Olivia Strittmatter - Religion and Ecology

April 8, 2020

From the topic of my choosing 2

This blog post is number two out of the five on my personal topic, religion and ecology. The second article that I’m going to cover is a scholarly article by Roger S. Gottlieb. I will add the link to the article at the bottom of this blog. 

The article starts off discussing how western monotheistic religions have a clear distinction between man and nature. They tend to think that nature belongs to God, but that once divine ownership is established, meaning once it is bought by someone, that they’re allowed to use that nature however they want for their own personal gain. Gottlieb then goes on to talk about how other religions don’t have such a clear distinction between man and nature. He mentions indigenous religions, Buddhism, Daoism, and Hinduism, as examples where either humans are a part of nature, not above it, or where god is everything in the universe. Gottlieb then goes on to discuss how changes in the world are leading to changes in religious faiths. He says that modern religions have entered an “ecological phase” where environmental concerns are a front running issue along with other traditional issues and values. In summary, once religions become more focused on the ecology of the earth they reevaluate their beliefs and become more “politically energized” as well as “theologically revitalized.” It’s a very long article, and I don’t want this post to just be a summary of it, so this will be the end of the summary part, because I think this is enough to base my comparison off of. 

Overall I thought that the first section of the article related really well to what our current focus is, which is orality versus literacy, because the more oral cultures tend to be more ecocentric while more literate cultures tend to be more anthropocentric. Meaning that primal and oral cultures will be more eco-conscious and will be more mindful about how they’re living, while literate cultures are more self-serving and self righteous and not caring about taking care of the environment.  It’s great though that recently more and more religions, and branches of religions are taking a more environmentally conscious path, because there are lots of current issues that have to do directly with human interference and overconsumption, such as global climate change, species endangerment, and widespread disease, just to name a few broad ones. As I read through the article I was wondering if these changes made by religious and spiritual people will be enough to change the direction things are heading now, and, not to be pessimistic or anything, but I don’t think so. Anyway though, I liked this article a lot, and it was very informative on what is happening with religion and its ties to the environment. It also made me think about how I have noticed changes in religions and religious people even in only my 20 years of life. 

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195178722.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195178722-e-1

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