Olivia Strittmatter - Ecology and Religion

April 11, 2020

From topic of my choosing 5

I forgot to post this yesterday after I wrote it, which is why it’s backdated. Apologies.

This blog post is number five out of the five on my personal topic, religion and ecology. The fifth article that I’m going to cover is an article from Encyclopedia.com. I can’t find an author for it. I will add the link to the article at the bottom of this blog. 

This article starts out talking about how religion and ecology is an emerging area of study that encompasses parts from multiple different other areas of study such as history, sociology, geography, anthropology, politics, and, of course, environmental studies. It discusses the relationships between “humans, Earth, cosmos, and the sacred.” I really liked that part of the quote from the article because throughout our class we’ve discussed the ideas of cosmos and the sacred in primal cultures. I think that this article especially shows that primal religions really are highly interconnected with the environment and the ecology that surrounds them. Even religions that are not primarily nature-based, such a Christianity, integrate the environment into their religious practices. Each religion expresses it’s connections with the Earth and the cosmos in different ways, with unique symbols, rituals, and narratives that are all specialized for their landscapes. 

The article then goes on to talk more about the history of the study of religions and ecology, but I don’t think that those parts relate too much to our class, so I won’t be going over those. If you’re interested though, the link is below.


https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/ecology-and-religion-overview

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