how does your religion relate to the devastating effect our post-industrial species has on the planet, and what does it have to say about combating the mess we've created?
Funny that the subject was brought up in this thread - as I just got a book the other day on the issue entitled "
Food, Farming and Faith" by Gary W. Fick (a professor of agronomy at Cornell and scientist who is a Christian).
It addresses the many ways that the theistic worldview requires one to believe that taking care of our world is not a small issues. And it's something that many others have sought to do for some time. Within the history of the Church, this is a very big deal
Where I'm from and what I grew up with, if you claim to believe in God and yet trash the environment or ignore where one must continually learn how to adapt in order to take care of it, you're no different than a teenager trashing their room /the house they live in and then saying they love their parents who took the time to provide it. We cannot claim to love the artist and yet defame his artwork - and having a spiritual view of the world with all things being interconnected helps greatly in preventing a lack of appreciation for things. I wish others were more concerned with addressing issues as they are....
and some of this I have shared before on repeatedly - as have other Christians, like in places such as
Mother Earth, Heavenly Father, and How the Bible Counsels Our Views on Environmentalism | Pastor James Hein's Blog
For me, whatever your leaning is with theism will determine the theistic outcome you get - and having a theistic worldview that goes toward
Panentheism is key in not taking environmental issues lightly. Believing God is "out there, somewhere" leads to having a great disconnect from taking the world seriously - wherea
s believing God is only concerned for humans leads to ignoring where everything is interconnected, even as it concerns the animals killed....or the land damaged (as Native Americans often noted).
With Climate Change, I am always shocked to see others not take the matter seriously - as if there's no warming happening on any level and things are simply remaining the same. Moreover, it is saddening to witness the ways that others have divorced addressing the issue from the ways that people are impacted. In example, last year I had to do some research for an organization I was with on for a project - as it is on the issue of the Inuit/Eskimos and the ways that their ways of life are being harmed (specifically food security/environment based on ice) by much of the globilization going on near them - in addition to the devestation happening to the food supply and the high prices being placed on foods in the North with the markets.....and many communities not being able to afford it at all. More was written elsewhere in a thread I made on the issue - seen in
Eskimo Eradication: Why is the U.S aiding the destruction/starvation of the Inuit?. Naturally, being Orthodox, it was not difficult finding solidarity with them on the struggles they were having.
I have a deep love for Native American culture - and historically, they have a beautiful heritage. With Alaska, I
know of others who did amazing work in helping the Eskimos - even though others seemed to act as if what's happening to Eskimos up North is a small issue.
There are indeed
a number of striking similarities between Orthodox and American Indian cosmologies, particularly the Inuit/Aleut tribes of Alaska - AND thus, it's not an issue to speak for them when it comes to the wisdom they were seeking to advocate with taking climate change seriously. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew shared on the issue some very excellent information:
With Mass EXTINCTION of animal species, many people assume it happens naturally without any kind of contributions from humanity. However, we don't realize how much we've played a big part in the extensive extinction that has occurred. In example, Poaching is something I'm amazed others take lightly..(more discussed elsewhere in #
47 ). Years ago, I was saddened (at least one of the stories on it) to learn on how a species of rhino was wiped out recently:
For another example, the fish are feeling it very hard lately, as the plight of the world's fish supply due to overfishing is already clear. Now fish stocks face another pressure as fish will shrink up to a quarter by 2050 as a result of climate change, according to a new study. The findings, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, were based on a computer projection "to see how fish would react to lower levels of oxygen in the water," Matt McGrath at BBC News writes. One can read more in
Climate Change Will Shrink Fish Size - Business Insider. Setting the stage for man to kill himself in multiple ways (death by a thousand cuts) when it comes to being wasteful with the environment.
Some of the things that man has done toward the world are not surprising....as man often tends to do things in ways that damage him in the end due to how he has yet to learn how to take care of his neighbor - and when desperation sets in, so does bad behavior. This can be see, for example, in MANY nations in Asia where the economy is struggling due to exploitation and impoverishment/neglect of others --the evidence of this seen in many of the trades they allow/support there which are apart of the Black Market/Underworld dealings others turn to for survival.
Smuggling wildlife is one of those things.....as it is one of the top industries in the world---a sympton of the black market and organized crime....and in many ways, a rape of the natural world due to the bad economies of certain Asian nations. Some of these animals are killed for traditional medicines as well as for food...sometimes, exotic foods. And others are simply killed for the sake of decorations, as is the case with the massive eradication of elephants for their ivory tusks. ....with many of them used in Catholic churches. Shocked me seeing the ways that even believers were involved in the massive slaughter. Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma said the Catholic Church does not condone killing animals to make their parts into religious items, like taking the tusks of elephants and carving these into ivory statues.
Was reading on that at home years ago when considering the poaching of elephants, smuggling of elephant tusks and the illegal trade of ivory worldwide that were highlighted in a recent National Geographic article, Blood Ivory subtitled Ivory Worship written by Bryan Christy. ..
with a priest in the Philippines being involved in a controversy over the issue of illegal trade for making religious items (more discussed
here). Despite global ivory ban,
global ivory ban, tusks are carved into Jesuses, prayer beads, and amulets.
It's bad enough that poaching/ivory trade has actually led to civil wars across Africa and the funding of terorism on multiple fronts - more shared in
Blood ivory: Is $10bn-a-year trade fuelling civil conflict in Africa? - News - www.theeastafrican.co.ke and
Ivory Apocalypse - Elephants Without Borders
Tanzania's Blood Ivory: The Threat of Poaching - YouTube
Like blood diamonds, a conflict resource in Africa today is ivory. With such a high demand and the development of highly organised criminal syndicates with distribution networks across national boundaries, it is no wonder groups such as Ugandas LRA are believed to be turning to ivory and Rhino horn to finance their terrorist activities
But to see ivory poaching used to justify religious expression as well is a big deal..
In an interview, the author of the piece, Bryan Christy, said
its up to religious leaders to end this practice:
the leader of the Catholic Church have an extraordinary opportunity to make a difference to the survival of elephants. Few words to them: enough with the religious icons in ivory.
Contraband that failed to get past Kenyas law enforcement agencies (Brent Stirton National
And for more info on the issue, one can go online/consider investigating the following under their respective titles:
Nature was NOT meant to be subjected to MAN's dominion.......which in their minds equates to man having DOMINATION of nature and allowed to do whatever he desires. For myself, I cannot see that due to how the Lord seemed to have Adam/Eve in the garden caring for it-----as Genesis 2 makes clear
Genesis 2:7 10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.
11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold.
12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin
[d] and onyx are also there.)
13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.
[e] 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
