written 16 July 2023
published 23 July 2023
Last week saw massive flooding in the northeastern US, Colorado, Mississippi, China, India, Japan, Mongolia, Russia, Spain, and Turkey. Extreme heat baked Europe, with surface temperatures in Spain hitting 140°F. Phoenix, after suffering two weeks over 110°F, hit 117°F, with 17 percent humidity, giving a heat index of 120°F, and a low of 93°F. Ocean temperatures in the Florida Keys reached 98°F, meaning any tropical storm that makes it into the Gulf will explode into a hurricane of great size and strength. Farmers Insurance abandoned Florida, the fourth company this year.
The climate crisis is global, affecting everyone. As bad as it is, the climate issue is only a symptom of a deeper structural problem: believing the illusion of separation. This dates back centuries, and manifests in most cultures. Metaphysics and quantum physics affirm a unified reality, but institutions everywhere operate in denial of this truth.
Consider Christianity. According to the Bible, Matthew 22:37-39, Christ said the greatest commandments were to "Love God, and Love thy neighbor". Simple, loving, and inclusive. I admire and embrace those commandments, and strive to experience them in my life. But I have never identified with "Christianity" because of all damage religious organizations have done "in His name".
Several centuries after Christ, the Bible, formalized by men, become the sacred text of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, the state religion of the Roman empire. Despite being the namesake of the religion, Christ's words are only 6 percent the New Testament, which is only 40 percent of the Bible. In those patriarchal times, women and Mother Nature were denigrated, as males were deemed more valuable than females, starting with the "original sin" of Eve. Logic was more valid than feelings, and personal power more desirable than partnership, giving rise to using judgement, guilt, and fear, to "guide" the faithful.
As an agent of the empire, the Catholic Church quickly grew in political and economic power, justifying war against other religions and heretics as "sanctioned by God". Over several centuries, eight crusades were waged against Islam in the Holy Land. The Inquisition finally drove the Islamic empire out of Spain, using book burning, terror, and torture to "purify" the land of heretics. The Pope then divided the world between the Spanish and Portuguese empires, commanding them to go forth, capture land, and convert or kill the natives. In the US, 90 percent of the indigenous people were exterminated.
The eventual Protestant reaction to the corruption and greed of the Catholic institution ignited centuries of slaughter between "Christians", with killing on both sides. Within the various Protestant sects, intolerance was rife, and many of the religious pioneers to the New World had been driven out of Europe.
To this day, the Catholic Church is still dealing with coverup of the ongoing pedophile priest issue, and the abuse and death of Native American children in church run schools. Methodist and Baptist conferences divide over "allowing" women in the ministry. Hard line evangelical extremists, with rabid hatred of gays and transgender folks, support the death penalty for gays in Africa. The religious right aided Republicans in packing the Supreme Court to further the rights of the billionaire class, and oppress women with vastly unpopular abortion bans.
To be fair, "Christian" religious organizations are not the only one's guilty of institutional hatred and oppression in the name of a loving God. Islam arose, became a religious organization, and rapidly expanded into a political/economic empire, with extremists who are still intolerant, and institutionally misogynistic. When the Prophet died, a power struggle between his wife and nephew grew to become the Shia/Sunni conflict, killing people to this day. There are sects within Judaism where men begin each day giving thanks for not being a woman.
All three of the major western religions have spiritual roots in a loving God and the Golden Rule of loving thy neighbor: a unity message. While many of the faithful strive to live that message, religious organizations, distracted by political and economic power, often do not. A hundred generations have been indoctrinated into accepting separation as "God given", shaping everything into a conflict between "us" and "them", including how we deal with the natural world.
Until all who understand, and live the spirit of unity, call out their religious "leaders", we will continue as a divided species, and the unity expressed in the unaddressed climate crisis will overwhelm everyone.
