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Gaia Philosophy
Gaia philosophy (named after Gaia, Greek goddess of the Earth) is a broadly inclusive term for related concepts that living organisms on a planet will affect the nature of their environment in order to make the environment more suitable for life. This set of hypotheses holds that all organisms on a life-giving planet regulate the biosphere in such a way as to promote its habitability. Gaia concept draws a connection between the survivability of a species (hence its evolutionary course) and its usefulness to the survival of other species. While there were a number of precursors to Gaia hypothesis, the first scientific form of this idea was proposed as the Gaia hypothesis by James Lovelock, a UK chemist, in 1970. The Gaia hypothesis deals with the concept of biological homeostasis, and claims the resident life forms of a host planet coupled with their environment have acted and act like a single, self-regulating system. This system includes the near-surface rocks, the soil, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaia (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Gaia (; from Ancient Greek , a poetical form of , 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea , is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenogenic—of all life. She is the mother of Uranus (the sky), from whose sexual union she bore the Titans (themselves parents of many of the Olympian gods), the Cyclopes, and the Giants; as well as of Pontus (the sea), from whose union she bore the primordial sea gods. Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra.''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. Etymology The Greek name Γαῖα (''Gaia'' or ) is a mostly epic, collateral form of Attic (''Gē'' ), and Doric (''Ga'' ), perhaps identical to (''Da'' ), both meaning "Earth". The word is of uncertain origin. Beekes suggested a Pre-Greek origin. Robert S. P. Beekes, ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, pp. 269–270 (''s.v. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aether (classical Element)
According to ancient and medieval science, aether (, alternative spellings include ''æther'', ''aither'', and ''ether''), also known as the fifth element or quintessence, is the material that fills the region of the universe beyond the terrestrial sphere. The concept of aether was used in several theories to explain several natural phenomena, such as the traveling of light and gravity. In the late 19th century, physicists postulated that aether permeated all throughout space, providing a medium through which light could travel in a vacuum, but evidence for the presence of such a medium was not found in the Michelson–Morley experiment, and this result has been interpreted as meaning that no such luminiferous aether exists. Mythological origins The word (''aithḗr'') in Homeric Greek means "pure, fresh air" or "clear sky". In Greek mythology, it was thought to be the pure essence that the gods breathed, filling the space where they lived, analogous to the ''air'' breathed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Kirchner
James W. Kirchner is professor of Earth and Planetary Science at University of California, Berkeley. His current research spans the fields of geomorphology, hydrology, environmental geochemistry, evolutionary ecology, and paleobiology. He currently serves as the director of Berkeley's Central Sierra Field Research Stations. A study by Kirchner and Anne Weil showed that the time taken for life on earth to recover from extinction episodes such as that which destroyed the dinosaurs is not, as previously thought, proportional to the damage done. Instead, Kirchner and Wiel, analyzing fossil record data compiled by Jack Sepkoski Joseph John Sepkoski Jr. (July 26, 1948 – May 1, 1999) was a University of Chicago paleontologist. Sepkoski studied the fossil record and the diversity of life on Earth. Sepkoski and David Raup contributed to the knowledge of extinction events. ..., found that recovery time for catastrophic die-offs was about 10 million years regardless of the number of spe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Bonewits
Phillip Emmons Isaac Bonewits (October 1, 1949 – August 12, 2010) was an American Neo-druidry, Neo-Druid who published a number of books on the subject of Neopaganism and magic (paranormal), magic. He was a public speaker, liturgist, singer and songwriter, and founder of the Neopagan organizations Ár nDraíocht Féin and the Aquarian Anti-Defamation League. Born in Royal Oak, Michigan, Bonewits had been heavily involved in occultism since the 1960s. Early life and education Bonewits was born on October 1, 1949, in Royal Oak, Michigan, as the fourth of five children. His father was a Presbyterian while his mother a Catholic. Spending much of his childhood in Ferndale, Michigan, Ferndale, he was moved at age 12 to San Clemente, California, where he spent a short time in a Catholic high school before he went back to public school to graduate from high school a year early. He enrolled at UC Berkeley in 1966; he graduated from the university in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thealogy
Thealogy views divine matters with feminine perspectives including but not only feminism. Valerie Saiving, Isaac Bonewits (1976) and Naomi Goldenberg (1979) introduced the concept as a neologism (new word) in feminist terms. Its use then widened to mean all feminine ideas of the sacred, which Charlotte Caron usefully explained in 1993: "reflection on the divine in feminine or feminist terms". By 1996, when Melissa Raphael published ''Thealogy and Embodiment'', the term was well established. As a neologism, the term derives from two Greek language, Greek words: ''thea'', , meaning "goddess", the feminine equivalent of ''theos'', "god" (from PIE root *''dhes''-); and ''logos'', , plural ''logoi'', often found in English as the suffix '' -logy'', meaning "word", "reason" or "plan", and in Greek philosophy and theology the divine reason implicit in the cosmos. Thealogy has areas in common with feminist theology, the study of God from a feminist perspective, often emphasising ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the supernatural, but also deals with religious epistemology, asks and seeks to answer the question of revelation. Revelation pertains to the acceptance of God, gods, or deities, as not only transcendent or above the natural world, but also willing and able to interact with the natural world and, in particular, to reveal themselves to humankind. While theology has turned into a secular field , religious adherents still consider theology to be a discipline that helps them live and understand concepts such as life and love and that helps them lead lives of obedience to the deities they follow or worship. Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument ( experiential, philosophical, ethnographic, historical, and others) to help under ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Green Egg
''Green Egg'' is a Neopagan magazine published by the Church of All Worlds intermittently since 1968. The '' Encyclopedia of American Religions'' described it as a significant periodical. First version, 1968–1976 ''Green Egg'' was created by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, who was the editor from 1968 to 1974. It started as a one-page ditto sheet. It continued under another editor for two more years, by which point it had grown over 80 issues into a 60-page journal. According to J. Gordon Melton in the ''Encyclopedia of American Religions'', it became "the most significant periodical in the Pagan movement during the 1970s and made Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, its editor, a major force in Neo-Paganism". It became dormant in 1976. Margot Adler's sociological study '' Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today'' was first published in 1979, shortly after the first incarnation of ''Green Egg'' ceased. (Adler's work was revised and updated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oberon Zell-Ravenheart
Oberon Zell-Ravenheart (born Timothy Zell, November 30, 1942, St. Louis, Missouri; formerly known as Otter G'Zell) is a Neopagan writer, speaker and religious leader. He is the co-founder of the Church of All Worlds. Education Zell earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in 1965 before briefly enrolling in a doctoral program in clinical psychology at Washington University in St. Louis. He also received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Life Science College in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, (a defunct nonresidential seminary analogous to the Universal Life Church) in 1967. In 1968, he completed a teaching certificate at Harris–Stowe State University. His parents were Protestants. Neopaganism In an interview with Natalie Zaman in 2008, Zell described himself as a wizard. Distinguishing his practice from the wizards of fiction, Zell used the alternative spelling '' magick'' (with final "k") and claimed that his interest therein b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lourens Baas Becking
Lourens Gerhard Marinus Baas Becking (4 January 1895 in Deventer – 6 January 1963 in Canberra, Australia) was a Dutch botanist and microbiologist. He is known for the Baas Becking hypothesis, which he originally formulated as ''"Everything is everywhere, but the environment selects"''. Biography Baas Becking was born in Deventer on 4 January 1895. Baas Becking studied microbiology at Delft University before studying biology at Utrecht University with a focus on botany. de Wit and Bouvier (2006) p. 756 In between completing his studies in Utrecht and submitting his thesis, Baas Becking worked in the laboratory of Thomas Hunt Morgan in the United States. In 1923, Baas Becking accepted the position of professor at Stanford, where he taught economic botany and plant physiology. Baas Becking's studies at Stanford heavily influenced his later work by introducing him to research on extremophiles, research he conducted himself as the director of the Jacques Loeb Marine Laborato ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dymaxion Map
The Dymaxion map or Fuller map is a projection of a world map onto the surface of an icosahedron, which can be unfolded and flattened to two dimensions. The flat map is heavily interrupted in order to preserve shapes and sizes. The projection was invented by Buckminster Fuller. The March 1, 1943, edition of ''Life'' magazine included a photographic essay titled "Life Presents R. Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion World". The article included several examples of its use together with a pull-out section that could be assembled as a "three-dimensional approximation of a globe or laid out as a flat map, with which the world may be fitted together and rearranged to illuminate special aspects of its geography." Fuller applied for a patent in the United States in February 1944, showing a projection onto a cuboctahedron, which he called "dymaxion". The patent was issued in January 1946. In 1954, Fuller and cartographer Shoji Sadao produced the Airocean World Map, a version of the Dymaxion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more than 30 books and coining or popularizing such terms as " Spaceship Earth", " Dymaxion" (e.g., Dymaxion house, Dymaxion car, Dymaxion map), "ephemeralization", " synergetics", and "tensegrity". Fuller developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, and popularized the widely known geodesic dome; carbon molecules known as fullerenes were later named by scientists for their structural and mathematical resemblance to geodesic spheres. He also served as the second World President of Mensa International from 1974 to 1983. Fuller was awarded 28 United States patents and many honorary doctorates. In 1960, he was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal from The Franklin Institute. He was elected an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Berry
Thomas Berry, CP (November 9, 1914 – June 1, 2009) was a Catholic priest, cultural historian, and scholar of the world’s religions, especially Asian traditions. Later, as he studied Earth history and evolution, he called himself a “geologian.” He rejected the label “theologian” or “ ecotheologian” as too narrow and not descriptive of his cultural studies in history of religions. He was drawn early on to respond to the growing ecological and climate crisis and proposed the need for aNew Story of evolution in 1978. In this essay he suggested that a deep understanding of the history and functioning of the evolving universe is a necessary inspiration and guide for our own effective functioning as individuals and as a species. Berry believed that humanity, after generations spent in despoiling the planet, is poised to embrace a new role as a vital part of a larger, interdependent Earth community, consisting of a “communion of subjects not a collection of object ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
