animism and ecology

[Jack Knave]

Dear Owlswing and Jack,

Relax, we have at least another fifty years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/9815862/Humans-are-plague-on-Earth-Attenborough.html

Or, for another point of view.

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth

Both make valid points, are we on the highway to hell, or will mankind finally wake up and smell the ozone, I am not a possibilist like Rosling, I am a optimist, but we have to change our way of thinking, share the wealth, share the resources, I am alright Jack ( no offence Jack ) is no way to treat our children's future.

Gonnagle.

The issue isn't climatical its more economic or anthropological. Related to this is that there are just too many of us...

[Bramble]

Interesting article that may be relevant to this thread - the comments are worth a read too.

https://aeon.co/essays/schooling-comes-naturally-to-mexico-s-indigenous-people

[Samuel]

I was reading an interview with Anne Proulx, in which she quoted another writer, saying that pagan animism was the only defender of ecology, or ecological balance, and that Christianity had helped destroy both.   I sat up bolt upright in my chair.   Well, I have heard this view before, but it is quite shocking.   I wonder what other people think.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/05/annie-proulx-ive-had-a-life-i-see-how-slippery-things-can-be

Balls

Human culture has, it is assumed, been based on animism far more than theism. Christianity is 2000 years old, human beings migrated out of Africa some 60,000 years ago. If anyone wants to argue that animist or 'pagan' cultures have little impact on ecology then I know some species of pleistocene magafauna that will have something to say about it... oh wait, they can't.

[Owlswing]

Balls

Human culture has, it is assumed, been based on animism far more than theism. Christianity is 2000 years old, human beings migrated out of Africa some 60,000 years ago. If anyone wants to argue that animist or 'pagan' cultures have little impact on ecology then I know some species of pleistocene magafauna that will have something to say about it... oh wait, they can't.

You must be a bloody sight older than I gave you credit for if you "know some species of pleistocene magafauna"

[torridon]

Balls

Human culture has, it is assumed, been based on animism far more than theism. Christianity is 2000 years old, human beings migrated out of Africa some 60,000 years ago. If anyone wants to argue that animist or 'pagan' cultures have little impact on ecology then I know some species of pleistocene magafauna that will have something to say about it... oh wait, they can't.

I doubt that palaeolithic hunter gatherers wiped megafauna out because of some of other -ism.  Whatever their religious ideas, they were doing whatever what it took to stay alive.  I think its only in the last two hundred years or so that we as a species have become competent enough and aware enough (and numerous enough) that religious or political attitudes become potentially significant. Far more significant is base human nature, our need to prosper and accumulate.  The average Westerner now uses 100 times the energy required just to stay alive, but who wants to just survive ?

[Owlswing]

Balls

Human culture has, it is assumed, been based on animism far more than theism. Christianity is 2000 years old, human beings migrated out of Africa some 60,000 years ago. If anyone wants to argue that animist or 'pagan' cultures have little impact on ecology then I know some species of pleistocene magafauna that will have something to say about it... oh wait, they can't.

Oh. by the way, Sam,it is mEgafauna not mAgafauna-mega as in huge!

[Samuel]

Argh... Bloody typo. Maybe Magafauna could refer to the denizens of the worst parts of Magaluf?

[Samuel]

I doubt that palaeolithic hunter gatherers wiped megafauna out because of some of other -ism. 

Quite. And neither did it prevent the damage humans caused or maintain 'balance' with nature.

[torridon]

Maybe the fact that we are now in the 'Anthropocene' is a recognition of the fact that we do in effect dominate the rest of nature, or at least have a significant impact on it, irrespective of whether some ancient Jewish tradition held that it was mandated by god. The legacy of that mandate is still with is, seen most visibly perhaps in the American christian right but I think it a mistake to put all our environmental impacts down to religious ideas; rather it is about our runaway success, and the deeper imperatives that drive our success are common to all life

[Jack Knave]

Maybe the fact that we are now in the 'Anthropocene' is a recognition of the fact that we do in effect dominate the rest of nature, or at least have a significant impact on it, irrespective of whether some ancient Jewish tradition held that it was mandated by god. The legacy of that mandate is still with is, seen most visibly perhaps in the American christian right but I think it a mistake to put all our environmental impacts down to religious ideas; rather it is about our runaway success, and the deeper imperatives that drive our success are common to all life

Yeah, we're as stupid as mice.