Religion and the Environment Essays

Religion and the Environment Essays Religion and the Environment Essay Religion and the Environment Essay There are many speculations as too why our culture, the â€Å"West† seems to not care about the environment or the ways of nature. Many people believe it is the way that the bible views nature, specifically within the Christianity religion. Reasons for this is that Christians don’t view nature as a divine power like other religions, like Hinduism or Buddhism; Christianity is also a strong anthropocentric religion, teaching that human beings are divinely ordained to rule over and dominate all other species and nature (Kinsley 103). Does this mean that all Christians view nature as pure nothingness and an inconvenience? No, this religion is more focused on the spiritual fulfillment with the presence of God, and not specifically to the mysterious powers of the earth (Kinsley 106). â€Å"Many Christian writings, and much Christian theology, relegate nature and matter generally to a low status relative to the divine which is equated with spirit alone (Kinsley 103).† This is a very key point brought up by Kinsley because he shows that the religion doesn’t view nature as a holy or scared place, but a view of the world that postulates a transcendent deity who creates the world but does not invest himself in it in such a way to make it holy or sacred (Kinsley 104). So hypothetically let’s say when the people of the religion would clear out some land for their civilization, they never viewed it as a destruction of a spiritual being. Christianity is very anthropocentric, which sets human beings against nature, makes human beings superior to, and in control of, nature (Kinsley 104). Here is an entry from the Bible that has a good demonstration of this. â€Å"Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish in the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea (Psalms 8:5-8).† The Christians again are viewi