Re: What forces have shaped humanity most?

Description: Human kind needs to emerge from its current adolescence, Copeland says.

Transcript: First of all I don’t mean to be neither a doomsday announcer, which sometimes it can be difficult not to be, but we’ll get to that in a minute. But I actually want to also communicate a message of, you know, faith in humanity. I mean we are an incredibly creative, and resourceful, and adventurous kind, but we’re very immature. I mean the . . . What I like to examine in our evolution is a process which, you know, being 150,00 years old or so – from essentially ______________ until today – we have spent so much of that time just existing and surviving in a very holistic and sustainable fashion. And it is only, you know, around 8,000 years or so when we started to implement technology and be able to advance as a culture as a result of that, that things have started shifting. And this has led us to a sense of more controlled cohabitation with the environment that we live in; and as well as that, an introspection relative to our spiritual roots; and thereby a more metaphysical examination. But the truth is, you know, between 8,000 years and up until a century the age of enlightenment, there has not really been an incredible amount of . . . of growth . . . of spiritual growth. We have seen some dominance take place historically in the . . . in the theologically . . . at least relative to religions if you will; and some dominant (40:18) religions sort of establishing themselves – sometimes forcefully, sometimes less so. But it was not until the age of enlightenment, and reason, and mathematics, and medicine, and philosophy that the . . . that humans have started to see and perceive themselves as being on top of the pecking order if you will, and the top of the food chain, and the most advanced of the species. And this is, of course, very arbitrary and very, you know . . . very subjected to our own interpretation. I’m sure if you could ask the dolphins if they thought that we were more advanced spiritually, they might possible have something else to say about it. I don’t know. We haven’t been able to communicate with them that way. And we certainly don’t have a way of gauging whether there are other entities and whatnot who perhaps co-exist with us. But humans through the age of enlightenment essentially started to position themselves at top of the pecking order. And with that came a certain arrogance separating themselves, you know, from the natural order; or separating ourselves, that is, from the natural order. So with the advent of the . . . of that, the age of enlightenment – and in some ways the fulfillment of our intellectual potential – this has led to a series of advancement in both, you know, culture and philosophy, and of course technology which brought us into the age of industry and the industrial revolution; and the discovery that . . . of hydrocarbon fuels for the creation of energy. And so this long expose that I’m giving essentially leads us to this point where we are relatively immature in my estimation in the relationship between our creativity, and our resourcefulness, and our spirituality. And you know I believe that we are entering the dawn of this new awareness – what I like to refer to as the age of the environment, because we are forced into recognizing the necessity for a harmonious co-existence with our habitat. Because at the rate we’re going, we’re exploiting the planet by over fishing its oceans; by polluting its earth; by polluting its air; by you know . . . by essentially overpopulating environments; and it is simply not sustainable. So we . . . Your question was how did we get to this point? And my sort of long expose that gives you at least a glimpse into my thinking, is that we have . . . we have evolved in some ways. And I still think that we are fairly immature; or fairly much like an adolescent that comes . . . comes to term with its power; its force; its ability to reason and has a certain arrogance as a result of it. We have to come out of this adolescence, and we need to approach a vision of co-existence that has more to do with an adult, and a reasoned, and a responsible approach to our relationship to this planet.

Recorded on: 12/3/07