Interesting, neko!
I was waiting for your response to this thread, you totally surprised me, I thought you would have contributed to the 'ecology' part.
I know next to nothing of Quakers out of some historical facts. Some of the things you say join my beliefs of the unfathomable dimensions, the unimaginable of God's essence. Oh yes, he exists! He's got nothing to do with any image, concept or phenomenon any man can imagine or grasp. No science can describe him; what toys we are. Made to his image... A metaphor to describe conciousness? All we can grasp are brief snippets of lucidity drowned in feelings of awe; so few, that we can remember them throughout our lives but not long enough to leave a lasting answer, just that there is one. Blessed we are that some can at times, because some have done. Religions are all good that they bring us conciousness of a whole.
One is born in a region of earth, given a culture and exposed to a religion. Born in an other region, he'd have an other culture and an other religion. Fight for them? Why?
We can not name God because we can not grasp what he is. The guides we have, the words and the wisdoms are there to bring us a focus to conciousness...None here can claim to know God. Would we have a right to?
Now back to this planet. Who are we to change the rules of nature or its order? We have science to seek its understanding but do we have the necessary wisdom to apply its use? We can mimic nature's processes but never really live by its rules other than what evolution has meant us to be. I do not suggest we go back to living the middle ages ways, deforestation almost destroyed Europe at the time. Nature has ways of control and used it then with plagues. It's showing us again with the fever of global warming. Why do we keep challenging? Is our ego so out of control or are we so stupid?
Simple laws should guide all we do that were not specified by the local wisdoms, because they knew not of the limits of the planet. The land they lived on was vast and unknown. Now that we know, what's the next step? Pursue our destruction to space and then to other planets. What a waste! I believe that going to space is an error and that it should not be attempted before we have stabilized our relationship with Earth first. Overpopulation, poverty, pollution, energy waste and its wrongful use, anihilation of other forms of life that were here before we were and I skip, all of which problems have to be dealt with before we ever think leaving this place, period. This Earth
is Paradise! Why seek elsewhere? We should enjoy every moment we are here on it, not on what we make of it. Mankind has always fought nature for survival and has kept the ways. We are in an era where we must change to readapt. What do we do? We celebrate victory of science and technology over the elements, and plunder things we know next to nothing of.
What victory? We're destroying our own house! Our short lives are the standards which we aim by. We have no right as a whole, to meddle in things that live longer than us.
Mes deux cennes noires...