What about stewardship?

[coberst]

What about stewardship?

Stewardship-- the conducting, supervising, or managing of something... the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care...

Stewardship is a word used often in the Bible and was at one time used often in England. It was used in England because the youth of the landed aristocracy was taught that they were responsible for the care of the family properties in such a way that they passed on to the next generation an inheritance equal to but more appropriately larger than that received. Each generation was not the owner but was the steward for the family estates. Any individual who squandered the inheritance was a traitor to the family.

I am inclined to think that each human generation must consider itself as the steward of the earth and therefore must make available to the succeeding generations an inheritance undiminished to that received.

In this context what does "careful and responsible management" mean? I would say that there are two things that must be begun to make the whole process feasible. The first is that the public must be convinced that it is a responsible caretaker and not an owner and secondly the public must be provided with an acceptable standard whereby it can judge how each major issue affects the accomplishment of the overall task. This is an ongoing forever responsibility for every nation but for the purpose of discussion I am going to speak about it as localized to the US.

Selfishness and greed are fundamental components of human nature. How does a nation cause its people to temper this nature when the payoff goes not to the generation presently in charge but to generations yet to come in the very distant future? Generations too far removed to be encompassed by the evolved biological impulse to care for ones kin.

How is it possible to cause a man or woman to have the same concern for a generation five times removed as that man or woman has for their own progeny?

I suspect it is not possible, but it does seem to me to be necessary to accomplish the task of stewardship.

The questions I would like to ask everyone are:

Do you agree that the acceptance of stewardship responsibility for this planet is vitally important?

Do you have a different idea whereby this stewardship might develop?

[Brian]

what?

[John Scott]

Selfishness and greed are fundamental components of human nature

Is is the urge to force one's morality on others, for example the morality of tree hugging anti-fur, anti-industrial, anti-capitalist social totalitarians.

[ewomack]

Stewardship for the planet??!!? How can we become stewards for something that can destroy us so easily? Volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, droughts, asteroid strikes, climate change, etc. You may as well ask a dung beetle to be a steward for a gorilla. Nonetheless, we can be stewards for our own existence within certain natural boundaries, but stewards for the planet? Even if we were to divert a mega-meteor strike we would still only be saving ourselves, not the planet. The planet will get along fine without us (it did for quite some time). The truest of human pretensions is that we're somehow "in control" of the fate of this huge rock floating in a vaccuum. Voltaire's hilarious story "Micromegas" puts our "importance" into perspective.

That said, if we don't use our finite natural resources responsibly, or come up with feasible alternatives, we do face the risk of doing ourselves in economically and socially. I understand what you're asking by "stewardship" but I think the object of your question is not correct.

[Atom]

Originally Posted by coberst

...The questions I would like to ask everyone are:

Do you agree that the acceptance of stewardship responsibility for this planet is vitally important?

Yes, due to the nuclear threat.

Originally Posted by coberst

Do you have a different idea whereby this stewardship might develop?

Yes. I'm inclined to think that a one world government will eventually adopt the responsibility. I shudder to think.

[coberst]

It appears to me that reason may not be a useful means to achieve a consensus upon stewardship. Stewardship requires selfless motivation and I suspect reason is not strong enough to overcome the human focus upon self-interest. Perhaps religion is the only means for accomplishing a determination for accepting stewardship of the planet as a fundamental responsibility for all humans.

[Rankenstein]

The world would get along just fine without us. We may well be in the process of extinctifying ourselves, but who's to say that's a bad thing? Maybe the ants would be better stewards?

We should definitely try to take better care of the planet though. It's nothing to do with forcing morals on other people, it's just a well-known bit of common sense that can be defined as "Don't shit on your own doorstep".

[John Scott]

We should definitely try to take better care of the planet though.

Everybody's for taking better care of the planet, the question is how and to what extent.

When you tax gas at absurd rates for the purpose of discouraging automobile use, it puts a heavy burden on a lot of people. Is it smart? Huh. I'd have to say it's a bit harsh. Smart is making the autos fuel efficient in the first place.

And the Liberal refusal to expand freeways or build bypasses, or otherwise alleviate congestion, using the reasoning that congestion discourages auto use. That's just stupid. If I have to go from point "A" to point "B", I'll go anyway. If I do so in congested traffic, I'll put an hours' worth on pollution in the air. If I do so in non-congested traffic I'll put 15 minutes worth of pollution in the air. Seems Liberals have very bad math skills.

It's nothing to do with forcing morals on other people, it's just a well-known bit of common sense that can be defined as "Don't shit on your own doorstep".

Who said that forcing morals cannot be common sense? False dichotomy.

When we put into law our morality, it's forcing it onto others. That's what law is all about - force.

When we legislate air pollution policies, it's forcing our morality on others, and it's acceptable to most, for the common good. When Liberals try to outright ban SUV's, they are demonstrating arrogance, totalitarianism, fascist tendencies and a good dose of stupidity.

See, we have this thing called individual freedom. While Liberals think they know best, and would like to stop us from wearing fur, eating red meat, smoking cigarettes, and otherwise dictating life's choices, we Conservatives believe that individual freedom takes a higher priority. Sure, eating red meat and smoking cigarettes may not be the most healthy of choices, but that's my choice, and yours, to make. Not the gov'ts.

Are Conservatives promoting pollution? No. But we do oppose legislating stupid laws which, under the guise of environmentalism, are actually just tools to put more in the domain of the government and put an unreasonable burden on people.

What do the abortionists say? "If you don't like killing children, then don't kill your own, but leave me the choice to kill mine."

Yes, I paraphrased.

Why not apply that here? If you don't like cars, then don't drive one. If you don't like SUV's, don't buy one. If you don't like driving, don't do it.

[Atom]

Originally Posted by coberst

It appears to me that reason may not be a useful means to achieve a consensus upon stewardship. Stewardship requires selfless motivation and I suspect reason is not strong enough to overcome the human focus upon self-interest.

I suspect the same.

Originally Posted by coberst

Perhaps religion is the only means for accomplishing a determination for accepting stewardship of the planet as a fundamental responsibility for all humans.

How would religion accomplish this? A mass miracle perhaps.

[Atom]

I believe that the appearance of the biblical antichrist is akin to a mass miracle, though that is a deception, in reality, supposedly.

[coberst]

If reason is not a strong enough force to drive stewardship then religion must take up the task.

I do not really know how to implement the idea that religion is our only vehicle that can transport the necessity of stewardship to the people.

What do all religions have in common? For religion to do this job we must find some way in which all religions embrace this as a common accepted “gut feeling”. If all religions do now have stewardship as part of their dogma then it apparently has little practical impact. The concept of stewardship must be wedded to a love of god, to anybody’s god. It must be inherent in what God wants me to do.

If stewardship is already part of religion then capitalism with its private property basic concept must have driven the stewardship from the scene.

Can you think of a catalyst that could cause all religions to passionately embrace the concept of stewardship? I suspect that this is the only way that stewardship can become part of most people’s common sense of responsibility.

I think that if we had the image of God embracing the planet earth while standing guard over the gates of heaven and checking a list of who has been good or bad about stewardship then we might have a means to instill this concept deeply in the mind of all religious people and thus of most of the people on the planet.

[D3n!ss3_gÜrL]

Originally Posted by coberst

Selfishness and greed are fundamental components of human nature. How does a nation cause its people to temper this nature when the payoff goes not to the generation presently in charge but to generations yet to come in the very distant future? Generations too far removed to be encompassed by the evolved biological impulse to care for ones kin.

How is it possible to cause a man or woman to have the same concern for a generation five times removed as that man or woman has for their own progeny?

I suspect it is not possible, but it does seem to me to be necessary to accomplish the task of stewardship.

The questions I would like to ask everyone are:

Do you agree that the acceptance of stewardship responsibility for this planet is vitally important?

Do you have a different idea whereby this stewardship might develop?

"Selfishness and greed are fundamental components of human nature."
This has to be the running meritocracy nowadays to outlive and outwit men. And it is lamenting BUT it's a fact striking over every bodies faces.

On the subject of stewardship, YES it is vitally important in the highest regard BUT the possibility to accomplish the task of stewardship is UNSURE...

It is pretty hard to explain but I'll try to share my view. On this regard, developing stewardship on one's self in wide array (i mean to all the people of Earth) is like saying, "YOU ALL should read the Bible to able to understand the concept of STEWARDSHIP", right? And then what? Probability is that YOU cannot convince other people to believe in the stewardship neither read the Bible.

So the only positive and possible thing to do is you start yourself, share the concept to others who can understand. Others will and might share that to other as well. YOU can create a networking for this type of message you want to reach on others.

Well, I still believe that there's still hope even though that hope is too small...