Flashmag August 2019 www.flashmag.net
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However, while technology and the pursuit of development seem to be devastating for both the environment and the humanity , many religions, including Taoism in China, Zen Buddhism in Japan, Hinduism in India, Amerindian and African cultures emphasize the harmony with nature and respect for all forms of life. While Catholicism seems to emphasize the sanctity of life, denouncing the technology of genetic manipulation. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have drawn a sharper dividing line between human and non-human life. Protestant reformist churches, which are very influential in Anglo-Saxon capitalism, have often interpreted to their advantage the biblical verses giving humanity dominion over other creatures, which has often justified the unlimited exploitation of non-human beings, including black slaves judged sub humans in previous centuries. However, recent theological studies point to biblical themes that state that the stewardship of nature is necessary, because the land ultimately belongs to God who created it, and to desecrate it, by the direct pollution due to the technological advance would be in other words to undermine the divine and to implement the reign of the chaos of the antichrist.
A decadence by technology that theologians of monotheistic religions think is the work of evil that can only be stopped by the end of time.
The celebration of nature is also very important in
the religions of the first peoples, who seem to have a renewed interest in Africa as well as in the Pacific and Asia, where the harmony between the human being and nature is more and more advocated. The so-called alternative beliefs that are gaining more and more followers in the West, are inspired by these principles of consequent uniqueness between humans and their environment. There is growing recognition that the destruction of the environment is the destruction of humanity itself, because it is an integral part of it. Also, the paradigm of domination of nature by the human, is more and more questioned through the advocacy of peaceful cohabitation between the man and his environment because of the interconnection which unites them. The current era should focus on examining the impact of new technologies on the environment without neglecting the urgent human needs that depend on the sustainable use of natural resources.
Hubert Marlin
Journalist
Sources:The religion of technology: the divinity of man and the spirit of invention. David F. Noble.