Does the Judeo-Christian theme of the Course encourage environmental irresponsibility? Q #740: A Course in Miracles can be seen as lying within the Judeo-Christian monotheistic tradition, characterized by considering God as outside of the earthly system. This tradition, which originated with the patriarchal sky/mountain God of the Hebrews, became dominant over the preceding religious systems as much as anything else through violent imposition. In earlier “pagan” polytheism, God/Goddess was/were considered present within the earthly realm in multiple forms, such as tree or river Gods, etc. It is obvious that a believed presence of God within the natural world produces a respect for its resources, whereas an earthly realm in which God does not lie openly invites their violation. In this way, Judeo-Christian monotheism can be seen to have played a huge part in environmental degradation, and so this can also be viewed as a weakness of the Course. How would you answer this criticism? A: While we remain identified with our egos, we can use anything we want to justify and rationalize our self-centered thoughts and subsequent actions, including any spiritual teaching, no matter how profound and all-inclusive its message of love may be. And so it is true, we could choose to use the Courses teachings on the unreality of the world and Gods total lack of involvement in it -- Hes not even the worlds creator, as the Judeo-Christian theologies would maintain, so theres nothing at all sacred about it! -- to justify treating the illusion in any way we please, using it to meet our own personal needs at everyone and everything elses expense. And yet such an interpretation would require a total misreading of the Course, for it would go completely counter to everything Jesus is saying, since the Courses aim at the very beginning of our study of it -- the most preliminary step along its path -- is to lead us to a recognition of shared rather than separate interests (M.1.1:2) . And this sharing, through the process of forgiveness, is to be extended to every aspect of the Sonship, even the tiniest grain of sand (T.28.IV.9:4) , and not only to fellow homo sapiens , or our own family or ethnic group or country, or some other grouping based both on exclusion and inclusion. While it is true in one sense that the Course comes within the Judeo-Christian tradition, it must be understood that it does for solely one purpose: to provide a gentle and loving correction for all the ego-based errors of that other system of thought. It does not build upon nor extend that tradition, but rather takes its central concepts, which have been used unfortunately for hatred and attack and murder, and allows them to be given a different purpose -- the healing of the mind of the Sonship. It would be a serious confusion to equate the Courses non-dualistic theology of the oneness and guiltlessness of all with the dualistic teachings of sin and guilt enshrined in the Judeo-Christian tradition. facimoutreach.org/qa/questions/questions139.htm#Q740
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 13:21:06 +0000
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