Conservation as Religion
posted by Drew Palm | November 14, 2010
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IcerocketAs I was fighting off my typical sleepiness in my early morning American Religions class that is usually bogged down by my Professor's slow lectures that stress our attention, I was awakened when my Professor, who is a professed Mormon, said that he believed the next big 'religious' movement in the country would be the ideas of conserving the Earth and sustainability practices, a movement that has been roaring to rolling boil over the last decade. I was first surprised, second elated, and third doubtful. I now am somewhere in the middle, although I do know that I like the idea of calling these movements religious. It has some of the taste of religion and I'm not just talking about those who call our planet 'Mother Earth.'
Would you call the movement a religion? I believe it ties in to many of the things discussed here, like religion and spirituality, and perhaps it is a religion. Does the word religion come loaded with too many negative associations to use it?
Comments
Education and Outlook
— Nov 15, 2010
Looking at a framework of religion to build an eco-consciousness would not be sustainable. Environmental science is constantly changing as we put more and more resources into discovering how various aspects of climate change, pollution, recycling, consumption and conservation behavior effect the system.
To codify and ritualized behavior may be more detrimental than good. For example we have all kept plastic bags for recycling. We have faith that those bags get recycled, however many companies don't recycle them because they melt and gum up the machines, so they get tossed. So the better behavior is get those tote bags made from recycled plastic and use those instead of the plastic bags. For many years I assumed that the plastic I was turning in was being recycled.
It's a process of education and altering behavior.
However, to your professor's point there is different sort of change and that is respecting the earth in a religious context. Up until recently most religions did not have ecological justice on their radar. Realizing that pollution and unmitigated development and climate change is a human endeavor, not caused by God, so then we have to atone and stop sinning. That is new and could be a powerful catalyst in groups who would otherwise never care or deny any fault in the ecological disasters we are continuing to perpetrate.
IE if you are a right-wing-fundamentalist and you come to the realization that Jesus may hold you accountable for owning that SUV, supporting the Coal, Gas, and Oil political interests, and vocally denying the truth of climate change - well that changes your outlook on end-of-days! We'll see if any this takes in the grass roots.
6 Tektite Serpent
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"That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly" - Thomas Paine
"We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing" - Seneca
