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2021/08/30

알라딘: 종교로 세계 읽기 - 핵심으로 알아보는 세계의 종교들, 종교문화, 이찬수

알라딘: 종교로 세계 읽기

종교로 세계 읽기 - 핵심으로 알아보는 세계의 종교들, 종교문화
이찬수 (지은이)이화여자대학교출판문화원2009-02-27

184쪽

책소개

다양한 종교들의 핵심을 명료하게 풀어 쓴 세계 종교 입문서이다. 유대교, 그리스도교, 이슬람으로 대표되는 유일신 종교들, 힌두교와 유.불.선, 일본 신도의 아시아 종교들, 한국의 종교인 무교, 천도교, 증산교, 원불교 등을 종교별로 다루었다.

이 책이 목표로 하는 것은 크게 두 가지이다. 짧은 분량에 핵심을 담음으로써 세계 종교의 지형도를 신속
하게 파악하게 하는 것, 그리고 한국적 맥락을 견지하고 서술하는 것이다. 저자가 특히 신경 쓴 것은 문화적 감각이 종교와 연결되어 있음을 적절히 보여주는 것이었다.
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목차

1. 다양한 종교 현상을 어떻게 이해해야 할까
종교란 무엇인가 / ‘종교’라는 말 / 궁극적 관심의 상태 / 초월적 실재에 대한 믿음 체계 / 종교의 핵심, 신앙

2. 작지만 큰 종교 : 유대교
하나만 아는 자는 아무것도 모르는 자이다 / 유대교란 무엇인가 / 유일신 사상의 출현 / 이집트 탈출과 건국, 분열 / 회당의 탄생 / 랍비의 출현 / 예언자들의 등장과 조로아스터교 / 그리스의 영향과 다양한 학파들 / 미쉬나와 탈무드 / 유대인의 수난과 박해 / 유대교 신비주의 / 유대인 해방과 건국

3. 세계 정신사의 큰 축 : 그리스도교
‘그리스도교’라는 말 / 유대교적 배경 / 예수의 출생과 성장 / 요한의 등장과 하느님 나라 / 예수의 율법 해석 / 예수의 죽음 / 그리스도로 받들어지다 / 교회와 신약 성서의 탄생 / 교리의 확립과 교회의 분열 / 종교 개혁과 반종교 개혁 / 근대의 그리스도교 / 한국의 그리스도교

4. 종교와 사회의 순수한 통합 : 이슬람
이슬람의 현황 / 이슬람에 관한 오해와 진실 / 알라 외에 다른 신은 없다 / 예수, 무함마드, 쿠란 / 천사, 내세, 심판 / 다섯 가지 실천 / 원리주의자와 거룩한 전쟁 / 이슬람의 유대교적 뿌리 / 움마의 확립 / 분파와 확대 / 이슬람 전성기 / 이스라엘의 건국과 팔레스타인 / 팔레스타인의 불행과 미국 / 현대 이슬람의 과제 / 알라와 야웨

5. 없는 것이 없다 : 힌두교
왜 힌두교인가 / 광의의 힌두교 / 협의의 힌두교 / 베다 / 「우파니샤드」 / 범아일여와 해탈 / 업, 윤회, 카스트 / 후기 힌두교의 확립 / 힌두교 사상의 정수, 「바가바드기타」 / 인도의 근대

6. 동양적 정신의 정수 : 불교
세계 종교 지형의 변수 / 옷깃만 스쳐도 인연 / ‘나’는 없다! / 붓다의 삶과 부처님의 호칭 / 열반, 해탈, 입적 / 신처럼 받들어지다 / 보살 신앙의 등장 / 불제자의 길 / 스님이라는 말 / 한국의 불교 / 선과 화두 / 대한불교조계종 / 성철 스님

7. 동아시아 사회 질서의 근간 : 유교
한국인은 유교인 / 공자의 기본 정신 / 예를 통해 인을 구현하다 / 예의 구체적인 모습들 / 효, 자, 제, 충 / 장유유서 / 가족과 조상 / 신령과 조상신 / 신주와 성체 / 제사와 음복 / 유교의 현재

8. 종합적 민간 신앙 : 도교
불멸성의 추구 / 도가와 도교 / 한국 도교의 역사 / 신선의 추구 / 도교의 바이블 『포박자』 / 한국 민간 신앙의 근간

9. 한국적 종교성의 원형 : 무교
한국인의 우뇌적 기질 / 단군은 무당 / 크리스천 샤먼 / 억압의 역사, 불굴의 생존 / 무속, 무, 무교 / 무교와 샤머니즘 / 무당의 자격과 굿의 종류 / 무당의 기능 / 굿과 신령 / 무교의 민중성

10. 일본 종교의 근간 : 신도
일본적 종교성의 원형 / 일본의 시작, 천황의 기원 / 가미와 신도 교학 / 불교와의 습합 / 국가 신도의 출현과 야스쿠니 신사 / 근대와 전근대, 그리고 그리스도교 / 일상 문화로서의 신도 / 현세적 희망의 투사 / 일본 문화의 심층

11. 한국에서 세계로 : 한국의 신종교
외래 종교와 자생 종교 / 동학-천도교 / 증산교 / 원불교 / 종교 체험의 해석적 측면 / 할 말은 많은데

12. 한국인의 종교적 심성
유교 문화와 그리스도교 / 제사와 그리스도교 / 무교와 불교 문화 / 종교 문화의 상호 침투

참고할 만한 세계 종교 입문서
접기

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책속에서

우리가 흔히 사용하는 ‘종교宗敎’라는 말은 19세기 말 일본 학자들이 religion을 번역하면서 만들어내다시피 한 용어이다. 그 이전 한자 문화권에서 ‘종교’라는 말은 일반적으로는 사용되지 않던 특수한 용어였다. 그저 ‘진리를 파악한 최상의 경지〔宗〕를 말로 나타내 가르친 것〔敎〕’이라면서 중국 불교에서 간혹 사용되기도 했는데, 그것이 religion의 대용어로 받아들여지게 된 것이다.
‘종교’는 ‘마루 종宗’자에 ‘가르칠 교敎’자가 붙어서 된 말이니, 풀면 ‘최상의 가르침 또는 으뜸되는 가르침’이 된다. 하지만 religion의 어원은 약간 다른 의미를 지닌다. 그것은 라틴어에 기원을 두고 있는데, 그동안의 쓰임새를 정리해보면, 어떻게 읽느냐에 따라 re-legere(다시 읽다)와 re-ligare(다시 묶다)의 두 가지 뜻이 가능하다. 이 가운데 학자들은 ‘다시 묶다’, 즉 재결합이라는 의미를 religion의 어원으로 중시하는 경향이 있다. 무엇을 다시 묶는다는 말인가? 좀 의역하면, ‘죄로 인해 멀어진 신과 인간을 다시 묶는다’는 의미이다. 신과 인간의 재결합, 신을 다시 만난 인간의 내적 상태가 religion이라는 것이다. 과거 중국 불교의 용례대로 하면 ‘진리를 파악한 최상의 경지’가 되는 것이다. - 본문, 13-14쪽 중에서 접기

저자 및 역자소개
이찬수 (지은이)

서강대학교 화학과를 졸업하고, 같은 대학원 종교학과에서 니시타니 케이지(西谷啓治)의 불교철학과 칼 라너(Karl Rahner)의 철학적 신학을 비교하며 박사학위를 받았다. 강남대학교 교수, (일본)WCRP평화연구소 객원연구원, 코세이가쿠린 객원교수, 난잔대학 객원연구원, 성공회대학교 대우교수, 서울대학교 통일평화연구원 HK연구교수를 지냈고, 한국문화신학회 회장으로 일했으며, 한국평화종교학회 부회장, 인권연대 운영위원 등으로 봉사하고 있다.
그동안 종교학, 죽음학, 평화학 등과 관련해 77권의 단행본(공저/역서 포함)과 88편의 논문을 출판했는데, 평화학과 관련한 책으로는 『평화와 평화들』, 『한국인의 평화사상1.2』(공편), 『평화의 여러가지 얼굴』(공편), 『아시아 평화공동체』(편저)를 비롯해, 『세계평화개념사』, 『아시아공동체와 평화』, 『평화의 신학』, 『세계의 분쟁』, 『평화인문학이란 무엇인가』, 『녹색평화란 무엇인가』, 『폭력이란 무엇인가』, 『재난과 평화』, 『탈사회주의 체제전환과 발트3국의 길』, 『사회주의 베트남의 역사와 정치』, 『양안에서 통일과 평화를 생각하다』, 『동아시아의 대동사상과 평화공동체』, 『근대 한국과 일본의 공공성 구상 1.2』, 『우리 시대 혐오를 읽다』 외 여러 권의 공저서와 번역서들이 있다.
국가보훈처 산하에 있으면서 한국보훈복지의료공단에 소속된 보훈교육연구원장으로 취임한 이래 평화 및 복지국가의 형성에 기여하는 보훈 연구와 교육이 될 수 있도록 뒷받침하고 있다. 접기

최근작 : <통일로 가는 보훈>,<보훈의 여러 가지 얼굴>,<사회는 왜 아픈가> … 총 53종 (모두보기)

출판사 제공 책소개

다양한 종교들의 핵심을 명료하게 풀어 쓴 세계 종교 입문서이다. 유대교, 그리스도교, 이슬람으로 대표되는 유일신 종교들, 힌두교와 유 ? 불 ? 선, 일본 신도의 아시아 종교들, 한국의 종교인 무교, 천도교, 증산교, 원불교 등을 종교별로 다루었다. 2005년에 나온 초판의 내용을 전체적으로 다듬고, 일본 신도에 대한 장을 추가함으로써 보다 완전한 세계 종교 해설서가 되었다.
이 책이 목표로 하는 것은 크게 두 가지이다. 짧은 분량에 핵심을 담음으로써 세계 종교의 지형도를 신속하게 파악하게 하는 것, 그리고 한국적 맥락을 견지하고 서술하는 것이다. 사실 우리말로 된 양질의 세계 종교 소개서들이 제법 출판되어 있지만, 대체로 규모가 커서 일반 독자가 단기간에 핵심만을 파악하며 읽기에는 부담스러운 면이 있다. 게다가 번역서인 경우에는 한국의 종교 문화적 맥락이 거의 반영되어 있지 않아, 한국 종교사는 무의미하거나 세계 종교사의 변방에만 머물고 있는 듯한 무의식적 착각을 일으키게도 한다. 이런 상황을 염두에 두고 저자는 세계 종교의 핵심 중 핵심을 가능한 한 쉬운 말로 추리고 풀되, 그저 옛날에 있었던 남의 이야기가 되지 않도록 변화하는 시대 상황을 반영하면서, 세계의 종교 사상이 한국의 문화와 어떤 관계에 있는지 하룻밤에 읽을 만큼의 짧은 분량 안에 담았다. 한국인이라면 누구든 세계의 종교 전통과 문화적 연결망 안에 있을 수밖에 없다는 사실을 느낄 수 있게 해줄 간결하고 깊이 있는 세계 종교 입문서인 것이다.
저자가 특히 신경 쓴 것은 문화적 감각이 종교와 연결되어 있음을 적절히 보여주는 것이었다. 세계의 다양한 종교들이 한국 문화 및 사상과 연결되어 있음을 느끼게 해주고, 비종교인도 사실상 종교적 세계관에 영향을 받으며 살아가는 존재임을 일깨워주고자 했다. 또한 여러 종교에 대한 서술이 객관적이고 학문적이면서도 특정 신앙적 깊이나 독특성을 해치지 않도록 세심하게 배려했다.
한국은 세계적으로 유례없는 종교백화점 국가이다. 한국 안에 들어와 있지 않은 세계의 대 종교전통은 거의 없으며, 한국의 종교상황을 잘 보면, 세계의 종교상황을 읽을 수 있다 해도 과언이 아니다. 더 나아가 ‘종교’라는 것이 인간 삶의 가장 근본적인 물음에 대한 답과 연결되어 있는 현상이라는 점에서, 종교를 이해하는 것은 인간을 이해하는 것이고, 복잡한 인간사의 총체인 세계를 이해하는 첩경이기도 하다. 이 책이 다양한 종교에 대한 이해를 도모하고, 자신의 종교적 세계가 넓어지는 경험을 하는 계기가 되기를 바란다. 접기

이병철 2108 -문명전환의 주체에 대한 소회/

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이병철

2108

-문명전환의 주체에 대한 소회/

문명은 인간이 구축하지만, 전환은 스스로 이루어진다.

나는, 그리고 우리는 문명전환의 주체가 될 수 없다. 인간이 지금의 문명을 만들었지만 만들어진 이 문명은 이제 그 자체로 자기 운명의 주체가 되었기 때문이다.

모든 문명은 붕괴한다. 인간이 그 한계의 조건을 만들어내면 스스로 붕괴된다. 그러므로 이 붕괴는 누구도, 무엇으로도 막을 수 없다. 성주괴공은 우주 존재계의 필연적 법칙인 까닭이다.

지금 이 문명은 스스로 그 끝점을 향해 무너지고 있다. 문명의 겨울, 혹한과 침묵의 긴 겨울을 맞이하고 있는 것이다. 겨울이 지나야 봄이 오듯이 이 문명의 겨울이 지난 뒤에, 그 동토의 긴 터널을 지난 뒤에 얼어붙고 무너진 그 자리에서 비로소 다시 새로운 문명이 태어날 것이기 때문이다.

겨울과 봄이 잇대어 있지만 봄이 겨울에 앞서 올 수는 없는 것이다. 그러나 붕괴와 탄생은 서로 분리되어 있는 것은 아니다. 붕괴를 조건으로 말미암아 새로운 것이 세워지는 까닭이다. 그런 점에서 보면 모든 선천 문명은 그 자체로 후천 문명을 품고(배태하고) 있는 것이다. 겨울의 한복판에 들어서 있는 입춘의 절기처럼 이 문명의 가장자리 또는 그 한복판에서 이미 새로운 문명이 태동하고 있음을 본다.

이 문명, 무너져내리는 이 문명을 잘 떠나보내는 것은 새로운 문명을 잘 태어나게 하는 전제이기도 하다. 그러므로 호스피스의 역할은 새로운 출산을 돕는 산파의 역할처럼 필요한 일이다.

문명의 대전환기, 나의 역할은 무엇이어야 하는가. 나는 이 문명의 종말을 예감하면서 오랫동안을 이 문명 다음에 도래할 새 문명의 탄생을 돕는 산파의 역할을 꿈꾸어 왔다. 그러나 지금 나는 당면한 문명전환의 과정에서 새로운 문명의 출산을 돕는 산파가 아니라 무너져내리는, 이미 임종 상태로 치닫고 있는 이 문명을 잘 마무리하게 돕는 호스피스의 역할이 나의 역할임을 뒤늦게 깨닫고 있다. 나 자신이 이미 낡은 문명의 산물이기 때문이다. 그러므로 호스피스 역할은 나를, 나의 임종을 위한 것이기도 하다는 사실을 이제야 자각한다.

나는 이 문명과 나 자신의 마무리를 함께 돌봐야 하는 호스피스이어야 하는 것이다. 내가 산파의 역할을 꿈꾸고 애쓴 것은 무망한 것이었음을 좀 더 일찍 자각했어야 했다.

임종의 마무리 과정이나 새로운 출산의 과정에는 모두 두려움과 고통이 따른다. 그리고 낡은 것의 임종과 새로운 것의 출산 그 전환과정에 따르는 혼돈은 필연적이다. 이 혼돈의 시기, 그 과정은 기존의 지식이나 문법이 작동되지 않는다. 가보지 않았던, 경험하지 못했던 어둠 속 혼돈의 길인 까닭이다.

이 전환의 과정을 애벌레가 나비로 되기 위해 번데기로 되는 변태의 과정으로 이해하든, 또는 임종과 출산의 과정으로 이해하든 전환의 과정은 필연적으로 빅카오스적인 혼돈이나 블랙홀 같은 어둠을 통과해야 하는 것이다.

내가 정말로 두려워하는 것은 이것이다. 모든 것이 무너져 내리는, 빛이 사라진 캄캄한 어둠 속의 갈피 잡을 수 없는 불안과 두려움이 인간을, 우리를, 나를 파멸시키게 될 것이란 그 두려움, 이것은 나에겐 죽음보다 더 깊은 공포이다. 그리고 이 과정에서 필연적으로 등장하게 될 아노미 상황에서의 불신과 살육과 전쟁과 파시즘을 피해갈 수 없으리라는 불안이다.

그러나 이 과정을 우리가 휩쓸리지 않고 지켜볼 수 있다면, 그 카오스적 혼란과 블랙홀의 어둠 속에서도 고요한 중심과 빛을 찾아낼 수 있으리라. 가슴 속에 열린 하늘을 품고 있는 이들은 전환의 혼돈, 그 깊은 어둠에서도 빛을 잃지 않을 것이기 때문이다. 지금 이 전환의 시기에 사랑과 수행이 더욱 절실한 것은 이 때문일 것이다. 서로를 품어 안으며 미리 죽는 연습을 통해 죽음 너머를 지켜보는 것이다.

나의 만트라이기도 한 시 한 편이다. 무너져내리는 세계, 이 문명을 예감하며 오래전에 이 시를 썼다.

-지켜보기(觀)/

하나의 끝점이/새로운 시작의 그 처음이다//

끝과 시작이/ 하나로 휘도는 거센 소용돌이/ 그 출렁임 속에서/ 당신을 본다/ 당신을 보는 나를 보고//

안팎 동시(同視)/ 지켜보는 이를 지켜보는 자리/여여하다//

고요한 중심/ 환한 미소//

하나의 문을 닫는 것은 하나의 문을 여는 것이기도 하다. 임종과 출산은 이어져 있고 애벌레와 나비도 고치 속의 번데기로 이어져 있다. 따로인 것은 어느 것도 없다. 임종을 잘 마무리하는 것이 다른 편으론 잘 태어나게 하는 것이기도 하다. 이번 생을 안심하고 마무리할 수 있는 것은 잘 죽는 것, 잘 죽어주는 것이 새롭게 태어날 생명을 위한 것이기도 하다는 것을 알기 때문이다. 불안과 두려움 없이 임종을 잘 맞이하게 하는 것. 감사하며 기쁨으로 임종을 맞이하게 하는 것이 전환의 문명을 위해 내가 할 수 있는, 해야 하는 그 전부라 믿는 것은 이런 까닭이다.

감사할 때 기뻐할 수 있다. 이 문명의 종언이 새로운 문명의 출산을 위한 통과의 과정임을 안다면 어찌 감사하고 기뻐하지 않을 수 있겠는가. 다만 오직 하나의 아픔이란 전환기, 카오스적 혼란과 어둠 속에서 두려움과 아픔으로 고통받고 신음하는 이들, 그 생명들에 대한 미안함과 연민이다.

새롭게 다가오는 그 문명이 디스토피아일지도 모른다. 아마도 그런 과정을 통과해야 할 것이다. 그러나 그 속에서도 환한 미소 그 밝음을 잃지 않고 우리 모두, 모든 생명과 존재계가 하나로 이어져 있음을 잊지 않는다면 그 사랑과 연민 속에서 마침내 나비의 꿈에 이를 것임을 믿는다. 그런 점에서 새로운 문명은 생명이 둘로 나누어졌던 문명에서 다시 하나인 문명으로, 나와 세상이 분리되어 있던 세계에서 그 둘이 하나인 세계로의 이행일 것이라 싶다.

그것은 내가 오랫동안 인간의 자기 정체성으로 여겨왔던 ‘신령한 짐승’의 회복과 다르지 않으리라 여긴다. 흔히 말하듯 도래할 문명을 생태문명이어야 한다면 그것은 인간이란 종(호모 사피엔스)이 다시 땅과 하늘을 이어 소통하는 신령한 짐승이어야 한다고 믿기 때문이다. 지구의식의 회복이란 내겐 그렇게 다가온다.

우형(又形), 태극의 또 다른 무늬로서의 궁궁(弓弓)을 생각한다. 이미 문명의 겨울이 깊어졌다. 지금 우리가 타고 있던 배는 침몰하고 있고 편안하게 살았던 집은 무너지고 불타고 있음을 본다. 그러나 그 속에서 새로운 문명이 또한 태동하고 있음을 안다. 혹한의 겨울 가운데서 봄의 기운이 태동하고 있는 것처럼 무너지는 이 문명의 뒷자락 속에 이미 새로운 문명이 돋아나고 있음을 느낀다. 생생한 느낌으로 전해져 온다.

새로운 문명, 온생명이 하나인 그 문명의 탄생은 이미 그런 삶을 삶고 있는 이들에 의해 피어나고 있다. 도처에서, 문명의 겨울 속에서 봄을 준비하는 이들을 본다, 새롭게 구명정을 마련하고 새로운 거처와 새 땅에 뿌릴 씨앗을 준비하고 있는 산파의 역할은 그들의 몫이다.

잊었던 만트라를 다시 챙긴다. '고요한 중심 환한 미소'.

내가 그렇게 지켜볼 수 있다면 호스피스에 충실하면서도 문명의 새봄이 옴을 설레며 감사하고 기뻐할 수 있으리라. 그렇게 그 봄의 출산을 돕는 산파들에게도 고마움과 격려를 보내리라.

내 마지막 역할이 호스피스로서 새 문명의 출산을 돕는 산파들에게 고마움을 연결하는 것일 수 있기를 마음 모은다. 남은 걸음, 더 열린 가슴의 환한 미소로 죽어가는 이 문명과 눈 맞추며 밝고 가볍게 호스피스의 그 길을 걸어가리라.

호스피스 역할로서 내가 마음 모아야 할 일들/

-감사하기/ 감사를 잊지 않기, 깊게 감사하기, 감사로 온몸, 온 존재를 흠뻑 적시기. 이번 생에, 인연에, 천지만물의 은혜에 깊게 감사하기.

-기뻐하기/ 미소로 온몸, 온 존재를 가득 채우기, 밝음으로 채우기, 내가 먼저 밝음 되찾기

-기도하기/먼저 가슴 열기, 불안과 두려움 속에 고통받고 죽어가는 모든 존재, 모든 생명의 평화와 안식을 위해. 환한 아픔이 될 수 있기를

-축복하기/빛과 사랑을 보내기, 미소와 꽃을 건네기, 내가 먼저 꽃으로 피어 있기

(이 소회는 엊그제 여름 지리산연찬에서 이튿날 새벽에 다가왔던 생각과 느낌을 다시 정리해 본 것이다)

The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet by Robert M. Hazen | Goodreads

The story of Earth : the first 4.5 billion years, from stardust to living planet / Robert M. Hazen.

Author: Hazen, Robert M., 1948- , author.

Format: Books

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Campbelltown Public Library

Adult Non Fiction 550 HAZ C0475459545 Book

The story of Earth : the first 4.5 billion years, from stardust to living planet / Robert M. Hazen.
Author:
Hazen, Robert M., 1948- , author.

Physical Description:
306 pages : one illustration ; 21 cm.
Publication Date:
2013

Campbelltown Public Library Adult Non Fiction 550 HAZ C0475459545 Book
Adult Non Fiction

The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet
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The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet

by Robert M. Hazen

4.23 · Rating details · 2,246 ratings · 234 reviews

Hailed by The New York Times for writing “with wonderful clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips along,” nationally bestselling author Robert M. Hazen offers a radical new approach to Earth history in this intertwined tale of the planet’s living and nonliving spheres. With an astrobiologist’s imagination, a historian’s perspective, and a naturalist ...more

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Paperback, 320 pages

Published July 30th 2013 by Penguin Books (first published April 26th 2012)

Original TitleThe story of Earth

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Max

Apr 08, 2017Max rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science

Hazen views earth’s 4.5 billion year history through his unique lens as a mineralogist. He explains how the earth was built from cosmic dust and transformed into continents, oceans, atmosphere, and life. We find out why earth was primed for life and the many ways it could have started. We learn how minerals and living organisms evolved together shaping the future of each other. This very readable book is packed with fascinating insights. Following are my notes.

Hazen puts time in perspective. If on a walk every step equaled 100 years after a mile you would have travelled back 175,000 years, about the time anatomically modern humans first appeared. If you made it twenty miles that day, you would have travelled three million years into the past. At 100 years per step and twenty miles per day how long would it take to travel back to the formation of the earth? Four years! That was 4.5 billion years ago. Here we begin our story as a nebula of dust and gas form our sun and the leftovers accrete to build the planets.

A nascent earth is hit by a smaller sibling, Theia, which disintegrates. Theia’s denser material is drawn into the earth and the lighter material thrust into earth orbit where it coalesces into our moon. At only 15,000 miles up (today it is 239,000 miles) the young moon appeared 16 times larger than today’s sun. A full moon illuminated the night providing more than enough light to read by. But night turned to day quickly with the earth rotating completely every five hours. The moon orbited every 84 hours. What a spectacle it would have been watching the moon go through its phases! Unfortunately the earth’s 10,000 degree molten rock surface buffeted by huge tidal waves would have made observation pretty difficult.

As the earth cooled, chunks solidified based on their chemical composition, denser ones sank and lighter ones floated to the top. Within 100 million years a thin basalt crust formed floating on a molten mantle. The crust was punctuated with mega volcanoes that would build an atmosphere and oceans as carbon dioxide and water from the interior were pumped out. It’s fortunate that the atmosphere was full of carbon dioxide and perhaps methane. For the first 1.5 billion years the sun was 25% less bright than today. Without the greenhouse effect the earth might have quickly become a snowball and life may not have developed.

By 200 million years granite Islands began forming in the basalt magma. Less dense than basalt, granite rose to the top poking above the crust like icebergs do in water. Water filled in over the surrounding basalt crust forming a single mega ocean. In another billion years the granite islands would grow and coalesce into the first super continent. Rain in the carbon dioxide atmosphere fell as carbonic acid breaking down rocks into clays and sending sediments into the ocean. Granite contains lots of quartz so as it weathered nice sandy beaches arose on the shores of the blue ocean. Still the land was stark and gray and devoid of life.

The solar system and earth were rich in the carbon molecules required for life such as amino acids, sugars and lipids. Whether it was the nutrient rich ocean, a hot undersea vent, the sun drenched dense atmosphere or even rocks, somewhere the ingredients combined in the right way and life took off around 4 billion years ago. Predictably the author’s favorite birthplace of life is on rocks. Consider that as much as half of the biomass on earth today is found in the cracks and crevices of rocks penetrating well underground and living off minerals. Hazen uses the chirality (handedness) of amino acids and sugars to make his point. Minerals also have chirality and electric charge, another component of biologic molecules. An article published in Scientific Reports I read on phys.org on 4/4/17 as I wrote this, showed how the zinc clay sauconite can metabolize using the sun’s energy to synthesize new clay particles. Biofilms naturally stick to rocks and clays, which could have provided templates for the first life. Take a planet full of chemically diverse rocks covered with biomolecules; mix, heat and squeeze for five hundred million years. A lot can happen.

Around 2.5 billion years ago, cyanobacteria began producing oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis and the first Great Oxidation Event unfolded. The earth’s anoxic atmosphere would be transformed. By 2.2 billion years ago atmospheric oxygen had risen to 1%. This was enough to oxidize the iron in granite, the soil and oceans. The earth’s land surface changed from gray to red. Over the next 1.4 billion years oxygen levels would gradually increase in the atmosphere and the oceans. During that same time plate tectonics would slam granite islands together forming continents, mountains and shallow seas. A cycle of supercontinent creation and destruction would begin.

Oxygen under these conditions would combine with preexisting minerals to create thousands of new minerals. Minerals evolved just as their animate offspring. Free oxygen created by photosynthesis was critical. Two-thirds of known minerals would not have existed on an earth without life including human favorites such as turquoise and malachite. From 15 minerals in the dust of the original nebula the earth now has 4,500 different minerals, our neighboring planets without life at most 1,500.

Between 850 and 750 million years ago the supercontinent Rodina broke up dramatically increasing the shoreline and shallow seas setting the stage for the Second Great Oxidation Event 740 million years ago. Erosion flooded the new algal friendly coastal waters with nutrients. Oxygen producing algae thrived, setting off a cycle of extreme cold and hot periods after a billion years of stability. Reduced carbon dioxide and increased free oxygen disrupted the greenhouse atmosphere and earth turned into a snowball or perhaps just a slush ball. This killed the algae and the oxygen levels declined. Volcanoes pumped carbon dioxide back into the air melting the ice. Minerals subject to extreme weathering released large amounts of manganese, molybdenum and especially phosphorous into coastal waters resulting in massive algal blooms. After 150 million years of repeating cycles oxygen levels reached 20%. This would be the first earth where you could breathe and the first where your skin wouldn’t be quickly torched by UV rays. The degree to which methane was trapped and released as part of these cycles is uncertain, but critical to know in light of our current situation.

These events led to the Cambrian explosion 540 million years ago. New multicellular life forms appeared that evolved into the diverse flora and fauna of today. The ensuing half billion years would be punctuated with calamitous extinctions caused by extreme volcanic activity and asteroid strikes. Each extinction led to new life forms filling vacated niches. 430 million years ago plants and animals conquered the land breaking up rocks and forming more mineral deposits. 300 million years ago in the Third Great Oxidation Event oxygen levels rose to 30% supporting mammoth insects such as dragon flies with two foot wing spans. Much of this was due to carbon sequestration as increasing amounts of biomass were buried, a process which had also contributed to prior atmospheric oxygen increases. The fragments from Rodina collided to form a new supercontinent Pangea. The impact formed the Appalachian mountains then as high as the Himalayas are today. 250 million years ago oxygen levels sank to 15% before eventually recovering to today’s 21%. 175 million years ago Pangea broke up forming the Atlantic Ocean. Plate tectonics would move the fragments (our continents) to their present position.

250 million years from now, the continents will once again collide to form a new supercontinent. Life on earth should last another billion years perhaps two. By that time the sun, continually getting hotter, will evaporate the oceans and extinguish life on earth. We can expect ice ages to recur. We can expect many mega volcanoes and devastating asteroid impacts. Just as in past extinctions many vulnerable life forms will be lost, but others will survive and evolve just as in the past. However, humans along with many other species may not survive long enough to worry about these things. The immediate danger is human driven global warming that is proceeding at an unprecedented rate. We don’t know how it will end. There could be another calamitous extinction and we could well be casualties. But the earth and life will survive, reset and evolve as in the past.

If you got this far I hope you put this well written book on your list. Hazen offers informative discussions of plate tectonics and continent formation. He details theories of the beginning of life. He explains the many ways in which minerals influenced life and in turn life influenced minerals, both working together to shape the environment. He explores the critical role of the abiotic in the ecosystem. We’re all in this together and that includes the minerals.

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Becky

Nov 22, 2014Becky rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015, audiobook, yay-science, highly-recommended, i-want-this, non-fiction, reviewed

It is time for my sorta-yearly scientifical audiobook! Last year, kinda around this time, I was listening to A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, which was good but quite a ways over my head technically. This time, I shifted the focus a bit closer to home and just focused on Earth, rather than the whole of universal existence. (Listen to me talking as though I plan what I read... Funny! You all know that the books choose me, right?)

Anyway, this was really interesting and informative, and at times disturbing and saddening. Still technical, but not quite so mind-bogglingly technical that I feel like I missed big points. I don't know if that's because Hazen does better at explaining than Krauss, or if maybe it's just easier for me to wrap my mind around geology rather than existential physics.

But what's funny is that I didn't know that I'd be learning about geological-based origin theory when I picked up this book from Audible. I just like origin stories, and I like science, even if I'm not smart enough to understand a lot of it. Plus I think the cover is pretty. Always an important consideration.

So anyway, I did really enjoy this one and I learned quite a lot, both about the earth, as expected, but also about geology - a realm of science that I almost never think about. I'd always kind of thought that geology was boring... If I was a scientist who was going to stare at rocks all day, I'd want to at least see some bones in there or something. But I've been shown that rocks don't have to be boring, they can be the keys to understanding our history. Which maybe isn't quite as cool as finding bones in things, but is still pretty cool.

I enjoyed how the book covered a lot of ground (heh, see what I did there?) from multiple different angles, and showed how in many different ways, the geology of the earth is central to this planet being the only one (that we know of) which sustains life. We're shown the patterns that have changed the earth over time - warming and cooling and shifting and crashing around - and how that has brought us to where we are now... and how we are affecting those changes as well. The patterns are bigger than we are - they span millions of years while most of us can barely plan for tomorrow. The earth will carry on once we're gone (for a while - until the sun dies, anyway). It doesn't need us, but we definitely need it. Mass extinctions aren't new to Earth. It just sucks that we might be listed among the participants of the next one.

Anyway... I'm glad that I didn't know that this was going to be geology-centric, because I'm afraid that I might've skipped it if I had. So, if that's something you might also think - put it out of your mind. This was interesting and well written and pretty damn fascinating. I highly recommend it. (less)

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Thi T.

Feb 03, 2013Thi T. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: geology

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Earth history, or Earth's future. My background: I'm a 2nd year master's student in geochemistry. I've been taking geology classes for 5+ years and I've never had the story of Earth explained in such a captivating way. I'm the type of person who doesn't claim to know a subject unless I could describe its processes from the ground up, without using much jargon. That's all you get in Hazen's book.

My reading pace and enthusiasm decelerated for a short while once life started popping up around p.230 , which is consistent with my rock-loving, life-ignoring geologist nature. Yet I really enjoyed Hazen's assertion that the geosphere and biosphere are intimately linked. Though I've taken my fair share of mineralogy/petrology classes, I've never heard anyone suggest that minerals were so closely related to the evolution of life. His extensive description of changes during the Boring Billion was also quite new to me, and I have come away with a new appreciation and curiosity about the "boring" years of Earth history (much like my fascination with the Middle/"Dark" Ages in the history of science).

This is a great read especially for a geology student, undergrad or graduate. His descriptions of still unanswered questions, proposed hypotheses, findings, etc. are concise and easily understood. The aspiring student who wishes to pursue geology in academia will find several debates that still need further research (e.g. chirality of biomolecules, abiotic methane origins, snowball vs. slushball earth). The last chapter is somber and such sentiments should sound familiar for fans of George Carlin, but it is such an important read and can really change your perspective on the climate change controversy.

Readers who enjoyed this book would probably enjoy Knoll's "Life on a Young Planet" as well. (less)

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Dr. Carl Ludwig Dorsch

May 27, 2012Dr. Carl Ludwig Dorsch rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reality

Well constructed review of consensus earth science by one practicing in the field.

Embarrassingly I was halfway through “The Story of Earth” before recalling that I had only recently read Hazen’s “Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins,” a volume covering recent experimental science in origins-of-life research, including, or rather emphasizing, Hazen’s own.

While in “The Story of Earth” Hazen largely resists the technical (though, appropriately for a practitioner, he can’t resist it altogether, often again reprising his own work) enough is included to illuminate the speculation he is reporting on, and, as a working scientist his technical descriptions are plainly more credible than those found in similar general readership volumes.

Hazen, by the way, is one of the authors of recent research suggesting a rather wide scale co-evolution of earth life and the ‘mineral kingdom’ (see, for instance: http://www.nature.com/news/2008/08111...), largely as the result of the “Paleoproterozoic “Great Oxidation Event” (~2.2 to 2.0 Ga [gigaannum]), when atmospheric oxygen may have risen to >1% of modern levels, and the Neoproterozoic increase in atmospheric oxygen, which followed several major glaciation events [and] ultimately gave rise to multicellular life,” a topic also touched on, with modesty, in “The Story of Earth.”

(Actual “Mineral evolution” paper, quoted above, from ‘American Mineralogist’ at: http://www.geo.umass.edu/petrology/Ha....)

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Kris Sellgren

Jul 10, 2019Kris Sellgren rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

This was a fun read. The author has a talent for colorful and descriptive language that brings the science to life. I knew the broad sweep of the Earth’s history, so there were no surprises, but I enjoyed learning new details. The author’s biases show at times — he really dislikes Stanley Miller of the famous Miller-Urey experiment — but mostly he presents all the various approaches to understanding the origins of life as worthwhile and complementary. I particularly liked the experiment where someone put the contents of a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite in water and watched all the pre-biotic molecules (amino acids etc) assemble themselves into spheres with a membrane separating “inside” from “outside”. Not a cell but on the way to one. The author thinks that the hardest problem to solve in the origins of life is how chirality arose. Amino acids in meteorites are both right-handed and left-handed, but life on Earth only uses one of these.

It was interesting to see a geologist’s perspective on the Sixth Extinction, caused by humans. He feels confident that some microbes will survive the worst we could do (nuclear holocaust) and life will continue and evolve no matter what. He is very philosophical about the extinction of polar bears, gorillas, and tigers (all inevitable, he says) and possibly humans. I can’t feel that level of detachment. (less)

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Adam Conn

Oct 12, 2012Adam Conn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I never liked geology in school. Learning about rocks and how they formed was a series of exercises in memorization.

It's hard to say what made me pick this book up at the library. Whatever the reason, I'm glad I did. Hazen has a way of making a topic I had always found dreadfully boring fascinating, interesting and exciting.

My layman's description is the book covers a bit of astronomy, geology, oceanography, meteorology, physics, biology, and even a little history. Not too much of any one, usually never too much at one time, the science and technical details are fit within a readable narrative of the recorded and speculated history of the planet from its formation to its eventual destruction.

Hazen provides descriptions of the latest experiments, theories and work being done to learn how the earth became what it is, and where it is headed. I found the part about the discovery of plate tectonics to be especially interesting. I didn't realize it was such a recent and transformative idea in the world of a science.

I can't say the entire book was enthralling. There were some parts I found less interesting, or a little too geeky and technical for general reading. But this was a well written, informative and, at times, engrossing book.

I am not interested in the subject, or at least didn't consider myself interested in it. But I found this book to be enjoyable and educational to read. I can only imagine how thoroughly enjoyable it might be for someone actually interested in the topic. (less)

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Chris

Mar 24, 2015Chris rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science, evolution

A very good book on the evolution of our universe, solar system and Earth. Hazen chronologically walks the reader through 4.5 billion years of our earth's history, explaining the conditions at each stage of our planet's existence.

One aspect of this book that was very appealing to me was his frequent references to current work being done by scientists who are searching for answers to geological questions still unknown. His own theory, which he calls "Mineral Evolution", explains how minerals and life on earth co-evolved. He explains that the majority of minerals existing on our planet could have only arisen due to the existence of living organisms. Or to be more specific, the oxygen rich atmosphere and rain cycles that living beings created through photosynthesis directly led to the formation of a vast array of minerals. He states that a rich mineralogical aspect could be used as an indicator when searching for life on other worlds.

Highly recommended for those interested in geology and the evolution of our planet.

(less)

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Ben

Oct 01, 2018Ben rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science

A fairly well-written story of the 4.4 billion-year geologic history of Earth, with a chapter also extrapolating to the future 100 years to 4 billion years. I learned a bit—lots of highlights—but less than I would have liked given the length. Too much was review.

I enjoyed Hazen's emphasis on the methods by which scientists have learned the prehistory he relates, and also on the current hot topics, disagreements and open questions.

Flaws: Occasionally repetitive and unnecessarily verbose. (less)

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Bob R Bogle

Oct 05, 2020Bob R Bogle rated it it was amazing

This is not the book I thought it was when I bought it. I was expecting more of an evolutionary history of life on Earth. Probably a full 80-90% of this book is essentially a geological history of the planet, and I'm no geologist.

To my surprise, however, I found every page of this wonderful book to be of far more interest than I could ever have imagined. It seems seven or eight fascinating new facts ― new to me, anyway ― jump off of every page. And this doesn’t even begin to get at the implications that arise as all those facts pile up higher and higher.

Very easily, this book is extraordinary for putting geological time in its proper proportions. Most of us struggle with thinking about a few thousand years, much less millions and billions of years. I've never read another book that keeps all the temporal perspectives in such fine proportion.

One minor nuisance is the dual manner of dating events in this book. Sometimes the author reports key events in millions of years ago; at other times, however, he starts the clock running forward at the origin of the planet. Sometimes therefore a little mental subtraction is required to keep events in their appropriate chronological order.

One other issue perhaps is that Robert M Hazen's small book is from 2012: far less than an eye blink in geological time, but a long time indeed in science. I don't know whether an updated version is in the works.

Regardless, this is one of the most fascinating and most well-written science books I've ever read. This one will change your perspective about . . . all kinds of things.

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Prasanna Venkatesan

May 18, 2021Prasanna Venkatesan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Absolutely captivating..

This is my first book on origin story and I am happy for having started with this book (because a strange sense of fullness and emptiness of knowledge after reading this book has made me wanting to explore more books towards this origin knowledge). I believe the author has covered everything from big bang to holocene, future probable scenarios, contribution of various factors from varied fields and how the stories/theories of origin have been proposed using various evidences by curious persons who have dedicated their lives towards establishing the known from the unknown. It was little heavy on geology side but then, given the author's support for the theory of co-evolution of geosphere and biosphere, it stands justified. Nevertheless the author has kept text simple and understandable. Recommended for everyone... A Big Thanks to the author for creating this beautiful ORIGIN STORY.

(less)

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Noah Goats

May 31, 2017Noah Goats rated it really liked it · review of another edition

From the creation of the universe to the eventual destruction of the planet, Hazen, emphasizing the relationship between geology and biology, sets out the entire history and future of the Earth. There are some boring bits. For example, in writing about the billion years generally considered the most boring in Earth's history (the "boring billion") he tries to sell the reader on the idea that these years were actually quite exciting... and fails. But for the most part he succeeds in making all this science both accessible and interesting. And I also appreciated the fact that when there were theories out there that were opposed the the one he preferred, he always gave them a fair shake. Even handed and well reasoned and generally enjoyable: nice book. (less)

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Being ecological / Timothy Morton.

Being ecological / Timothy Morton.
Summary:
Why is everything we think we know about ecology wrong? Is there really any difference between 'humans' and 'nature'? Does this mean we even have a future? Don't care about ecology? This book is for you.

Timothy Morton sets out to show us that whether we know it or not, we already have the capacity and the will to change the way we understand the place of humans in the world, and our very understanding of the term 'ecology'.

A cross-disciplinarian who has collaborated with everyone from Bjoerk to Hans Ulrich Obrist, Morton is also a member of the object-oriented philosophy movement, a group of forward-looking thinkers who are grappling with modern-day notions of subjectivity and objectivity, while also offering fascinating new understandings of Heidegger and Kant. Calling the volume a book containing 'no ecological facts', Morton confronts the 'information dump' fatigue of the digital age, and offers an invigorated approach to creating a liveable future.
Author:
Morton, Timothy, 1968- author.
Format:
Books
Subject Term:
Human ecology.

Human ecology -- Philosophy.

Human beings -- Effect of environment on.

Nature -- Effect of human beings on.
ISBN:

9780241274231
9780241274248

Physical Description:
x, 228 pages ; 18 cm.
Publication Date:
2018

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Timothy B. Morton

Being Ecological (The MIT Press) Hardcover – March 9, 2018

by Timothy Morton (Author)

4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 108 ratings 3.6 on Goodreads 620 ratings

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A book about ecology without information dumping, guilt inducing, or preaching to the choir.

Don't care about ecology? You think you don't, but you might all the same. Don't read ecology books? This book is for you.

Ecology books can be confusing information dumps that are out of date by the time they hit you. Slapping you upside the head to make you feel bad. Grabbing you by the lapels while yelling disturbing facts. Handwringing in agony about “What are we going to do?” This book has none of that. Being Ecological doesn't preach to the eco-choir. It's for you―even, Timothy Morton explains, if you're not in the choir, even if you have no idea what choirs are. You might already be ecological.

After establishing the approach of the book (no facts allowed!), Morton draws on Kant and Heidegger to help us understand living in an age of mass extinction caused by global warming. He considers the object of ecological awareness and ecological thinking: the biosphere and its interconnections. He discusses what sorts of actions count as ecological―starting a revolution? going to the garden center to smell the plants? And finally, in “Not a Grand Tour of Ecological Thought,” he explores a variety of current styles of being ecological―a range of overlapping orientations rather than preformatted self-labeling.

Caught up in the us-versus-them (or you-versus-everything else) urgency of ecological crisis, Morton suggests, it's easy to forget that you are a symbiotic being entangled with other symbiotic beings. Isn't that being ecological?

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Morton makes an admirable effort to expand the genre into something more appealing to a wide variety of readers...Instead of anxiously trying to troubleshoot all of the hypothetical ill-effects of proposed environmental action or policies – a futile effort in our complex and dynamic world – Morton gives us permission to embrace the uncertainty.

―Massive

Review

If you're still just grooving along with Alan Watts and thinking that nature is wiggly, think again. Timothy Morton's flat ontology and his leveling of the uncanny valley contradict earlier clichés to open up new possibilities for conceptualizing a better future together. And, to tune a bit to the register of Being Ecological, it's all accomplished in a vivid discussion with excellent bookfeel.

―Nick Montfort, Professor of Digital Media, MIT; author of The Future

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press (March 9, 2018)

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 216 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262038048

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262038041

Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.38 x 0.81 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,692,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

#1,316 in Environmental Policy

#3,161 in Ecology (Books)

#46,536 in Philosophy (Books)

Customer Reviews: 4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 108 ratings

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Timothy B. Morton

One of the most influential philosophers on earth? Apparently: http://www.thebestschools.org/features/most-influential-living-philosophers/

Timothy Morton is Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English at Rice University. They have collaborated with Laurie Anderson, Björk, Jennifer Walshe, Hrafnhildur Arnadottir, Sabrina Scott, Adam McKay, Jeff Bridges, Olafur Eliasson, Pharrell Williams and Justin Guariglia. Morton co-wrote and appears in Living in the Future’s Past, a 2018 film about global warming with Jeff Bridges. They are the author of the libretto for the opera Time Time Time by Jennifer Walshe.

Morton has written Hyposubjects: On Becoming Human (Open Humanities, 2021), All Art Is Ecological (Penguin, 2021), Spacecraft (Bloomsbury, 2021), Being Ecological (Penguin, 2018), Humankind: Solidarity with Nonhuman People (Verso, 2017), Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence (Columbia, 2016), Nothing: Three Inquiries in Buddhism (Chicago, 2015), Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (Minnesota, 2013), Realist Magic: Objects, Ontology, Causality (Open Humanities, 2013), The Ecological Thought (Harvard, 2010), Ecology without Nature (Harvard, 2007), 8 other books and 270 essays on philosophy, ecology, literature, music, art, architecture, design and food. Morton’s work has been translated into 11 languages. In 2014 they gave the Wellek Lectures in Theory.

https://www.patreon.com/timothymorton

http://www.ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com.

Twitter: @the_eco_thought

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The World Without Us AUTHOR: Weisman, Alan

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The World Without Us
AUTHOR:
Weisman, Alan
SUBJECT:
Science

Nonfiction

Biology
DESCRIPTION:
"On the day after humans disappear, nature takes over and immediately begins cleaning house - or houses, that is. Cleans them right off the face of the earth. They all go." What if mankind disappeared right now, forever ... what would happen to the Earth in a week, a year, a millennium? Could the planet's climate ever recover from human activity?

How would nature destroy our huge cities and our myriad plastics? And what would our final legacy be? Speaking to experts in fields as diverse as oil production and ecology, and visiting the places that have escaped recent human activity to discover how they have adapted to life without us, Alan Weisman paints an intriguing picture of the future of Earth. Exploring key concerns of our time, this absorbing thought experiment reveals a powerful - and surprising - picture of our planet's future.
PUBLISHER:
Ebury Publishing

Virgin Digital
PERIOD_DATE:
2012/08/31
ERC_FORMAT:
HTML

Adobe EPUB
LANGUAGE:
EnglishShow less...
Available: 1

Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts A Defence of Growth, Progress, Industry and Stuff

Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts

A Defence of Growth, Progress, Industry and Stuff
AUTHOR:
Phillips, Leigh
SUBJECT:
Nature

Science

Nonfiction

Philosophy
DESCRIPTION:

Economic growth, progress, industry and, erm, stuff have all come in for a sharp kicking from the green left and beyond in recent years.

Everyone from black-hoodied Starbucks window-smashers to farmers' market heirloom-tomato-mongers to Prince Charles himself seem to be embracing 'degrowth' and anti-consumerism, which is nothing less than a form of ecological austerity. Meanwhile, the back-to-the-land ideology and aesthetic of locally-woven organic carrot-pants, pathogen-encrusted compost toilets and civilisational collapse is hegemonic.

Yet modernity is not the cause of climate change and the wider biocrisis. It is indeed capitalism that is the source of our environmental woes,

but capitalism as a mode of production, not the fuzzy understanding of capitalism of Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Derrick Jensen, Paul Kingsnorth and their anarcho-liberal epigones as a sort of globalist corporate malfeasance.

In combative and puckish style, science journalist Leigh Phillips marshals evidence from climate science, ecology, paleoanthropology, agronomy, microbiology, psychology, history, the philosophy of mathematics, and heterodox economics to argue that progressives must rediscover their historic, Promethean ambitions and counter this reactionary neo-Malthusian ideology that not only retards human flourishing, but won't save the planet anyway.

We want to take over the machine and run it rationally, not turn the machine off.

PUBLISHER:
John Hunt Publishing

Zero Books
PERIOD_DATE:
2015/10/30
ERC_FORMAT:
HTML

Adobe EPUB
LANGUAGE:
EnglishShow less...
Available: 1

2021/08/29

발제 문명전환의 정치와 새로운 인간 이남곡/연찬문화연구소 이사장

2021 여름 지리산연찬

주제 : 문명전환 정치의 주체

2021.8.27(금) 오후 3시 ▶ 8.28(토) 오전 11시

주/요/일/정

8.27 ● 연찬1 오후 3:00-6:00

Walking Meditation | Practice | Greater Good in Action

Walking Meditation | Practice | Greater Good in Action

Walking Meditation

Turn an everyday action into a tool for mindfulness and stress reduction.

(32 ratings)
Duration: 10 mins Frequency: 1x/day Difficulty: Casual

HOW TO DO IT
WHY TO TRY IT
QUIZ
PODCAST

Time Required

10 minutes daily for at least a week. Evidence suggests that mindfulness increases the more you practice it.

How to Do It

The steps below are adapted from a guided walking meditation led by mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn. This and other guided meditations can be found in his audiobook, Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life.
Find a location. Find a lane that allows you to walk back and forth for 10-15 paces—a place that is relatively peaceful, where you won’t be disturbed or even observed (since a slow, formal walking meditation can look strange to people who are unfamiliar with it). You can practice walking meditation either indoors or outside in nature. The lane doesn’t have to be very long since the goal is not to reach a specific destination, just to practice a very intentional form of walking where you’re mostly retracing your steps.
Start your steps. Walk 10-15 steps along the lane you’ve chosen, and then pause and breathe for as long as you like. When you’re ready, turn and walk back in the opposite direction to the other end of the lane, where you can pause and breathe again. Then, when you’re ready, turn once more and continue with the walk.
The components of each step. Walking meditation involves very deliberating thinking about and doing a series of actions that you normally do automatically. Breaking these steps down in your mind may feel awkward, even ridiculous. But you should try to notice at least these four basic components of each step:

a) the lifting of one foot;
b) the moving of the foot a bit forward of where you’re standing;
c) the placing of the foot on the floor, heel first;
d) the shifting of the weight of the body onto the forward leg as the back heel lifts, while the toes of that foot remain touching the floor or the ground.

Then the cycle continues, as you:

a) lift your back foot totally off the ground;
b) observe the back foot as it swings forward and lowers;
c) observe the back foot as it makes contact with the ground, heel first;
d) feel the weight shift onto that foot as the body moves forward.
Speed. You can walk at any speed, but in Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, walking meditation is slow and involves taking small steps. Most important is that it feel natural, not exaggerated or stylized.
Hands and arms. You can clasp your hands behind your back or in front of you, or you can just let them hang at your side—whatever feels most comfortable and natural.
Focusing your attention. As you walk, try to focus your attention on one or more sensations that you would normally take for granted, such as your breath coming in and out of your body; the movement of your feet and legs, or their contact with the ground or floor; your head balanced on your neck and shoulders; sounds nearby or those caused by the movement of your body; or whatever your eyes take in as they focus on the world in front of you.
What to do when your mind wanders. No matter how much you try to fix your attention on any of these sensations, your mind will inevitably wander. That’s OK—it’s perfectly natural. When you notice your mind wandering, simply try again to focus it one of those sensations.
Integrating walking meditation into your daily life. For many people, slow, formal walking meditation is an acquired taste. But the more you practice, even for short periods of time, the more it is likely to grow on you. Keep in mind that you can also bring mindfulness to walking at any speed in your everyday life, and even to running, though of course the pace of your steps and breath will change. In fact, over time, you can try to bring the same degree of awareness to any everyday activity, experiencing the sense of presence that is available to us at every moment as our lives unfold.

2021/08/28

이병철 지리산 여름 연찬/'문명전환의 정치적 주체'

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이병철

3tSponsshoruetd

-지리산 여름 연찬/'문명전환의 정치적 주체'

어제와 오늘 지리산 실상사에서 여름연찬이 온, 오프라인으로 열렸다.

이번 연찬의 주제/테마는 '문명전환 정치의 주체'로 
이남곡선생의 '문명전환의 정치와 새로운 인간'이란 발제와 
정치 컨설턴트 박성민대표의 특강 '대통령선거와 문명전환정치의 가능성'을 먼저 들은 뒤에 
두 분의 지정토론을 이어 이틀 동안 연찬을 이어갔다.

온 오프로 함께 진행하는 과정에서 기술적인 장애로 인해 줌으로 연찬에 참여한 사람들이 제대로 함께할 수 없어 아쉬움이 컸지만 대면연찬에서 오랫만에 오신 분들과 만날 수 있어 반가웠다.

특히 '정치컨설팅 민'의 대표로 그동안 지면으로만 만나왔던 박성민 선생의 현실 정치에 대한 해박한 정치평론?은 무척 재미있었고 현실 정치를 이해하는 데 상당히 유익했다. 
이번 지리산연찬이 바로 앞 주에 있었던 지리산정치학교와도 연관되어 있었기 때문에 연찬주제와 관련하여 보다 깊은 논의를 기대했던 터라 아직 그 단계까지 이르지 못한 것 같아 내심 아쉽고 답답한 점이 컸다.
그러나 오늘 새벽에 일어나 범종소리를 들으며 문명전환과 관련한 나의 역할이 보다 명료하게 정리되면서 마음이 밝고 가벼워졌다. 
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내가 기대했던 것은 지나친 욕망이었고 내가 설정했던 역할은 내 분수를 넘는 것이었음을 자각했기 때문이다. 
나의 역할은 새로운 문명의 탄생을 돕는 '산파'역이 아니라 낡은 이 문명, 무너지는 이 문명의 임종을 돕는 '호스피스'역할이라는 사실을 명료하게 깨달았기 때문이다. 그 과정에서 여력이 된다면 '산파'역할을 할 이들을 돕는 것이라 싶다. 정치학교는 그 산파의 역할을 하는 이들을 돕는 것이라 할 수 있을 것이다. 
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오늘 오전 마무리 연찬시간에 새벽에 내게 온 그 생각과 느낌을 나누었다.
하나의 문을 닫는 것이 다시 새로운 하나의 문을 여는 것이기 하다면 임종과 출산은 따로 떨어져 있는 게 아니라 여기기 때문이다. 이 문명의 호스피스 역할이 새로운 문명의 출산과 무관하지 않는 것이란 확신은 나의 역할과 그 발길을 한결 밝고 가볍게 한다. 
이런 내 생각과 느낌을 아직 글로 정리하지 못해 여기에 제대로 나눌 수가 없어 다음의 기회로 미룬다. 
실상사 천왕문를 나서면서 지리산 주봉인 천왕봉을 바라보며 내 만트라를 새롭게 챙긴다.
'고요한 중심, 환한 미소'
문명전환, 기후재난과 생태계 대멸종 등 엄중하고 절박한 이 명제 앞에서도 내 스스로 더욱 밝고 환하게 미소지을 수 있기를 다시 마음 모으는 것은, 전환이란 임종의 두려움과 출산의 고통이 혼재하는 카오스적 대혼돈의 과정을 통과해야 하기 때문이다.

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