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Religion & The Environment
April 9, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Today in my Ren. To Modern Day Humanities course my teacher was talking to us about how religions before christianity (pagan) were one with nature and basically much of the religion itself was related to nature. This raised an interesting point in my atheist brain, do you think if it weren't for the abrahamic religions that we'd be better off environmentally? It actually makes sense, that once christianity came around peoplehad this mentality that God was going to save them and the earth could not fail, so why take care of it? Plus, in the abrahamic religions, humans are the center and most important whereas in others they are equal to everything else on earth (and beyond). I still think we would have royally effed up the earth either way with technology and such, but I'm sure this "oh it doesnt matter how much polution we put out into the world, gods going to save us" mentally didnt help much.
thoughts?!
Cher
"I have no advice for anybody; except to, you know, be awake enough to see where you are at any given time, and how that is beautiful, and has poetry inside. Even places you hate" -Jeff Buckley
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RE: Religion & The Environment
April 10, 2009 at 4:03 am
Interesting thought. I think the Abrhamic faiths encourage custody of the planet. It's not as direct as the more primitive faiths, and I respect them for that. But it is there.
You could also think of it as a natural progression that people think themselves more important. Atheism is perhaps one step further down that road.. now we're saying we don't need God either.. we're one better than that.
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RE: Religion & The Environment
April 10, 2009 at 12:34 pm
No, that's actually wrong. We aren't saying we don't need a God, we are saying there IS NO god. There's a big difference. Whether we need one or not is irrelevant. If there is a god, he's not doing such a hot job anyway. Atheism is not one step down that 'road' as you call it, we think of it as our responsibility alone to protect the planet. Not some invisible deity in the sky. Most of us think we are just as important as everything else on earth, no better, no worse.
Cher
"I have no advice for anybody; except to, you know, be awake enough to see where you are at any given time, and how that is beautiful, and has poetry inside. Even places you hate" -Jeff Buckley
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RE: Religion & The Environment
April 10, 2009 at 1:48 pm
(This post was last modified: April 10, 2009 at 1:48 pm by fr0d0.)
I think it's saying the same thing. Nowadays people don't have the need to respect nature like they did through religious observation apparent throughout human history. Now we're more independent, or perceive ourselves to be so.
I'm not saying we don't realise our responsibility to the environment now. Modern life is inherently damaging to the planet. Any lip service to green issues is mostly just that. I also think we're not more important than everything else on the planet. I think of us as less important mostly.
God only acts when invited, you're not going to witness much when denying the concept.
