Living Religion
Living Religion: Tao De Ching - Lao Tze
Eco-ethic, Visakhpatnam, Vol.No.25 December 2005
Nature is not kind;It treats all things impartially.The Sage is not kind,And treats all people impartially.Nature is like a bellows,Empty, yet never ceasing its supply.The more it moves, the more it yields;So the sage draws upon experience And cannot be exhausted.
Living Religion : Tsunamis, Climate Change and God
David Hallman, Eco-Ethic, Vol.No.22 March 2005
The Earth seems to be convulsing recently with a variety of natural and weather-related disasters. Many people have died. Are tsunamis and climate change related and where is God in all this? We are vulnerable to forces beyond our control. To acknowledge that, is to become more humble and respectful toward this terrestrial home of ours. Butjust as humans are the victims of some unexpected cataclysms, we also are the actual perpetrators of other types of ecological changes that are wrecking havoc.
Living Religion: The Struggle against Ourselves
George Monbiot, Eco-Ethic, Vol.No.26 April 2006
I want to take a moment to remind you of where we have come from.For the first three million years of human history,we lived according to circumstance. Our lives were ruled by the happenstances of ecology. We existed, as all animals do, in fear of hunger,predation, weather and disease.
Living Religion : from The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho, Eco-Ethic, Vol.No.23 June 2005
"You are almost at the end of your journey,"said the alchemist. "I congratulate you for having pursued your destiny."Don't think about what you've left behind.Everything is written in the Soul of the World, andthere it will stay forever."If what one finds is made of pure matter, itwill never spoil. And one can always come back.If whatyou have found was only a moment of light,like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return."
Living Religion : Spirituality and Environment
Steven Jeffrey, Eco-Ethic No.27 July 2006
Living Religion: Apocalypse No! : The Law of Life and the Law of Death
Juan Santos, Eco-Ethic, No.26-30, April 2007
In every original, ancient human culture this sense of sharing, honor and obligation - this sense of kinship - extends beyond the self to the family, beyond the family to the band to the tribe, and beyond the tribe to the plants and animals, to the very stones. Our primal sensibility is that we are related, that we belong, that we are wrapped in a matrix of living that is fundamentally secure, and that our part is to reciprocate, to ensure the balances that sustain our living matrix, our living mother. the Lakota nation has a word for this: mitakuye oyasin: all my relations. The term so deeply expresses the indigenous sensibility of an honored and beloved network of reciprocal obligation with land and life that it has been adopted as a byword, a scared expression, by indigenous peoples throughout the US
Living Religion: Please call me by my True Names
Thich Nhat Hanh, Eco-Ethic, No.31-32 November 2007
Living Religion: Ethics, Religions and Climate Change
Eco-Ethic, No.35,November 2008
Al Gore, former Vice-President of the United States and the joint-winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Peace, is by all accounts a mainstream American politician. Yet his film on the environment crisis, 'An Inconvenient Truth', has been watched by millions of people, some of whom have since turned eco-radicals. One of the examples Gore uses in the film to describe the ecological plight of the planet is the divergent response of a frog to a pot of boiling water. The frog jumps away to safety when it is brought near a container of boiling water. If the same frog is put into a pot of luke warm water that is then progressively heated, the frog does not notice the change since the increase in the temperature is too gradual. The frog acclimatises itself to the increasing heat. Eventually the water gets so hot that the frog either dies or is rescued. "Are we human beings similar to the frog that is unaware of the process of slow death it is going through?" is the question the narrative wishes to drive home. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that humans have rights to life, liberty, and personal security. This, of course, enjoins duties in others to refrain from interference with these rights. Climate Change is already interfering with the basic rights of millions of people. This has evoked the issue of Climate Justice. Can the world silently allow vulnerable and poor communities to experience floods, water and food shortages, increase in temperatures and even face the threat of extermination when these communities are not responsible for the release of massive green house emissions that have led to this dangerous impasse?
Living Religion:Theological and Ethical Imperatives
Eco-ethic, No.6 January-March, 2001
Eco-ethic, No.3,April-June,2000
Living Religion : Spirituality and Environment
Steven Jeffrey, Eco-Ethic No.27 July 2006
There is a need for spirituality in the environmentalist movement. Trying to persuade people to bolster biodiversity on the grounds of economic necessity is a hard argument to win when the forces working against biodiversity have very strong economic arguments regarding families, jobs and rural communities.As long as environmentalists continue to fight economists in purely economic terms, they are destined to lose.Spirituality gives people the strength to sustain their action throughout their lives.
Living Religion: Apocalypse No! : The Law of Life and the Law of Death
Juan Santos, Eco-Ethic, No.26-30, April 2007
In every original, ancient human culture this sense of sharing, honor and obligation - this sense of kinship - extends beyond the self to the family, beyond the family to the band to the tribe, and beyond the tribe to the plants and animals, to the very stones. Our primal sensibility is that we are related, that we belong, that we are wrapped in a matrix of living that is fundamentally secure, and that our part is to reciprocate, to ensure the balances that sustain our living matrix, our living mother. the Lakota nation has a word for this: mitakuye oyasin: all my relations. The term so deeply expresses the indigenous sensibility of an honored and beloved network of reciprocal obligation with land and life that it has been adopted as a byword, a scared expression, by indigenous peoples throughout the US
Living Religion: Please call me by my True Names
Thich Nhat Hanh, Eco-Ethic, No.31-32 November 2007
I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river.And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond.And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog.
Living Religion: Ethics, Religions and Climate Change
Eco-Ethic, No.35,November 2008
Al Gore, former Vice-President of the United States and the joint-winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Peace, is by all accounts a mainstream American politician. Yet his film on the environment crisis, 'An Inconvenient Truth', has been watched by millions of people, some of whom have since turned eco-radicals. One of the examples Gore uses in the film to describe the ecological plight of the planet is the divergent response of a frog to a pot of boiling water. The frog jumps away to safety when it is brought near a container of boiling water. If the same frog is put into a pot of luke warm water that is then progressively heated, the frog does not notice the change since the increase in the temperature is too gradual. The frog acclimatises itself to the increasing heat. Eventually the water gets so hot that the frog either dies or is rescued. "Are we human beings similar to the frog that is unaware of the process of slow death it is going through?" is the question the narrative wishes to drive home. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that humans have rights to life, liberty, and personal security. This, of course, enjoins duties in others to refrain from interference with these rights. Climate Change is already interfering with the basic rights of millions of people. This has evoked the issue of Climate Justice. Can the world silently allow vulnerable and poor communities to experience floods, water and food shortages, increase in temperatures and even face the threat of extermination when these communities are not responsible for the release of massive green house emissions that have led to this dangerous impasse?
Living Religion:Theological and Ethical Imperatives
Eco-ethic, No.6 January-March, 2001
Faced with the peril of accelerated climate change and the special test of faith it entails, we turn to the resources for understanding and faithful response that we have as Christians. The biblical story tells of creation and deliverance, covenant and community, hope and fulfilment. The chief actor in the story is God, "who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the Earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it" (Is.42:5).
Living Religion : Panji Laras - A Legend of Prince Harmony
Eco-ethic, No.5 Oct-Dec, 2000
If there is a word, which may reflect the deep underlying belief system of a traditional society, that word must be 'harmony'. If there is a value worth preserving in the aura of changing belief system from traditional to modern society, that value, undoubtedly is the maintenance of harmony in and with the natural as well as with societal life. Under traditional belief systems, everything has been so created by God Almighty as to build a harmonious life among natural beings. Their acts and behaviour, the governing law of nature, and their belief system all have been set to guarantee a sustaining balance. In a traditional society, the goal of individual and societal life is in fact to have everything set in order, at its proper balance and in due harmony
Living Religion : Amakondh, Where Belief Blends With
Eco-ethic, No.4 July-September,2000
The sacred fish pool, Amakondh, lies in the village Kenduguda in Malkangiri district of Orissa. The pool about 100 square meters is formed by the blocking of a perennial stream, Amakondh, by big boulders. In the several myths/legends associated with the emergence of this sacred pool, a deity is associated with this phenomenon. The sacred site has three distinct elements: a sacred pool, a sacred place called Kanakondh, and a recently established small temple. In the sacred pool are found a large number of fishes, some weighing more than 5-6 kg., besides other aquatic life. There are at least four species of fishes in the pool - Rohi, Kuishari, Butta and Lona. The people of the region, irrespective of ethnicity, age and sex, consider fishes, water and other aquatic fauna and flora highly sacred. People therefore do not harvest any biodiversity in the pool. Bathing in the pool is strictly prohibited.
Living Religion Living Religion : Panji Laras - A Legend of Prince Harmony
Eco-ethic, No.5 Oct-Dec, 2000
If there is a word, which may reflect the deep underlying belief system of a traditional society, that word must be 'harmony'. If there is a value worth preserving in the aura of changing belief system from traditional to modern society, that value, undoubtedly is the maintenance of harmony in and with the natural as well as with societal life. Under traditional belief systems, everything has been so created by God Almighty as to build a harmonious life among natural beings. Their acts and behaviour, the governing law of nature, and their belief system all have been set to guarantee a sustaining balance. In a traditional society, the goal of individual and societal life is in fact to have everything set in order, at its proper balance and in due harmony
Living Religion : Amakondh, Where Belief Blends With
Eco-ethic, No.4 July-September,2000
The sacred fish pool, Amakondh, lies in the village Kenduguda in Malkangiri district of Orissa. The pool about 100 square meters is formed by the blocking of a perennial stream, Amakondh, by big boulders. In the several myths/legends associated with the emergence of this sacred pool, a deity is associated with this phenomenon. The sacred site has three distinct elements: a sacred pool, a sacred place called Kanakondh, and a recently established small temple. In the sacred pool are found a large number of fishes, some weighing more than 5-6 kg., besides other aquatic life. There are at least four species of fishes in the pool - Rohi, Kuishari, Butta and Lona. The people of the region, irrespective of ethnicity, age and sex, consider fishes, water and other aquatic fauna and flora highly sacred. People therefore do not harvest any biodiversity in the pool. Bathing in the pool is strictly prohibited.
Eco-ethic, No.3,April-June,2000
Banwari, the day-editor of Jansata (sic), a Hindi daily newspaper published in Delhi, has made a detailed study of the forest culture of India for a book he is writing. He spoke to me of his findings.'The Hindu idea is that this whole world is a forest. To keep this world as it is we have to keep the world-forest intact.
Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change: A Perspective
by Arvind Jasrotia, Ethics and Climate Change, 23-25 October 2008
The Planet Earth appears restive. Human activities motivated by an attitude of rampant consumerism and unsustainable patterns of production and consumption have never been so inhumane and callous towards environment as in the modern era of scientific and technological innovations. Man’s greed attacks Nature and wounded Nature backlashes on the human future. The Four assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed our worst fears.1 Climate change has clearly emerged as one of the big issues, perhaps the biggest contemporary issue we face.2 The foundations of global security are threatened. These trends are perilous-but not inevitable.3 In the year 2006, the UK Government issued Stern Report on the Economics of Climate Change4 which concluded that letting climate change proceed under business-as-usual scenario would impose costs of between 5 and 20 percent of world income, whereas shifting to a low-carbon economy that stabilizes the climate would cost about 2% of world income. The report finds that the benefits of stabilizing the climate far outweigh the costs. Against this background, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCC represents the international legal regime that has been established by the states to address the issue of climate change
The ethical dilemma posed by organic food
The Independen, 25 October 2007
The Government should, of course, be taxing airline fuel to remove the massive hidden subsidies that food importers enjoy. But what should the individual consumer do? And what guidance should the Soil Association give? This is trickier because the Soil Association, unlike the Government, does not have the power to address the problems of climate change, trade reform and environmental protection holistically. There is a risk that refusing to certify any airfreighted organic goods would merely damage farmers in poor countries and provide negligible benefit for the environment.The Soil Association announces today that it will issue a partial ban on airfreighted imports. Produce will not be given organic accreditation unless its suppliers can show that they are delivering benefits for their farmers and unless they pledge to reduce their reliance on airfreighted exports by 2011. This seems a reasonable compromise, although there are bound to be howls of disapproval from those who believe the Soil Association should take a tougher, or more lenient, line. It sends out a strong signal of bias against airfreighting, but does not close the door on developing world producers, giving them time to find closer markets.
