The most dangerous of devotions, in my opinion, is the one endemic to Christianity: I was not born to be of this world. With a second life waiting, suffering can be endured - especially in other people. The natural environment can be used up. Enemies of the faith can be savaged and suicidal martyrdom praised.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the notion of sacrificing present life for an imagined afterlife, warning against the dangers of such devotion.
E. O. Wilson emphasizes the perilous nature of unwavering faith that prioritizes a second life over our current existence. He argues that this mindset allows individuals to endure and even inflict suffering, as they believe that earthly life is temporary and insignificant compared to an eternal afterlife. This perspective can lead to moral justifications for harmful behaviors toward others or degradation of the natural world, ultimately suggesting that such beliefs can corrupt compassion and humanity.
In practice
In a discussion on the impact of religious beliefs on society.
Consider the nematode roundworm, the most abundant of all animals. Four out of five animals on Earth are nematode worms — if all solid materials except nematode worms were to be eliminated, you could still see the ghostly outline of most of it in nematode worms.
Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
The worst thing that will probably happen-in fact is already well underway-is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.
Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.
Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.
An Armageddon is approaching at the beginning of the third millennium. But it is not the cosmic war and fiery collapse of mankind foretold in sacred scripture. It is the wreckage of the planet by an exuberantly plentiful and ingenious humanity.
If you want to be given everything, give everything up.
Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.
The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion and more Soul, to retreat from the belief of pain or pleasure in the body into the unchanging calm and glorious freedom of spiritual harmony.
I want to live as long as possible, just to see how stupid it gets.
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies; to have wasted the life before that death, that is the tragedy.
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