Originally Posted By: Revlgking
...tell us more about your interpretation of the message of "GAIA".

How literally do you take the Bible stories?
Have you read any of my comments as to how I interpret the Bible stories ...?

So many things about which to have a friendly dialogue, eh?
...it's often possible to interpret words so that the meaning of a sentence or story is literally, scientifically, true. For instance, the word "earth" could mean dirt or the whole planet. Can you provide some links to posts where you interpret stories?
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The "Gaia perspective" reveals how precious, special, and delicate this "perfect paradise" is, especially when compared to the alternatives (as revealed through geologic records).

The first 8 posts of:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=48395&page=1
...show how Gaia Theory works, in practice... to some degree. But....
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To be clear, it's the function of religion for the community, society, and overall civilization, that my comments are focused on. Personally, we find our way however best we can, istm, grasping at some straws of understanding, meaning, and purpose. Religion seems to very effectively be a way (a Tao?) of making sense and adding coherence to "it all." That seems true both at the individual, subjectively personal level, and as well at the group, objectively social level. But even within the same religion, any two people will subjectively experience very different understandings of the details; so I'm not focusing on the functions of the many details that religion can bring to individuals, but rather the functions that religion can provide for larger social systems.
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Agreement is found, and endures, more easily istm, at the level of social impact and function; so that might be a more helpful angle from which to discuss "philosophy of religions...."

Especially throughout most of humanity's history, religion was a primary social structure--providing the connectivity, care, insurance, and advice needed--in a world where the transmission of information from one generation to the next is always critical to sustainability; ensuring a good life, or a better life, for the future generations--ensuring life everlasting... for one's genes.

There is a reason why biblical wisdom speaks about the sins of the father being "inherited" and how consequences can be expected for 7 generations... or something along those lines--I was raised as a secular science wonk, not a biblical scholar; but I've heard....
And epigenetics validates this ancient wisdom; the lifestyle of any individual has consequences for their grandchildren (on a genetic level)--epigenetics. This might be considered "good news" to share, and to pass on as important information for others to share in the future.

Especially before a few hundred years ago, when the printing press permitted more than one book to inform the process of civilization, that one book needed to cover a lot of questions. Between the answers about origins and ends, there is a lot of wisdom about socioeconomic stability, as well as advice that would make the Bible a good "original" farmer's almanac--more or less a first, "tried-n-true," health and general-welfare promoting, perspective on the big picture.

The Gaia perspective simply strives to scientifically view an integrated whole, or "the big picture," holistically from the beginning to the end and from the largest scales to the smallest bits. Sound familiar? Science reveals how This Creation, whether by luck or design, is an amazing place. We would appreciate it more readily if we knew how special and also tenuous it is; perhaps we might even revere it.

"Creation Care" promotes an ethic that is becoming recognized as a function shared in common between many religions. The Gaia perspective can provide many scientifically valid justifications and explanations for why the biblical bits-o-wisdom about farming, and on socioeconomic stability, and on values supporting sustainability, are important.

And ultimately, this all pertains to history, with its regular rise-n-fall of civilizations on progressively larger local and regional and national scales; and how today's global civilization could learn from history... or else... suffer what happens when we don't learn from history.

Do you know what we are doing to today's heaven-on-earth, this "perfect paradise" --the Arctic, the Arable Soils, the Biodiversity, the Resilience of Ecosystem Services, the Robustness of all the long-evolved ("perfected") parts, that propel this perfect paradise? We are endangering and unraveling, or even fully undoing, the Sixth Day of Creation... within just a few generations. And if we don't supplement our values enough, we consign many future generations to live through a hell-on-earth. Religion has the capacity to inform large networks of people with a coherent narrative... just at a time when a large network of people needs the wisdom of a coherent perspective.

When both science and collective wisdom are shouting the same thing to we imperfect myopes, maybe we should open our eyes, that we may finally see. There is a reason to care for others; they are a precious resource, if we would only see. We can understand this based on faith, and now also based on science (through the Gaia view); so both views can function to support the other--to pursue a future worth seeing.
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Biblical wisdom helps us focus upon our long legacy; in the time "after life" for us, when we are rewarded with a heaven... or if not, then with some hell.
So with that long future in mind....
What hopes or fears will our own grown and aged children have for their grandchildren?

What world will our children see, through the eyes of their grandchildren, as those expectant and hopeful eyes inherit our future?

~

Pyrolysis creates reduced carbon! ...Time for the next step in our evolutionary symbiosis with fire.