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HumanEnvironment Relations

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... a beautiful wife, Pandora, but he gives Pandora two gifts, curiosity and ... Pandora opens the box and out fly all of the horrors which plague the world ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: HumanEnvironment Relations


1
Human-Environment Relations
  • Religious roots of various attitudes

2
Judaism/Christianity/Islam
  • Everything in nature was created by a single
    supreme being with unlimited powers.

3
Nature as Gods Handiwork
  • But ask the beasts, and they will teach you the
    birds of the sky, and they will tell you or
    speak to the earth and it will teach you the
    fish of the sea, they will inform you. Who among
    all these does not know that the hand of the
    Eternal has done this? (Job 127-9)

4
Judaism/Christianity/Islam
  • A single, supreme God created man and woman, who
    lived in perfect harmony with nature, and had all
    their needs provided for by nature until they
    committed an act of evil. All of humankind was
    subsequently punished for this act by being
    forced to work in order to survive. Struggling
    against nature is therefore part of humanitys
    fallen condition.

5
Nature as Place of Exile Punishment
  • And to Adam, the Lord said "Because you have
    listened to your wife, and have eaten of the tree
    of which I commanded you not to eat Cursed be
    the ground because of you in toil shall you eat
    of it all the days of your life thorns and
    thistles shall it bring forth to you and you
    shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat
    of your brow you shall eat bread, till you return
    to the ground, since out of it you were taken
    for dust you are and unto dust you shall return"
    (Gen. 3, 17-19).

6
Judaism/Christianity/Islam
  • Humankind was granted dominion over the earth by
    a single, supreme God. A particular way of
    treating the environment would only be bad in
    this Gods eyes if it resulted in harm to another
    person or was in violation of one of Gods
    commandments.

7
Dominion
  • And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be
    fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,
    and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of
    the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
    every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
  • And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb
    bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the
    earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit
    of a tree yielding seed to you it shall be for
    meat.
  • Genesis

8
Dominion
  • Each thing that God has created is a wondrous
    sign, full of meaning pointing beyond itself to
    the glory and greatness of its Creator, His
    wisdom and His purposes for it. He Who has
    spread out the earth for you and threaded roads
    for you therein and has sent down water from the
    sky With it have We brought forth diverse kinds
    of vegetation. Eat and pasture your cattle
    verily, in this are signs for men endowed with
    understanding.
  • Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences,
    ISLAMSET http//www.islamset.com/env/section1.html

9
Judaism/Christianity/Islam
  • A single, supreme God created both humankind and
    nature and meant for humankind to assume
    stewardship (benign authority) over nature. A
    particular way of treating the environment might
    be bad if it shows a lack of respect for Gods
    creations.

10
Stewardship
  • Because God has chosen the sphere of nature as
    the setting for human interaction, his covenant
    with us gives us the responsibility of caring
    for, nurturing, respecting, sustaining, and
    replenishing his creation. We often respond by
    viewing nature as a commodity to be done with as
    we please. However, Gods relationship to
    non-human nature, which has intrinsic value,
    calls for a higher ethic.
  • Global Stewardship Task Force, Abilene Christian
    University, http//emc2.acu.edu/christian_stewards
    hip/christian_stewardship.html

11
Stewardship
  • In Genesis 215 humans are told to abad the
    garden in which they have been placed. This
    Hebrew word is most commonly translated as
    tend. This might imply that we look after the
    garden so that it serves us. Elsewhere in the Old
    Testament, however, abad is translated as to
    serve (eg Genesis 2523 2729 Ex 1412). In
    other words, our task is to operate within our
    particular garden (ie the area we can influence)
    in a way that primarily benefits the garden - so
    as to be the gardens servant.
  • John Ray Initiative, http//www.jri.org.uk/brief/w
    indsor_2000.htm

12
Stewardship
  • Muhammad Created beings are the dependents of
    God, and the creature dearest unto God is he who
    does most good to God's dependents.
  • Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences,
    ISLAMSET website http//www.islamset.com/env/sect
    ion1.html

13
Judaism/Christianity/Islam
  • Nature as a place of punishment
  • Nature as human property (dominion)
  • Nature as dependent on human care (stewardship)
  • All three reflect a single idea
  • Alienation from nature
  • People are separate from nature
  • Nature exists out there and people (a) suffer
    from it, (b) exploit it, or (c) have to maintain
    it

14
Indo-European Polytheism
  • Nature arose from a process of procreation (e.g.
    between the sky and the earth) which gave birth
    to the first generation of gods (e.g. sun, moon,
    sea, time, mountains), who in turn produced the
    other gods. These gods have human emotions and
    attitudes (jealousy, lust, creativity, courage,
    etc.) and may take human form. They also may
    interfere in human events for noble or base
    reasons.

15
Indo-European Polytheism
  • Living religion
  • Hinduism
  • Dead religions
  • Greek
  • Roman
  • Norse

16
Nature as Immanent gods and place of punishment
  • Greek Creation Myth
  • Darkness and emptiness, bird with black wings
    (Nyx) lays egg. Out of egg hatches Eros, god of
    love. Half of shell becomes sky and other half
    becomes earth. Eros makes them fall in love.
  • Uranus (sky) and Gaia (earth) have many children
    (the Titans). One of them Kronus, swallows his
    children until wife, Rhea, hides youngest (Zeus)
    and gives Kronus a rock wrapped in swaddling
    cloths to swallow.
  • Zeus grows up sets free his siblings. They
    conquer Kronus and furnish Gaia with life and
    Uranus with stars. Zeus summons his sons and
    tells them to go to Earth and create men and
    animals and give each one a gift. Epimetheus uses
    up all the gifts on the animals so Prometheus
    gives man fire although only the gods were
    supposed to have it.
  • Zeus becomes furious and sentences Prometheus to
    have his liver pecked by a vulture every day till
    eternity. To Epimetheus he presents a beautiful
    wife, Pandora, but he gives Pandora two gifts,
    curiosity and a box she is not supposed to open.
    Pandora opens the box and out fly all of the
    horrors which plague the world today--pain,
    sickness, envy, greed.

17
Animism in Greek thought
  • There was a clear pool, with shining silvery
    waters, where shepherds had never made their
    wayIts peace was undisturbed by bird or beast or
    falling branches.
  • Narcissus, wearied with hunting in the heat of
    the day, lay down here
  • As he lay on the bank, he gazed at the twin stars
    that were his eyes, at his flowing locks, worthy
    of Bacchus or Apollo, his smooth cheeks, his
    ivory neck, his lovely face
  • No thought of food or sleep could draw him from
    the spot I am in love and see my loved one, but
    that form which I see and love, I cannot reach
  • his body was nowhere to be found. Instead of
    his corpse, they discovered a flower with a
    circle of white petals round a yellow center.

18
Animism in Greek thought
  • Byblis confessed her passionate love to her
    brother Caunus, was rejected, went mad
  • The woods were thinning when, weary with her
    pursuit, Byblis collapsed and lay where she fell,
    her hair spread out upon the hard ground, and her
    face pressed into the fallen leaves. She
    uttered not a word, but lay digging her nails
    into the green grass, watering the meadow with a
    river of tears. They say that the nymphs
    fashioned a channel for these tears, which could
    never run dryso Byblis was consumed by her own
    tears and changed into a fountain, which even now
    wells up in that valley, beneath a dark ilex
    tree, and still bears the name of its mistress.

19
Greek thought
  • Many tragic and melodramatic tales could be
    recalled by looking at trees, flowers, etc.
  • Nature as a collection of gods, goddesses, and
    transformed people
  • Motif of punishment is present, but not
    punishment of current inhabitantspunishment as a
    kind of geological force

20
Buddhism/Hinduism
  • Nature is populated by an infinite number of
    perfect living souls, clothed in various forms of
    matter (from worm flesh to human flesh) that
    makes them imperfect and confused. When a being
    dies it is reincarnated again into the world of
    illusions and suffering. This happens again and
    again until a being achieves enlightenment, which
    it can only do in human form.

21
Buddhism/Hinduism
  • To kill another living being is to cause the
    suffering of another perfect being which is in a
    sense an equal, and also a part of oneself. This
    harm weighs upon the killer like a debt to the
    universe and acts to delay his or her
    transcendence of the world of illusions and
    suffering.

22
Buddhism
  • The things that make up the world, including
    people, are not really separate from each other
    the perception of separate things is an illusion.
    The path toward enlightenment involves conquering
    the desire to possess and control things, because
    this desire, and our efforts to satisfy it,
    maintain the illusion of the self as separate
    from the rest of the universe.

23
Experience as Illusion
  • Maya, as per Hindu thought, is illusion, and
    what mankind understands to be reality is in fact
    the dream of Brahma. Brahma is the creator and
    great magician who dreams the universe into
    being. The dream itself is maintained by Vishnu,
    the Preserver, who uses maya to spin the complex
    web that we know as reality. It is not that the
    world itself is an illusion, only our perception
    of it. Whereas we suppose the universe to be made
    up of a multitude of objects, structures and
    events, the theory of maya asserts that all
    things are one. Rational categories are mere
    fabrications of the human mind and have no
    ultimate reality.
  • A Tribute to Hinduism, http//www.atributetohindui
    sm.com/Hindu_Cosmology.htm

24
Hinduism/Buddhism
  • The cycle of death and reincarnation is a cycle
    of suffering and pain. To achieve release from
    this cycle, people must avoid activities that
    contaminate them in a spiritual sense. People
    with a low social status are delegated the task
    of killing animals so that high-status people do
    not have to suffer from this form of spiritual
    contamination.

25
Hindu/Buddhist views of nature
  • Nature and humanity are part of the same order
  • People and animals are both caught up in the
    cycle of death and rebirth
  • Suffering is not a form of punishment, but part
    of the universal condition of living things
  • To harm part of nature is to harm oneself
  • Do not harm cows
  • Harm other animals only if necessary
  • Delegate this task (butchering) to polluted
    people

26
Taoism
  • Nature provides a model for the way to achieve
    satisfaction and contentment during ones life.
    Nature achieves incredible things without
    exerting itself, forcing things, or developing
    plans of action. Just as a river simply wears
    down rough stones by following the path of least
    resistance, people can achieve much by following
    the path of least resistance.

27
Taoism
  • Only fragmented pieces of reality can be captured
    in words. Nature itself speaks more truly about
    the meaning of existence than any religious
    beliefs that can be put into words.

28
Platonism (Greek philosophy)
  • Nature is a collection of imperfect
    approximations subject to various forms of
    corruption. For example, the horizon approaches
    flatness but never is entirely flat. The path
    toward understanding of nature lies in
    recognizing the ideal forms which natural
    phenomena only approximate.

29
Animism
  • The natural world contains places, plants, and
    animals with special powers. People can benefit
    from these powers if they use metaphorical logic
    to determine what those powers are. E.g. a plant
    that oozes red fluid should have special powers
    over diseases that lead to excessive bleeding.

30
Scientific Rationality
  • The natural world contains places, plants, and
    animals with special powers. People can benefit
    from these powers if they use rational-analytic
    logic to determine what those powers are.
  • e.g. a plant that causes paralysis may contain
    chemicals that are useful during surgery to
    prevent convulsions.

31
Scientism
  • Nature is the product of laws and forces, not of
    conscious creation. People are not judged on the
    basis of their treatment of nature except by
    other people, and nature has no value unless it
    is of use to people (for example as a source of
    food, building materials, chemicals, or
    knowledge).

32
Scientific view of nature
  • Resources

33
Pantheism
  • The entire universe is a living, conscious being.
    People, like everything else, are part of this
    being. What people call God is in everything
    equally and cannot be separated into creator and
    creations. People should therefore treat all of
    nature with respect, awe, and humility.

34
Pantheism
  • Nature does not work with an end in view. For
    the eternal and infinite Being, which we call God
    or Nature, acts by the same necessity as that
    whereby it exists.
  • (Spinoza, The Ethics, iv. Preface)
  • Individual things are nothing but modifications
    of the attributes of God, or modes by which the
    attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and
    definite manner. (Spinoza, The Ethics, i.25.)
  • Larry King
  • Do you believe in God?
  • Stephen Hawking
  • Yes, if by God is meant the embodiment of the
    laws of the universe.
  • (Larry King Live, December 25, 1999)
  • god is not the voice in the whirlwind
  • god is the whirlwind.
  • (Margaret Atwood Resurrection)

35
Pantheists
  • Albert Einstein
  • Georgia OKeeffe
  • Henry David Thoreau
  • Rachel Carson
  • Margaret Atwood
  • Stephen Hawking
  • Sitting Bull
  • Mikhail Gorbachev
  • Terry Jordan-Bychkov
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