Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Softcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> Religion distinguishes the human species from all others just as human presence on earth distinguishes the ecology our planet from other places in the known universe. Religious life and the earth’s ecology are inextricably linked organically related. Human belief and practice mark the earth. One can hardly think of a natural system that has not been considerably altered for better or worse by human culture. “Nor is this the work of the industrial cen-turies” observes Simon Schama. “It is coeval with the entirety of our social existence. And it is this irreversibly modified world from the polar caps to the equatorial forests that is all the nature we have” (Landscape and Memory (New York: Vintage Books 1996). 7). In Schama’s examination even landscapes that appear to be most free of human culture turn out on closer inspection to be its product. Human beliefs about the nature of ecology are the distinctive con-tribution of our species to the ecology itself. Religious beliefs-especially those concerning the nature of powers that create and ani-mate become an effective part of ecological systems. They attract the power of will and channel the forces of labor toward purposive transformations. Religious rituals model relations with material life and transmit habits of practice and attitudes of mind to succeeding generations. This is not simply to say that religious thoughts occasionally touch the world and leave traces that accumulate over time. The matter is the other way around. From the point of view of environmental studies religious worldviews propel communities into the world with. (LL)