Goddess Pele

[eigoya]

Carol, I'd like to hear more about the student who was admitted in their junior year of high school. Did they take the GED? Running start students, or?? Please message me....
Thx

[csgray]

He still has to graduate from HS next year, but he so impressed UH-Manoa through his involvement in a summer program run by Punahou that heattended on scholarship, that the university admitted him early. Theoretically he could fail all his classes this year, and lose the scholarship and admittance, but that just isn't going to happen.

I had this kid for 7th and 8th grade, he makes me so proud to be able to say I was his teacher. He is going to be an amazing engineer someday and is the embodiment of Aloha in how he interacts with others.

Carol

Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb

[csgray]

Davinci,
I am absolutely certain I did not call Oneself a "little" anything, and I thought the "simple" label was misapplied and said so.

Carol

Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb

[wakan]

protoss, Todd H, and Oneself--

You bunch of unbelievers! How dare you not believe in the Goddess Pele. In the old days, the gods would have had their human agents burn you at the stake or put you to death by the sword for your arrogance (or have you thrown you into a crater full of molten lava). Of course, this work of punishing the non-believers has always had to be done through the gods' mortal agents (the true believers) because the "all powerful", "omnipotent" gods don't actually exist; and can't, therefore, directly mete out punishments for not believing in them.

I've personally spent my life publicly denying the existence of gods and privately insulting and cursing them all around the world without any consequences at all--just lucky to have been born in a time and place where freedom of religion (including freedom to be an atheist) and freedom of speech are enshrined in the law of the land. I don't consider "insulting and cursing" a god to be disrespectful because they don't even exist--they're non-entities.
I've invited them all to strike me dead, give me cancer, and damn me to hell for my insolence; but my continued health and well being after 66 years only serves to confirm in my mind that they either don't exist or don't have any power at all.

Let me be clear, though, that I absolutely respect everyone's right to believe in their god or gods if they so choose. I do not "insult or curse" any "person" for believing in a god, and I give respect to other human beings based on how I feel about them as human beings (their beliefs or religion don't have a bearing on whether I should accord them respect). Put another way, I don't respect gods, and I don't respect beliefs in gods; but I do respect human beings, and I do respect their right to believe in a god. I hope that's not too obtuse to understand.

It may sound derogatory to some people; but I basically accord Pele, Buddha, Jehova (and all the rest) the same status as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. We let kids believe in the latter three until they're about ten years old and then set them straight, but many adults continue to cling to a belief in these other religious (but none-the-less, imaginary) entities for their entire lives.

And that's all cool with me. They have many colorful traditions and mythologies built around them that I find fascinating. In fact, my house is full of religious paintings. statues, and all manner of religious artifacts. I've toured the cathedrals of Europe and crawled over the ruins of Angkor Wat and Macchu Pichu and Borobadur and the pyramids of Central America with a sense of awe at these religiously inspired works of such great magnitude. And that's a short list--I've virtually been a pilgrim for most of my life, traveling great distances to wonder at these human achievements that men have created (at great cost and suffering) in the name of their gods.

And, truthfully, I am saddened to see the vestiges of these older religion-centric cultures being bulldozed over by the modern global culture of fast foods like McDonalds and consumer cathedrals like Walmart. Yet I eat Big Macs and shop at Walmart and accept that this is where our global culture is headed. After all, it's not all bad; today we have thousands of years of accrued knowledge concentrated in our smart phones right in our pockets; we live longer, healthier lives than ever before; we can jump on a jet airliner and visit exotic places in a matter of hours instead of months or years. I can think of a thousand reasons I'd rather be a part of the modern world than a subject of one of those older cultures. For instance, if I break my leg, I don't have to be a cripple for the rest of my life; I don't have to die from an abscessed tooth; I'm not worried about getting smallpox; and I'm really happy that I can't be conscripted to toil away building the Pyramids (or their like). I have a cornucopia of foods from all over the world available to me no matter where I am or what season it is. I have a computer that connects me to an almost infinite amount of information and an MP3 player the size of a credit card with about a million albums in it. Sure, I bitch about the way things are; but hey, on the bright side, I don't get thrown in prison and tortured or killed for it. All in all, things aren't so bad for those of us that happen to be lucky enough to live in a modern constitutional Democracy.

Human kind--unlike any species before it--has embarked on a great cultural/technological adventure. It's been a grand experiment that's pushed us to the outer envelope of the universal evolutionary process. It's established us as the apex expression of consciousness in our sector of the cosmos, and it's insured our survival through ice ages and other global environmental changes that killed off many other species (mammoths and saber-tooth tigers didn't have culture to get them by). Yeah we've made huge mistakes along the way, but we're still in the process; and I think it's a hell of an exciting ride.

I look into the past, I look around me in the present, and I look forward to the future; and I'm amazed at what a creative animal we have been, we continue to be, and what great potential (for better or worse) we have before us. I see religion as having played a great part in our past; and it still colors, to a large degree, even the scientific/technological world in which we live now. But I also see religion as a vestige of our cultural adolescence. And just as kids grow past a belief in Santa Claus; we, as cultural creatures, need to grow up and move beyond believing in gods and goddesses. It's just unseemly for a species with so much knowledge at its disposal.

The great questions about how the Universe works once required the invention of gods to provide answers, but I believe that science now provides us with far superior and realistic answers to those questions. And the answers that science is providing are no less colorful or rewarding or awe inspiring than the myths and religions of old. What science cannot provide us with is a moral compass, but I also believe that we do not need religion (which has, anyway, often been sorely lacking in that regard) to define right and wrong for us. It is not necessary to have religion or to believe in a god in order to be a good human being and care about others and the environment and to act in a moral/ethical way. It does not require religion for us to articulate a compassionate and moral humanitarianism--a code of ethical behavior that will compliment our scientific discoveries and technological innovations.

To me. that is our challenge. Not to revive or sustain flat earth religious thinking, but to pioneer a new universal humanitarianism that will save us from destruction (either slowly or quickly) from our own scientific/technological advances.

Having laid out my own world view in a nutshell, the point I would make here is that no amount of imploring or praying or chanting to Pele will make one wit of difference in how the current lava flow will play out (though a big bang on the South wall of Pu'u O'o might). No chanting, no rituals, and no entreaties to her will affect the geological mechanics at work because Pele is not actually a real entity. (Though I'm quite sure that if the lava flow stops short of Highway 130 and Pahoa, there will be those who attribute it to the prayers and chants made to Pele--and thus, those so inclined to believe in her existence will only believe all the more in it). But the truth is she is not a demi-god or a deity--she is merely a cultural device that was invented long ago to satisfy the normal human longing to understand a natural force that could so powerfully affect human lives and could not be better explained at that time. But in the modern world that cultural artifice has lost its relevance. And so it was that primitive people all over the world personified the forces of Nature that they could not understand in any other way. Pele is not particularly unique; she is rather an archtypal expression that was common to all primitive cultures. It may soothe the souls (another questionable concept) of those that find solace in the personification of natural forces or find the scientific paradigm less appealing than the metaphysical paradigm. But Pele is, in the final analysis, nothing more than an idea created by human beings--she has no independent reality.

And I take no issue with people or groups of people seeking solace and cultural identity from that idea (Pele). The problem arises when ancient, anachronistic deities are invoked as reasons to block progress or innovations that could benefit many in the present. There may be good reasons why a geothermal plant is not a good idea. (For me the main issue there is whether the location is suitable. A worse idea is importing oil to burn for power generation). There may be a good reason why an attempt to breach the South wall of Pu'u O'o is a bad idea (though I support a study of the possibility and perhaps an attempt at it when there is the possibility of ensuring the continued well being of thousands of people--even with the knowledge that Kilauea will eventually inundate the whole of Puna.) Technological approaches to problems often have unintended consequences; but when the issue is ensuring the well being of many people--whether it be hundreds or thousands or millions--then I am in favor of leaving it to the scientific community to articulate the pros and cons. I would certainly not choose to make decisions, that could affect the well being of many people, based on either fear of or deference to some deity (including Pele) from a bygone era. Subjugating the well being of the people to a religious dogma is an antiquated idea that belongs in an anthropological text or a history book.

I understand the native Hawaiian interest in keeping their culture alive; and in most respects, I support their aims and goals in that regard. But from another perspective, they were just the first wave of immigrants to the Islands (and not that long ago really). The present reality is that there is a multi-ethnic mix
and a diversity of beliefs that must be considered. And I believe that the well being of the people as a whole (including the Hawaiians themselves) trumps any religious belief (Hawaiian or otherwise) that stands in the way of that end.

To any Hawaiians who are reading this, I mean no disrespect to you, and I am sorry if it is taken that way. I have even less regard for the Christian world view than the Hawaiian world view, and I am critical of all belief systems that are too inflexible to change with the times (which pretty much means all religions). As I said, I am sad to see the ancient cultures fade away, but fade they will. We live in a new paradigm where science has opened a window into knowledge that the ancients could not have been privy too. There is not a single historic culture that did not have a culture before it--and yet all those cultures are now forgotten. Cultures and civilizations rise and bloom then recede into the fog of the past.

I appreciate many aspects of the Hawaiian culture--like the Aloha spirit, the respect for the 'Aina, the concept of Pono, and the strong ties of the Ohana. I've actually found those to be elements of many cultures (though the words may be different); and I would certainly want to keep them as elements of an evolving world culture. So if I sound overly critical of rituals and Gods, I am not singling out your culture nor am I in denial of the positive aspects of your culture. Though I may disagree with the practice of religions in general, I still wish you all well, I support your right to practice your religion freely, and I applaud the many positive aspects your culture.

[punafish]

wakan, appreciate your thoughtful posts, and the respectful way you just articulated your point of view.

[snorkle]

All spiritual reasoning aside; As Kilauea continues to erupt for the next millenium (probably not all at once, but it certainly will remain active for thousands of years), it is going to be oozing lava from the summit and both rift zones. Millions of cubic yards of new material will be added to our landscape as it has for hundreds of thousands of years.

Question for the modernists? Just where do you propose all this lava be diverted to?

When Kilauea reaches probable heights of 10,000+ feet, do you envision towns like Pahoa to be sitting in miles deep holes where the lava has been diverted around them?

Come on; the only way to continue to thrive on this growing rock is to take a lesson from the "primitive" peoples that have thrived here for centuries; Move out of the way of the new flows and build on the old.

Please understand that religion aside; Diversion is futile.

[DaVinci]

Carol. You were exempted from that comment in my mind's eye. You have always been gracious and respectful in every post you've written.

[csgray]

If provoked, in pain, or tired, I can be as snarky as the next person, but I do try not to be a troll. This whole discussion has been fascinating, I just keep remembering that religion is not about logic, it is about personal belief and faith, and applying the laws of science and logic to faith just doesn't work.

Carol

Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb

[DaVinci]

Also. Something I forgot to say. I am truly sorry for any loss of property that will occur. I plan on pitching in and helping friends and whomever else needs help. (I am fairly certain the lava will not impact me directly.) I do understand the fear and frustration that others must be feeling right now... and for the record, I do not favor any attempt at intervention or diversion. Not for Pele's sake... I just don't think it would work.

All that aside however, and acknowledging Science as my guiding light and Pele as poetic allegory... I still stand in awe of this astonishing, living planet. And I am grateful that I have been allowed to live here.

[Derrick Barnicoat]

It is also important to realize that science requires quite a bit of belief and faith. Science is often way off like when it says the earth is flat or that the earth is the center of the galaxy. There are allot of theories that are well researched and become regarded as fact but they are in reality still just theories. For instance, your average person think they have a basic understanding of gravity but science is constantly finding out new information that shows how gravity may not be what we think it is. So in actuality people believe that they understand gravity and have faith that the science behind it is fact. Sure things fall down but when you get into planets moving through space the science behind gravity can get very theoretical and wacky.

Anyway , I don't want to divert the topic into gravity but my point is science has allot to do with faith and belief, more than scientists care to admit.