NEW YORK, USA, January 27, 2008: Whether we are actively religious or not, religious belief permeates the very fabric of our existence. Namely, it influences our legal systems; and therefore our constitutions; and therefore our nations’ policy choices, both at home and abroad. It also shapes role with regards to protecting the environment.
American thinker Lynn White wrote, ” Human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny — that is, by religion.”
Hinduism is an immensely complex and diverse religion, based on an all-pervasive Divinity, karma and moksha. At its core is living a simple life and shunning the myth of happiness through material gain. “Hindu religion wants its followers to live a simple life … People are meant to learn to enjoy spiritual happiness, so that to derive a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, they need not run after material pleasures and disturb nature’s checks and balances,” writes Ranchor Prime for the Alliance of Religions and Conservation.
Notably, Hinduism appears to be a de facto supporter of renewable fuels, such is its adherence to sustaining the natural order of things. Hindus are instructed not to “use anything belonging to nature, such as oil, coal, or forest, at a greater rate than you can replenish it.”
The western, Abrahamic view differs from the Dharmic faiths. “Christianity,” wrote White, “Not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends.” The emergence of Christianity, many, like White believe, marked the moment humans broke away from previously common held beliefs that all beings, all forms of life — including plants — had spirits (or souls). “In Antiquity every tree, every spring, every stream, every hill had its guardian spirit,” he wrote. “By destroying pagan animism,” White wrote. “Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects.”