Beauty and Majesty of the Natural World Need to Be Tied to a Higher or More Spiritual Force - Essay Example

? Does the Beauty and Majesty of the Natural World Need to Be Tied to a Higher or More Spiritual Force to Be Truly Understood? An Assignment Submitted by Name of Student Name of Establishment Class XXXX, Section XXXX, Winter 2013 Abstract The question of nature’s spirituality reaches far beyond theoretical ethical debates. Decision making in various industries and individual lives is profoundly influenced by the role of nature in human worldview. As religious doctrines are diverse and assign different roles to the elements of environment, it is argued here that the value of nature should be separated from divine forces. Even in the cases when nature itself is considered divine, more conscious attitude to one’s own religious beliefs is psychologically beneficial. Some objections to this view are examined and followed by counterarguments related to current environmental ethics and politics. Does the Beauty and Majesty of the Natural World Need to Be Tied to a Higher or More Spiritual Force to Be Truly Understood? People need to have values in life. The need for spirituality is proven by psychological studies (Schroeder, 1992) and numerous moments of our daily experience. We want to transcend the limits of our own personalities by experiencing Other, be it in God, nature, or other entities (Schroeder, 1992, p. 25). Protection of environment is another acute need of humanity. There are numerous ways of satisfying these two necessities. The difference between them lies in the question where is the Other. Or, to put it playfully, who is the Significant Other? Once a person has decided, it becomes clear what God and nature mean to him or her. For pantheists and deep ecologists, nature is valuable by definition (Naess, 1973). For most of the believers of world religions, nature is beautiful and majestic as long as its phenomena are sanctioned by some deity. Even pagans worship the deities of streams, trees, and rocks, not nature itself. But regardless from the forces considered divine in any one of these cases, the value of nature should not be mediated and limited by any other values. Firstly, the mediation of the value of nature with God or other deities results in unethical treatment of some elements of natural environment. In religion, a certain order is usually imposed upon the world. It often establishes some hierarchy: many animals are believed to be ‘unclean’ or ‘sacred’ in various religions, and the believers treat those animals accordingly. Usually, this inequality does not result in animal massacres or maltreatment, but it has subtler implications for the entire ecosystems. In most of such hierarchies of world religions, human beings are usually situated above the other living creatures, so that the decisions about the entire ecosystems are made, so to speak, in their ‘favour’. This anthropocentrism of traditional culture is blamed for environmental crisis by deep ecologists and radical environmentalists, as it fails to represent the parts of ecosystem as interrelated (Leopold, 1949). There is also selectivity of non-human species: for instance, people are more likely to preserve the spotted owls than the insects that belong to the same ecosystem. It may be argued that human eye is selective by nature and that our experience of nature is still mediated by something, be it religion, science, or anything else. This view echoes the one expressed by Ralph Emerson, a classic representative of transcendentalism: that the poet’s eye “can integrate all the parts” (Emerson, 1836), thereby giving them sense. For Emerson, art and spirit were superior to nature: “Have mountains, and waves, and skies, no significance but what we consciously give them, when we employ them as emblems of our thoughts? (...) the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind” (Emerson, 1836). From the fact that our interaction with nature is mediated, it does not follow that our view is right. Schroeder (1992) explains that spiritual experience, including the spiritual experience of nature, should be reflected upon to withdraw from projections of self upon the object (p.27). Anthropocentrism is nothing but a projection, and this is in the interest of the believers to be aware of this. Secondly, higher spiritual forces are not the only authorities that can justify the beauty and majesty of nature. It is true that the treatment of nature as a glorious divine creation contradicts its income-driven, ‘soulless’ industrial exploitation. Religious people often oppose harsh industrialization on this ground: for example, a number of churches of the US have used this argument in their petition against the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act of 2011 (Church of the Brethren Global Partnerships, et. al., 2011). Though this is worth respect, there are many other individuals and collectives whose equally respectful treatment of nature is not connected with any religious believes. Arne Naess (1973) calls for the “deepening” of the entire green movement. This involves the ethics of equality of all species and the “total-field” world image (p. 95). Thus, animal crowding becomes as serious a problem as human crowding (Naess, 1973, p. 96). With such an approach, different ecosystem parts and participants are respected regardless from the role assigned to them in exact cultures. Nowadays, deep ecology founded by Naess is one of the recognised green movements that has achieved in environmental protection no less than the believers of any one of the world religions. Moreover, as deep ecology implies diversity (Naess, 1973, p. 96), it is compatible with different spiritual believes and practices. Last but not least, conflicts are possible on the ground of diversity of spiritual practices. As Leopold (1949) wrote, geology and the history of biota have substantial influence on human history that is not recognized by historians. The colonization of Kentucky is an instructive case. It is known that the cane-lands became bluegrass because of European agricultural practices which contradicted the spirituality of native populations (Leopold, 1949). Leopold (1949) speculates that the US history might have gone different way if the plant emerging on the cane-lands could be profitable for the colonizers. It is also worth noting that at the time of colonization, people fought in the name of their economic plans and spiritual values, but nobody considered the interests of the ecosystem. Altogether, nothing speaks louder about our appreciation of nature’s beauty and majesty than actions. The examples given here prove that the mediation of our perception of nature by divine forces leads to unethical exploitation of natural resources and to the conflicts between the practitioners of different religions. Moreover, though sometimes religious worldview contributes to ethical treatment of nature, there are different alternative worldviews concerned with it. Therefore, nature should be meaningful to people regardless from their spiritual background. References Church of the Brethren Global Partnerships, et. al. (2011). Faith Coalition Opposition Letter – HR1581. Retrieved from < http://wilderness.org/sites/default/files/Faith-Coalition-Opposition-Letter-HR1581.pdf>. Emerson, R. W. (1836). Nature. American Transcedentalism Web, 2012. Retrieved from http://transcendentalism.tamu.edu/authors/emerson/nature.html. Naess, A. (1973). The Shallow and the Deep, long-range ecology movement. Inquiry, 16. 95-100. DOI: 10.1080/00201747308601682. Schroeder, H. W. (1992). The spiritual aspect of nature: A perspective from depth psychology. In Proceedings of Northeastern Recreation Research Symposium. New York, Saratoga Springs. Read More