Jews and Christians look to the Bible for guidance about these questions. And while the Bible is clear about aiding the poor, it does not provide easy answers about taxing the rich. But even so, over the centuries biblical principles have provided an understanding on how to help the needy.
It is by no means enough not to steal the property of others; you are in error if you keep to yourself the wealth which God has created for all. He who does not give to others what he possesses is a murderer, a killer; when he keeps for his own use what would provide for the poor, one can say that he is slaying all those who could have lived from his plenty; when we share with those who are suffering, we do not give what belongs to us, but what belongs to them. This is not an act of pity, but the payment of a debt. — Pope Gregory the Great (6th Century)
It’s a familiar story: #Capitalism, we are often told, can be made green. Incentives can be established. The corporations previously leading the way in pollution, plunder, and exploitation can, with a few adjustments, become the world’s leaders in the development of clean energy and pave the way to a sustainable future.
What is altruism? Put simply, it’s the wish that other people may be happy. And, says Matthieu Ricard, a happiness researcher and a Buddhist monk, altruism is also a great lens for making decisions, both for the short and long term, in work and in life.
“Voluntary simplicity is at once joyous and altruistic. Joyous because it is not permanently plagued by the hunger for “more”; altruistic because it does not encourage the disproportionate concentration of resources in the hands of a few, resources which—were they to be spread evenly—would significantly improve the lives of those deprived of basic needs.”
“When the Lakota leader Sitting Bull was asked by a white reporter why his people loved and respected him, Sitting Bull replied by asking if it was not true that among white people a man is respected because he has many horses, many houses? When the reporter replied that was indeed true, Sitting Bull then said that his people respected him because he kept nothing for himself.”
–Joseph Bruchac: “Sacred Giving; Sacred Receiving,” PARABOLA, Summer 2011. This issue is available here -> http://bit.ly/1OJrOAK
Photography Credit: Orlando Scott Goff, “Sitting Bull,” 1881.
The Call of the Earth By Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee — “At this moment in time we are more and more consciously confronted by the reality of climate change, global pollution, acidification of the oceans, massive destruction of forests and wetlands and other natural habitats. All of it is contributing to the first man-made mass extinction of species that the planet has suffered, caused by industrialization and our addiction to a materialistic lifestyle. And we are all responsible—just by traveling in a car or a plane, we are actively participating in an ecologically destructive culture.”
Turning the Tide – A New Global Ethic Where Sustainability and Spirituality Marry By Giles Hutchins — “We live amidst shifting tectonic plates in our mythological, philosophical, scientific, cultural and socio-economic models. Core to this shift is a questioning of who we are, why we are here, and how we live sustainably. The dominant materialistic perspective of life as purposeless with organisms as separate entities struggling for survival in an innately competitive world has had its day. A new worldview is dawning whereupon we recognise that life is continually expressing itself through dynamic reciprocity, diversity and interrelatedness. The closer we look the more we realise that nothing is absolutely separate from anything else. Separateness is an illusion created by an out-dated mindset corrupting life itself.“
All Life Depends on Soil by Vandana Shiva — “Indian civilization has sustained itself over thousands of years because it revered the soil as sacred and inviolable. It treated it as Mother Earth.”
Spiritual Ecology: Hearing the Cry of the Earth By Thich Nhat Hanh — “The bells of mindfulness are calling out to us, writes Thich Nhat Hanh, trying to awake us and remind us to reduce our impact on the planet. But more than that, to avert environmental catastrophe we must awake others too, and create a revolution in our collective human consciousness.”
Reversing Genesis: The Ransacking of Temple Earth By Craig Chalquist, Ph.D. — “If you were to enter a church, mosque, or synagogue determined to plunder it before burning it down, you would probably end up in custody. Do the same to Earth, temple and home to us all, and you might be eligible for a government subsidy. Isn’t that strange?“
