A few days ago on April 22, Canada celebrated Earth Day, with events organized all around the country. The charitable organization behind these events describes their mission as “To improve the state of the environment by empowering and helping Canadians to take positive environmental action.”
We all agree that the Earth is worth saving. It’s where we live, after all. Even during the economic recession, the importance for caring for the environment is near the top of many people’s concerns. Here’s the deeper question, though: Why?
It may seem like an absurd question, because concern for our natural environment seems so obvious, and … well, natural.
“Naturalism” is the worldview that the natural world is all that exists: Nothing that cannot be explained physically and via scientific experiment exists. But if the natural world is all there is, what’s to stop human beings from doing what comes naturally to them? If humans are merely animals, essentially no different than cats or monkeys, shouldn’t humans just do what’s natural, including wreck the environment if that’s what they “naturally” do? Where does responsibility to the Earth come in?
Read more and add your thoughts in the article “Can you be an atheist and an environmentalist?“
Tags: atheism, blog, darren hewer, earth day, economy, environment, environmentalism, Men, Talk, Women
Connecting Through Technology
Do you use technology to stay in touch with family and friends?
>Watch
Revelation 11:18 says that those who destroy the earth, God will destroy! As for atheist’s, they know there is a God, they just won’t acknowledge Him, because they then would admit that they are guilty of being a sinner. End of story
To this Pagan, it seems fairly elementary: as part of nature, if we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves. So it makes sense from a purely self-interested point of view. It also makes sense if you regard human beings as another kind of animal, because then what’s so special about us, that we have the right to despoil the world and say the heck with everything else?
And hey, if we destroy the Earth, where would we keep our stuff?
The more intelligent question is why not?