature, scientists are almost unanimous in declaring that human activity is largely responsible. The complaint that slowing the rate of global warming may cost jobs must be factored into any radical change in direction. But that is a chronic condition, and human generated global warning is a critical issue. If a cancer patient shows up in an emergency room bleeding to death you treat the cut, not the cancer. The earth is hemorrhaging. That is the crisis which demands immediate attention. Many of us are convinced that we can move aggressively in green development that will create a whole new industrial base and millions of jobs coming on line as the result. Government funded R and D is the key economic resource. Private labs and industries are supplied with the research grants and do the necessary development. It’s a win-win situation.

To deny government’s role is not only ill-founded, it is it is embarrassingly short-sighted. The future belongs to nations and industries developing the jobs of the future. And that means private-public cooperation. The environmental crisis will not go away. Hiding our heads in the sand because economic and political concerns like it the way it is now just perpetuates our culture’s fatal mistake.

[Marrah_G]

1. Its made of earthbags, on a larger scale

This type of building, along with strawbale and cob have been around since before we can remember. They are incredibly "green".

They can be build relatively cheaply if you put in the labor.

Cob houses 500 years old are still being lived in in Europe.

Add solar, spring or drilled wells, gray water systems, composting toilets, organic gardens you can live relatively cheaply if you want.

[Thats my opinion]

2. Housing

The prospects are that this system may be an answer to the world's need for solid, inexpensive green housing. I have been in the most desperate places in the world, and this may be one small ray of hope.

[Marrah_G]

6. It's a very easy option

All you need is a clay sand (soil)mix and a fiber source (straw, bags, even cut wood). Some are built around a timber frame and some ( esp the bag types) have no frame at all. Round and low are the best for heating / cooling. You can go with Slate, or Thatch or even live grass for roofing( although the last requires a good water resistance lining.

I've been doing alot of research on the topic and like you, think this is a really viable answer to housing, not only just in 3rd world countries, but also here in the US. Imagine what could be accomplished by an acre of land and some homeless families or singles and some people willing to teach them the skills.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

13. Why didn't you answer Angry Dragon's exceedingly polite question?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x287270#287356

[trotsky]

3. And some people are religiously motivated to exploit and ruin the environment.

You think they're wrong, they think you are wrong. Neither one of you can convince the other because you each have your very own personal interpretation of what your god wants you to do and they are all equally (in)valid.

How about we just work to protect the environment and not give a fuck if someone's motivations for doing so are religious or not?

[Thats my opinion]

15. a perpetual problem here

I assume a couple of things.
1- This site has something to do with the goals and areas of concern of the Democratic party.
2-This particular forum is titled "Religion and Theology."
3- Somehow appropriate threads and responses might combine 1 and 2.

For sometime it appears that a significant number who have paid serious attention to this forum have only wanted to see things posted that are anti-religion. So here we have a response that objects to a post that attempts to relate religion and the environmental crisis.
The criticism seems to suggest that any post that is positive in its relationship between 1 and 2 is unwelcome. If people want a forum or group that does not allow positive religious conversation, I think there is one elsewhere. In the meantime keep the anti-religion posts coming, but don't try and intimidate those who have a clear religious motivation, and say so.

[trotsky]

17. No, the perpetual problem here...

is that some want this forum, which is supposed to be open to different viewpoints, to be solely an echo chamber for their personal views. Any attempt to introduce contrary ideas is attacked viciously by targeting the person who posted them as being "anti-religion."

If you don't want people to be able to disagree with you, use one of the many religious Groups. If you post in here, you're going to have to put up with other opinions. I'm so very sorry about that.

[Thats my opinion]

20. I agree

It has not been the pro-religionists who have controlled this forum or want it to be an echo chamber. The contrary ideas have been introduced in the main by the pro-religious folks. I counted and it is about 10 to 1. So we see eye to eye that it ought to be wide-open. I have evidenced that I can take it. Just go back and read the responses to my stuff. I have never called your side "shit" or "just plain crap" etc. etc. I don't mind that as long as nobody keeps trying to evict me--not the Administrators but just plain folk. I'll read all your stuff and will respond to most of it--not "when did you stop beating your wife," sorts of questions. So let's just keep it open to any variety of opinions. I'm for that,and I gather you are as well..

[trotsky]

25. Say what?

You can't take a thing. You despise when a contrary opinion appears in one of your threads, and you respond by launching into the same attack. And instead of attempting to back up your claims, you go start a new thread and attack some more.

What you HAVE called "my side," whatever that means, is morally inferior. And you have the audacity to wonder why people react to you the way they do. Yup, I dunno, it's a total mystery why when you slap someone in the face, they get upset. Damn whiny anti-religious atheists!

[rrneck]

24. Where does

religion fit into your understanding of "private-public cooperation"?

[Thats my opinion]

21. I'll try

This answer really belongs as a response to Commie Pinks Dirtbag's question about why haven't I answered Angry Dragon's question.




A similar question to "where is your God?" was raised concerning God's relationship to evil.
Here is my response on that thread. I am reminded that for every complex question there is a simple answer----which is always wrong."
As long as we think of God as a powerful person we have missed it. A big powerful person must have a book or a place or an institution. But if God is the energy--the process--that makes the universe go (ala the scientific theory which I applaud) then you cannot respond to the question "Where."


(the problem of God and evil)
"It has always been theology's Gordian knot. It is akin to the most central of all philosophic questions, "Why is there something and not nothing?" Theologians have been whacking away at the problem of evil for a long time, as were Plato and about everybody else who has thought about it.

The problem, however, is not about the existence of evil, but revolves around the definition of God. It still assumes a personal God who is "all loving, all powerful, all knowing and everywhere present." There is no way you can ask the wrong question, which the dilemma does, and come out with a helpful answer. I have dealt with it as a process theologian. Do you know that theological/ philosophical discipline which begins with Whitehead and continues through John Cobb, who is a neighbor and a good friend of mine? There are now 70 major universities in China with departments of Process Thought. We have some of the Chinese professors at lunch at least once a week. Since they understand Buddhism they have a leg up on the conversation. The center is headquartered in a Methodist seminary in Claremont, CA.

The over simplistic answer to the dilemma is that God is not omnipotent. And that means we do not think of God as a big, smart, powerful person. But the problem both on R/T and elsewhere is like the Australian who heard about a new boomerang, but was unable to throw the old one away--even it he didn't think boomerangs even existed.
Read some process thought and get back to me. Thanks for the question."

[trotsky]

28. My question is not addressed by your cut-n-paste. n/t

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dmallind]

4. how religion-free motivation and preserving the environment are related.

I'll see your 5-9 person group and raise you a Paul Watson and a David Suzuki.

[okasha]

7. Suzuki is an advisor to World Pantheism

and has written about the "sacredness" of the envirnoment. I'm not sure what his personal beliefs or lack thereof are, but he's certainly not dissociated himself from preserving the environment through religious motivation.

[dmallind]

9. lots of people use religious imagery. From his autobiography....

"I have been an atheist all my adult life" page 391. I'd think he'd know.

I use religious imagery and used to volunteer at a Catholic food bank and soup-kitchen. Does that mean I have religious motivations or did I perhaps, just use laguage in a useful way and agree with what a Catholic group was doing?

[JDPriestly]

5. Psalms and other Bible verses for your friends who deny environmental responsibility

Psalm 19 (excerpt)

1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
5 It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+19&version=NIV

"The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." (Genesis 2:15)

"You must keep my decrees and my laws.... And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you." (Leviticus 18:26, 28)

"The land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord. For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and garner their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to the Lord.... The land is to have a year of rest." (Leviticus 25:2-5; cf. Exodus 23:10-11)

"The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land." (Leviticus 25:23-24)

more

http://www.earthcareonline.org/bibleverses.html#_Hlk523710533

[okasha]

8. Beautiful.

Congratualtions to the planners and builders for creating the prototype for no-carbon-footprint construction. Let's hope others learn from it, and quickly.

[dimbear]

10. It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

By darkness I refer to the prime mover here, the religious imperatives to overpopulation which are the causes of our global problems.

Your call, my friends. Single candle or turn on the lights and sweep up?

[okasha]

14. A map shows that the most densely populated areas

of the world are India, Japan, Korea, SE Asia, China, the Carribean islands and portions of Western Europe. What religious imperatives are involved?

[dimbear]

18. Population density and overpopulation aren't the same thing, of course.

India, which you cite, is a splendid example of overpopulation and excess of religion. Compare China, where altho acting very crudely and cruelly, population is coming under control.

Europe? Very populous, not very religious, but the population growth is under control, some places declining. Italy is the best example, very religious but their religion is flaunted and flouted wrt population control.

Best examples of the opposite condition: Bangladesh, South America, Haiti, Central America. Population growing without check or hindrance and -- why? Religious imperatives, among others. Admittedly a complex topic, but that's fair since it is the most important topic that there is.

Why do religions insist that population should be limited by starvation and war? Why is the solution to every problem to have more children? Why make the repellent suggestion that birth control is a sin? Because that leads to more parishioners, (or in the case of the Muslims increasing the flock of the faithful) and the increase of human misery isn't of any import.

[okasha]

19. What is the connection between religion and overpopulation

in India?

[dimbear]

22. India?

India is predominately Hindu, and in Hinduism you are more or less required to have at least one male child. Otherwise some horrible thing happens.

You can easily see the horrific consequences of that.

Caste system comes in a strong second. Again stemming from religion.

[okasha]

30. Please cite your source for the assertion that HInduism

"requires you to have at least one male child."

Explain what the caste system has to do with overpopulation.

[okasha]

36. Never mind. I asked a Hindu.

See her response in post 26 on the Stonehenge thread.

[rrneck]

11. Whst are

your motivations for posting this?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. Where was it published?

I googled a sequence of half a dozen words of that text and found only this very thread. No, wait, it was another thread from you from a week ago: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x299721

[Thats my opinion]

16. It first appeared

In the DU forum "editorials" maybe two or three weeks ago.
The San Gabriel Valley Examiner
Senior Correspondent -- a national electronic news source out of North
Carolina.
The Midland Valley News

And a long series of e-mail lists from a multitude of sources--probably including 6,000 addresses

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

23. Ahhh, so your OPs are actually your columns fromn that alt-weekly.

http://www.sgvexaminer.com/home.htm <-- You could have posted this link long ago, you know. By the way, I went backwards from the most recent until March and didn't finmd that particular one about the "dirt building. But I did find other things you posted here. I guess I didn't go far back enough -- their site doesn't have a search and the PDFs are not indexed by Google. Eugh.

Speaking of eugh -- by Jove, that thing is full of right-wingers! One nincompoop who goes by the name of George Ogden went ballistic because the Navy bothered to do Bin Laden's burial in a respected fashion, and wailed that the Muslim tradition is to "decapitate people and drag them on the street" and they should have done that with OBL.

Well, keep up the good work! If you try really hard, maybe some day you may even have a book published by Lulu! And that would be awesome!

[Thats my opinion]

26. What does it matter to you?

Curious.
The column was filed with the Examiner under a different title just a week ago.

[Thats my opinion]

27. By the way

Most all of the OPs filed in r/t have not appeared elsewhere. I do columns that appear in a variety of other places, including DUs "editorials." So what?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

29. You said ''syndicated'', I got curious.

[Thats my opinion]

31. try

"Senior Correspondent" Gen. Matthew Ridgeway and I are the political columnists. Usually mine is the lead article. It is this week. Look it up. It is an interesting news outlet, much akin to the political stuff you find in the DU.

Or have a look at the "inlandvalleynews" It is an African American newspaper with both a print edition and an electronic edition.

Or try "Ted Rademaker" or "The American Institute for Progressive Democracy" This is a non profit think tank--on whose Board of Directors I happen to sit. This think tank is not permitted to print political stuff, so when I don't mention parties they use my columns.

[Thats my opinion]

32. did you see my answer

to the question you raised in #3?
It got filed by mistake just down the thread about four places.

[cleanhippie]

33. There are many of us that do not see your answers. You have left many unanswered in other posts.

Why?

I have one, in particular, I would like to have answered. Here is the link.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=288171&mesg_id=288211

[rrneck]

35. Made good your escape again I see.

This many non answers means you know you're busted.