Since I read Tocqueville excerpt, I've been often pondering about the role that religion can play in a person's stance towards nature or the earth. I had never really fully comprehended that the reason that so many are so apt to assume the world is "theirs" must stem from the Bible, and its passage of dominion of the earth being handed over to man. Perhaps because I was not raised Christian the thought of the earth belonging to humans never really was ingrained in me. I can't remember ever feeling that the earth was a possession, that we are more than just inhabitants of it along with many other creatures. Tocqueville's writing leaked with this attitude, in lines such as:
"All things considered, the valley of the Mississippi is the most magnificent habitation ever prepared by God for man and yet one may say that it is still only a vast wilderness." (note: only a vast wilderness)
And not only did Tocqueville agree with the sentiment that man was meant to conquer nature, but specifically the white man was meant to conquer nature and those who followed its way: "Providence, when it placed them among the riches of the New World, seems to have granted them a short lease only; they were there, in some sense, only waiting."
There is also that line: "Like all other members of the great human family, these savages also believed in the existence of a better world and worshiped God, the creator of the universe, under a variety of names."
With respect to the beliefs of my fellow class members, here I am thoroughly befuddled by Christianity. I do not understand the belief that this earth is just the waiting place we are stuck on until we gain passage to the true paradise of Heaven. Go spend a day, an hour or minute even by any body of water or in the mountains or a forest and close your eyes. Or look at a cheap plastic globe and really really take in what it means to exist on a simultaneously massive and microscopic planet teeming with diverse life. What other paradise is there than the serenity found in bathing in the senses and an awe of the ridiculously incomprehensible fact of your existence (feel free to throw rocks at the fact solipsists) or the perfect flow of nature functioning, even despite our disruptions? What more can one want? What more paradise is there? Or is the idea of paradise just something that humans cannot systematically degrade? It seems that the idea of a "better world" has made many less inclined to care for this one.
Hi, interesting comment. This is me checking in. I'll see you in a couple of weeks when we talk about Ursula le Guin.
ReplyDeleteI blog here by the way.
I'm not sure this is entirely fair... the idea of man "dominating" the earth as written in the bible has very little to do with the concept of heaven, which was kind of nebulous at the time the Old Testament was written. A lot of modern Jews don't really believe in the concept of the afterlife-- that's more of a Christian thing.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why I think that the issue isn't actually Christianity. The issue is that people are basically selfish and shortsighted, which is why the belief that man was created to dominate nature came into existence in the first place and subsequently proliferated. Any other culture, any other religion which first obtained the technology to do so would have unknowingly destroyed the earth as well-- at least, that's what I think.
I will concede that religion has catered to man's self-centeredness-- the idea of animals not having souls, for one, although there are a variety of views regarding that. But I always hesitate when people attach the blame for some universal problem to a system of belief. Christianity is all but nonexistant in China, and it hasn't stopped them from polluting.
And while I personally am not a big believer in any God or gods, I think eternal life sounds pretty sweet. If only, if only.