(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Religious Fraud and Illegitimate Authority II, Response to Your Many Comments, Part 4 of 5 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-08 Our Competing Sets of Survival Instincts Be healthy. Be kind. Respect the environment. Seven words. Sounds simple enough. Why don’t we do it? We don’t do it because we have competing sets of survival instincts — the products of evolution — that produce opposing worldviews that account for the epic struggle daily for the evolution and survival of humanity. Our first set of survival instincts is perfectly normal, natural, organic, and . . . disastrous. These are our short-term survival instincts. Like all creatures, we are programmed, genetically predisposed, hardwired, to make it to tomorrow, i.e., to survive and reproduce. These short-term survival instincts generate behavior that is characterized by fear, greed, power, control, immediate gratification, self-centeredness, authoritarianism, denial of inequality, and the like. This is a set of survival instincts — essential in primitive times to survive — that now not only retards our evolution but can and is destroying us. To compete with all of this, evolution has also given us another set of survival instincts, our long-term survival instincts. This occurs as a result of our large and evolved brains. Among all vertebrates, relative to size, we have the largest brains. As a consequence and unique among all species, we are able to reflect on our behavior and project to where our behavior is taking us. To where our behavior is taking us is not a pretty picture. We are like an airplane flying overhead with someone out on the wing popping rivets until the plane crashes. We are beginning to understand that our short-term survival instincts and related behavior are destroying us. We want to survive for the long-term, not the short-term. We want to improve the quality of our lives, sustain humanity, and advance our civilization. The word “sustainability” has come into wide usage. It is the understanding that we must leave this planet as we found it or improve it so those who follow us will have the same or better opportunities that we have had. We are a species, likely the first on this planet, who has an opportunity to advance beyond short-term survival instincts. We are beginning to understand that our behavior cannot be characterized by fear, greed, power, control, immediate gratification, self-centeredness, authoritarianism, denial of inequalities, and the like. Instead, our behavior must be characterized by health in all of its dimensions: physical, mental, and emotional. By kindness toward each other and other nation-states. By respect for our ecological systems as we inhabit a very narrow and fragile band within our solar system that allows life to exist at all. Our long-term survival instincts and associated behavior can sustain humanity and advance our civilization. Each of these sets of survival instincts — the older short-term instincts and our emerging long-term instincts — generates powerful belief systems in the areas of politics, business, social interaction, and religion. Politics Our old short-term survival instincts generate politics that is adversarial, hostile, and belligerent. It’s about the destruction of one’s perceived opposition whether that is an individual, a political party, or a nation-state. It is politics that favors unilateralism and unjustified pre-emptive wars. Our long-term survival instincts and emerging worldview favor non-adversarial politics. It’s about finding the common ground. It is a worldview that recognizes that we don’t have the time, resources, or energy to fight with each other. That we have severe and complicated problems on our planet — social, political, economic, and environmental — that must be addressed urgently in a cooperative and constructive manner. It’s a politics aware that all of our challenges are compounded by the addition weekly of more than 1,500,000 people globally. Business In business, our old way of thinking is about short-term gain. It’s about maximizing profit in the short-term. People and our environment are exploited. Our emerging worldview is about long-term gain and sustainability. Respect people. Respect the environment. Socially responsible business, it’s about a triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit (prosperity). It’s the enlightened understanding that life is a far more complex phenomenon than a race to see who can accumulate the most. Social Interaction In social interaction, the old worldview is about “us versus them.” It’s about exclusivity and segregation. It’s time that humanity understands there is no “them,” that we are all in this together, and transition to the emerging way of thinking: inclusiveness, integration, oneness, and togetherness. Religion Old religious thought is about my truth and tribe versus your truth and tribe. The result is never ending conflict and chaos, the antithesis of peace. The emerging worldview, whatever the religion — if any — is just to be kind and think intelligently about the origins of ancient religions and origins of the phenomenon of religion itself. In summary, our old worldview is characterized by separation, exclusivity, segregation, and unilateralism. Our emerging worldview is about togetherness, unity, inclusiveness, integration, and multilateralism. Many people are predisposed as a consequence of genetics and/or life experiences to think and act in old, destructive, and unsustainable ways. This requires unlearning and evolution of thought and behavior, all of which are daunting challenges. The new way of thinking is one that requires learning that we exist as a tiny fragment of an immensely larger interlocking whole in which all of the parts are interconnected and dependent upon each other for survival. Simply put, everything is connected to everything else. We exist not separately but in communion with all living things. Life is an interrelated interdependent phenomenon. That is the nature of the universe and the web of life. That is the nature of the reality in which we exist. Like it or not, reality has behavioral demands that is if you want to stick around, i.e., if you want to live. These can be summarized in seven interrelated words which form three simple rules for living: Be healthy. Be kind. Respect the environment. These seven words have the power to change life as we know it: the way we govern, the laws that we enact; the way we do business, the products that we create, the services that we offer, how we treat our employees, our environment, each other, and ourselves. Be healthy. Be kind. Respect the environment. Leaders must model this behavior. Teachers must teach it. And, we must exhibit it . . . if we wish to sustain humanity, advance our civilization, and succeed as a species. To do so requires entering into a completely new understanding of the reality in which we exist. The window of opportunity to make the necessary and monumental shift in thinking is small compared to the large obstacles in our current belief systems that must be dissolved. Yet, we must do this if we and all the life forms that share this jewel of a planet are to survive. Be healthy. Be kind. Respect the environment. Why are these seven words so critical and powerful? Because we exist as a tiny fragment of an immensely larger interlocking whole — the operative words —in which all the parts are interconnected and dependent upon each other for survival. We exist not separately but in communion with all living things. This interlocking whole is the undeniable foundation for the architecture of life and our civilization. If we continue to destroy the relationships that form this foundation (relationships with our health, each other, and our environment), our house, our structure, our civilization will collapse. Conversely, if we honor these relationships, we will succeed and prosper in every way. The choice is ours. Our future lies in our own hands as it always has. The difference today is that we understand a great deal more about what sustains and optimizes life. It is time that we honor the knowledge that we have. It’s time for humanity to grow up. Only then, will we improve the quality of our lives, arrest and reverse our destructive and unsustainable momentum, end our needless suffering, prosper together, find peace, sustain humanity, and advance our civilization. End of Part 4 of 5 PART 5 OF 5 TOMORROW Grounded in Reality The Time Has Come [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/8/2162805/-Religious-Fraud-and-Illegitimate-Authority-II-Response-to-Your-Many-Comments-Part-4-of-5 Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/