Thread: Religion and the Environment: is God ok with His creation being trashed?

The transformation and sacrifice of natural ecosystems for agricultural land, or habitation or other uses along with other human impacts like climate change are altering the environment in ways that directly contribute to species extinctions as well as have impacts on our own future capacity to survive, thrive and live prosperously.

Where do various religions, their leaders and ordinary practitioners stand on Environmental issues and what is their reasoning? How significant is the religious influence on individual and family decisions as well as the impact on the development of effective public policies and programs that seek to limit the negative outcomes (and enhance the positives) of human choices?

There seem to be two main streams of thought.

The first would regard the environment as a gift from god/s and that people are supposed to do their best to use it properly and take care of it. ("Properly" seems to have different meanings at different times and places.)

The others? My view is that they see their god/s as some kind of invisible butler or housekeeper. Doesn't matter what you do, the all-powerful, speedy clean-up service will make sure that your mess is cleaned up without you having to lift a finger or think twice about what you're doing in the first place.

What do you have to say about all the incredible environmental changes brought about by stromatelites, meteor impacts, extreme volcanic events, the permian extinction etc - all happened long before primates / humans appeared - surely this shows that the 'god[s]' were seriously tryng to wreck the joint long before we came on the scene?

Tszy, if God created this world he probably retained the right to trash it. That doesn't necessarily extend that 'right' to humanity, especially if the world was 'given' to humanity to husband. Or even given to exploit for the benefit of humanity; there can be consequences, including serious negative long term ones, from actions that appear to have clear short term benefits.

I'm interested in what religious people think (and why) and how that impacts what we do and don't do with respect to the planet we live on. I see humanity gaining knowledge and understanding of the consequences of our actions, via science, but ethics and religion have a long history and religion retains a lot of influence. With or without God, humanity appears to be facing a test of it's intellect, foresight, organisation, willpower and ethics - a test of our ability to live long term within the limits of the world we inhabit. How religious thinking affects humanity's response to the challenges we face should not be ignored.

I don't know. If God created the Earth and the animals to hand over dominion to man, he sure spent a lot of time playing with the dinosaurs.