Does the World need to be Saved? part 2

One need not posit any larger scheme in order to understand how NASA might save the world from a fatal encounter with an asteroid. The same could apply to human intervention wrt any number of well-defined threats to civilization.

Rather, I am suggesting something more systemic, i.e. a systemic solution to a systemic problem. Hmmm....... no, even this broadened frame does not suffice. For instance, there could be a global grass roots political initiative to achieve sustainability within a specified time frame. If successful, this effort could stave off an environmental collapse. It might not even require a MoAPS.

However, I suspect this latter contingency resides low on the probability curve. Yes, it would, seemingly, rise on that curve, given no alternatives.

I suggest an alternative.......

The alternative I suggest is that, despite appearances, you and I reside within a cosmic schema. You and I and the rest of the world are bound up in an organic or holistic cosmos, of which whole, you and I are essential components.

An ontological aside.......

Yes, it does seem highly improbable that our scientific cosmos could be so misplaced in its seeming concreteness. What irrefutable evidence do I bring to bear on this issue? My exhibit A, my smoking gun, is the human soul. But most scientists and intellectuals profess to have no need of that hypothesis.

Do I know something that they do not? Actually, most philosophers do profess to be something other than scientific reductionists. In professing thusly, however, they are generally, but implicitly, reverting to a Cartesian mind-body dualism. I, however, pay sufficient attention to the life sciences to find that dualism to be outmoded. And I also note that the professing philosophers are very reluctant to embrace any explicit dualism.

These poor philosophers are caught between two intolerable choices.... a mind-body dualism or an immaterial monism. To which choices we may as well add the third, material monism, to (almost) cover the ontological waterfront. And while we're at it, let us add the postmodern ontology of choice..... pluralism. Ok, that's it. We got you covered.

Now, what remains in my armamenta is simply coherence. Yes, the soul is the gun, and coherence is our gunpowder. We are now prepared to turn the tables on scientific materialism.

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At the very least, we may safely surmise that our reality is likely to be something quite other than what it appears, at least to our modern mindset. We are not lost in space&time, we are not sacks of chemicals. We then must lend serious credence to the pantheist and prophetic traditions, and, given our historical crisis, a crisis of biblical proportions, the prophetic tradition is the one that now speaks to us.

Given that the world needs to be saved, and that we do not foresee a technological or political solution, our eyes turn to the skies.

(cont.... part 3)

9-16-14