Future and the threat to our planet.

1) As the originator and author of GENESIS CONTINUOUS, I have, over the 30 years of its existence, come to some rather sobering conclusions concerning human rights and our planet. By human rights, I mean our relationship with the whole ecosystem we live with, and not just the human to human one.

2) Our right to abuse the animal and plant life, the atmosphere, soil, rivers and oceans was never an issue in the old mythological credo's that hold sway with billions of people on this planet, so consequently, with no religious restriction, they ruthlessly exploit the only home we and our future generations have an inherent right to enjoy. - So the emphasis here is on the threat to what should be sustained preservation.

3) Genesis Continuous has taught me that the future has to be preserved for as long as this planet can sustain life, otherwise what was the point of it all? For those who believe in God, can one imagine anything more insulting to him, more callous, more downright criminal than to wipe out whole species and threaten the extinction of others, all for short-term wealth? Yet those who profess their love of Jehovah the Creator, seem to be the worst offenders of all.

4) Our racial and religious sectarian groupings create mistrust and segregation, when we are, after all, one race, the human race. Muslims can interbreed with Christians, Jews, Eskimos and American Indians etc., etc. Doesn't that simple fact say it all? Aren't we all from the same mold? Chapter 1 - Verse 26 of Genesis says, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" says the Bible. (It does not say that there will be separate races in someone else's image). Verse 27 says, "So God created man in his own image" etc.

5) All religions and their sects are bigoted, some more than others perhaps, but, they have their own meeting houses and their own idols and a strong belief that they, and they alone, have a better chance of getting to the ultimate goal, Heaven, than any other religious group. And this is what it seems to be all about, - self preservation. Never mind the other fellow who speaks a different tongue and calls his god by another name; he is doomed anyway, just for being what he is which clearly is not one of those supposedly chosen.

6) Many of you reading this will say that we have advanced beyond all this in the last hundred years and that I am cracking at a nut that's almost crushed. Well, look at Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, Bosnia, Columbia, Iraq, Northern Ireland, and try to tell me that these are not cruel and horrific conflicts fueled by religious differences. In Northern Ireland, there are Catholic Christian churches and there are Protestant Christian churches and never the twain shall meet over each others door-steps. Anyone would think that to be a Christian all one has to do is not do what Christ taught. Things like, 'Love your neighbour'. 'Do unto others as you would expect others would do unto you'. 'Judge not others that you too may be judged'. And, 'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle that for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven'. It's a great wonder to me that many churches don't have a hundred foot high needle built as part of their church, and the doorway is the eye. (Well, some of them are a bit like that). The only problem being that it's a camel that is expected to go through it and not the parishioners, if you get my thread.

7) So, if there is a judgment, does God decide favorably or unfavourably in group lots. Which group in that troubled country, (Northern Ireland) will make it through the Pearly Gates and which won't? Do their members just have to attend their churches on Sunday to qualify or not? Is prayer in the church building absolutely necessary or can one pray anywhere, - garden, beach, up a mountain, in a forest, at any time to be in favour with God? (Probably not as the priest will miss out being paid as the intermediary agent between the common sinner and his god if people don't do it in church). And if each takes time out to bomb, shoot and kill the others, what then? I for one, would think that those people will find more hope in Hell. But no, I must not judge. - So this paragraph is about man's primitive inhumanity to man which points to the hopelessness of bigotry and sectarianism, - a manmade trap that leaves no means of escape. In the case of Northern Ireland, what King Henry the 8th started, no man can end. And who gets rich out of the misery? Among others, the arms manufacturers and dealers. Yeh, OK I wrote this before the armistice.

8) Where do we go from here? Anyone looking at the newsreels of Afghanistan and Iraq will note that if people get down on their knees and pray to their God 5 times a day, He is not going to turn their desert into lush pasture. Cast your seeds onto stony ground and all you will get is stones. (The Bible says that quite emphatically). And Christians and Jews in other parts of the world also live in deserts and pray just as ardently. The truth is that God helps those who help themselves, so why expect Him to step in and put matters right. We would never learn or mature if he did that. It is possible to turn barren land into productive land, without asking God for help, but by employing knowledge, skill and hard work.

9) And who is suffering? Clearly, the planet and everything on it. This was God's greatest gift, life and its eco-support system. Surely he did not go to all the trouble of making it if it was O.K. for man to destroy it. We are not the only forms of life here to be considered. 'The status quo' offers, or at least offered, a refuge for everything to multiply and flourish, as far as nature would allow. An asteroid may have very dramatically changed the ecosystem sixty million years ago by crashing into the gulf of Mexico, and that event was uncontrollable but our ecological abuse could be halted and has to be if this planet is to have a pleasant future for all. And by future, I don't meam a couple of generations down the track, I mean millions of years. Genesis Continuous creates that projection and demonstrates that we have a definite responsibility to write the appropriate agenda indelibly into our policies from now on, and strictly live by a code that honours, protects and enhances God's greatest gift to all; Life - All Life.

10) The only way to do this is to become part of the globe; to be just as concerned about the welfare of everywhere else as we are about our home. A dust storm with its source in China deposits its waste in the Pacific Ocean, Japan and the United States and Canada. Collectively, Earth is our home. Religions based upon ancient history and mythology have to give way to global preservational practices. The world's youth have to be taught from infancy to respect not only one another but every living thing and its environment. Sure, they should be made aware of their history and traditions but not to a point of inducing hatred for their earthly human neighbors simply because they have cultural differences, and not until they are well versed in their environmental responsibilities; that has to come first. Gardening, horticulture and silvaculture should be compulsory subjects in all schools.

11) There are religious people who will say that the Book of Revelations in the New Testament, will be fulfilled, regardless of what we do or don't do. I say, why wait for the holocaust to happen. We have the means and technology to advance in the positive manner I have outlined. Sitting on bigoted haunches waiting for self destruction, and what is worse, inflicting that on our future environment is surely the most selfish and sinfull act imaginable.

12) 'Genesis Continuous' establishes a past and a future, a 'worlds without end' concept that hopefully will urge people to think beyond now and into the future which belongs to our descendants just as much as , 'now', belongs to us. We have the privilege to live and enjoy our time on earth for which we must be extremely thankful, so it is up to each and every one of us to contribute positively and leave it a better place than when we arrived.

13) We have been doing things back-to-front for far too long. For instance, what could be more satisfying than to help turn a desert into a rain forest? If I did, I would die a happy man, because I would be at peace with my soul and with God.

David Calder Hardy
mailto:David Hardy
Homepage
Genesis Continuous

15/1/2002