WELCOME TO
THE SPIRITUAL FOUNDATION OF SOCIETY
ETHICS, ECOLOGY AND ECONOMICS
PREFACE
Many small groups of dedicated people have given their time and energy to try to protect the environment and to bring social and economic change in the world, but their efforts have faced almost insurmountable obstacles because of the materialism of this age. Not all of them have realized that the foundation of any future society must be spiritual, and so most of them have worked for specific, isolated changes in society, not seeing the whole picture, the interrelationships that exist in all levels of civilization, and the basic spiritual element, or lack thereof, in all we do. I have written this book to try to bring together the major aspects of human society and activity, to demonstrate our relationship to the earth and to one another, and how it is all governed by our spiritual development and conduct. The statistics in this book are not all current, but in the Appendix I have listed some of the current statistics concerning the distribution of wealth.
John Carre johncarre@yahoo.com SEE ALSO--AN ISLAND OF HOPE, Spiritual meditations at--
http://ca.geocities.com/johncarre/island_of_hope.html
TABLE OF CONTENTS
To go to a chapter, click on highlighted >
At beginning and end of each chapter, return to Table of Contents by clicking on ^
> CHAPTER 1.
Time of Transition
> CHAPTER 2
New Understandings of the Interrelationships in Creation
> CHAPTER 3
The Interdependence of Mankind and the Ecology
> CHAPTER 4
The Land is for all Humanity
> CHAPTER 5
The World's Forests
> CHAPTER 6
Conservation and the Distribution of Mineral Resources
> CHAPTER 7
An Agriculture in Harmony with Nature
> CHAPTER 8
Energy from Non-Polluting, Sustainable Sources
> CHAPTER 9
Family and Education
> CHAPTER 10
The Return to Small Communities
> CHAPTER 11
Capital Working for Labor; The Age of Decentralized Industry.
> CHAPTER 12
Financial Institutions and the Redistribution of Wealth
> CHAPTER 13
Democracy and World Federation.
> CHAPTER 14
The Age of Unity
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> APPENDIX
TIME OF TRANSITION
"Religion is, verily, the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the world, and of tranquility amongst its peoples. The weakening of the pillars of religion hath strengthened the foolish, and emboldened them, and made them arrogant. Verily, I say: the greater the decline of religion, the more grievous the waywardness of the ungodly. This cannot but lead in the end to chaos and confusion. Hear me, O men of insight, and be warned, ye who are endued with discernment." Baha'u'llah
This book was written in 1991-93 with a few revisions in 2001, during the time of the disintegration of civilizations throughout the world, and the collapse of the communistic and capitalistic systems of economics. It is a time of materialism and the downfall of religious institutions, of anarchy and strife, of ethnic and racial hatred, of natural and man-made calamities, and the spread of war around the world. It is also a time when the promises of God will be fulfilled, and a new age of the oneness of mankind and world peace will begin, but only after this age has ended in a cataclysmic event. Then the Word of God will be revealed and the first signs of the new age will appear.
In this book I have attempted to describe the destructive effects of our materialistic civilizations so that we will not repeat the same mistakes in the future. For every problem discussed I have offered suggestions for the future society, proposals based on the spiritual values of love and justice. Although the subject matter discussed in each chapter has been described in many books by various authors, I have avoided prolixity and attempted to cover the main problems as briefly and as adequately as possible. The proposals for a future society represent the thoughts of many economists, scientists and philosophers, but the most important influence for what I have written comes from the Teachings of Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha. I have brought together these thoughts from many sources, along with my own ideas, in a new, coherent form, in a new, integrated thesis. I have not attempted to have this book published at this time because very few people can now appreciate the concepts presented herein. Perhaps this book will prove to be of value in the future, in the next century, and then, God willing, it will be published.
Humanity is said to stand between night and day, between the darkness of materialism and the light of spirituality. At this point in human history this is true as never before. In the past two centuries we have acquired vast material wealth and knowledge, while ignoring almost entirely the spiritual truths, and this has led to destruction and social regression. A very few have sought and acquired new awareness of our relationship with our Creator, but the vast majority have been preoccupied with material things. Scientific discoveries have led to greater understanding of material creation and of our own limitations, but pride in human intellect has prevented us from grasping the full significance of these revelations. We are faced with a choice; either we continue as we are and face the dismal consequences of continued regression and failures, or we turn to God and enter a new age of spiritual maturity.
Like voices crying in the wilderness, a few of the leading scientists, sociologists, philosophers and others warned of the consequences of our spiritual failures. In his book Questa a una Filosofia Carl Jung remarked: "A misunderstood development of the soul will inevitably carry a total psychological destruction. The actual situation is at this time so sinister that it is difficult not to see that the Creator is preparing another deluge to exterminate the human race." Albert Einstein also warned of the consequences of this spiritual failure: "The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our mode of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." The major work of Pitirim A. Sorokin, sociologist at Harvard University, was to warn of the impending collapse of this Western civilization. The essential question remains, well we arise to the challenge and establish an entirely new civilization based on the eternal spiritual values which have been so absent in our societies in the past?
The basis of human existence is spiritual and upon this foundation any future civilization must be established. We do not mean that the multitude of religious organizations should continue, quite the opposite. Through their own efforts, in the coming decades, the peoples of the world must come to realize that there is but one God and one Faith. Whatever differences we imagine to exist are due to our limited vision, and not part of God's Law and Spiritual Truth. The incredible spectacle of bloody warfare between sects of Christianity, between Muslim sects, or between peoples of different religions, is entirely alien to the essence of the spiritual teachings of any of the great religions. When conflict exists among the people they have ignored the Law of Life and the Faith of God, and they are acting against their own self-interest and survival.
At this crucial time in human evolution this matter must be given the closest consideration by every thoughtful person, because the future of humanity depends on individuals who are capable of changing and evolving intellectually and spiritually. A society of immature and self-centered people can no longer control the great powers we have achieved in the material and intellectual realms. There is no alternative left, we must seek the answers to our failures and strive to achieve an integrated and balanced psyche, with harmony and equilibrium between the powers of the body, mind and soul. This harmony and balance must be reflected in our relationships with all of creation and with all of humanity.
The controlling center of human happiness, tranquility and progress is the center of ethical and metaphysical ideas and beliefs that transcend the world of facts. From this center emanates all the great discoveries and progress in science, economics, government and religion. Those souls who most truly reflect the Light of God in that center attain the highest levels of intellectual and moral achievement; they are the motivating force in human evolution. When this center is active it prevents unseemly acts and crimes, leads to the use of human discoveries and wealth for the benefit of all peoples, inspires leaders to establish governments and economies based on justice and compassion in the nations, creates an awareness of our relationship to God and nature, and awakens us to the need to protect the ecology of the earth.
We stand on the threshold of a new and wonderful age of spiritual maturity; the time for the unification of the peoples of the world has at last arrived. Even though at this time we enter the darkest period in human history, yet the potential now exists for the creation of a new world, vastly different from what we have known in past ages. In the nineteenth century Baha'u'llah said that the time has arrived for the unification of the world and the establishment of lasting peace; we now have the physical means to realize the fulfillment of that prophecy. Not only do we begin to understand the interrelationships of all parts of the universe, and of the organic unity of the ecosphere, but also the reality of the oneness of the human race.
"...All nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers . . . the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; . . . these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the 'Most Great Peace' shall come . . .These strifes and this bloodshed and discord must cease, and all men be as one kindred and one family . . . Let a man not glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind. . ." Baha'u'llah
Until now the newly awakened intellectual powers of mankind have been used for the progress of science and industry, with little concern for the spiritual values and the physical needs of humanity. Now we must carefully consider the results of our neglect of the spiritual laws of life if we are to gain an understanding of their central importance in all levels of existence. The high spiritual nature of humanity embraces all of creation, and when it is weak or ignored, disaster follows and civilizations disintegrate. The single-minded pursuit of wealth and material possessions, unless arrested, can ultimately lead to the depletion of the earth's vital resources and the destruction of the environment. This reality is apparent to the thinking people throughout the world. More technology is not the answer; the problem has, to a large extent been created because of the unrestrained development and use of technology.
"It is incumbent upon them who are in authority to exercise moderation in all things. Whatsoever passeth beyond the limits of moderation will cease to exert a beneficial influence. Consider for instance such things as liberty, civilization and the like. However much men of understanding may favorably regard them, they will, if carried to excess, exercise a pernicious influence upon men." Baha'u'llah
Few people have ever understood the true meaning of civilization, thinking it to be no more than the accumulation of material wealth, the development of music and arts, the construction of cities and public works, the intellectual perfections and the ability to govern large cities and nations without undue disorder. Our proper relationship to God, our fellow beings and the rest of creation has never been considered as the real foundation of civilization except by a few enlightened individuals. In the main religion has consisted of observing the superstitions, forms and rituals established by the founders of the innumerable sects and religious organizations that have proliferated during the centuries; the spirit of true faith has almost been forgotten.
This weakness and immaturity of peoples' faith has led humanity to become enchanted by the attractions of materialism, misled by various forms of occultism, and to be overawed by the marvels of intellectualism, considering them to be the sources of happiness and salvation. Over and over again, throughout history, these false gods have ultimately led to wars, religious strife, the breakdown of families, poverty, disease, spiritual regression and the end of civilizations. Dorothy Sayers remarked that "war is a judgement that overtakes societies when they have been living upon ideas that conflict too violently with the laws governing the universe...Never think that wars are irrational catastrophes; they happen when wrong ways of thinking and living bring about intolerable situations."
The people of the industrialized nations, benefitting from the vast stores of fossil fuels, dream of a world of plenty, where the bounties of material wealth will bring happiness to all those fortunate enough to live in the favored nations. Not much concern is given to the plight of the have-not nations. The level of material prosperity of Japan, the United States and Europe cannot be attained throughout the world because of limited resources; nor can such material prosperity be the foundation of world peace, even if it were attainable. It can only be attained to a limited extent within the favored nations by cultivating such human characteristics as greed and envy, which destroy happiness and tranquility, and ultimately lead to war. The unfounded and unbounded confidence in the unlimited growth of the economies and in the miracles of technology, will be shattered as we experience, more and more, the results of our excesses.
The atmosphere poisoned by gasses from automobiles and factories, the ozone layer depleted; lakes, streams and seas polluted with toxic wastes from industries and farms; foods unfit to eat because of mutagenic and carcinogenic chemicals from pesticides and herbicides; these are the final fruits of excess that the peoples of this world civilization are leaving for their children. Unsatisfied with the vast amounts f energy consumed from fossil fuels the people in most industrialized nations have relied on atomic power with its resultant wastes that will plague the world for thousands of years, for a time longer than any nation in human history has lasted. We can only pray to God that the natural cleansing forces of nature will ultimately purify the atmosphere and the earth in the not too distant future, after this world civilization has reached its end.
Like a body without a spirit, in their hopeless search for fulfillment and happiness they cannot find in material wealth, the people of the wealthier nations seek ways to escape from the reality of an empty life. Rather than search for the real meaning in life and for spiritual wisdom, they too often embrace degenerate forms of entertainment such as drugs, sexual promiscuity, gambling, and sometimes suicide. The terrorism, wars, famines, plagues and the collapse of economic systems, rather than to awaken people to the failures of their civilization, seem to cause them to become more intent on self-destruction. It is axiomatic that when a civilization is in the process of disintegration those who are living at that time seem generally unaware of what is happening.
In these dark and troubled times there are, here and there, in various nations, tiny groups of people who have awakened to the needs of humanity, those souls who have turned to the Center of Existence. Some of them will help form the core of a new world civilization based on the Word of God and a balance between our spiritual, mental and physical natures. The masses must awaken to the meaning of their relationship to God, which they have, until now, failed to do. The late Dr. Pitirim Sorokin, before the second World War, warned of the results of this failure of humanity to return to spiritual values.
"This unteachableness manifests itself in the current hope of extricating ourselves from the crisis by means of a variety of facile but shallow artifices, without any fundamental reorientation of our values, any thoroughgoing change of mentality and conduct, any persistent personal effort to realize man's divine creative mission on earth instead of acting merely as a 'reflexive mechanism', or an organism endowed with sex functions and controlled by its 'residues', 'drives', and 'prepotent reflexes'. Hence the crisis itself, and hence the inevitability of a fiery ordeal as the only available means of teaching the otherwise unteachable ... The more unteachable we are, the less freely and willingly we choose the sole course of salvation open to us, the more inexorable will be the coercion, the more pitiless the ordeal, the more terrible the dies irae of the transition. Let us hope that the grace of understanding may be vouchsafed unto us and that we may choose, before it is too late, the right road - the road that leads not to death, but to the future realization of man's unique creative mission on this planet! Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini." (From The Crisis of Our Age)
The economies of the great powers stagger and collapse under the burden of mismanagement and greed, wars erupt and nations disintegrate because of our failure to obey the Law of Life and the Word of God. Little or nothing is being done to stop the destruction of the natural environment other than needlessly protracted "studies" and "promises" of action to be taken ten years or more in the future. With open arms we rush to the embrace of our dark angel, while the wildfires of civil, racial, religious and ethnic strife or war spread from nation to nation across the face of the earth. The number of impoverished families increases day by day, while the people are burdened with the support of almost 25 million men and women in the military forces of the world's nations. In the industrialized nations the concentration of wealth is accelerated through mergers of corporations, tax breaks for the wealthy, lower incomes for the workers, and a rapid accumulation of land in fewer and fewer hands through home and farm foreclosures. Throughout the world, from 1960 to 1993, the gap between the rich and the poor more than doubled, and since 1993 that gap has increased even more. The disintegration and fall of civilizations of the world is clearing the way for a new age and a new civilization, and we must do whatever we can to prepare for our future with hope, determination and optimism, to create a new world order based on justice and love, obedient to the spiritual Law of Life.
In the following chapters I will outline possible solutions for some of the problems that have existed in our economic systems, in governments, in our relationships with the environment, and in agriculture. The problems that exist in every nation differ somewhat from those in other nations, and the solutions I offer will have to be modified to suit the requirements of each state or nation. These propositions are based on the principles of justice and moderation, incorporating some of the best features of existing systems, the wisdom of Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha, as well as some of the outstanding ideas of economists and environmentalists of today. I propose an economy with what E.F. Schumacher called "a human face", based on human spiritual and physical needs, as well as the requirements for the health of the ecosphere. We are the stewards of the earth, and the proposals herein suggested have as their objective to make the earth a better place for those living and those yet to come, and to urge each generation to leave it in better condition than when they first took responsibility for its care and nurturing.
The people of this age have the tendency to go to extremes, either in capitalism or radical socialism, without making compromises or seeking moderation. As a result, economic systems and governments swing wildly back and forth, like a pendulum, with little regard for the basic needs of the masses. From the beginning of the industrial revolution up to the present, the foundation of Western capitalistic economies has been the teachings of Adam Smith; his "invisible hand" that was supposed to regulate the market place, has turned out to be an "invisible hand of greed". It was intended to mysteriously bring happiness and plenty for all, according to Adam Smith, and to lead to an equitable distribution of the fruits of our labor. Instead it has distorted our economies, brought about an incredible concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, and led to repeated cycles of economic depression.
Only on a limited scale have the systems of capitalism and communism been of benefit to society as a whole. One need only consider the plight of the poorer capitalistic nations of South America and elsewhere in the world, where millions are undernourished and homeless. The collapse of Western civilization now in progress, is partly the result of the materialistic, capitalistic economies, which reflect the spiritual regression and apathy of the people. In the United States the homeless number in the hundreds of thousands, and more than 30 million people live at or below the poverty level. The demise of communism and the disintegration of their society is another example of the failure of extreme economic solutions, and of the destructive effects of materialism and spiritual darkness. James Madison, one of the "founding fathers" of the United States wrote: "We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility. It will be an impossibility because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few. A republic cannot stand upon bayonets, and when that day comes, when the wealth of this nation will be in the hands of a few, then we must rely upon the wisdom of the best elements in the country to readjust the laws of the nation to the changed conditions."
We must adopt a new way of life, based on values of the spirit, involving every aspect of our lives and finding outward expression in our relations with our fellow-beings, in our economies and in our governments. Our economy must be based on moderation, cooperation, love, sharing and a new understanding of our relationships to people of every race and nationality. In this age there is no reason for anyone to be destitute, without land, or to be denied the right to life. We must forget the restricting names and schemes of political or social ideologies, and consider the realities of life and of human needs, so that all have the right to contribute to human progress, and all share in the bounties of the earth. We should no longer argue over the relative merits of liberalism, conservatism, capitalism, fascism or communism, but should forget their very names, and extract from such ideas whatever is useful and beneficial, and which will contribute to human well-being, happiness, security and progress. The extremes of wealth and poverty that now exist can no longer be tolerated, and no one must suffer alone and forgotten, without food or shelter. John B. Oakes of the New York Times:"The new era requires new leadership, new creativity, a willingness to evaluate new ideas and new concepts and new relationships with the kind of courage and conscience that our history and our heritage have bestowed upon us."
We live but a brief time on this earth, and we share in the responsibility for what is accomplished in our lifetimes and for what we create for future generations. The material possessions we amass will turn to dust, and the earth that provides our wealth is our grave. Our use of the land and the resources should always be governed by the present and future welfare of humanity. For example, it might benefit certain farmers to destroy the trees on their land, to create open fields for pasture or crops. However, such action might well contribute to a change in climate affecting vast areas, lead to erosion of the soil, destroy watersheds that provide water to people in the lowlands, and fill the reservoirs and dams with silt. The final results might bring quick profits to a few individuals and bring incalculable suffering to thousands of people in the future. Mere title to a piece of land, or temporary residence during our lifetime, cannot be considered license to do whatever we desire with the land. We have undeniable responsibility to care for the things of the earth and the land, with respect for the rights of those living and those yet to be born. Nor can our concerns be only for those of our own nation, but must embrace all humanity in all the nations of the world.
We must seek ways to improve the earth, in harmony with the entire ecosphere. We must create forests in desolate regions in cooperation with the requirements of the biosphere, and we must plant trees of all types to improve climates and the atmosphere, so as to hasten the day when all the earth will be like a paradise for mankind. Use of the land must be carefully considered and plans made to utilize the earth for the well-being of everyone, not just for a few fortunate and wealthy individuals, and all should freely cooperate in this expression of love and respect.
Because the entire financial structure of Western civilization has been defective, new concepts must be considered and an entirely new system devised. Existing financial systems now in the process of disintegration, must be simplified so that they are no longer unwieldy and uncontrollable, and so that a few individuals can no longer manipulate the world economy for personal gain. It means sacrifice of old concepts so that all will benefit, and a redistribution of the creations of our labor, without going to such extremes as can lead to the destruction of individual initiative.
Whatever solutions we use must always be subject to improvement and change when necessary. It is unwise to become so attached to any proposal for human betterment that we cling to in the face of change and progress that make it untenable and harmful. It is folly to develop a religious awe of any form of government or constitution, as has happened in the United States, so that a nation lacks the flexibility to adapt to changes, or to properly progress as human understanding and capacity evolve to higher levels. We must always remember that no system of government or economics, no matter how enlightened or well conceived, can long endure in a corrupt and unjust society. The future world civilization must be based on justice, honesty and love, dedicated to human spiritual and intellectual evolution.
NEW UNDERSTANDING OF THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS IN CREATION
Limitations of Human Understanding
In this age of specialization and accumulation of information, people have confused intelligence with wisdom and insight. We have been continually subjected to the statements of "experts" and specialists, those who have memorized accumulated knowledge in certain fields. Too often "experts" in the same field contradict one another, and so we should listen with respect to all such opinions and then attempt to make a reasoned judgement on the basis of such biased information. Some people are like computers, with immense stores of information at their disposal, and if you press the proper "key" they can play it back to you. But like the computer they are often amoral and lack an understanding of humanity, or even of the interrelationships of the various fields of knowledge they have memorized. They are not wise, although they may certainly be considered to be intellectuals. In the Quran it speaks of such people as being like donkeys with loads of books on their backs.
George Bernard Shaw once remarked that if you laid all the economists of the world end to end, you still wouldn't reach a conclusion. People are worthy of respect for having attained their "masters" or "doctors" degrees, but it must be realized that until their training includes some degree of understanding of the interrelationships within the entire field of human knowledge, and a development of the spiritual characteristics, they are not truly wise. We must approach an appreciation of the creation in which we live with humility, love and respect, and with a realization of our own limitations.
We learn about and understand (to a limited extent) the world around us through physical senses and intelligence, and beyond that, intuition. Expressions such as "scientific truth" must be taken in a very limited sense, with the realization that we do not know any "absolutes", and that our knowledge is relative to our capacities and human limitations. As Leo Daudet observed:"The biological sciences ... intoxicate, by affording the swift, ephemeral and exquisite illusion of understanding what we observe . . . Between observation and understanding lies the whole expanse of conjecture." We create scientific theories and laws, and then, as our comprehension of the universe grows, we change the "laws" and theories to suit our new discoveries. Heisenberg the physicist observed that it is extremely difficult for scientists raised under one paradigm relating to the science of their day, to accept new theories because they feel as if the ground is pulled from beneath their feet.
Huxley and Dawkins remarked that once a theory, such as Darwin's theory of evolution, has been accepted by scientists and the general public as a "self-evident truth" its defense becomes irrelevant, and there is no longer any point in having to establish its validity by reference to empirical fact. That is to say that such theories become like dogma in any religious organization, based on blind faith and the desire for it to be true in the face of facts proving it to be wrong. Up to now students in most universities are conditioned by their instructors to accept certain ideas as absolutes, and except for a few exceptional, original, independent thinkers, such methods of instruction are a barrier to real progress. Instruction should be honest, impartial, presented with humility and free of prejudices based on atheism, materialism or religious superstitions.
We often hear of "reductionist" and "holistic" thinking in recent years. When the term reductionist is used herein, I refer to those who try to understand the meaning of the whole through the qualities of the parts. In biology it would refer to those who believe that all the qualities of the living organism can be explained by what we consider to be the laws governing the elementary particles, chemicals, molecules and genes. Thus the attributes in humans of love, compassion and self-sacrifice are to them no more than the results of chemical reactions at various levels of complexity. The reductionist who is also an atheist will go even further and deny the existence of a Creator, or any intelligent design in the universe. Holists, on the other hand, recognize the laws governing the component elements and parts of an organism, but see the whole as greater than the sum of its parts. Holists, as I use the term, also see the interdependence and interrelationships in all of creation, and recognize a design and purpose in creation.
We have, for example, developed the new field of bioengineering without really understanding the relationship of the microcosm to the macrocosm, how the alterations and mutations we make will affect the biosphere. The majority of geneticists are, no doubt, responsible and conscientious scientists; it is those few who are primarily concerned with personal fame and financial gain who are dangerous. We must learn the relationship between a phisico-chemical phenomenon and the pnenomena pertaining to life, and the psychology that accompanies it. We see and theorize about the surface of reality, but we are unable to comprehend the essence, and only intuitive faculties give a fleeting glimpse of the essence of things. We are like the people in Plato's cave, we see only the shadows of reality. Albert Einstein said:"One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike."
At this time, after most scientists have for years ignored questions of purpose and design in creation, we see more and more biologists, physicists, and other scientists admitting that all creation does have a purpose, a goal, and an intelligent design. The end of this civilization and the beginning of a new age will mark the turning point in all fields of knowledge, and a new attitude towards God and spiritual forces. There have always been scientists who believed in God and an ordered creation, but they have been largely ignored in this century by most of their fellows, out of the mainstream of accepted scientific opinion. If they were too well known to be ignored, their spiritual beliefs were often dismissed as an eccentricity. The fear of mentioning God and spiritual values among scientist in general has been slowly changing to a more open discussion of such realities, and how they relate to scientific observations. In his book Quantum Questions, Ken Wilbur has compiled portions of articles, books and essays written by such famous physicists as Heisenberg, Einstein, Prince de Broglie, Schroedinger, Jeans, Planck, Pauli and Eddington expressing their belief in God. They acknowledge that the way to mysticism or spiritual development is not through scientific discoveries, even though such discoveries clearly point to the existence of a Creator, and offer proof of His power and wisdom.
Intellectual man creates his own scale of observation. In nature different scales of observation do not exist. Creation is one immense, harmonious phenomenon which escapes our understanding because of our finite nature, our tendency to break things down into arbitrary compartments, isolated components more suited to our intellectual scale of observation. The reality of the gestalt of life can never be understood by observation of its isolated parts alone. Albert Einstein observed that "as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." Bertrand Russell wrote: "Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because know so little; it is only its mathematical properties we can discover." It is only through our intuitive faculties and spiritual natures, powe4rs of the spirit which have been much neglected, that we begin to dimly comprehend the meaning, and to slowly achieve a harmony with the whole of creation, and to attain this harmony requires a love of God and humanity.
Logic and statistics can be manipulated to prove almost anything, a fact well known to politicians, governments and "con-men". The "logic" of yesterday may not be the "logic" of today. For centuries philosophers have been using logic to prove opposing points of view, and some scientists, lacking empirical evidence to prove their claims, have done the same. Reductionists, attempting to convince people that life is merely the product of chemical reactions and DNA codes, have promised that "some day", in the distant future, their ideas will be proven; not a scientific approach to truth, but more of a blind faith in the powers of human intellect, an almost metaphysical belief. In a handful of chemicals lie the secrets of intelligence and life, they say, but understanding the chemical aspects of life, even the cause of morphogenesis (which remains unknown), cannot explain life by any stretch of the imagination.
The fact is that theories, and hypotheses abound explaining the existence of life; materialistic-reductionists taking one approach, and those who believe in continuous creation by God, taking another. However, neither one nor the other can explain the essence of life, nor the source of human intelligence and spiritual qualities, except by falling back on the "unknown" which is either the Creator Who is known only by His qualities and His creation, or on undiscovered "laws of nature" which exist in the fertile imaginations of the materialistic-reductionists. We will have to accept the fact that there will always remain certain realms of knowledge and laws of creation forever beyond our understanding because of our limitations, limitations which some "technician-scientists" are loathe to acknowledge, but which leading "creative-scientists" and other spiritual people readily admit.
In 1929, Szilard, a Hungarian physicist discovered a limit on empirical knowledge which was later formulated as an information theory by Claude Shannon, John von Neumann and Warren Weaver. This theory shows that the idea of perfect knowledge suggested by Laplace, is an illusion, and that every observation obscures at least as much information as it reveals. This particular theory of information (other "information" theories exist) says that the acquisition of knowledge about one part of the world requires an equal sacrifice of knowledge about other parts. This does not mean that we cannot acquire useful knowledge important to our progress and civilization. It does imply that we must begin to recognize our limitations, and develop a sense of humility before our Creator.
In 1927 a world conference of physicists in Brussels, Belgium agreed on what became known as the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. This Copenhagen Interpretation says, in effect, that quantum theory is about correlations in our experience, and what will be observed under specified conditions, but that there is no substantive physical reality, as we understand it, in the world of elementary particles, but with our mathematics we can make relatively accurate and useful predictions about its effects. Werner Heisenberg, one of the founders of quantum mechanics wrote that "elementary particles are no longer real in the same sense as objects of ordinary life," and physicist Henry Stapp wrote to the Atomic Energy Commission that "...an elementary particle is not an independently existing, analyzable entity. It is, in essence, a set of relationships that reaches outward to other things." Professor G.F. Chew, Chairman of the Physics Department of the University of California at Berkeley said: "Our current struggle [with current aspects of advanced physics] may thus be only a foretaste of a completely new form of human intellectual endeavour, one that will not only lie outside physics, but will not even be describable as 'scientific'."
Abraham Maslow taught that both science and religion have become too narrow in their thinking, too exclusively dichotomized. "Science for the sake of science" is amoral and non-ethical, no more than a technology. It becomes no more than a collection of tools, techniques, instrumentalities and information to be used by anyone, good or evil, for any purpose, harmful or beneficial. To some science has become like a religion, its adherents, in blind faith, believe that "science can do anything and that technology will solve all the world's problems. Science can become a blind application of power when in the wrong hands, without compassion or understanding.
Religion, as generally understood during past centuries, too often consists of superstitions, organized rituals, and a fanatic adherence to beliefs that contradict reason and the laws of creation. Such a religion shuts out the benefits of the discoveries of science, just as an amoral science is unable to benefit from the spiritual and intuitive powers of true religion.. Such a religion holds up human progress, and spiritual evolution, leading to inhumanity and incredible unhappiness, as we have seen throughout the world in this century.
This dichotomy between the spirit and the intellect has a disastrous effect on humanity. The young no longer respect wisdom, seeing intellectual knowledge as the ultimate goal in life, and technical know-how as the purpose of education. Whey they have acquired a little information at schools where the educators themselves teach knowledge unbalanced by its spiritual component, they no longer respect the wisdom acquired by spiritual understanding, age and experience. Left with a life limited by an amoral intellectual foundation, unenriched by the deeper intuitive-spiritual qualities, they have, in recent decades, turned to drugs, suicide or other forms of escape from a life of materialism and unfulfiled longings. It is clear that true religion and true science are like the wings of one bird, both are necessary for flight. The physicist Heisenberg wrote: "We have come to see how compellingly the individual also has need in his self-consciousness or self-understanding for the prootection of the spiritual pattern. . . If there is much unhappiness among today's students, the reason is not material hardship, but the lack of trust that makes it too difficult for the individual to give his life a meaning." In the words of Baha'u'llah:
"Schools must first train the children in the principles of religion, so that the Promise and the Threat, recorded in the Books of God, may prevent them from the things forbidden, and adorn them with the mantle of the commandments; but this in such a measure that it may not injure the children by resulting in ignorant fanaticism and bigotry."
The new race that is emerging from the fires of the disintegration of this present civilization will awaken to the oneness of creation, seeing that knowledge and spirit are essential parts of an integrated and sane human being. The science of the future will be governed by the spiritual forces of humanity, freed from the fetters of superstition, rituals and dogma, whether in science or religion. The science and religion will come together in harmony, reinforcing all the best attributes of the human spirit. It will not be a science or a religion as we have lived them in the past, but a unification leading to a way of life that is at once intuitive, spiritual, informed and eternally progressing to greater understanding of existence, in harmony with all of creation.
The Oneness of Creation
In Wholeness and the Implicate Order, the theoretical physicist David Bohm states that we are all expressions of a "whole", and that we can no longer think of things as "inherently divided, disconnected, and 'broken up into yet smaller constituent parts." with "each part essentially independent and self existent"
He says that we must now realize that humanity is the "basic reality, whose claims come before before those of individuals or groups.". If we begin to think of things as being coherent and harmonious parts of an overall "whole", without divisions or borders, then we can begin to overcome the manner of thinking that breaks all creation down into separate, unrelated parts, and we will awaken to the reality that we are parts of one humanity. We do not imply Pantheism, but rather that this creation is one, with one Supreme Creator. This will establish, for each of us, a new relationship with all humanity. This is the manner of thinking that will assure the establishment of world unity and lasting peace, where everyone will share in the responsibility for the welfare of one another and for the planet earth.
Abdu'l-Baha said, (c. 1905): "...this limitless universe is like the human body, all the members of which are connected and linked with one another with the greatest strength. How much the organs, the members and parts of the body of man are intermingled and connected for mutual aid and help, and how they influence one another ! In the same way the parts of this infinite universe have their members and elements connected with one another, and influence one another spiritually and materially."
When the above quotation from Abdu'l-Baha was written such a concept was considered unrealistic and "unscientific". Recently Bell's theorem and the EPR experiment demonstrated that at a deep and fundamental level the separate parts of the universe are connected in an immediate and intimate way. David Bohm states that "One is led to a new notion of the unbroken wholeness which denies the classical analyzability of the world into separate and independently existing parts....The inseparable quantum interconnectedness of the whole universe is the fundamental reality."
Baha'u'llah wrote: "The utterance of God is a lamp, whose light are these words:'Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch. Deal ye with one another with the utmost love and harmony, with friendliness and fellowship. He Who is the Day Star of Truth beareth Me witness! So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth. The One true God, He Who knoweth all things, Himself testifieth to the truth of these words."
Religious teach us that we are all one family, brothers and sisters under one God. Biologists and sociologists now tell us that we are bound together in an interdependent relationship with all living creatures on this planet, and with the earth and the atmosphere; our fortunes depend on the well-being and health of the entire ecology. Today physicists have discovered that the very atoms of our bodies are interwoven ion an instantaneous, superluminal relationship with all parts of the universe. If we wish to continue to progress materially and spiritually we cannot ignore these realities of creation.
Everything we think or do has some effect on other people, then on the environment, ultimately on the entire planet, and finally to some degree, on the universe. The effects on the environment and the people closest to us are often immediate and apparent; in our city, state and nation to diminishing degrees. However, as entire communities and then nations think and act in certain ways, other nations are influenced, and the physical environment itself is affected. Not only our words and deeds, but our very thoughts and inner spiritual development have an influence on the people of all the earth, and on the planet itself. Our effect on the universe may be unnoticeable and dispersed, but on this earth the results manifest themselves sooner or later, either in a positive, constructive way, or in a negative, destructive way. We are "judged" by our words, deeds and inner life, and we create our own punishment or rewards under the laws of creation.
At the beginning of this chapter we mentioned how we are inclined to break things down to our intellectual scale of observation, to suit our limitations, . Because we are finite and cannot grasp the concept of infinity, we tend to reduce God and the universe to limits we can encompass with our minds. The same is true of our theories about the so-called beginning of the universe. The generally accepted theory by astronomers of today is that the universe began from a lump of matter (which cam from nowhere?) Which exploded for some unknown reason in a "big bang", and formed the universe we think we know. Despite more and more anomalies that arise in the theory because of recent astronomical observations, a very large number of astronomers and astrophysicists still cling to the Big Bang theory, patching it up with new hypotheses springing from their fertile imaginations. Robert Jastrow, an astrophysicist who headed the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, remarked on the inability of scientists to explain the origins of their Big Bang - did the original matter appear from nothing, and if not, who put the original matter and energy into the universe?
Fred Hoyle, who along with T. Gold and H. Bondi, proposed the Steady State theory of the universe, in his book The Intelligent Universe, says that astronomers will ultimately have to modify their theories to take account of intelligent control of the universe. In 1930 Hannes Alfvan, a plasma physicist, began work on his theory of plasma fields in the formation of the universe. Simply stated it says that the universe is 99 percent plasma, crisscrossed with gigantic electrical and magnetic fields, which create magnetic vortices which draw the plasma together by the "pinch effect" -- forming planets, stars and galaxies. According to this theory the Big Bang never happened, and the universe has existed for an infinite time, without beginning and without end in sight. This theory is more in accord with religious teachings, that God's existence is without beginning or end, and because He is the Reator, there has always been a creation. Since His attributes are essential to His Being, and never change, there has always been a universe, infinite and eternal. It is a universe interrelated physically and spiritually. Humanity is one of God's creations, and out of all His creatures we are the ones capable of knowing His attributes and of loving our Creator. Just as creation has always existed, so have spiritual and intelligent beings, similar to humans, on other planets circling other fixed stars existed, in this endless universe.
Physical Evolution
Darwinists and neo-Darwinists, materialist and atheists, have believed that this perfection in creation, in humanity, animals and plants, which we now see, was the result of gradual evolution which started in an accidental combination of elements formed in a chaotic "soup" of chemical "nutrients". Then, through a series of further improbable accidents, called natural selection, or accidental genetic mutations, this perfection which we see today gradually "evolved".
Even the concept of gradualism has been proven incorrect through recent discoveries of paleontologists. Paleontologist David Kaup:"Different species usually appear and disappear from the fossil record without showing the transitions that Darwin postulated." A major feature of the fossil record is repeated mass extinctions. Evolutionist Norman Newell wrote: "Widespread extinctions and consequent revolutionary changes in the course of animal life occurred roughly at the end of the Cambrian, Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Triassic and Cretaceous periods." Herbert Nilsson of Lund University, Sweden, writes: "It is not even possible to make a caricature of evolution (Darwin gradualism) out of paleobiolgical facts. The fossil material is now so complete that ...the lack of transitional series cannot be explained by the scarcity of material. The deficiencies are real, they will never be filled."
If life were simply a property of matter, why is it not as pervasive as the physical law of gravity, and why are the unique characteristics of life only present when the organism is alive; why does the organism die? Augros in The New Biology writes: "What cause is responsible for the origin of the genetic code that directs it to produce animal and plant species? It cannot be matter because of itself matter has no inclination to these forms, any more than it has to the form Poseidon or to the form of a microchip or any other artefact...nature is God's handiwork, Divine art - that is nature -is more profound and more powerful than any human art because it constitutes the very essence of things."
Abdu'l-Baha speaks of the impossibility of an accidental creation in this quotation: "Now formation is of three kinds and of three kinds only; accidental, necessary and voluntary. The coming together of the various constituent elements of beings cannot be accidental, for unto every effect there must be a cause. It cannot be compulsory, for then the formation must be an inherent property of the constituent parts and the inherent property of a thing can in no wise be dissociated from it, such as light that is the revealer of things, heat that causeth the expansion of elements and the <solar> rays which are the essential property of the sun. Thus, under such circumstances, the decomposition of any formation is impossible, for the inherent properties of a thing cannot be separated from it. The third formation remaineth, and that is the voluntary one, that is, an unseen force described as the Ancient Power, causeth these elements to come together, every formation giving rise to a distinct being."
We cannot understand the essence of life, we can only observe its effects. The miracle of life on the smallest scale surpasses the complexity and ingenuity of the greatest creations of humanity. The biologist Jacob marvels at the operations within a bacterial cell which... "...carries out some two thousand distinct reactions with incomparable skill, in the smallest space imaginable. These two thousand read5ions diverge and converge at top speed, without ever becoming tangled, and produce exactly the quantity and quality of molecular species required for growth and reproduction, with a yield close to one hundred percent."
In Evolution, a Theory in Crisis, M. Denton expresses his wonder at the miracle of creation. "It is the sheer universality of perfection, the fact that everywhere we look to whatever depth we look we find an elegance and ingenuity of an absolutely transcending quality, which so mitigates against the law of chance...Alongside the level of ingenuity and complexity exhibited by the molecular machinery of life, even our most advanced artefacts appear clumsy." Our bodies are composed of tens of billions of cells, all coordinated and working together in perfect harmony.
Abdu'l-Baha sums it up in this statement; "...We maintain...that these infinite beings, these necessary relations, this perfect arrangement must of necessity have proceeded from a Source that is not bereft of will and understanding, and this infinite composition cast into infinite forms must have been caused by an all-embracing Wisdom. This none can dispute save he is that is obstinate and stubborn, and denieth the clear and unmistakable evidence, and becometh the object of the blessed Verse: 'They are deaf, they are dumb, they are blind, and shall return no more.;'"
Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain how the potential for life, which is expressed in creation, actually operates. Henri Bergson's idea of vitalism posits a vital spark, an elan vital, that is within all of us, and is the force that impels life onward and upward. This elan vital, he believed, impelled us through evolution as in the river of time, always becoming, always drawing nearer to God. More recently Rupert Sheldrake in A New Science of Life proposed a hypothesis which he calls "formative causation." He believes that there might exist morphogenetic fields for every organism, even for crystals and inorganic compounds. These fields contain morphic units, "virtual forms", which are "actualized" as appropriate component parts come within the range of their influences and fit into their appropriate relative positions. These morphogenetic fields are creations existing outside this dimension, and which might be described as metaphysical forces. The ideas of Sheldrake are, more or less, in harmony with those of David Bohm, whose explicit order exists in the wholeness of "that which is", the potential implicate order for the creation of all things is always present in "that which is". These concepts of orthogenesis and others can be traced as far back as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and are attempts to explain the ordering principles of evolution and life. It becomes clear that even though we can speculate about the creative forces released by God, we cannot fully comprehend the essence of the reality of things. If we cannot penetrate the essence of the realities of creation, how can we approach any real understanding of the Essence of the Creator?
If we begin to understand that the same oneness and interrelatedness of all aspect of the ecology is also the characteristic of evolution and of the universe itself, we begin to see that there have been no accidental developments in evolution. Those mutations and developments that we fail to understand are not accidental events just because we fail to grasp their significance or to understand their connections with other events in evolution. It is our ignorance, not their lack of purpose that makes some evolutionary developments seem accidental, or "trials that failed."
The new discipline of bioengineering was launched with widespread, exaggerated publicity, and glowing promises in the press of endless miracles for humanity. It reminds one of the promises of early nuclear energy enthusiasts who foretold-"electricity too cheap to meter." With hopes of millions of dollars in profits, and little concern for the long-range dangers of the new ventures, old and new firms rush into production of engineered bacteria and modification of genetic codes. A very few, more irresponsible "scientists", have claimed that planned mutations by man will improve on nature and make the world a better place. This is similar to the refrain for technological solutions for all the world's problems that we have heard for so long, which has led to world-wide pollution of the land, the air and the water, and to death for humans and other living organisms. The United Nations environment program on World Environment Day 1989, listed five new threats to the environment, among them was the potential damage caused by biotechnology.
The introduction of creatures genetically modified by man, into the evolutionary stream, could cause unforeseen problems. In his book Cosmic Blueprint, theoretical physicist Paul Davies observes:"In the case of organisms, even minute tinkering with the constants of nature would rule out life altogether, at least of the terrestrial variety." Since those who are doing the tinkering do not know what all the "constants" actually are, they walk on dangerous ground. Those who believe in a universe that works as a harmonious whole, and an earthly ecology where the inanimate environment works in intimate relationship with living creatures, will urge that we give very careful thought to bioengineering before we go too far.
It is simple arrogance and ignorance for-anyone to believe that we can improve on an evolutionary process we don't even understand, despite claims to the contrary. Rather than use bioengineering to modify living creatures, it is perhaps reasonable to use it for the prevention of genetically transmitted diseases, and other very carefully thought out goals. with great respect for God, for the ecology, and for the evolutionary process, with moderation and foresight. Even using genetic engineering to this limited extent presents the possibility of very great danger because there is still so much that is unknown in the fields of genetics and morphogenetics.
Spiritual and Intellectual Evolution
In The Evolution of Living Organisms, Pierre Grasses, one of the-world's leading biologists, speaks of our role in human evolution.
"For the last 100,000 years, Homo sapiens ... has remained physically stable. Ruler of the earth and of his own evolution, because among all living beings he is the only one capable of assigning an end to his fate; he progresses or regresses at will, hesitating between further 'hominization' and reversal to animal ism."
Just as there has been physical evolution, human beings have also, alone among all the creatures of earth experienced an intellectual and spiritual evolution. Humans are the highest expression of creation, and through obedience to the Word of God, and our own individual efforts we can become capable of "reflecting" (within limits) the spiritual attributes of God. Over countless centuries, for the age of civilization is far older than presently believed, we have been slowly evolving spiritually, guided by the progressive Revelations from God through perfect Beings, called Prophets, Apostles or Manifestations of God. Because of our brief life-span 100,000 years seems to be a long time, but compared to the age of the earth it is but a brief moment in evolution.
The Manifestations of God have appeared about every thousand years, more or less, according to the needs of human spiritual evolution. Human progress has always been cyclic, that is, in waves, with the crests always higher and the troughs never as low as before. The spiritual teachings have been gradually augmented according to the requirements of the time and place, and the ordinances governing physical life have been annuled when necessary and upgraded as humanity slowly approaches maturity. Abdu'1-Baha wrote:
"The world of humanity has heretofore been In the stage of infancy, now it is approaching maturity. Just as the individual human organism, having attained the period of maturity, reaches its fullest degree of physical strength and ripened intellectual faculties, so that in one year of this ripened period there is witnessed an unprecedented measure of development, likewise the world of humanity in this cycle of-its completeness and consummation will realize an immeasurable upward progress; and that power of accomplishment whereof every individual human reality is the repository of God, that outworking universal spirit, like the intellectual faculty, will reveal itself in infinite degrees of perfection."
The dichotomy between,, the. conventional-materialistic-intellectual thinking that has prevailed during the last two centuries, and the intuitive-ideational-spiritual thinking is aggravated by our educational system and the mass media controlled by the national and multi-national corporations. Both glorify and promote a materialistic, profit motivated, sensual approach to life and the future. Scientists and religious leaders alike, whether they realize it or not, are influenced in their thinking and conclusions by their cultural background, their environment and this materialistic civilization; hence they are not nearly as "objective" as some might claim. We must change our entire outlook on the purpose of life, and break the chains of materialism. A person whose sensual, intellectual and spiritual powers are in balance, who obeys the laws of life given by God, who lives in harmiy with all of creation, and in peace with all humanity, we call an "integrated person", who represents the next level in human evolution.
As we have seen, it is a fallacy to believe that intellect alone can solve all problems. Pitirim Sorokin in The Crisis of Our Age speaks of three aspects of truth through which civilizations have passed. They are the three dimensions of faith, reason and sensation; or ideational, idealistic and sensual. In the past we have exaggerated each aspect, passing through the three one after the other, though they shade into one another, until today we are at the end of the sensate phase, where the senses and the intellect hold sway. Scientists and religious leaders as well as the general public have unwittingly become captives of the general mode of thinking that surrounds them, except for the few unusual souls. None of the three systems of truth can, by itself, embrace the whole truth. They must be integrated to make the "whole person", a rational being who approaches life spiritually, intuitively and intellectually. Dr. David Starr Jordan, past president of Leiand Stanford University, once said that "Abdu^l-Baha walked the mystical path with practical feet"; we must develop that quality of spirit.
The higher educational Institutions of the future will no longer be oriented solely towards a "practical" education, devoted to knowledge and crafts primarily useful to industry. Instead there will have to be a balance, with both the-practical and spiritual qualities being taught. Spiritual values must be taught without being burdened with superstitions, prejudices, fanaticism, or any dogma from religious organizations. There will be specialization, but scientific disciplines will not be isolated to the degree that exists today, and students will be taught to think in terms of process, interrelationships, organic unities and of a harmonious creation,
Such an education must be made available to everyone throughout the world, regardless of sex. race or financial standing. One language and one script should be adopted for all nations, to facilitate the exchange of information and education, to remove misunderstandings between people of different races and nationalities, and so that no matter where one travels in the world he or she will be understood and welcomed.
In his book Entropy, Jeremy Rifkin suggested that in the future low entropy or steady state society, high schools will teach both manual and mental skills, teaching everyone to be self-sufficient. In a low-energy, more labor intensive society which seems the most likely development in the future, a generalized education in the lower schools will be vital to future communities, which will be smaller and self-sustaining to a certain degree. All levels of education will teach students how to think, what relationship they have to the whole of society, and the ability to judge between truth and error. Students must learn that they are part of one world, and that their every act has some effect on the rest of the world, however indirect and seemingly unimportant.-They must learn about and assume their share of responsibility for the general well-being of mankind; they must become integrated personalities, understanding the importance of character development, intuition, and intellectual accomplishments. To establish lasting world peace and some form of world federal government, we must realize the oneness of all creation and our interrelationships with other people and with the environment, -
THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF MANKIND AND THE ECOLOGY
Some geologists are among the first of the new "intuitive scientists". I see -the science of ecology as deeply grounded in a spiritual respect for the whole of creation as a harmonious unity, a gestalt of interrelationships. Beyond an awareness of the organic oneness of nature, an appreciation of the ecology implies an intuitive awareness of its inner and outer links to humanity and of our place in the universe. An understanding of the ecology encourages a way of life that teaches respect -for the rest of creation based on knowwledge, and a deeper appreciation of our relationship to God, to humanity,and to the universe, based on love, moderation, gentleness and prudence. The created world is like a tree, and a spiritual person is the fruit of that tree, the ultimate goal and highest expression of creation when he or she finally recognizes his or her relationship to God. Some say that this is conceit, but it is simple truth if one consider spiritual values, saintliness and a purified relationship with our Creator as the highest expression of creation.
Ecology evolved slowly as a new realm of human understanding, as scientists gradually accumulated enough knowledge to realize that living organisms, the atmosphere and the earth function in an organic unity, a truth long known intuitively by sages, some philosophers, poets and primitive peoples. Just as the air, the land and the seas are the environment upon which living creatures depend, so is life itself the conditioning force for the air, land and seas. Oxygen was gradually injected into the atmosphere by living organisms, which led to the formation of the ozone layer, which in turn reduced the intensity of ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth's surface, permitting the multi-cellular creatures to rise from the protection of the seas onto the land. The intimate interdependence o-f living creatures and the inanimate environment makes it difficult to draw a sharp distinction between the two. It appears that life regulates and maintains the chemical environment of the earth in a manner to insure its own health and survival, in a relationship of incredible complexity. In the words o-f Abdu'1-Baha:
'. . . There is no doubt that this perfection which is in all beings, is caused bx the creation of God from the composing elements, by their appropriate mingling and proportionate quantities, the mode of their composition, and the influence of other beings. For all beings are connected together like a chain, and reciprocal help, assistance, and influence belonging to the properties of things, (which is) the causes of' the existence, development, and growth of created beings. It is confirmed through evidences and proofs that every being universally acts upon other beings, either absolutely or through association."
All of the millions of living species are linked to one another and the ecosphere in a web of bewildering variety and complexity; when one part of this chain of interrelationships is broken the structure can usually compensate for the loss and repair the damage. When the destruction is massive and continuous, as we have witnessed in the world during recent years, through the works of humans, it would, if long continued, destroy the capability of the environment to support a reasonably civilized-humanity. Those who could survive such a catastrophe would be reduced to a life of extreme simplicity and hardship. We must stop and never repeat the excesses that threaten the world today, and work constantly to preserve and restore a healthy world environment.
Everything we do has some effect on the total ecology. If, for example, we throw away a simple dry-cell battery which contains mercury and other chemicals, we must consider the final destination of the chemicals. The battery goes to the rubbish which might then be incinerated, producing mercury vapor which is toxic. Eventually the mercury vapor comes back to earth in rain or snow and enters a stream or lake where it sinks to the bottom until it is converted bv bacteria to methyl mercury. Methyl mercury is.soluble and can be taken up by fish where it accumulates in the flesh and organs. The fish is then caught by someone and eaten and the mercury becomes deposited in that person's organs, where it is very harmful when in sufficient quantities,
We must recognise that all economic systems are within the realm of ecological interdependence and they must conform to the physical constraints o-f the ecosystem. In the development of our economic systems we have failed to appreciate these constraints because until recent years the results of this neglect were not too apparent, or at least not apparent enough to frighten the public. Three of the major problems that have attracted public attention in recent years have been the increase o-f carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the hole in the ozone layer and the-destructive force of acid rain on lakes, streams and forests, products of burning fossil fuels and the release of chloro-fluorocarbons into the atmosphere.
When nature is undisturbed* the carbon dioxide o-f the atmosphere is Kept constant by. simple reactions with sea water and some organisms in planKton* as well as by the vegetation on land. I-f the carbon dioxide content o-f the atmosphere should -fall* the normal level could be restored by the release o-f some o-f the ocean's enormous reserves. Because o-f human activities the carbon dioxide in the air has increased? and it is now established beyond the slightest doubt (according to some "experts") that increased tarbon dioxide levels in the air have contributed to a warming o-f the world's climate since the 1970s. The average temperature o-f the -first -five months o-f 1988 in the United States were the highest recorded since meteorological records were -first Kept 130 years ago. The temperature increases were a contributing -factor to droughts that reduced corn production by about 17 percent in 19SO* 28 percent in 1983 and almost 35 percent in 1938. This indicates that unless we give this problem close attention -from now on? and taKe action to maintain the balance* the natural controls regulating the carbon dioxide content o-f the atmosphere could be Increasingly overloaded* and serious climatic alterations could ultimately occur. It is possible that the erratic weather o-f recent years is related to this change in the average temperature o-f the earth's atmosphere.
There is another problem in our economic system that has affected the climate. Besides the heat build-up from increased methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, our widespread use of fossil fuels for power generation and industry release heat into the atmosphere. When this heat release, called thermal pollution, reaches some appreciable fraction of the energy normally absorbed from the sun, there could be worldwide climatic effects. This augments the effects of carbon dioxide and methane buildup, increasing the danger of the destruction of ecosystems, because life processes are regulated by temperature. One solution is to utilize solar energy, tidal-forces, etc. which I will discuss in the chapter on energy. -
Of course these illustrations do not, by any means, give more than a small indication of the interconnections and interrelationships that exist in the ecosystems. The world-wide destruction of forests is another cause of imbalance in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and of local climatic changes, a problem covered in a later chapter. The detail and complexity involved are so great that we are unable to really appreciate the full effects of our failure to care for the ecology. This is why an apparently innocent technical advance that is not carefully utilized, with painstaking analysis of all possible harmful effects may, after a time, produce more harm in the long run than the good it might offer in the short run. The automobile is a good example of this failure to use foresight and restraint, to exercise the spiritual values of moderation and concern for the welfare of others.
The exhausts of a few automobiles add. only a few cubic centimeters of carbon monoxide and lead to the atmosphere. The exhausts of countless millions of vehicles threaten the health of vast segments of the earth's population and contribute to the alteration of the climatic patterns of the earth. In State of the Nation, in an article by Marcia Lowe:
"Car-induced air pollution does damage far beyond city limits. Vehicles are a major source --indeed in the United States, the largest source -- of the nitrogen oxides and organic compounds that are precursors to ozone. Ground level ozone, believed to reduce soybean, cotton and other crop yields by 5 to 10 percent, takes an estimated toll of $5.4 billion on crops in the U.S. alone. Nitrogen oxides can be chemical\y transformed in the atmosphere into acid deposition, known to destroy aquatic life in lakes and streams, and suspected of damaging forests throughout Europe and North America."
Elimination of public transport and reduction in the use of bicycles in the United States make the use of automobiles imperative for most people, although they presently make excessive use of automobiles, either because of a lack of understanding or lack of concern for the effects they have on the environment. Valuable land is also taken up by highways, and in the U.S. there is about one mile of 'road for every square mile of land; 3.6 million miles of highway which could otherwise be largely covered with plants which improve the atmosphere. In addition to the ecological damage, there is the loss of life attributed to automobile accidents. The National Safety Council estimates that more Americans have been killed by automobile accidents than were killed in all of the wars this nation has fought in the 200 years of its existence. About 50,000 Americans are killed each year by automobiles, in addition to about 1.5 million maimed; auto accidents kill babies, children, women and men without discrimination.
Due to the activities of humans there has been a drastic loss of plant and animal species. Scientists estimate that by the year 2000, if we are able to continue our depredations, up to 20 percent of all remaining plant and animal species will be extinct. The desertification in Africa, the destruction of tropical and temperate rain forests throughout the world, are leading to a serious loss of plants and animals. The pollution of the air and the use of biocides in forests and for agriculture are destroying many species. Conservationists estimate that about 40 percent of the vertebrates that have become extinct around the world, as well as many valuable plant species, were destroyed in the Carribean area and Central America alone, due to the destruction of forests and "modern" methods of agriculture, as well as by industrial wastes. All diversity in the genetic reservoir of plants, animals and microorganisms can be of direct benefit to humanity. Such losses deprive us of genetic varieties that might be valuable for many purposes, from pharmaceuticals to supplying genes for developing new and hardier plants. One of the serious threats to the environment has been the decay of genetic variability of crops because it limits our ability to adapt crops to changes of climate and to protect them against pests and diseases.
Carolyn Jabs, in her book The-Heirloom-Gardener states that 7,000 varieties of apple disappeared since the turn of the century. Every week another two species of plants become extinct, and if that trend continues it could reach one a day, or about 14?,500 species in 40 years. To counteract this trend seed banks and germ plasm banks have been set up by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, state governments and a few non-profit corporations, as well as individual plant collectors. In Hawaii the Pacific Tropical Botanical Garden has established a living collection of tropical plants. At the Northwest Plant Germ Plasm Repository in Corvallis, Oregon, researchers seek new ways to store germ plasm from endangered species. At the National Seed Storage Laboratory in Ft. Collins Colorado, the U.S. Government stores 180,000 different types of seeds. Despite these efforts the race to save disappearing plant species is not being won, as forests throughout the world are destroyed and other ecological disasters continue to occur.
The general public does not understand the importance of the ecosystems made up by sea life in the coastal waters of the Carribean Islands and elsewhere. Among these who are aware of the problem there is great concern about the effects of mercury and pesticides on marine life, Similar problems exist in the coastal waters of all nations in the world, as industrial wastes, biocides and fertilizers from agriculture pollute all major streams and rivers and then the bays and estuaries along the sea coasts. An outstanding example of this development is the ecological tragedy on the Chesapeake Bay, which is slowly being "killed" by the endless flood of wastes, sediment, fertilizers and chemicals flowing into it from several surrounding states.
In the United States we have spent an enormous amount of money cleansing our drinking water of biological impurities, while allowing the water to become polluted with chemicals. In 1959 it was found that 627 industrial plants and 12 federal institutions dumped toxic wastes into our drinking water sources. There is also the problem of lead contamination in our water supplies because of lead in the supply pipes. It is estimated that 1 in 5 Americans drink water containing lead (50 parts per million) which is positively dangerous for children and decidedly unhealthy for adults. For children it leads to a loss of brain function equivalent to 5 IQ points (an estimate), and in fetuses in pregnant women leaded water causes neurological damage. In developing nations the greatest water pollutant is sewage. The waterbourne diseases spawned by biological pollution is the cause of an incredible ?0 percent of all child deaths in the Third World. Mohammed El Ashry, vice-president of the World Resources Institute in Washington D.C. said: "The poorer the nation the more likely the water will be contaminated by human waste."
Another serious ecological problem could develop -from extensive ocean farming along the continental shelves. Kelp (or Laminaria) is a source of iodine and alginates, a natural polymer used in industrial and domestic products. A vast increase in the production of kelp might increase the flux of methyl chloride into the atmosphere, which could have an effect similar to that alleged for chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) damage to the ozone layer. There is also the danger that the flux of methyl iodide into the air could reach levels dangerous to life. Conversely, extensive development of certain monocultures could have the effect of reducing the methyl iodide in the atmosphere below levels essential to organic life. There is also the possibility of the destruction of other algae vital to the ecosphere as well as the elimination of certain important herbivores that live along coastal waters. Ocean farming, like forestry and reforestation, will require international cooperation because of its effect on the atmosphere, which knows no national boundaries. We must, in the future civilization, make certain sacrifices and show restraint in our use of the world's natural resources, with concern for the health and well-being of all the peoples of the earth, as an expression of our love for humanity and to assure that Justice will prevail.
Our desire to rule over nature rather than to understand and to work in harmony with it, is a serious threat to the entire biosphere. The pollution of the atmosphere and waters of the earth has been a growing threat to all forms of life, but a more clearly apparent and immediate threat to human life results from toxic waste dumps. The effects of the destruction of the ozone layer and the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere produce their effects so slowly that most people pay little attention to the dangers, but they can see toxic waste dumps, and see the damage to the health of their children during their own lifetimes, and this makes a much deeper impression. Throughout the United States some 50,000 toxic waste dumps, and 180,000 open pits, ponds and lagoons at industrial plants poison the air and the groundwater with 88 million pounds of toxic chemicals generated by industries of all sizes. The few sites that have been "neutralized" receive widespread publicity, but the problems are far from being resolved. People remember when Times Beach, Missouri had to be completely evacuated when the unpaved streets were found to contain dioxin at 100 times the level considered harmful to human beings, and it is only -the most publicized case of such pollution ! In Missouri alone 21 other sites with dioxin contamination were discovered, some with even higher levels than that of Times .Beach! In most nations of the world not enough is being done to induce industry to seek alternative technologies or to devise methods of safely recycling or of rendering their wastes harmless. To avoid even the few restrictions that exist in the United States, some companies have moved across the border into Mexico where they freely pollute the land, the air and the water in both Mexico and Texas.
Beyond damage to human health, to plants and to animals, we must also take into account the destruction of soil fertility, as the poisons seep through the ground, killing many millions of bacteria, fungi and protozoa essential to healthy and fertile soil. As streams and lakes are poisoned, the destruction of life is spread over an immense area. For example, Dr. Rich Penny performed biopsies on penguins at the South Pole and found DDT in every bird he examined. These are some of the fruits of "technofix", technological miracles that were to make the world into a paradise, but which have been used without much concern for the welfare of humanity, the health of the ecosphere, or the requirements of moderation.
It is clear that the use of biocides in farming, and the toxic chemicals released by industry endanger life not only through pollution of the land and the water adjacent to the sources, but these poisons are carried thousands of miles through the air by the wind. The pesticide, herbicide and fungicide soaked soil is carried by the winds into the atmosphere as dust and particulate matter, and even though dispersed its toxicity remains, and is concentrated in organisms, all too frequently causing mutations, cancers and death. The problem is that the effects are not immediately apparent in the human body, but appear gradually over years, so that people do not make the association between their diseased conditions and the actual cause of their ailments. These biocides sprayed on crops by airplanes or machines, are dispersed as a toxic mist, especially dangerous in the vicinity of the farms and in enclosed valleys such as the Central Valley of California, where there has been an extraordinary concentration of agricultural activity of all kinds. When fields are burned before plowing and replanting, the toxic chemicals may be converted into even more dangerous compounds through combustion and then dispersed into the atmosphere
It has been found that the fish in Lake Superior are too loaded with toxic chemicals to be eaten, although this year (1996) authorities claim that they have eliminated or reduced the problem and that the fish can be eaten, Toxaphene is used in cotton fields to fight boll weevil in the Deep South and in California, so it is being carried by the winds across the entire United States. The DDT-apparently comes from Mexico, Asia and Europe where it is still being used in agriculture. Both of these compounds are deadly poisons, and even though they are dispersed in the atmosphere they are biomagnified in the flesh of organisms with destructive and unpredictable results. These are the chemicals (among others) found in the fish in Lake Superior.
All sorts of chemicals are used in many manufacturing processes, including the manufacture of electronic products. The major contributors to the toxic chemicals and metals in the atmosphere, are factories producing chemicals, rubber goods, and products from petroleum. In the immediate vicinity of such factories the fumes are especially potent, both mutagenic and carcinogenic, causing cancer, birth defects, leukemia and many other physical defects and health problems. Companies frequently refuse to cooperate in eliminating such .toxic emissions, or even to permit governments to know what chemicals are being emitted, using the excuse of protecting trade secrets, or "proprietor information." Apparently most governments today consider the rights of companies to be more sacred and important than the lives of citizens,
Among "the emissions from such factories are the compounds dioxin and furans, both of which are chemically related and extremely toxic. Dioxin has received a great deal of publicity because of the Times Beach episode, but .furans are rarely mentioned, although they are almost as deadly as dioxin. These chemicals and others are emitted when refuse is burned at city dumps, whether to merely dispose of the garbage or to generate electricity. The special incinerators that have been constructed to. dispose of toxic wastes are especially dangerous, even though the operating companies always assure the public that there is nothing to fear. The burning of plastics is one of the major sources of furans, and so the use of incinerators to dispose of toxic chemicals, plastics, garbage, etc. even if used to generate electricity, should be forbidden unless there is absolute proof that they are so designed as to guarantee that they will not emit any toxic fumes. In the fifty years following world war II, the production of toxic chemicals .and synthetic products increased dramatically, and the concentration of toxic chemicals in the atmosphere has gradually increased, contributing to the health problems that now exist throughout the world.
The increase in convenience chemicals for home use brought a cornucopia of toxic chemicals into almost every home in the industrialized nations. Moth balls, plastics, cleaning agents, paints, etc. that contain such chemicals as benzene, formaldehyde, methylene, chlorides, etc. can be found in most homes. Alongside solvents and pesticides, plastics constitute the most serious cause of highly toxic pollution. Yet, because they are an easy way out, a convenience we think we cannot live without, we allow their use and manufacture to continue uncontrolled. Now we must return to less hazardous products such as glass, steel and wood, and natural cleaning products, dyes, etc. in our homes, eliminating the production and use of nonbiodegradable products, except where they are absolutely necessary. For our own health, and the health and safety of our children, we will have to return to a more natural way of life, using products from nature as much as possible.
In his book The Toxic Cloud, Michael Brown offers suggestions for future control of toxic chemicals in the atmosphere, proposals which I believe must become part of the laws of every nation. The atmosphere of the world knows no boundaries, and it is irresponsible and inhumane for one nation to feel free to release toxic chemicals and metals into the atmosphere of neighboring nations, even if they are unconcerned about the health of their own citizens. Michael Brown writes:
"Since industry has shown itself to be indifferent to the public risks it creates -- haughty of heart and presaging a calamitous fall -- we must move toward a policy by which no company will be allowed to make or sell (or use in their manufacturing processes) any compound until the firm proves that it can either disassemble that compound into harmless, natural compounds -- or proves that the compound has absolutely no health repercussions whatsoever." Industry must now assume the burden of proof. We can no longer endure its wanton poisons, nor can we any longer look upon science as a benevolent, all-powerful goddess. Too often scientists create more problems, and prompt more riddles, than they can solve. ". . .we must prepare to ban a great many more chemicals than have so far been banned. And we must wean ourselves from certain conveniences -- especially plastic -- that cannot be made from biodegradable products."
The people in the poor countries are the first to suffer from the degradation of the environment. The people of those countries live off the environment, and according to a report in the English magazine The Economist, the "primary production -- farming, forestry, mining -- account for more than a third of their Gross rational Product, more than two-thirds of employment, and over half their export earnings. Their natural resources are their main assets. From them they must feed a million more mouths every 13 years." In State of the World Alan During wrote;
"When the poor destroy the ecosystems in desperation, they are not the only ones to suffer. Sheets of rain washing off denuded watersheds flood exclusive neighborhoods as surely as slums.
Potentially valuable medicines lost with the extinction of the rain forest species are as unavailable to the rich in their private hospitals as they are to the poor in their rural clinics. And the carbon dioxide released as the landless migrants burn plots in the Amazon or Congo warms the globe as surely as do fumes from automobiles and smokestacks in Los Angeles or Milan. The fate of the fortunate is immutably bonded to the fate of the dispossessed through the land, water and air; in an ecologically endangered world, poverty is a luxury we can no longer afford."
The United Nations sponsored a World Climate Conference in Egypt to lay groundwork for a global conference to limit emissions of greenhouse gases and to stabilize the world's climate. In April 1990 representatives met in London to finalize an agreement to phase out CFC production by the year 2000. The UN was to draft an international bio-diversity-conservation treaty to protect the thousands of life-forms threatened with extinction, but in their 1992 meeting in Rio de Janeiro, President Bush of the United States would only take part in a watered down version of the treaty in order to protect the bio-engineering industry of the United States. At the UN Alois Mock of Austria proposed that there be a UN Environmental Police to guard the planet's most precious resources. It is obvious that without the full cooperation of all nations this is an unworkable proposal, but at least it is an indication of the growing awareness of the need for international enforcement o-f ecological standards. It is a hopeful sign of what we can expect in the future , in a more spiritually mature world society.
In this chapter I have given an overview o-f the effects of our relationship to the ecology to show how our civilization has impacted on the biosphere, and to indicate our responsibilities for the protection and preservation of the environment. A materialistic society and an amoral "science "for the sake of science", sponsored by corporations or governments whose sole aim is to increase profits or military strength, without concern for human welfare, or the health of .'the ecology, have too often made discoveries in chemistry, biology and nuclear physics far more of a curse than a blessing. If these accomplishments are used with wisdom and moderation, with the goal of benefitting humanity rather than with the single-minded desire -for material gain, the so-called "bottom line", great good can be accomplished. In the new age which is coming soon we must always be aware of the organic unity of creation, of which we are a part. The only power that can govern the use of our intellectual achievements is the ethical-spiritual nature of humanity and for that to be effective we must begin to try to understand our relationship to the rest of creation and to our Creator.
THE LAND IS FOR ALL HUMANITY
"When idle land and idle men exist side by side, the definition of property has been extended beyond the rights of man.' Thomas Jefferson
Concentration of Land Ownership in America
The earth was created by God in love and beauty, for the spiritual development and happiness of all humanity. It should be cared for by everyone, and possessed by no one, so that during this brief time we are here we may care for one another and live in peace and harmony with all creation. When we go to war we are fighting and killing for our own graveyards, for we destroy one another and desecrate the earth.
Most of us yearn for a piece of land we can call our own, for a home where we can live undisturbed by the threat of foreclosure and eviction. The trend has been in the opposite direction, because there have been more home and farm foreclosures, than ever before, during recent years. The U.S. League of Savings Institutions reports that America is becoming a nation of renters as fewer and fewer people can afford to own a home. The group having the greatest difficulty in purchasing homes is in the family-formation years under 39, In a report from the Institute for Policy Studies, Felix Rohatyn, the noted investment banker and civic leader, was quoted as observing, "A democracy? to survive, must at the very least appear to be fair. This is no longer the case in America."
At a time when we desperately need to encourage an increase in small family farms, they are rapidly being absorbed by the huge agribusiness farms, or by banks and insurance companies. It is reported that for the last decade and longer, small commercial farms have been closing down at an average rate of approximately 100,000 a year, while at the same time the size of agribusiness farms is on the increase. This was apparently true in Europe as well in 1993. It is estimated that in 1989, in the United States, one family farm went out of business every six or seven minutes. Small farm incomes have not increased as rapidly as operating expenses, equipment costs and land payments. Although in the 1980s, during the Reagan recession, land prices dropped, so did incomes, and the unmitigated disaster of farm policies at that time and through 1993, speeded up the process. The small family farms which are usually more efficient in care of the soil and production of healthy crops, are rapidly being replaced by agribusiness farms which, with their short-term profit motives, are in the long run destroying the fertility of the farmlands, increasing soil erosion and producing chemically contaminated crops.
In the United States, according to the Department of Commerce, one percent of the population owns 15 percent of the useful real estate, approximately 310,000 square miles of land, an area about the size of 12 East Coast states. The balance of the land available to the public is owned by a relatively small percentage of the rest of the population. Although many people have mortgages on their homes and land, and feel as though they own property, they always face foreclosure and eviction in an unstable economy. The entire picture of inequity in land rights is made even darker by the irresponsible treatment of the land by the large land development corporations by lumber companies, and by city planners and local developers.
Within the last two decades there has been a noticeable decrease in the amount of desirable land available for residential or commercial use, and this has led to a dramatic increase in prices. Until the recession of the 1990s this led to the creation of hundreds of large fortunes. In his book The Ultra Rich, Vance Packard quotes billionaire Harry Helmsley, who said that real estate is attractive because "You don't have to do anything. You just have -to sit. The values go up." However,.because the banks and savings and loan companies made huge and unwise loans to land speculators, thousands of such institutions failed when the bottom fell out of the land market,
In 1971, in California, 25 individuals and corporations owned well over 16 percent of the privately held land. Southern Pacific alone owned approximately 2,411,000 acres, much of it prime timber land and top agricultural land. In his book The Politics of Environmental Concern, Walter A. Rosenbaum states that a total of 180 million acres were given to all the railroad companies in the - nineteenth century, an area larger than France, England, Scotland and Wales combined. These land barons did not always acquire their land by methods we would consider honest or legal. Southern Pacific, as one example, was given land by the Federal government in alternative sections of one square mile for a possible total of 128,000 acres for each 10 miles of track. The land was supposed to have been sold within three years after the road had been completed, or after that to have been reclaimed by the government at $1.25 per acre. That section of the act was neither enforced nor obeyed, and so out of the original 6.5 million acres given as a land grant subsidy to Southern Pacific they. still retain about 4 million acres. The improper acquisition and holding of huge parcels of land by Southern Pacific and others created private empires that make the holdings of dukes and barons during past centuries in Europe, tiny by comparison.
At this time the government of the United States owns 742 million acres of land, 69 million acres of that land is devoted to parks and 18 million is used for military purposes. Out of the 742 million acres 635 million are used primarily to serve the needs of cattlemen and the lumber industry, such companies as Boise Cascade or Weyerhauser. The cattlemen over graze much of the land, causing erosion and destruction of trees and other vegetation. The lumber companies are able to obtain the timber below the cost to the tax-payers who finance the vast network o-f roads used -for clear-cutting and for reforestation which the companies -fail to do, even though that is a part of their contracts. Clearly the government officials in charge of the administration of these lands do not serve the best interests of the nation, but do very well for the interests of a few corporations and certain individuals, individuals who now believe that their personal privileges come before the rights of the nation,
In the 1980s, in Oregon, the Boise Cascade Lumber Company, because it owned the land, decided to destroy the entire town of Valsetz, to use the land for a tree farm. People had been living there for over three generations, since about 1920, and had their homes, schools, churches and businesses. Their entire lives were disrupted for the benefit of a lumber company, and they were driven out so that their homes and public buildings could be bulldozed. Unfortunately, in America as elsewhere, we see time and again that economic returns for a few individuals are considered to be far more important than human welfare, and far too often private land ownership takes precedence over ethical considerations,
In the Hawaiian Islands, the entire island of Nihau, originally purchased by Mrs. Sinclair for $l0,000, was later sold to the Robinson family. Although the island was "legally" acquired* the rights of the people living there were totally disregarded, and they were not consulted when their homeland was sold by "the rulers of the islands", who at that time were themselves Hawaiians. Americans came to the Hawaiian Islands and dispossessed most Hawaiians of their lands. We Should not be surprised at the resentment of the descendants of those early Hawaiians who realize how their rights have been ignored by their own leaders and by foreigners.
Injustice Resulting from Private Land Ownership Throughout the World.
Although Americans have not wanted it for their own nation, they have frequently urged land re-form for the impoverished nations, suggesting that large landholdings be broken down into small -family farms and cooperatives. However, whenever the people have voluntarily taken such action, trying to force the wealthy landholders to share, they are usually branded as "Marxist-Leninists" by the leaders of America. Obviously the poor tenant farmers cannot afford to buy the land from the wealthy landholders, because the prices demanded are usually too high. In some countries such as Brazil and Argentina, the base of land ownership was broadened by resettlement in areas of virgin tropical forest, which created an ecological disaster. Also, such rain forest land is not good for -farming because after a couple of seasons the soil becomes lateritic, useless for crops,
The poor not only earn too little, they also own too little, and in developing societies where three out of four people earn their living in agriculture, the most important asset is land. Yet land ownership is concentrated in the hands of a fortunate few. The tremendous population growth, along with maldistribution of land, pushes more and more of the poor into being farmers without land. As poor families owning a little land have more and more children, and their farms are divided among their offspring, plots become too small to provide sustenance. Obviously steps must be taken to control population growth in the decades to come, through education and by raising the material standards of living,
In El Salvador 90 percent of the forests have been destroyed and 77 percent of the land suffers from accelerated erosion. Almost all the fertile valley lands are owned by the wealthy, and are devoted to commercial crops and cattle. The rest of the people have been forced onto "marginal" land and steep hillsides. El Salvador has one of the world's densest populations, and as the population continues to grow the marginal land is divided into ever smaller plots. The poor of El Salvador have been struggling for many years for justice, and have been treated with extreme cruelty by the ruling powers as well as by the United States government. The recent peace treaty provided some measure of justice and land redistribution, but the problem is not solved. We must develop a real understanding of the meaning of Justice, and strive to improve the welfare of all peoples, not just of the wealthy.
Unlimited private control over land and resources always seems to lead, ultimately, to extreme inequalities in land and resource ownership. According to a United Nations survey in :?3 countries of the world, 3 percent o-f the landowners control almost 83 percent of the world's land, and in Argentina 2 percent control 75 percent of the land. In most countries only 5 to 20 percent of all producers have access to institutional credit, and the poor are left to the mercies of the landlords and money lenders whose rates run as high as 200 percent interest. A World Bank study concluded that in Columbia "large numbers of farm families try to eke out an existence on too little land, often on slopes of 45 degrees or more. As a result, they exploit the land very severely, adding to erosion and other problems, and even so (they) are not able to make a decent living."
These inequities exist throughout the world, and the same situation is developing in the United States as agribusiness, banks and insurance companies take over the land, forcing out small farmers, and reducing them to tenant farmer status. This seizure of land, as well as extremely unwise speculation in loans to build malls, housing developments, etc. was a major contributing factor in the collapse of Savings and Loan institutions, banks and insurance companies, which in turn is helping to fuel a world-wide economic disaster in the not too distant future. In the chapter on agriculture I will discuss the problems of the small farmers in greater detail.
Inequalities and oppression throughout the world cannot but in the end lead to civil strife and the destruction of national economies. We must strive to make the earth a place of public happiness, prosperity and justice for everyone. In the past centuries the world has been a place of extremes, where a few lived in wealth and ease while most of humanity was malnourished. In recent years about 20 million people a year in the poor nations face an early death from starvation and malnutrition. The right to a piece of land to build a home, or to start a farm or business, is a right o-f everyone, a right that should be exercised with wisdom, moderation and equity.
The Logic and Justice of Public Ownership of Land and Natural Resources
In the Bible, Leviticus 25:23 it states: "The land shall not be sold forever; for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me." We must reconsider the entire question of private ownership of land, since it has been such a cause of injustice and suffering throughout the centuries. John Adams remarked: "In every society where property exists there will ever be a struggle between the rich and the poor," With reference to land, the truth of that observation is quite apparent today. Thomas Spence (1750-1S14) wrote: "If we really want to get rid of these evils from amongst men, we must destroy . . .the cause of them, which is private property in land . . .The land shall no longer be suffered to be the property of individuals, but of parishes." He spent a year in prison because of that statement. If we overcome our conditioned thinking about land ownership, and look at the world situation with clear-sighted honesty, we will be forced to admit that this truth is even more obvious today than in the time of Thomas Spence.
Early in the nineteenth century the philosopher Herbert Spencer wrote: "Such a doctrine (public ownership of land) is consistent with the highest state of civilization . . , <and> may be carried out without involving a community of goods, and need cause no very serious revolution in existing arrangements . . .Instead of being in the possession of individuals, the country would be held by the great corporate body -- society. Instead of leasing his acres from an isolated proprietor, the farmer would tease them from the nation ... A state so ordered would be in perfect harmony with the moral law. Under it all men would be equally landlords, all men would be alike free to become tenants.'
John Stuart Mill, a contemporary of Herbert Spencer, wrote: "When the sacredness of property' is talked of it should always be remembered, that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property. No man made the land. It is the original inheritance of the whole species.'
Such ideas were as unpopular among the landed gentry in those times as they are among landholders in most nations today. However, in these times it is no longer as easy to suppress the masses, and the meek shall inherit the earth. Instead of heeding the wisdom of such economists and philosophers, the wealthy opted to follow the economic theories that perpetuated their control of the majority of the land and the wealth. Now we are about to enter a new age of greater spiritual maturity, and we can rise above the limited, immature and materialistic acquisitiveness of the past. The belief in the "sacredness" of private ownership of land is no longer acceptable. Land should be used for the benefit of all humanity, the living and those yet to be born. The earth belongs to God, and we are but temporary residents.
Public Ownership of Land» and Land Lease Rights
The right to lease the land we need, at a very low rate, will not interfere with ownership of whatever we create on the land during our lifetimes, if the lease is guaranteed for our lifetimes, under the condition that we accept our responsibility to take proper care of the land. At the end of the last century Henry George, one of the greatest proponents of public ownership of the nation's land, expressed quite ..clearly the difference between the p