We ought to recognize that religious strife is not the consequence of differences among people. It's about conflicts between creation stories.
Interpretation
Religious conflicts arise from differing foundational narratives rather than from the people themselves.
E. O. Wilson's quote emphasizes that the root of religious strife lies not in the inherent differences among individuals but in the contrasting creation stories that guide their beliefs and values. These conflicting narratives shape how communities perceive themselves and each other, leading to tensions and disputes, suggesting that understanding and dialogue about these stories could foster greater harmony.
In practice
In a discussion on interfaith dialogue, this quote can illustrate the underlying issues at play.
Consider the nematode roundworm, the most abundant of all animals. Four out of five animals on Earth are nematode worms β 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.
The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think.
Our epoch is a time of tragic collision between matter and spirit and of the downfall of the purely material world view.
It isn't only in the name of free speech that the views of an itchy polemicist should be tolerated - and I say itchy polemicist promoting thought, not itchy ideologue promoting violence - but because provocation is indispensable to the workings of a sound, creative culture.
Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.
[Cities] are not like suburbs, only denser. They differ from towns and suburbs in basic ways, and one of these is that cities are, by definition, full of strangers.
We are a profoundly interconnected species, as the global economic and ecological crises reveal in vivid and frightening detail. We must embrace the simple fact that we are dependent on and accountable to one another.
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