Religion and the Earth

Another weird pronouncement from the pope (via Chris Bodenner at Daily Dish):

Is it not true that inconsiderate use of creation begins where God is marginalized or also where is existence is denied? If the human creature’s relationship with the Creator weakens, matter is reduced to egoistic possession, man becomes the “final authority,” and the objective of existence is reduced to a feverish race to possess the most possible.

Frankly, no, it's not, particularly. In fact, historically Christianity has been one of the biggest offenders against the integrity of the environment. As I understand it, until very recently (and still, in many quarters), the idea was that man and nature both fell from grace, and only man can be redeemed. Thus, "stewardship" becomes exploitation. This seems particularly true of some Protestant sects, with their emphasis on mechanistic views of human psychology and their "God rewards the faithful" brand of materialism. It's changing, but it's a matter of controversy within Christianity, especially in evangelical circles.

And of course, being Benedict, he's got to blame someone outside the Church. I would be surprised it's not the gays, except that as I recall, we're responsible for tornadoes and hurricanes, and quite possibly the banking crisis as well, so I guess atheists will have to take responsibility for environmental degradation.

Daniel Florien seems to agree:

Most of the people I’ve met who don’t care about the earth have been Christians. I’m sure my experience is biased, but I also haven’t met an atheist that isn’t concerned about our environment — though I’m sure there are some. Most Christians who don’t care about the environment do so on the basis that God has things under control and he’ll eventually torch the earth anyway. Atheists, on the other hand, believe this is the only home we have and we need to take care of it.

There are Christians who care about the environment, but that’s been a fairly recent bandwagon for them. The evangelical green movement has been gaining momentum, and I’m pleased with that.

I should point out that I'm pleased to see that there is a green movement among evangelicals. I should also point out that, if you'll remember, espousing the view that the evangelical movement should focus more on the environment and poverty and less on gay rights and abortion brought about calls for the resignation of one official of a major association of evangelicals (and Lord love me, I've forgotten the name again). So it's not a done deal yet, by any means.

There were also a couple of interesting responses. This one made me think:

Daniel Florien may not have met any atheists unconcerned with the environment, but I believe that is because of his US-centric viewpoint. In my experience, in Europe, tables are usually turned around, with catholics being far more in favor of preserving the environment than the majority of atheists. The reason for this is that such position has less to do with religious affiliation (or lack thereof) and everything to do with eduction levels. In Europe, the lower classes (education-wise) tend to be atheistic (communists, anarchists, marxists, etc) while in the US is the other way round.

Unfortunately, if one looks at the numbers that show that most Europeans are not very strong believers, this one becomes less easy to swallow. (Just on its face, it seems to be as biased as Florien's statement.) I suspect in the case of Europe, it's a matter of long tradition -- for example, farming practices that avoid chemical fertilizers in favor of recycling organic matter into the soil, which farmers in Europe have been doing for a thousand years.

Frankly, I can only see a variable connection between belief in a deity and care for the earth. It's good to see the pope coming out with this message, although if you read the whole thing, it's still extremely humanocentric -- it's all about taking care of the earth because it's good for humanity, which is certainly a practical consideration, but it has nothing to do with anyone's gods. As I say, Pagans are highly likely to be environmentally conscious, Protestant Christians less so, in my experience. I suspect it has a lot more to do with political affiliation than anything else -- environmentalism is a liberal stance, in this country at least. It's nice that conservatives, some of them, anyway, are finally catching on.