The Conversion of Nature and Technology (1)

At the level of the life-world, nature is the ambiguous dimension of the overwhelming, the inescapable, and the sustaining, all in one. It is sustaining: It surrounds, pervades, and supports man. It is overwhelming: It constantly threatens, and occasionally without warning engulfs, man. It is inescapable: Both as sustaining and overwhelming, nature is ineluctable.


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Idol Worship, Idle Worship (4): Ending the Exchange

If one worships by adopting prescribed postures of worship, and going through all the prescribed motions while reciting all the prescribed prayers, and does so in hopes of reward, then one is not really worshipping at all. Rather, those who “worship” in such a way are really just doing business as usual, trying to cut themselves the best deal.

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Idol Worship, Idle Worship (2): Breaking the Circulation

Water flows. Money circulates. In flowing, water always seeks a way down to the lowest levels, where it accumulates to form wells, ponds, lakes, pools, and seas. The water that falls on the heights flows down to the valleys, to gather in such deep places.  Human habitations can be built beside such places, the natural places of water, and along the streams and rivers that flow into them. In contrast, money in its circulation proceeds quite differently. Instead of flowing from above down to what is below, it rises upwards into ever more rarefied heights to accumulate there, where fewer and fewer people can survive.

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