4 Reasons We Would Destroy Our Home (Part 2)

Evey Hammond: "But I don't want you to die."

V: "That's the most beautiful thing you could have ever given me."

This quote from the movie, V for Vendetta, tells us one very powerful message - that to value and care about another's life as much as your own so much that you do not want them to die is a very special thing. It is a very important part of life.

#3 - We Don't Feel Connected to Each Other

One of the four reasons I mentioned that we destroy our home is that we don't feel connected to it. We don't always feel connected to people who aren't in our immediate environment and social circle. So what we need to realize is that we all inhabit the same home, and we are all stewards of the land we walk on and should all respect the company we keep.

We need to feel that caring connection to others if we are going to protect them all. We cannot prevent all catastrophes and death from occurring - we are mortals, after all. However, we can do our best to keep people alive out of love. To allow them to live long and full lives.

We do this naturally with infants. Every woman feels connected to her child, has a bond that keeps her up at night sometimes, ensuring their safety. And throughout their lives, we feel this connection to the people closest to us.

But what I think V for Vendetta seeks to tell us is that we need to extend this love and compassion to all of humanity. Destructive actions that exclude others for their differences in their sexuality, or their race, or their religion, or their method of healing - all things that make us unique, but are also personal choices or things you cannot necessarily change about yourself - are what is killing this world's social peace and destroying us.

Monstrous actions create monsters, as the movie so aptly points out with V's vengeance. He does not feel connected to those who have harmed him and the others, and therefore sought a method of justice that was violent. But as we discussed in Part 1 of this post, vengeance only leads to more vengeance. People hold grudges.

What we need is forgiveness and to feel more connected to our enemies. We need to take away the masks that we all carry - the labels we use to identify each other - and look into everyone's eyes. We need to see that we are all together on this planet and share a single home.

So tonight, on the 5th of November, let's remember that violence and oppression are NOT the answer, but rather that love and acceptance of others is the way to a better world.

#4 - The Afterlife is Not Guaranteed, But We Think It Is Better

There are several accounts about the afterlife that we are told to believe in. However, none of them, no matter what you believe, should enable you to harm another person in this life.

You shouldn't say hateful things to or about people who believe something different. You shouldn't use your beliefs as a justification of your own destructive actions.

And indeed, there are many belief systems that tell there are negative consequences to such behavior. Whether or not those consequences happen in an afterlife - we cannot be certain, however many of those consequences do happen in the material world, and they affect others - as well as the environment - in the present and future.

Life is sacred, and we should all have the right to live in it. We should not use our beliefs to harm others, or to deny them this gift of life.

We need to be aware of the consequences that our actions can have, not just on us, but on others. We need forward-thinking to really have a connection to not only everyone in the world as I mentioned in #3, but we need to think about those who are not yet born as well.

There's no guarantee of an afterlife, but what is more certain is a future of this world. Our decisions and behaviors today affect that future. And if we care about our children, we should care about our children's children, and everyone else's children's children who will be affecting our children's children.

So first, in order to take on the task of protecting our home, we need to ask ourselves if we believe that this material world has a purpose and a meaning.

Is the material aspect of life on Earth a necessary stepping stone to the afterlife? What, really, are we doing by living on Earth as humans?

In my next post, I'd like to explore this idea more in detail. We can start a discussion about all of the different reasons for living.

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Can you think of any other reasons why we would destroy our homes and the people who inhabit this planet? Are there more ways to prevent destructive behavior than those that I've mentioned so far? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

You can also tweet your comments or thoughts to @RMKBrainFeed.

Until next time...
Thanks for Konnecting with me!

And have a happy Guy Fawkes Day!