adam - "When eternal paradise is the main objective, taking care of the earth becomes a far lesser priority." this all depends on your pov. ex... God sees this planet dieing due to abuse of previous inhabitants, whereby he creates a food forest and places adam there to learn how to maintain and cultivate it. When satisfied god creates eve knowing that she will cause him to be kicked out of the garden, but with the intent for adam to carry out his purpose/first order of replenishing and nurturing the planet with the hope that others would learn from adam and maintain same while teaching the locals to do the same. Or Maybe The earth is paradise and god lets man thru free will either maintain a Paradise state/Heaven or to destroy and create hell/famine/despair/no life. Thereby allowing mans free will to dictate his own outcome. Oh and adam this isn't "my religion," I don't even practice it.
I actually think it was my fault.. but its all good discussion anyway.. Adam - I agree with your closing point.. unfortunately, even though the bible teaches a way of life, and having heaven on earth, most people are like children and con only focus on the "prize". It's truly sad for a person to marvel at creation while destroying it in due process... the left hand does in fact know what the right hand is doing.... but the eyes are just going to look the other way so they don't get poked
Sorry, have to disagree with you two on the last point in that the more common areas a person has to reference the less they are to reject your ideas thereby making it easier to relate. And if someone was able to show the religious community (no matter what percentage) that they have been overlooking the actual very 1st commandment from GOD.... "Thou shalt nurture the earth" omg can you imagine the increase in the planets health. heck the planet would be much better off from it.
It is your religion, you can interpret it any way you want -- but what you are saying does not really mesh with what I know about Christianity. You can see a picture of a skunk and say it's a black and white cat with an odd smell, but I will call it a skunk.
I like your way of thinking purecajn, but by that same line of thought, if someone were able to wash away the entire Judeo-Christian belief system and replace it with an earth-centered spirituality that highlights the interconnectedness of ourselves to everything in nature, can you imagine how the health of the planet would increase? And there wouldn't be so much opposition to evolution or gay marriage anymore, either.
Adam - "a skunk and say it's a black and white cat with an odd smell, but I will call it a skunk" - Oh my, this reminded me of pepe le pew. I miss tose old cartoons thanks for the memory there Anyway, curious how you figure it is my religion. 1) I'm not of Jewish descent 2)I don't have enough reliable data (big bang/god/aliens all are just theories in the end) to make a decision as to the creation of man. 3) I don't practice any religion currently but do read various cultures religious books. As stated previously. Now what exactly doesn't mesh? and your refereeing to Christianity as in they all believe the same. There are a lot of different views of bible interpretation just like there are many diff versions of the bible itself.
Haha, yes I actually had that cartoon in mind when I was typing that. Sorry to assume you were Christian, and you are right it is not just Christianity, but any religion that includes the Old Testament. I still stand by my argument that the Old Testament and the Bible put too much focus on eternal paradise and not enough on Earth. Of course there is also the misogynist theme, anti-homsexuality theme, endorsement of slavery, and all the fire and brimstone and other evil crap that God does in the Old Testament to make it quite clear that the God of the Old Testament is not really a friend to humanity, much less permaculture.
adam - "the Old Testament and the Bible put too much focus on eternal paradise and not enough on Earth". If in fact we have eternal life thru our genetic code and upon growing relearn the current societies ways then our actions over time determine what the world will be like thereby allowing humanity and us in whatever form our body takes at the time to determine it's own lvl of paradise/punishment on earth thereby making heaven or hell on earth while at the same time allowing humanity at any time to change it's course. So rather than the fire and brimstone results after death you have a much more "godly/forgiving" approach like in perm teaching where a lot diversity in planting allows disease/mistakes yet still doesn't ruin the harvest. hope that wasn't to far out there.
G'day again, purecajn Sure, always happy to elaborate: In a theological context, the term 'dominion' is derived from the Latin dominium meaning 'lordship' or 'ownership' (1). Whereas - and referring to your OP where you stated the belief(presumably your own?) that "humanity's purpose is to nurture the land" - the term 'nurture' stems from the Latin nūtrīre meaning 'to nourish' (2). In sum, I see no correlation between the two concepts: domination, and nourishment. Indeed, I see major contradiction. The former 'takes', the latter 'gives'. Hence my comment regarding the OT and the story of Adam as being 'hardly a recipe for humanity as nurturer'. The books you list, I too have read extensively from them, sans the Ron L. Hubbard, as I don't much care for science fiction. I do still keep a few of them on the shelf for reference, particularly those of the Eastern traditions. They also make for great bedtime stories for the infants in my extended family. I personally have a much greater interest in reading from works that adhere to the strict codes of scientific enquiry - everything from Galileo to Hawking, and beyond. This is why it saddens me that many still hold to the beliefs of the pre-enlightenment era. When Galileo proved that we do not live in a geo-centric world (sun revolving around Earth) by observing that we live in a helio-centric world (Earth orbiting around sun), that should have spelt the end to the old religions as the keepers of knowledge. But, in some sense, little has changed since the early C17 - a lot of the world's people still do not have access to quality, secular education, and therefore are drawn to the old belief structures for answers to life's questions. Anyway, interesting to read of your thoughts concerning this topic. Reading - and critically assessing all that you read - is a wonderful thing. Education is a wonderful thing. Enjoy. Cheerio, Markos (1) https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/ (2) Ibid.
There is too much to respond to so i will try to stick to the most important points i that came up for me reading through this thread. 1. The bible v the believers. The bible was written by some christians and some jews. It is not handed down from God. It is also fallible and not the least problem with it, is its interpretabiility, though at the same time, this is what has made it a great book and one that people will always find a use for. You cannot entirely separate a book from the people who use it. Were it not for the book, the people would be following a different way of life. 2. One thing in the book that you seemed to have mentioned but then ignored and which is a real problem of christian belief more than all other religioins, even other monotheisitic religions except of course the jews is the "subduing" of the earth. Christianity is not about living in harmony with nature so the idea of permaculture and the bible is wrong right at the outset. God gave all this plenitude to man for his own use according to the bible and we have run with it, causing the most destruction to the planet of any religiion though i know there are a lot of other contributing factors that enabled this to happen so I wouldn't blame the destruction on the planet on christianity. This subduing or dominion or exploitation of the planet is not the belief of other religious systems. It is not true of hinduism or of islam or any other. In theory, though not in practice, other religions have more respect for animals and nature than christianity. The problem with those other religions is that they are so poorly educated most of them don't even know what's in their texts so in many respects they end up being just as bad as us, excpet they haven't had the techonological development to do the real damage. 3. Where are you quoting from? There is no such commandment. 4. This is sheer fancy and you just made it up. There is no evidence that the previous inhabitants were abusing the world. There simply were not enough people to make a ruin of the land. 5. In my bold it looks like you might be paraphrasing but its well known that God in the bible uses words more like subdue. And its interesting that in your discussion that follows you drop the word subdue and continue with the use of the word care. There has been more subdueing can caring as history of the world shows. It has been the dominant practice. You don't have enough info to determine whether it really happened. You may not but scientists do. Both the muslims and the christians got their common view from the Jewish book. The old testament is in the very istance, a jewish religious text. Not surprisingly, because Jesus was a jew, the old testament was adopted and accepted by chrisitans. The similiarities of islam to Judaism and christianity are no accident. The prophet mixed and consulted with religious leaders, especially jews before he had his revelations. He also knew and consulted with christians. There was a lot of cultural exchange going on in that part of the world at the time of the beginning of Islam. If you want to understand this further, i recommend a book by Karen Armstrong called The Prophet. It is a biography. And she's an excellent writer. I don't agree with all her positions but I think she is a good scholar and tries to take an objective view of the situation.
sun - Please remember this is a hypothetical discussion on a real book and nothing here is to be takin offensively. When this is over I will respect your opinion even if it is different than mine and I ask you to do the same for me. 1) i agree of the authorship, is quite fallible and interpretation is very lenient in many aspects, but as you say "You cannot entirely separate a book from the people" i say you cannot separate the people from the land either. As I understand it these people were used to living in desert conditions, and as many cultures religions having origins based on the preservation of the things around them of which they are most dependent for survival so it's not to far of a reach to say the jewish mindset of paradise/the garden of eden a place where food is plentiful and fresh water is flowing was originally based on preservation of the planet. (Personally I think it would make a nice addition to there commandments). 2) I have to admit when I came across subdue I had to look it up, but when I did I found one of the interpretations was "To bring (land) under cultivation" https://www.thefreedictionary.com/subdue And I loosely define Dominion as being given control over. So to me god gave adam control of the garden with the instruction to cultivate it and care for it. (Hmmm, that fits pretty good there for me, now to get the religious communities to acknowledge it) 3) see above (subdue-cultivate-care for-nuture)- all the same to me 4) Just made it up, of course. remember this is hypothetical. As I look for connections these connections lead to ideas lead to new discoveries the perm way right?. But nonetheless when cain went out into the surrounding society, Enoch and married. So this tells me there were others. Now if there were others then why did god have the need for adam? God created a garden and put adam it with 1 longterm instruction to cultivate/nurture it. Starting to sound more and more as in a planet worship religion there. Oh wait, wasn't the story of creation and the flood found on a clay tablet (the one where a type of brail writing was used) somewhere from a culture previous to the jewish religion but based on earth worship? Sounds like this part of history was borrowed from them. adam the 1st permie trained by god himself. wow has a nice ring to it. 5) Actually all the science data is still debatable and facts supporting scientific standing of the past are subject to change as soon as a better "theory" comes along, especially when it comes to the past (look at all the changes they've been making recently just on dinosaurs and there lives). Besides, were not dealing with real world facts were dealing with "religious versions" of facts, lol. as for accepted by Christians, yer mostly enforced at the end of a sword tip. So is it safe to say you are a practicing Muslim? Not that it matters to me, it's just you reminded me of a good friend of mine I don't get to see anymore. He was a practicing Muslim when I was reading the Bhagawatum (hope i spelled it right)and we used to get into such good discussions..... anyway sorry for the reminisce.
G'day purecajn No direct question was asked by me, so no need to directly respond, but thanks for the above, anyway. Concerning the above: You have the right to define 'dominion' (within any contextual setting, biblical, or otherwise) anyway you see fit. But however you should try to massage the terminology, and the broader context in which it is situated within the OT, domination is domination, and equates to the loss of freedom, or the oppression of one by another. Yes, I can see why this would be. One has to draw an impossibly long bow to in order equate 'subdue' (or dominate) with 'cultivate' (or nurture). However, if it fits with your world view of the biblical character Adam as playing the role of proto-permie, then who am to argue? Your opinion is your own, and you are welcome (nay, I would encourage you) to express it. In closing, I would like to draw your attention toward some words from my favourite scholar on the subject of domination (my emphasis underlined and in bold): We must emphasize, here, that the idea of dominating nature has its primary source in the domination of human by human and the structuring of the natural world into a hierarchical Chain of Being (a static conception, incidentally, that has no relationship to the evolution of life into increasingly advanced forms of subjectivity and flexibility). The biblical injunction that gave to Adam and Noah command of the living world was above all an expression of a social dispensation. Its idea of dominating nature can be overcome only through the creation of a society without those class and hierarchical structures that make for rule and obedience in private as well as public life. That this new dispensation involves changes in attitudes and values should go without saying. But these attitudes and values remain vaporous if they are not given substance through objective institutions, the ways in which humans concretely interact with each other, and in the realities of everyday life from childrearing to work and play. Until human beings cease to live in societies that are structured around hierarchies as well as economic classes, we shall never be free of domination, however much we try to dispel it with rituals, incantations, ecotheologies, and the adoption of seemingly "natural" ways of life. Source: Bookchin, Murray (1993) What is Social Ecology? Cheerio, and happy reading, Markos
I am not going to argue a reply point by point to yours cajn, cause I will be here all day. I will just take a few. Subdue means to tame essentially. If you want to extrapolate from that "cultivation" then fine. I'd go along with that but caring is slightly different. YOu can cultivate and not care for land. They do not necessarily go hand in hand. This last post of your just shows that all of this is your own interpretation. I had merely thought the only interpretation was the original question, "was Adam the first permaculturist?" But in fact, it seems you made all of it up. When you put things in quotation marks it means that this is evidence. If its evidence it means you have facts that you are showing to prove your argument. As evidence, a quote is a fact in that it is not subjective but a copy of what actually exists somewhere in a text. So be careful with your quotation marks and then people won't start misunderstanding you. I can respect that this is all your opinion but respecting your opinon does not mean accepting it and agreeing. There is nothing in respecting another opinion that indicates i cannot argue with it. However, i do not respect your opinion as you've expressed it really, to be honest, since you've arrived at it through rather dubuious means. You seem to have no respect for the facts by being so free with your use of them. Ie you are not using the words of the bible. You are using your interpretation of some vague notion of what you think the bible says, so it seems. Why should i respect this. What i do respect that on a public forum, one has the right to voice their opinion. You have done that. I haven't told you to shut up and go away. I am arguing against your opinion because it is so poorly conceived. Also i am not a muslim. I am an atheist who was brought up as a christian. Religion is interesting that's why i read about it. As to the facts that science tells us. Scientists generally are not confused between a fact and a theory. I think you will find that what they say is fact usually is a fact. If theories have changed, I think you will find it was never considered a fact in the first place. I can't say more than that since you haven't given an example. Certainly scientists make mistakes but as I have said elsewhere so far these are the people who have given the best explanation as to the ways and workings of the world so i put more trust in their opinions, facts and theories than i do in anyone of a religious persuasion. Still i do not swallow them whole either. I ask of scientists that they are persuasive with their facts to convince of something which they have to do since i am not able to witness the whole experience of discovering the facts as they have. eg discerning the age of a material. This is the fact that i don't have the opportunity to witness firsthand for myself but as all scientists that i know of, accept the understanding of the dating of objects and materials, i accept it. And also since they use these "facts" in a real and practical way which has tangible results.
sun - wow quit a little harsh come back. hope your not getting rattled over there. So are you telling me that if, and I mean a big if the bible were true then by your saying: "Subdue means to tame essentially. If you want to extrapolate from that "cultivation" then fine. I'd go along with that but caring is slightly different. YOu can cultivate and not care for land.Subdue means to tame essentially. If you want to extrapolate from that "cultivation" then fine. I'd go along with that but caring is slightly different. YOu can cultivate and not care for land. They do not necessarily go hand in hand." that you don't think adam wasn't appreciative of what god had provided for his sustainability? I ask you that in your own daily life do you not care for things in your possession and in which you need for survival. It's not like he had to work for the food after all wasn't it after sin that god made the ground where man would actually have to toil for his food? This is why I feel he cared for his land. as for as the rest of what this discussion turned into I'll leave it alone as it was approached in a light hearted manner drawing off of things I've read and seen but due to limited memory recall and an ability to regurgitate facts on Que as well as getting off the main question I let it lie. Also I'm a simple man so please excuse any misplaced hyphens or whatever. And what did I make up? I started a thread with a question. a question based on scripture which I presented. I explained definitions and provided a web address to show where I derived my interpretation from.
Eco - sorry my friend. I send you much love and didn't mean to exclude you earlier only I had written all the prior post to sun and my dog stepped on the keyboard and I wound up having to type it all over again. was tired of typing and since I basically covered the definition origin above I was trying to get out of a little extra typing. unfortunately I'm only a 2 finger typist so it takes forrrreeevvvveeerrr. As for the bible being supressive I have to agree that but are you saying that dominion doesn't mean control over? when I google it i find dominion defined as Control or the exercise of control (https://www.thefreedictionary.com/dominion) if you dominion over something then you are in control of it, no? and subdue, is not a permie subduing the land when he/she uses the cut and drop technique. or when he uses his own choice of plants while basing his little food forest on natures proven techniques? As for Bookchin - i'd like to buy that man a beer. bunch of fancy words that go down real smooth.
Not harsh, rigorous. There is no or very little emotion in what i've written. You would know if i was angry. As to the bits you made - anything you put in quotation marks, or said the bible tells us or something like that is a long stretch and not what it says in the bible at all. Your quotes are not quotes at all. No i am not saying any such thing. I am glad to see though that this sentence suggests you accept that the story of creation is not true. That didn't come across before and yes I must admit i did make the assumption that you believed it was. As to your question, Adam didn't a get a chance to show his appreciation of what God had provided him because pretty soon he was cast out of the Garden of Eden. So we will never know how he would have cared for it. Farmers care for their land but that doesn't mean they all care for it very well. I am not talking about how Adam cared for the garden of Eden but how man, especially Christians have. The christian ethic of caring for things is only insofar as they are to serve you. They don't seem to be given much worth in their own right. The christian ethic pitches man at the peak of beings on earth. Hinduism does not by contrast. It is integral to the belief system. The Jain nuns and priests are the most extreme on this regard. They will do anything to avoid causing harm to any other creature. They will pull out their hair, they will eat extremely slowly and have food prepared in strange ways. I can't remember all the things i have read they do to avoid harming another creature but they do it. Of course as I said this is the extreme. Most indians do not go this far, not even most hindus, many of whom eat chicken and meat.
It's called semantics, purecajn. Whichever way you cut it, you are always going to run into a wall of reason if you try to equate permaculture with biblical accounts. But don't despair, like any good holistic practice, there will always be a little place for theology in permaculture. Holmgren has even given 'spiritual wellbeing' a place on the permaculture flower. You'll find it mixed in with all the other esoteric practices. I'm glad you like Bookchin, but I do wonder if you read the entire article? No matter if not. However, if you do feel like reading some more, a search of the Bookchin archive may prove tempting. If you do seriously wish to buy him a beer, you would be better served drinking it yourself, as he died in 2006. A short obituary by his companion, Janet Biehl. While you're at the Social Ecology website, you might like to have a look around there; much to explore. Even a few ecotheologists are creeping in. Well, must keep working away. Peace to you, Markos.
I hate getting spam emails... spam forum posts are bad enough. Sometimes I feel like picking up the computer and throwing it out the window... it just drives one mad...Then I ask myself Why... Its not the computers fault that some people who use it feel the need to use it in bad taste or with misguided viewpoints. With all due respect, sun burn, I view the Bible the same way... Just because some people choose to interpret religion in bad taste and with misguided viewpoints does not mean the True Bible in and of itself and what it represents is wrong, false or misguided... The bible has been re-written so many times through history and often only to make aspects of it suitable for individual denominations, doctrines and personal beliefs of people referring to themselves as godly... these people are at fault not the Bible or the belief in what God represents.
Sun - 1st point taken. ok, King James Genesis 2:15 "And the Lord God took the man [Adam is referenced here by the book], and put him into the garden of Eden to dress [another reference to cultivate in the book] it and to keep it." sounds pretty straightforward to me. lets see i have a Torah here New JPS Translation that interprets Genesis 2:15 "The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden, to till it and tend it." Sounds pretty straightforward to me, "till it" meaning grow food and "tend it" meaning care for it. Now seeing as to Adam having God as his teacher and that the Garden stayed fertile and provided abundantly while he lived there, and please cut me some slack and tell me if there is anywhere a listing of exactly how long Adam and Eve were supposedly in the garden before they were kicked out?). KJV Gen 3:23 "Therefore .the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground ground from whence he was taken." New JPS Gen 3:23 "So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he was taken." This sounds to me to be saying that though before when God gave man Dominion over a already abundant food forest and told him to care for it. The 1st purpose of man on this planet and according to Gen 3:23 Adam was cast out being told to continue to grow his own food after he was booted. Have I missed anything thus far?
