Noam Chomsky – Earthly Religion

Supremely Assaulting Court

June 30, 2022
Byron Carrier

(Prepare for a rant. A rant is a meager response to the dismal, dangerous place our society is in right now. Outrage is suitable. This is the most important year in American history, one that calls on us all as citizens of a self-run government and society. There are reasons beyond these to be upset, and there are reasons not elaborated on here (but are elsewhere on this site) to be realistically hopeful.) Our Supreme Court now implements the extremist agenda of the fascistic Republican…

January 18, 2017
Byron Carrier

At this inaugural moment, Republicans should consider Lao Tzu’s warning: conduct your victory as a funeral. Your gloat of power could turn on you. For the next four years, or forty, or four hundred, you could be making America groan again. After eight years of disloyal, insulting, relentless ridicule and obstruction of our decent president, after blatant racism and bully threats, after gerrymandering of congressional districts and voter suppression, after stoking the worst in us, after flippantly ignoring and excusing blatant Russian and FBI manipulation…

Join the Newsletter!

Please enter your email address below and click submit to join the Earthly Religion newsletter. The newsletter is a periodic collection of recent writings, podcasts and news. We do not share email addresses with anyone.

The dream of an Earthly Religion…

Earthly: our precious natural earth which allows us our bodies, lives, cultures and future.

Religion: from the old root words religare and religio, meaning “to bind back to the root and be whole again.” This does not assume we need to believe in God or the Bible. Rather, we should be well-related with our own bodies, each other, natural life, and natural existence as it actually is. If there is connection with divinity or God, it is in and through our bodies and beings that we relate primarily, not via scriptures, traditions, rituals, or supposed religious authorities. In short, by religion we mean “relating well with reality.”

The emphasis here is on the earthly. It is not an afterlife or an instead-of-life that interests us. Living well here on earth together does.

While we take our religious perspective and work seriously, we don’t want it to be stuffy. Too often, religions can be alien to the human condition rather than affirming of it. They can be demeaning and demoralizing, dull and bossy, ponderously pretentious. We lean more towards the fun and sexy, natural and lively, human and humane, thoughtful and pertinent.

Reality: the obvious and inescapable stuff of physical existence. We intend to enjoy and tend our lives in these bodies, for our time, in our cultures, for our singular and interrelated ecosystem. There may be more, but there is AT LEAST THIS of which we are born, in which we live, and into which we will die.

God or no-God is not the point; Earth is. Both believers and non-believers are welcome here, for we all share a common source, opportunity, and responsibility: life as it is and could be. This ranges from simply improving one’s own life to your helping save and restore Eden’s, not just to “sustain” it, but veering it to thrive as never before. If you value your life, each other’s, and Earth’s – welcome!

Learn more…