revised the words, sharpening the point of each stanza at the expense of some of the echo to the original words
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The sixth [[Liturgical Season]] runs from mid-summer to the fall equinox and covers the rise of human civilization and the invention of the technologies that make [[The Destiny]] possible. What are the major advances that were made during this period. Science, Religion, Industry, Democracy??
Here is [[Eric]]'s draft of the opening ceremony for the [[Weekly Service Calls]] during this season:
:Wilderness ... still ... wilderness ...
::And then ... <gasp> ... civilization!
:People. Warm-blooded. Social. Tool-users. Talking.
:Nations coalesce.
::In the fertile lands, cities are born.
::And for every city ... there is a story!
:Many stories begin with religion, practices that bind,
::the beliefs that spark community into being!
:Then came science!
::The practice of seeking truth through experience.
::The upward spiral of knowledge
:Next came industry, our first job.
::decreasing the cost to create new tools,
::in an upward spiral of ever growing ability.
:Finally, democracy emerged!
::Making striving for the Destiny,
::Freely available to all living citizens.
:Religion. Science. Industry. Freedom.
:From Wilderness ... Civilization!
=== Discussion ===
[[Ben]]: Two significant suggestions for the wording in the sixth season: “the beliefs that spark large-scale community into being,” and “Making striving for their self-chosen destinies/ Freely available to all living citizens.” (Or something more along those lines, anyway.) Also, instead of “industry, our first job,” can we find more general (and inspiring) words that encompass agriculture as well? Something along the lines of “The labor of many, organized and specialized to perform immense tasks...”
[[Eric]]: I think that all communities large and small come from religion or at least shared values. In the early times, all of these were religions. Now we other names for them, movements, causes, visions, etc... In this sense a subdivision isn't a community until and if ever its people get together and work together toward a common goal. This they will only do if they share common values. What is meant by common values is What is important and what things matter. This is the indisputable realm of religion. As Michael Dowd says, "Religions have always helped people to understand two fundamental questions: what's real and what's important. Or how things are, and which things matter." Now science will tell you what is real but only religion can tell you what matters. So if it is telling you what matters, then it is giving you values, and it is in some sense religion. And without values you cannot be a community. So all communities are religion-defined. The more religion-like their source of value then the stronger the community.
Also, I wanted to be specific about industry in the industry paragraph. I am really referring to the industrial revolution. The revolution which gave us the ability to make really big complex stuff, like space shuttles and DNA sequencers. It created the concept of job. Serfs and Peasants didn't have jobs. They worked but their work was organized in a completely different way. They were tied to one place, one lord or baron and one kind of work; usually farming. They didn't have any choices to make. They inherited their work from their parents. But a job is something that you go out and find, you have some choice in the matter, you can move to different cities. You can try to learn new skills that will make you employable in different jobs. That kind of choice wasn't available before the industrial revolution and so Industry was our first job.