My current reads that have me mulling over life decisions are, Wm. Kotke’s The Final Empire; The Collagse of Civilization: The Seed of the Future and the religious writings of Leo Tolstoy, especially The Kingdom of God is Within You and The Gospels in Brief, as well as the writings found at this web site:
http://www.humanistictexts.org/tolstoy.htm
I do not believe that global warming or cooling is or will be a crisis. My thinking aligns with Tolstoy’s that it is wrong to acknowledge nations and wage wars, as the earth was created by God and we are all children/brothers of God. We should make no further distinction between ourselves.
Tolstoy is correct when he says, “The working people are also so perverted by their compulsory slavery that it seems to most of them that if their position is a bad one, it is the fault of their masters, who pay them too little and who own the means of production. It does not enter their heads that their bad position depends entirely on themselves, and that if only they wish to improve their own and their brothers’ positions, and not merely each to do the best he can for himself, the great thing for them to do is themselves to cease to do evil. And the evil that they do is that, desiring to improve their material position by the same means which have brought them into bondage, the workers (for the sake of satisfying the habits they have adopted), sacrificing their human dignity and freedom, accept humiliating and immoral employment or produce unnecessary and harmful articles, and, above all, they maintain governments, taking part in them by paying taxes and by direct service, and thus they enslave themselves.
In order that the state of things may be improved, both the well-to-do classes and the workers must understand that improvement cannot be effected by safeguarding one’s own interests. Service involves sacrifice, and, therefore, if people really wish to improve the position of their brother men, and not merely their own, they must be ready not only to alter the way of life to which they are accustomed, and to lose those advantages which they have held, but they must be ready for an intense struggle, not against governments, but against themselves and their families, and must be ready to suffer persecution for non-fulfillment of the demands of government.”
He goes on to offer suggestions how this might be fulfilled. But do I have the courage to do what is required? If I believe he is right, which I do, then to be true to these beliefs requires that I make choices for my life that align with these beliefs. If I fail to take the requisite actions it would mean either I am a liar or I lack the moral courage to do the right thing.
