The Garden of Eden

I will warn you in advance, that this turned into something of a rant turned essay.

I was raised Catholic, but have to say since moving out on my own that religion bears little influence on my life. I have always wondered how people can legitimize their "faith" and preach to others about morality when they spend one day a week at church, and the other six doing whatever they want regardless of its impacts on other people or the planet. This applies to people of many faiths, but Christians are particularly notorious for their zeal in preaching about their lofty morals to non-believers.

There are plenty of Christian businessmen and women who are making the policies that basically STEAL money from you little by little. Finance charges, overdraft fees, management fees, service fees. Where is the compassion in charging $34 when someone accidentally charges $3.15 more than they have in their bank account? I have experienced several bank errors, one that even locked up all the money in my main checking account for THREE weeks. If that was my only account I could have been in a very terrible position! Did this bank offer to give me some small part of my funds to get by? ... NO. When the error was finally recitified did I get paid a "Serious Banking Error Fee"? ...NO. The bank easily could have caused a landslide of other financial problems for me, and I barely even got an admission that they had made a mistake let alone an apology.

There are plenty of "fish" magnets on Escalades, Hummers, Armadas, etc... people getting 10 mpg, weaving through freeway traffic without their turn signals, going about 15 mph over the speed limit. Burning through fossil fuels like judgement day is just around the bend, and endangering the lives of others doesn't seem very representative of Christian ideals.

There are hundreds of thousands of devoutly religious parents who constantly smoke around their children... many are struggling to get by financially but always find the money for a pack of cigarettes every day. They are slowly poisoning their children and increasing their chances of a dozen health issues later in life.

How can you be pro-life without taking into account the quality of the life? When you bring children into the world who are not wanted by their parents and not properly provided for you exponentially increase a myriad of problems. Problems that affect everyone from the child, the parent, the family, the community, the state, the country, the planet. If the church wants to be pro-life, then logically they should also be pro- birth control. Enable people to make a responsible choice before the "magic" moment of conception! Unfortunately, logic and religion seem to have been unfairly pitted against eachother sometime in history and the battle persists even today.

Let's not forget the church's long history as a force to be reckoned with. Just as Big Business is now the government's bedfellow, the church held that place for centuries in much of Europe. The church has done its part throughout history to drive wars, inquisition, block the spread of knowledge and keep the masses complacent.

I don't know if I believe Jesus Christ is my personal lord and savior (I'm sure I'll take heat for that). When I consider God, I think of him as something of a scientist. He started this grand experiment of the universe, and has been watching the results for 13.7 billion years. If he was one to "judge", I personally don't think he would judge on our individual actions, but on the consequences of our actions as a whole group. How are we affecting all the other components of his grand experiment?

For me, this is the reason to live sustainably... to bring back balance so the experiment can continue to carry on, and hopefully be a success long into the future.

I think we should all consider the story of Adam and Eve, its a great parable for our times. Adam and Eve were given the Garden of Eden...everything they could have wanted was provided. But they were tempted by greed and took of the the fruit of knowledge (the forbidden fruit), thinking it was the one thing that kept them from being God's equal. As punishment, they were cast out of the Garden.

Now here we are on this beautiful planet that provides all we need to live a happy and plentiful life... but we have chosen to take of the fruit of knowledge. We foolishly think that in taking the fruit we are ourselves Gods who can master over every element of our planet. We endlessly exploit the garden and take that which is not ours (The wellbeing of the planet, and the resources of future generations).

Is it too late to repent? Or are we already well on the way to casting ourselves out of the garden once more?