Olivia Strittmatter - Christianity

 Blog Post 15 - Topic of my Choice 5

Week 15

        For this blog post I’m going to be writing my fifth post about the topic of my choosing, which is: comparing how different religions interact with nature and the ecology that surrounds that followers of each religion. The religion that I’m writing about this week is Christianity. Overall, Christianity isn’t a religion that is beneficial to the environmentalism movements, and this article I found gives some reasons as to why. 

First of all, Genesis 2:15 says “the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” This should be interpreted to mean that we need to care for the Earth and all of the creatures on it, from people to cockroaches to microorganisms. This typically isn’t the case though. Christians often believe that God gave them the Earth to use as they wish, as long as it is beneficial to man. Some people think that human well-being is more important than environmental well-being, even though environmental problems impact people negatively. If we don’t care for the environment mankind will suffer because of it, and we must care for the environment in order to care for man. Another argument is that other tasks, such as spreading Christian beliefs, is more important than protecting the environment. The counter to this is that god is concerned with the physical world as much as he is with the spiritual world. This means that man should not forget his duty of caring for Eden, even while there are other things to do.

Personally I don’t like that last point, that spreading Christianity is the most important thing for Christians to do. Forcing religion on people, trying to convert people, and discussing one religion as the “right” one is nonsense. It’s rooted in colonialism and is morally wrong. There is nothing more important than environmental issues, without an environment that is suitable for life, there is no more religion, no more man, no more life. I think that from any religion’s point of view environmental action should be extremely important because whatever deity you follow cares for the Earth. If you believe in a monotheistic deity, such as Christianity, Islam, or Judeism, you believe that God created the Earth and universe, and by destroying the Earth you’re destroying God’s creation. I’m not entirely sure where this is going, but I think it’s disrespectful to any deity to believe that man has the right to destroy what a deity created.

        This blog wasn’t as closely related to my other 4 blogs on this topic, but I chose it because of that. Christians tend to have a different view on environmentalism and ecology than other religions, there’s not really any deep-rooted environmental beliefs that are taught.

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