Dee – it’s the same in other western countries – but what I’m more concerned with is not the politicians ‘personal’ beliefs but more the problem of religious belief systems controlling politics.

Case and point being the age old question of abortion. It should not be age old – once abortions were possible the discussion should have ended. It’s not progressive and it’s downright backwards to legislate and make abortion a question of law in principle. Of course there needs to be law surrounding everything, but a person’s rights to have a baby or not should be left to that person. Making abortion legally a hard thing to do is theocratic. In some places women must wear such and such and in other places they are challenged for wanting to have an abortion – both are for the same reasons in the sense that they are because of the predominant religion in the area concerned.

The other very good example is the ‘global gag law’ or ‘order’ which prevents aid of any kind to institutions around the world which endorse or facilitate abortion. Again – it’s one thing to have personal views and live one’s own life as such but it’s quite another to impose your belief, by law, onto other people’s lives. The only reason I hard on about this is because I am offended by the fact that we are told certain western governments are ‘the good guys’ – the future, the ones who promote Freedom™ and it’s such utter bollocks. Yes perhaps we are more free, but at what cost, and to whom? And are we really free? and what about the 12 year old in a factory in Bangladesh who is making that very nice shirt you got for just 5 bucks? Is it fair to say our culture is the better one simply because on the surface it looks more desirable to us who are anyway conditioned to live with it? For me the overriding measurement – or sliding scale of value – comes in terms of the planet and animals and ecosystem. There is no greater irony than the fact that the people who live most differently to us, the ‘social other’, are doing the least damage to this planet, and suffering the most in many cases. So this brings us back to Freedom™.

Michael – you are most probably right in your generalization – the belief system of creationism doesn’t bode well for animals. It’s all wrong. Furthermore it has led us to the edge of total collapse and destruction. I wonder this, just as an example: If the budhists had been the majority in history, would they have invaded other cultures and gone around taking from them what they pleased at the cost of people’s lives. Christians have been the the biggest deciders in where this planet is going and something about that religion has led the world down this path which Michael rightly points out to be one of sustenance from the earth’s ecosystem, where it is there for the use and luxury of humans with very few, if any, short term strings attached.

However we know today that sustenance will only continue if it is achieved sustainably. Sustainability in the long term means to sustain every living thing in our ecosystem so it may continue to live since it is, in of itself, a living thing of which we are a part. We can’t reduce any part of it because it’s complex and every part is needed for it to survive.

In this day and age the meaning of life has come down to the meaning of death. Humans don’t do life so well, but they sure as hell do death very well. Humans can’t see past their own noses let alone their own lifetimes – and christianity is a part of that. I think the idea of heaven and hell is just a way out of the here and now. The idea that a priest can forgive you is just a way to continue doing bad things. I spent from the age of 8 until 18 going to church every weekend and in some cases earlier on, every day, repeating the prayers and hymns over and over such that I can still remember them now word for word. This time of my life is a bad memory. Indoctrination. Compulsory theocracy. But coming back directly to the point of this article – I can’t say I came out of 10 years of semi religious education feeling like I had learn’t a darn thing about animals. Sure the animals are mentioned numerous times in the bible but the underlying message was always about something else. The sermon would be about anything and everything, but not caring for the animals and the trees. This christian indoctrination did not give me constructive or better relationship with the earth. It was almost always focused on other people or myself. Christianity teaches kindness to others and that is a good thing. But as Michael says, it doesn’t help us out of the real problem and perhaps has even created it, which is that we are all going to destroy ourselves and this planet in a matter of time.

Surely the real meaning of life can be derived better from the mechanics of our once sustainable ecosystem. Surely the best and most good we can do is to emulate and live according to that lesson. Sure, love thy neighbour while you are at it, since that most likely is a lesson of sustainability too – all religions fit inside the greater fact of life here. For the true and most real answers don’t look to your god, look at the sky and look at the ground and look at all the life around you and try to understand how to take care of it as if it were your own child – and then you will already be where you need to be 🙂