Dear Organlearners,
Greetings to all of you.
First a note on the language. The word sacred comes from the Latin "sacro"
which means holy. The Greek word for holy is "hagios". The word holy
itself comes from the Saxon "haelig". It meant "whole-like". English is
not my mother tongue so that I struggle to learn its intricacies. It
seems that holy is used when the "whole-like" of something is innate to
it. But it seems that sacred is used when something is reserved by some
definite act for a "whole-like" purpose. Thus both have to do with
wholeness. It is for me almost as if holy has to do with the "monadicity"
aspect and sacred with the associativity aspect of wholeness.
Perhaps some of you would not believe it, but for many of my people
apartheid was as sacred as the Bible. How did apartheid become sacred? Why
is the Bible sacred for some people as are the Koran or Veda for other
people?
Many people would answer that the Bible is sacred only for people
following a (not the!) Christian religion. The Bible is sacred for them
because they believe it to be sacred. But if we want to know how things
become sacred, we will have to ask how they came to this belief. Some say
they believe the Bible to be sacred because they had been taught it.
Others give as reasons that it is the Word of the Holy God or that in the
Bible itself it is declared as sacred. The same applies to other religions
based on a script or a body of scriptures. So it seems that something is
sacred because of believing (with reason ;-) that it is the case.
But why the "a Christian religion" and not "the Christian religion"? It is
because each of the many variations on the Christian religion has been
created by one or more persons and then followed by many others. Some of
the originators or the followers of a Christian religion go so far as to
declare their variation on the Christian religion as sacred. Again they
defend this belief by giving specific reasons for it. The same happens in
other religions. Despite this closed loop in reason and belief, again it
seems that something is sacred because of believing that it is the case.
Many people argue that the idea of something being sacred originates from
religions. This claim seems to be strengthened because of the fact that
fanatically religious people would go to extreme measures to protect what
they believe is sacred and to prevent its sacrilege. Sometimes these
fanatics would even wage a destructive war as an extreme measure. This
gives many people enough reason to ban all but one religion and sometimes
even all religions to keep the peace. Yet the peace sought is usually not
found. So some even go so far as to ban the words "believe" and "belief"
from any discussion and not necessarily a religious one. This often
happens in scientific and educational spheres.
It is usually said that there is no place for "believe" (a "becoming") and
"belief" (a "being") in science because of the scientific method (another
"becoming") and its results (another "being") culminating in scientific
laws. When asked why these "scientific method" and "scientific laws"
cannot be considered as also a religion, the answer almost invariably is
that they give humankind the truth. Yet we know that this "sacred truth"
changes occasionally, something which Thomas Kuhn called a "paradigm
shift". Thus some scientists have become clever in banning "believe" and
"belief" by claiming that they do science necessarily from a particular
paradigm like the "quantum paradigm" or the "superstring paradigm". The
fact that their firm holding to such a paradigm is nothing but also a
belief escapes their attention.
Are we now ready to answer the question "How did apartheid become sacred?"
Well, I live in South Africa and have lived through all the years of
apartheid. I was four years old when it began officially. I have heard
thousands of times that apartheid became sacred because many of its
supporters believed it to be sacred. I have heard hundreds of times how
some of its supporters defended this belief by using the Bible as the
sacred Word of God to base it upon. They reasoned that if something is
sacred like citations from the holy Bible, then a conclusion based on it
like the ideology apartheid must be sacred too. So it seems that apartheid
became sacred because of the act of believing.
But I also have heard thousands of times how opponents to apartheid
claimed it to be a hideous scheme because the majority of our peoples
suffered by it and many even lost their lives because of it. Apartheid was
finally desecrated and dismantled because the lives and welfare of people
are believed to be sacred and not an ideology.
Many people believe life to be sacred. This belief has caused several
dilemmas here in South Africa. One dilemma is HIV-AIDS. Thousands of
people are now dying every month as a result of it. More than a thousand
children become orphans each month. Thousands of babies get it because
their mothers have it. Many of them die of it before even becoming
orphaned by it. Yet our president and minster of health do not want to
allow the massive use of antiretroviral medicines. The reason is that
these medicines themselves are unsafe, endangering the lives of whoever
takes it, especially if not done under supervision. Furthermore, the use
of condoms rather than continence is advocated because the sexual life of
a person is considered to be sacred too. Morals are not sacred any more
since the belief in them as sacred led to many adverse practices.
Another dilemma is the elephant population in our national parks. As a
result of initiating these parks and careful conservation management, the
elephant populations have risen dramatically whereas elsewhere in Africa
they have been decimated. But elephants are tough on their environment.
They destroy trees by peeling of their bark or pushing them over to get at
the tasty new growth on top. If left unmanaged, they will soon destroy
their own main source of food as well as that of other animals like
giraffes. They also destroy the habitat of many kinds of birds and insects
which live exclusively in trees. They even destroy many kinds of plants
which grow exclusively under trees. Hence the elephants have to be culled.
Enter in the scene those who believe life to be sacred. Elephants shall
not be culled by humans. But what about the other living animals and
plants which gets destroyed by the rough nature of elephants on tree
populations? Well, that is nature. It is impossible for nature and thus
its elephants to believe that life is sacred. Only humans can believe that
life is sacred and thus only humans have to prevent the destruction of
life by humans. Humans destroy the life of elephants and this must be
prevented. Elephants destroy the lives of other animals and plants, but
this cannot be prevented.
A third dilemma is the following. I am an European South African born from
European parents who themselves were already past the tenth generation of
European South Africans. We call ourselves Afrikaners and not Africans to
indicate our descent (from Europe) as well as our dominium (from Africa).
Except for our language Afrikaans (itself having emerged on the soil of
Africa) and the way we manage our affairs (by combining European and
African skills), we light skinned Afrikaners cannot be distinguished from
other Europeans who speak other languages. Many of them are South Africans
by birth or naturalisation and the majority of them want to rear their
children as South Africans and die as South Africans.
Historically many Europeans in Africa believed themselves to be superior
to Africans. Many of them even believed the European race to be sacred,
here in Africa and elsewhere in the world too. This led to horrible
malpractices against Africans in Africa. Furthermore, since most
Afrikaners began to believe in apartheid after WWII, voted for it and
tried to protect it, they must be a sacred race too. Some really did
believe that they were a sacred race. The fact that Afrikaners (and not
other Europeans) dismantled apartheid together with Africans is seen as a
clever trick to maintain their sacred superiority. Thus a fury is unlashed
deliberately against Afrikaners, taking their jobs from them, stealing
their belongings, denigrating their language and even murdering them on
farms and in cities by the thousands. Such fury caused hundreds of
thousands of Afrikaners to emigrate against their wish to other countries
outside Africa.
What very few Africans know, is that Europeans believing themselves to be
superior, also believe Afrikaners to be inferior Europeans for making
Africa their homeland. But because of having mental ties with both Africa
and Europe, Afrikaners often excel in getting things done. In fact, in the
rest of Africa the Afrikaners are much sought as managers, the best among
the rest of the world. But as soon as they arrive at their new destination
somewhere in Africa, they have to pay there as in South Africa with their
belongings and lives. They pay for the many Europeans in the past
believing themselves to be the sacred race and thus setting up horrible
malpractices in that country.
I am convinced that all these dilemmas arise because of the Mental Model
that "it is believing which makes something sacred" whether that something
is scripture, life, race, religion, apartheid or anything else. I am
personally convinced that usually more than faith is involved when
something is conceived to be sacred. For example, in the descriptions
above I have shown how often both believing and reasoning are used to make
something sacred and then defend it as such.
Sometimes superstition is involved in declaring something to be sacred.
But is faith blind like superstition? Does faith not also involve learning
and knowledge as the integral outcome of learning? Can a person consider
something as sacred without any learning and knowledge of that thing?
But let us think about this learning and knowledge of anything. Do this
learning and knowledge not often lead to conceiving such a thing as
sacred? Sometimes we will not put it as strong as sacred, but rather say
that the learning and knowledge of a thing lead to respect for that thing.
Why would we want to soften sacred into respect? Is it a lack of
increasing wholeness? What would come next should we soften respect for
the same reason too?
The more I learn of the 7Es (seven essentialities of creativity) and how
they have to increase as well as the more I learn of anything else, the
more I realise how I grow in respect for such things until I eventually
consider them as sacred. A few times I have dared to say, as a Christian,
that I consider the Koran of Islam just as sacred as the Bible. The frowns
which I got made me realise just how dangerous it is to say such a thing,
especially in the light of the Mental Model that believing makes a thing
sacred. (I wonder how they will frown when I dare to say that all the
books in a library are sacred to me) But in my opinion many people also
have another Mental Model LEM (Law of Excluded Middle). LEM says that when
one thing of a kind is sacred, then another thing of the same cannot be
sacred too. In other words, when some thing of a kind is sacred, it
excludes other things of the same kind to be also sacred. For example,
when animal life is sacred, then plant life cannot be sacred too.
Why do the increase in the 7Es have such an influence on my growing
respect for things and even in considering them as sacred? This increase
in the 7Es come through my authentic learning and thus personal knowledge
as its integral outcome. This authentic learning is impossible without
creativity. I have to create continuously while learning authentically.
Thus my respect for things and eventually considering them as sacred
begins with my creating. Not just any creating, but creating
constructively. To create constructively I need all the 7Es and to keep on
creating constructively I need to grow in each of them.
There is a lot "I"s and "me"s in the previous two paragraphs. They occur
so much because it is how I understand it. You may have different opinions
coming from different understandings which I will not only respect, but
also will honour as sacred. I need to do so because without all our
different opinions and understandings we will not be able to create
constructively a sacred civilisation for the coming age. Constructive
creativity without otherness is impossible.
For me the honouring of things as sacred begins with a person's
creativity, then proceeds further through that person's knowledge,
character, faith and finally love. It may very well be that the person is
not aware how this honouring of the sacred proceeds through all the
faculties of that person's personality. It may rather be that the person
has the Mental Model that faith makes things sacred. Whatever the case,
who I am I to commit sacrilege of things honoured as sacred by others.
Should I do so, would I not be considering myself as superior to others
rather than as their servant through love? I think that the more humble a
person becomes, the more that person will discover what things are really
sacred through their becoming.
I have a friend who also loves plants and animals deeply. Strangely
enough, he thinks that nothing is sacred, neither God nor anything else in
the universe. He thinks that the very idea of something to be sacred is
evil. (It is more than a coincidence that a peculiarity of Latinism is the
use of "sacro" to indicate also something evil.) Since this idea invokes
believing to consecrate it, he does not believe in anything except one
thing -- complexity. You can probably imagine by now that my friend does
not have many other friends. He is a quiet person who fumbles often in
trying to make contact with other humans. Perhaps that is why he loves
plants and animals so much. He once said to me that it is so nice to talk
to me. I replied that it is because he is sacred to me. He argued back
that nothing is sacred, not even he. I had to change the topic because
friendship, even with a strange man like him, is sacred.
How do things become sacred? I wrote that for me it begins with my
creativity to proceed through all the orders of my spirituality. This
strange friend of mine is a very creative and knowledgable person. His
love for nature is profound. But he has no faith, especially not in
humankind. I think it is because humans have hurt him so much in the past.
Why cannot they at least respect him for what he is?
Sometimes I wonder if the real culprit for this mess of disrespect and
sacrilege is not reasoning without learning. It is lunch hour and I came
back just now from the student centre to buy something to eat. Hundreds of
students were there, doing all sorts of things. And they were buzzing like
a swarm of bees. I did not listen to their talk. I looked at their body
languages. I could not even see in one a sign of sacrilege. The spirit of
learning was still with them.
I have touched upon many contentious topics specifically to honour the
wholeness in my understanding of how things become sacred. What I wrote
may easily become sacrilege to fellow learners. I did not intended any
sacrilege and I beg forgiveness where it did happened. My essay is not
sacred and therefore ought not to cause sacrilege. It is merely
information with which I try to encourage your own learning. Your learning
is sacred to me.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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