05-01-2005, 07:00 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Science, Religion, and Ecology Turn Eastward.
USA Today (Magazine); 9/1/2001; STRADA, MICHAEL J.
The tenets of Eastern religion are more compatible with nature than their Western counterparts.
WHAT PASSES for eclecticism in the science-religion dialogue is personified by Carleton University religion professor Ian Barber, 1999 winner of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Since 1965, he has been decrying that scientists know as little about religion as theologians do about science and prescribing more communication between the two groups as the antidote. He takes pride in observing that, 30 years ago, condescension typified relations between professional science and professional religion, whereas today, both sides are better listeners. Although significant, a richer dialogue between science and religion fails to expand the contemporary paradigm sufficiently. The vision of eclecticism associated with Barber falls short because it suffers from a blind spot--an ethnocentric, culture-bound, decidedly Western one. A plea is made here for a broader, environmentally friendly vision.
Among Western scientists, three common approaches to religion are discernible. The conflict thesis is epitomized by Cambridge University cosmologist Stephen Hawking, whose quest for a "Theory of Everything" considers the assumptions of each worldview as inimical to the other. Harvard University zoologist Stephen Jay Gould speaks for the peaceful coexistence thesis by arguing that, while the two domains cannot be synthesized, they need not come to blows, since neither represents a mortal threat to the other. The third nemesis--transcendence--finds fewer voices singing its praises. It seeks ways to rise above egocentrism to learn something from the other perspective, as advocated by the late Cornell University astronomer Carl Sagan.
Two scientific revolutions traditionally have been credited with transforming humanity's perception of itself: the Copernican revolution (Earth is not at the center of the universe) and the Darwinian revolution (humans obey the same evolutionary rules as other species). Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey, however, maintains that a new insight needs to be added--the immense size of the universe--because of the redundancy of scale that favors life existing elsewhere.
Today, astronomers measure the size of the universe as 20,000,000,000 light-years across. Current estimates suggest there are about 100,000,000,000 galaxies, each with about 100,000,000,000 stars. Under these circumstances, Sagan estimated that about 10,000,000,000 trillion planets may exist. There are more stars in the visible universe than grains of sand on Earth. Astronomer Frank Drake is similarly optimistic. Using what is known as the Drake Equation, he calculates that 50,000 intelligent civilizations may exist. While nothing like a consensus can be found, few scientists have assertively suggested that life elsewhere is unlikely. If intelligence is sprinkled around the Cosmos, it probably varies greatly. Therefore, why does monotheism's prime mover resemble the human race so snugly? As contextual background, Stephen Jay Gould suggests that "nothing is more unfamiliar or uncongenial to the human mind than thinking correctly about probabilities."
Tangible realities work better than probability as catalysts for human analysis of the chances of life elsewhere. For decades, the common presence of organic molecules--the building blocks of life--in space has been demonstrated by radio telescopes. Science reveals that Mars was once a wet world and now has polar ice caps--significant because, on Earth, water operates as the enabler of life. In 1996, scientists discovered a Mars meteorite containing organic matter. That same year, San Francisco State University astronomer Geoff Marcy won the race to verify the existence of an actual planet (Virginus 70) outside our solar system. Since Marcy's discovery, scores of new planets have been mapped. Some of them possess oxygen, methane, water, and temperatures favoring life as we know it. NASA head Dan Goldin is lobbying for funds to photograph such distant planets.
Only rigorous science can reveal what exists beyond Earth. Yet, if objectivity represents the heart of scientific method, then its soul consists of a certain attitude--skepticism. Science asserts that things are not always what they seem to be, making commonsensical understandings of the physical world inadequate. Sensory perception alone suggests that the sun revolves around the Earth; heavy bodies always fall faster than light ones; and ships made of iron must sink to the bottom of the sea. All of these perceptions, though, have been proven false, because science works via self-correction.
The 19th century witnessed profound self-corrections in both science and religion, stemming from Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution. However, Darwin erred badly on some questions. As the product of a thoroughly Western (Christian, Victorian, British) culture, he believed implicitly in an upward, progressive slope to humanity's trajectory in the physical and social realms, including the Inevitability Myth regarding homo sapiens--since we are in fact here, predestination requires that we be here for a higher-order purpose. Thus, Darwin tell prey to exaggerating the potency of his central thesis (winners succeed and losers become extinct in the course of biological improvement). Extinction resulting from species failing competitively fit so easily with Western assumptions of competitive ascendancy that rarely did any scientist question this hypothesis.
Darwin's competitive motif tells only art of the evolutionary tale. Unavailable to him was vital knowledge about the role of mass extinctions. The Alvarez hypothesis from the father and son team of Luis (physicist) and Walter (geologist) Alvarez suggests that the great Crustacean extinction 65,000,000 years ago, ending the reign of dinosaurs, resulted from a large asteroid striking Earth. Mass extinctions are more frequent (every 30,000,000 years), and more decisive in evolutionary consequences, than previously believed. The Alvarez hypothesis made randomness part of the evolutionary dialogue, distinguishing between evolution during normal times (when competition matters) and mass extinctions (when survival depends on good luck, not good genes).
British ex-nun Karen Armstrong's history of monotheism (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) reveals considerable similarity among the three religions. Their historical and doctrinal overlap expresses itself concretely in the frequent head-bumping among them over turf in the city of Jerusalem. Armstrong advances a dynamic theory: Our views of God remain intact only if they continue to meet human needs; otherwise, adaptation inevitably follows. She traces the protracted competition between two distinct ideas of divinity--a transcendental God and a personal God. These two visions of deity are not created equal, though, since monotheism generally has invested its spiritual capital more heavily in the personal God than in its transcendental alter ego--especially when contrasted with Eastern religions. What results is a resilient anthropomorphism endemic to monotheism.
Monotheism's convenient anthropomorphism is multifaceted. The Biblical God exhibits all of the schizoid characteristics of human nature. In addition to compassion, we find no shortage of brutality, as when God commands Abraham to kill his only remaining son, Isaac. In the Hebrew tradition of Yahweh, His portrayal epitomizes the ultimate king, and Isaiah (a member of the royal family) found it natural to depict Yahweh as a king enthroned in His temple, much like the kings of Baal and Mardok. "By attributing their own human feelings and experiences to Yahweh, the prophets were creating a God in their own image," Armstrong maintains. The Hebrew Yahweh is a prophet-meeting God-king who speaks, often practically and harshly, demanding obedient action that is never easy or calming. In Eastern religions, like Hinduism or Buddhism, encounters with a deity typically produce human enlightenment and spiritual peace, but this rarely occurs with the Biblical God.
No paucity of negative consequences have been traced to monotheism's penchant for anthropomorphism. One difficulty with a personal God is the Holocaust Dilemma: If God could not stop the Holocaust, He is impotent and useless. If He could have stopped the Holocaust and didn't, that makes Him even worse. In a classic double bind, the hands-on, personal God gets sullied by the unfathomable Holocaust. Another troubling argument stems from monotheism's historical track record of virulent religious intolerance, which is far less common in Eastern religions. Lastly, a sense of anthropomorphic sexism, inherently part of the Hebrew Yahweh, tends to denigrate ecology, since most of the values associated with modern environmentalism were considered feminine traits in Biblical times.
More than two millennia ago, Plato unequivocally stated that "All mankind, Greeks and non-Greeks alike, believe in the existence of gods." Even the quintessential pragmatist, Italian Renaissance philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli, accepted that, without religion, an orderly society would vanish into smoke. Russian novelist Feodor Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor mused that, "If there's no God, everything is permitted." Indeed, throughout human history, the institution of religion has accompanied all social development. From animism to polytheism to monotheism, a resilient spiritual dimension has pervaded human ritual. Humans apparently need spirituality.
Anthropologists suggest that religion persists because it has value to us, and such value can be either intrinsic, instrumental, or a combination thereof. Religion's staying power is illustrated poignantly in an Auschwitz Holocaust story related in journalist Bill Moyers' study on Genesis. Jews in this Nazi death camp held a mock heating, placing God on trial for the Holocaust, asking the question, "Where was God?" Discovering no exonerating evidence, these Jews found God guilty and sentenced Him to death. Yet, later that same day, what did the same people do? They gathered for evening prayer. The struggle to understand continues because humans need religious ritual, even when mired in the despair of the Holocaust. An equally moving Holocaust story is told by survivor/author Elie Weisel. When he and the other remaining Jews were liberated from Buchenwald in the spring of 1945, what they did first was not to request water, food, or clothing, but to join together in circles, praying as one.
Part of religion's resilience is also attributable to the potency of myth. The Bible works as great literature because of dense, gripping stories that skim across millennia to engross culturally distinct Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and because Biblical stories feature universal themes. No scholar has depicted the Deity through the eyes of as many different cultures as author Joseph Campbell. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he tells readers that myth, "as a sacred narrative of the world and how we came to be in it," presents a limited range of responses to the mysteries of life. For example, every society has an "origin myth" as its core story. "From behind a thousand faces, the single hero emerges, archetype of all myth," Campbell writes. Mythology serves as an embodiment of subjective troth, and his The Power of Myth demonstrates how myth links us to our past, and how religion and myth constitute different patches of the same spiritual quilt. Above all, Campbell hones in on this insight: Myth should not be considered anachronistic, because repetitive themes continue to affect how we visualize, and live out, life on Earth.
As comparative religionist Huston Smith argues, religion's challenge lies in discovering how to pluck its spiritual bounty without swallowing its considerable excesses, such as the materialistic preoccupations common to church bureaucracies. Few scholars can match Smith's insights, based not only on intellectual erudition, but on wide experience involving diverse religious practices. He sagely observes that, viewed panoramically, monotheism has functioned as both cause and effect of the scientific paradigm responsible for profound changes in the existence of humans and other species in our world. Humans' increased ability to comprehend the world scientifically has produced myriad benefits equated with the notion of competitive progress, but also significant liabilities, among them a proclivity for tunnel vision.
The volatile 1960s unleashed strong criticism of monotheism's contribution to environmental denigration. The classic piece setting the parameters of the dialogue was written by University of California medieval studies professor Lynn White, who took dead aim at Christianity as the culprit most responsible for the environmental crisis. He brands Christianity as the most anthropocentric religion. According to White, Christianity's linear sense of time (distinct beginnings and ends), its creation story (with humans made in God's image), and its placing of humans in a special position over the rest of nature render it inimical to ecological integrity. He does, nevertheless, identify St. Francis of Assisi as an unsung Church hero for advocating the equality of all creatures, including a doctrine tantamount to spiritual leprosy for Church fathers--the concept of an animal soul.
Other factors from Biblical times help to explain monotheism's blank stare regarding ecological consciousness. The first concerns how time is conceived. In ancient Hindu culture, time was considered cyclical, "a wheel of righteousness," as in nature's cycle of sunrise and sunset. This image of nature's cyclical clock provided no reason to consider humanity as anything but an integral part of the natural ecology. In the ninth century B.C., however, a shift took place among the Hebrews that continues to resonate today. Jews changed from the traditional cyclical metaphor to a linear metaphor of time, the etiology of which was inspired by human experience, not nature. Christians soon borrowed this concept, and Western imagery concerning time was fundamentally altered. Linear time encourages hierarchical thinking, assisting the myth that humanity stands not only apart from, but also above nature.
One other ancient shift, occurring shortly thereafter, likewise mitigated against a green conscience for Christianity. When Christ's followers first distinguished themselves from pagans, the word "pagan" meant "country-dweller," and the pagans' otherness was bound up with being a country bumpkin. Anything connoting rural life seemed alien to the early Christians, who lived in cities of the Roman Empire such as Antioch and Alexandria. Christianity had a decidedly urban style, and the stiffest opposition Christian proselytizers would encounter for more than a millennium was from the "tenacious nature religions of the peasantry," as Alan Watts wrote in Nature, Man, and Woman. Uniquely Christian as well is the way it bases its legitimacy on miracles bending the laws of nature to the will of God. While some other religions may sprinkle in miraculous events, their role is the crux of the matter only with Christianity.
Monotheism's condescending attitude toward nature appears even more hostile when contrasted with the environmentally friendly religions of the East. Western maximalism (bigger is better) contrasts sharply with Eastern minimalism (small is beautiful). Buddhism, for instance, is less didactic and more inferential than monotheism's big three religions. Buddha taught that the processes of nature are shaped by the morals of humans. Therefore, ecological problems can be alleviated by living simpler, gentler, more spiritual lives. Pollution in the environment is caused by the pollution of human hearts. Material excess often leads people away from living the existence of moderation practiced by the Buddha. Compassion and loving kindness for all living things are fundamental Buddhist values concerning nature.
Taoism can be traced back to the teachings of Lao-Tse (604-531 B.C.). It started out as a philosophy and was adopted as a state religion in 440 A.D., at which time Lao-Tse became venerated as a deity. Lao-Tse taught that Tao is the first cause of the universe and that our goal is to become one with the Tao. People must develop virtue through compassion, moderation, and humility. Taoism's beneficence toward nature matches Buddhism's. Meaning "The Way," Taoism represents a depersonalized ethic demonstrating none of the anthropomorphism of a creator God.
In Taoism, nature is a living whole into which humanity, like everything else, must fit: "According to the Tao, there is a moral imperative to be virtuous toward nature." Taoism is based partly on the dialectical interplay of Tao's key cosmic principles--yin (dark side) and yang (light side)--which accounts for the rhythm found in the natural world. There can exist no unbridgeable gulf between humanity and nature, because absolutely everything is connected. The doctrine of Wu Wei advocates "acting in accord with nature, that is, in harmony with the Tao." All beings are embraced by Taoism's egalitarian ethic.
As mentioned earlier, Hinduism's sense of time remains cyclical, not linear. This contributes to Hinduism's organic view of nature, with humanity of it, in it, but not above it. Symbolic of Hinduism's cyclical mind-set is the doctrine of reincarnation of the soul. Reincarnation provides the vehicle for eventual perfection of the spirit and ultimate unity with the deity, or godhead. The main scriptures (the "Veda," the "Upanishad," and the "Bhagavad-Gita") teach tolerance and respect for life. The ancient Hindu religion continues to shape life in India and other Hindu cultures.
Eastern insights
We must look to these Eastern religions for insights, because they enable more openminded approaches to the dilemmas of existence--especially environmental ones. One difficulty with looking East for enlightenment, though, is that understanding Eastern theologies is not easy. The extensive writings of Watts represents a resource noteworthy for making Eastern inscrutability accessible to the Western mind. Employing prose that stands up and performs poetically, he allows us to know something of Zen Buddhism, for example, without devoting a lifetime to unraveling its subtle paradoxes. While Buddhism and Christianity may differ greatly in form, they share many basic principles.
A similarly engaging contemporary meeting of Eastern and Western minds can be found in The Monk and the Philosopher, a tete-a-tete on metaphysics, morality, and meaning between French rationalist philosopher Jean-Francois Revel and his son, Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk who works as a translator for the Dalai Lama. As the two men meet in an inn overlooking Katmandu, Western modes of thought take in Eastern modes of spiritual experience. The bond between father and son helps to bridge the gap, as they straggle to find commonality between Western theology and Buddhism concerning humanity's search for meaning.
One Eastern philosophy barely mentioned yet is Confucianism. In Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West, Washington Post Tokyo bureau chief Thomas Reid explains the relevance of history to contemporary Asia. Confucian moral values still live throughout the East (not only China) and undergird responsible social behavior, ecological sensitivity, and the work ethic common to Asian societies. Even after 2,500 years, Confucius' timeless values of respect for elders, rising above sociopolitical hardships, group responsibility, and personal integrity, matter greatly. Reid emphasizes how similar are the moral statements shared by the ancient Greeks, Confucianism, and Christianity.
Hinduism and Taoism are the other Eastern religions vital for broadening the Western perspective. Since Western logic is vulnerable to the fallacy of single cause, the Occidental mind always wants to single out one factor causing a given result to occur. Westerners want to know which Eastern religion (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism) is the real answer to their problems. That they are all heuristic for the task strikes most Westerners as evading the question.
One of the most broad-minded Western scientists today is biologist Edward Wilson, who condemns the tunnel vision characteristic of those who stay within the comfortable boundaries of single academic disciplines. His highly interdisciplinary approach remains praiseworthy, but his faith in science may be excessive. Wilson pays homage to monotheism's Biblical tradition as the wellspring of Western science, and he laments Oriental philosophy having missed the scientific boat: "It abandoned the idea of a supreme being with personal and creative properties. No rational author of Nature existed in their universe; consequently, the objects they meticulously described did not follow universal principles." This condescending attitude belies the blind spot of even the most eclectic Western scientists, such as Wilson. Maybe he has it backwards; maybe it is really the West that has paid too high a price for its strident scientism.
Similarly trained in Western science, physician Andrew Weil nevertheless manages to go beyond those intellectual parameters, advancing an intellectual paradigm that he calls "integrative." Weil traces how fundamental differences between Eastern and Western philosophy manifest themselves in the science (and art) of medicine. Owing to a proscription against cutting up cadavers, for thousands of years Chinese medicine focused on function (immunity, potency, energy) and developed means--like herbalism and acupuncture--to help the body's natural healing properties do their work. Western medicine concentrated on structure (circulatory system, liver, skeleton) and developed means, like surgery, to remove infected tonsils or cancerous tumors. Both approaches offer benefits, and Weil's eclecticism enables him to segue between Oriental and Occidental techniques in ways that unidimensional healers of either stripe cannot.
Weil's eclecticism in medicine understands the luminous insight derived from ecological studies in recent decades--everything is linked in an organic whole. Such holism needs to saturate the triptych where religion, science, and ecology converge if what passes for philosophical eclecticism is to grow beyond its Western blind spot. Such expansion, one might argue, will blossom from Western consciousness grounding itself in Eastern religions since they embrace nature as a living whole wherein everything must fit. Despite failing the test for a green conscience, monotheism's track record for flexibly adapting to new human needs is impressive, which provides reason for hope. Today, humanity's changing needs begin with valuing nature as a sacred trust.
Michael J. Strada is professor of political science, West Virginia University, Morgantown, and West Liberty (W. Va.) State College.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Society for the Advancement of Education<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
USA Today (Magazine); 9/1/2001; STRADA, MICHAEL J.
The tenets of Eastern religion are more compatible with nature than their Western counterparts.
WHAT PASSES for eclecticism in the science-religion dialogue is personified by Carleton University religion professor Ian Barber, 1999 winner of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Since 1965, he has been decrying that scientists know as little about religion as theologians do about science and prescribing more communication between the two groups as the antidote. He takes pride in observing that, 30 years ago, condescension typified relations between professional science and professional religion, whereas today, both sides are better listeners. Although significant, a richer dialogue between science and religion fails to expand the contemporary paradigm sufficiently. The vision of eclecticism associated with Barber falls short because it suffers from a blind spot--an ethnocentric, culture-bound, decidedly Western one. A plea is made here for a broader, environmentally friendly vision.
Among Western scientists, three common approaches to religion are discernible. The conflict thesis is epitomized by Cambridge University cosmologist Stephen Hawking, whose quest for a "Theory of Everything" considers the assumptions of each worldview as inimical to the other. Harvard University zoologist Stephen Jay Gould speaks for the peaceful coexistence thesis by arguing that, while the two domains cannot be synthesized, they need not come to blows, since neither represents a mortal threat to the other. The third nemesis--transcendence--finds fewer voices singing its praises. It seeks ways to rise above egocentrism to learn something from the other perspective, as advocated by the late Cornell University astronomer Carl Sagan.
Two scientific revolutions traditionally have been credited with transforming humanity's perception of itself: the Copernican revolution (Earth is not at the center of the universe) and the Darwinian revolution (humans obey the same evolutionary rules as other species). Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey, however, maintains that a new insight needs to be added--the immense size of the universe--because of the redundancy of scale that favors life existing elsewhere.
Today, astronomers measure the size of the universe as 20,000,000,000 light-years across. Current estimates suggest there are about 100,000,000,000 galaxies, each with about 100,000,000,000 stars. Under these circumstances, Sagan estimated that about 10,000,000,000 trillion planets may exist. There are more stars in the visible universe than grains of sand on Earth. Astronomer Frank Drake is similarly optimistic. Using what is known as the Drake Equation, he calculates that 50,000 intelligent civilizations may exist. While nothing like a consensus can be found, few scientists have assertively suggested that life elsewhere is unlikely. If intelligence is sprinkled around the Cosmos, it probably varies greatly. Therefore, why does monotheism's prime mover resemble the human race so snugly? As contextual background, Stephen Jay Gould suggests that "nothing is more unfamiliar or uncongenial to the human mind than thinking correctly about probabilities."
Tangible realities work better than probability as catalysts for human analysis of the chances of life elsewhere. For decades, the common presence of organic molecules--the building blocks of life--in space has been demonstrated by radio telescopes. Science reveals that Mars was once a wet world and now has polar ice caps--significant because, on Earth, water operates as the enabler of life. In 1996, scientists discovered a Mars meteorite containing organic matter. That same year, San Francisco State University astronomer Geoff Marcy won the race to verify the existence of an actual planet (Virginus 70) outside our solar system. Since Marcy's discovery, scores of new planets have been mapped. Some of them possess oxygen, methane, water, and temperatures favoring life as we know it. NASA head Dan Goldin is lobbying for funds to photograph such distant planets.
Only rigorous science can reveal what exists beyond Earth. Yet, if objectivity represents the heart of scientific method, then its soul consists of a certain attitude--skepticism. Science asserts that things are not always what they seem to be, making commonsensical understandings of the physical world inadequate. Sensory perception alone suggests that the sun revolves around the Earth; heavy bodies always fall faster than light ones; and ships made of iron must sink to the bottom of the sea. All of these perceptions, though, have been proven false, because science works via self-correction.
The 19th century witnessed profound self-corrections in both science and religion, stemming from Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution. However, Darwin erred badly on some questions. As the product of a thoroughly Western (Christian, Victorian, British) culture, he believed implicitly in an upward, progressive slope to humanity's trajectory in the physical and social realms, including the Inevitability Myth regarding homo sapiens--since we are in fact here, predestination requires that we be here for a higher-order purpose. Thus, Darwin tell prey to exaggerating the potency of his central thesis (winners succeed and losers become extinct in the course of biological improvement). Extinction resulting from species failing competitively fit so easily with Western assumptions of competitive ascendancy that rarely did any scientist question this hypothesis.
Darwin's competitive motif tells only art of the evolutionary tale. Unavailable to him was vital knowledge about the role of mass extinctions. The Alvarez hypothesis from the father and son team of Luis (physicist) and Walter (geologist) Alvarez suggests that the great Crustacean extinction 65,000,000 years ago, ending the reign of dinosaurs, resulted from a large asteroid striking Earth. Mass extinctions are more frequent (every 30,000,000 years), and more decisive in evolutionary consequences, than previously believed. The Alvarez hypothesis made randomness part of the evolutionary dialogue, distinguishing between evolution during normal times (when competition matters) and mass extinctions (when survival depends on good luck, not good genes).
British ex-nun Karen Armstrong's history of monotheism (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) reveals considerable similarity among the three religions. Their historical and doctrinal overlap expresses itself concretely in the frequent head-bumping among them over turf in the city of Jerusalem. Armstrong advances a dynamic theory: Our views of God remain intact only if they continue to meet human needs; otherwise, adaptation inevitably follows. She traces the protracted competition between two distinct ideas of divinity--a transcendental God and a personal God. These two visions of deity are not created equal, though, since monotheism generally has invested its spiritual capital more heavily in the personal God than in its transcendental alter ego--especially when contrasted with Eastern religions. What results is a resilient anthropomorphism endemic to monotheism.
Monotheism's convenient anthropomorphism is multifaceted. The Biblical God exhibits all of the schizoid characteristics of human nature. In addition to compassion, we find no shortage of brutality, as when God commands Abraham to kill his only remaining son, Isaac. In the Hebrew tradition of Yahweh, His portrayal epitomizes the ultimate king, and Isaiah (a member of the royal family) found it natural to depict Yahweh as a king enthroned in His temple, much like the kings of Baal and Mardok. "By attributing their own human feelings and experiences to Yahweh, the prophets were creating a God in their own image," Armstrong maintains. The Hebrew Yahweh is a prophet-meeting God-king who speaks, often practically and harshly, demanding obedient action that is never easy or calming. In Eastern religions, like Hinduism or Buddhism, encounters with a deity typically produce human enlightenment and spiritual peace, but this rarely occurs with the Biblical God.
No paucity of negative consequences have been traced to monotheism's penchant for anthropomorphism. One difficulty with a personal God is the Holocaust Dilemma: If God could not stop the Holocaust, He is impotent and useless. If He could have stopped the Holocaust and didn't, that makes Him even worse. In a classic double bind, the hands-on, personal God gets sullied by the unfathomable Holocaust. Another troubling argument stems from monotheism's historical track record of virulent religious intolerance, which is far less common in Eastern religions. Lastly, a sense of anthropomorphic sexism, inherently part of the Hebrew Yahweh, tends to denigrate ecology, since most of the values associated with modern environmentalism were considered feminine traits in Biblical times.
More than two millennia ago, Plato unequivocally stated that "All mankind, Greeks and non-Greeks alike, believe in the existence of gods." Even the quintessential pragmatist, Italian Renaissance philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli, accepted that, without religion, an orderly society would vanish into smoke. Russian novelist Feodor Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor mused that, "If there's no God, everything is permitted." Indeed, throughout human history, the institution of religion has accompanied all social development. From animism to polytheism to monotheism, a resilient spiritual dimension has pervaded human ritual. Humans apparently need spirituality.
Anthropologists suggest that religion persists because it has value to us, and such value can be either intrinsic, instrumental, or a combination thereof. Religion's staying power is illustrated poignantly in an Auschwitz Holocaust story related in journalist Bill Moyers' study on Genesis. Jews in this Nazi death camp held a mock heating, placing God on trial for the Holocaust, asking the question, "Where was God?" Discovering no exonerating evidence, these Jews found God guilty and sentenced Him to death. Yet, later that same day, what did the same people do? They gathered for evening prayer. The struggle to understand continues because humans need religious ritual, even when mired in the despair of the Holocaust. An equally moving Holocaust story is told by survivor/author Elie Weisel. When he and the other remaining Jews were liberated from Buchenwald in the spring of 1945, what they did first was not to request water, food, or clothing, but to join together in circles, praying as one.
Part of religion's resilience is also attributable to the potency of myth. The Bible works as great literature because of dense, gripping stories that skim across millennia to engross culturally distinct Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and because Biblical stories feature universal themes. No scholar has depicted the Deity through the eyes of as many different cultures as author Joseph Campbell. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he tells readers that myth, "as a sacred narrative of the world and how we came to be in it," presents a limited range of responses to the mysteries of life. For example, every society has an "origin myth" as its core story. "From behind a thousand faces, the single hero emerges, archetype of all myth," Campbell writes. Mythology serves as an embodiment of subjective troth, and his The Power of Myth demonstrates how myth links us to our past, and how religion and myth constitute different patches of the same spiritual quilt. Above all, Campbell hones in on this insight: Myth should not be considered anachronistic, because repetitive themes continue to affect how we visualize, and live out, life on Earth.
As comparative religionist Huston Smith argues, religion's challenge lies in discovering how to pluck its spiritual bounty without swallowing its considerable excesses, such as the materialistic preoccupations common to church bureaucracies. Few scholars can match Smith's insights, based not only on intellectual erudition, but on wide experience involving diverse religious practices. He sagely observes that, viewed panoramically, monotheism has functioned as both cause and effect of the scientific paradigm responsible for profound changes in the existence of humans and other species in our world. Humans' increased ability to comprehend the world scientifically has produced myriad benefits equated with the notion of competitive progress, but also significant liabilities, among them a proclivity for tunnel vision.
The volatile 1960s unleashed strong criticism of monotheism's contribution to environmental denigration. The classic piece setting the parameters of the dialogue was written by University of California medieval studies professor Lynn White, who took dead aim at Christianity as the culprit most responsible for the environmental crisis. He brands Christianity as the most anthropocentric religion. According to White, Christianity's linear sense of time (distinct beginnings and ends), its creation story (with humans made in God's image), and its placing of humans in a special position over the rest of nature render it inimical to ecological integrity. He does, nevertheless, identify St. Francis of Assisi as an unsung Church hero for advocating the equality of all creatures, including a doctrine tantamount to spiritual leprosy for Church fathers--the concept of an animal soul.
Other factors from Biblical times help to explain monotheism's blank stare regarding ecological consciousness. The first concerns how time is conceived. In ancient Hindu culture, time was considered cyclical, "a wheel of righteousness," as in nature's cycle of sunrise and sunset. This image of nature's cyclical clock provided no reason to consider humanity as anything but an integral part of the natural ecology. In the ninth century B.C., however, a shift took place among the Hebrews that continues to resonate today. Jews changed from the traditional cyclical metaphor to a linear metaphor of time, the etiology of which was inspired by human experience, not nature. Christians soon borrowed this concept, and Western imagery concerning time was fundamentally altered. Linear time encourages hierarchical thinking, assisting the myth that humanity stands not only apart from, but also above nature.
One other ancient shift, occurring shortly thereafter, likewise mitigated against a green conscience for Christianity. When Christ's followers first distinguished themselves from pagans, the word "pagan" meant "country-dweller," and the pagans' otherness was bound up with being a country bumpkin. Anything connoting rural life seemed alien to the early Christians, who lived in cities of the Roman Empire such as Antioch and Alexandria. Christianity had a decidedly urban style, and the stiffest opposition Christian proselytizers would encounter for more than a millennium was from the "tenacious nature religions of the peasantry," as Alan Watts wrote in Nature, Man, and Woman. Uniquely Christian as well is the way it bases its legitimacy on miracles bending the laws of nature to the will of God. While some other religions may sprinkle in miraculous events, their role is the crux of the matter only with Christianity.
Monotheism's condescending attitude toward nature appears even more hostile when contrasted with the environmentally friendly religions of the East. Western maximalism (bigger is better) contrasts sharply with Eastern minimalism (small is beautiful). Buddhism, for instance, is less didactic and more inferential than monotheism's big three religions. Buddha taught that the processes of nature are shaped by the morals of humans. Therefore, ecological problems can be alleviated by living simpler, gentler, more spiritual lives. Pollution in the environment is caused by the pollution of human hearts. Material excess often leads people away from living the existence of moderation practiced by the Buddha. Compassion and loving kindness for all living things are fundamental Buddhist values concerning nature.
Taoism can be traced back to the teachings of Lao-Tse (604-531 B.C.). It started out as a philosophy and was adopted as a state religion in 440 A.D., at which time Lao-Tse became venerated as a deity. Lao-Tse taught that Tao is the first cause of the universe and that our goal is to become one with the Tao. People must develop virtue through compassion, moderation, and humility. Taoism's beneficence toward nature matches Buddhism's. Meaning "The Way," Taoism represents a depersonalized ethic demonstrating none of the anthropomorphism of a creator God.
In Taoism, nature is a living whole into which humanity, like everything else, must fit: "According to the Tao, there is a moral imperative to be virtuous toward nature." Taoism is based partly on the dialectical interplay of Tao's key cosmic principles--yin (dark side) and yang (light side)--which accounts for the rhythm found in the natural world. There can exist no unbridgeable gulf between humanity and nature, because absolutely everything is connected. The doctrine of Wu Wei advocates "acting in accord with nature, that is, in harmony with the Tao." All beings are embraced by Taoism's egalitarian ethic.
As mentioned earlier, Hinduism's sense of time remains cyclical, not linear. This contributes to Hinduism's organic view of nature, with humanity of it, in it, but not above it. Symbolic of Hinduism's cyclical mind-set is the doctrine of reincarnation of the soul. Reincarnation provides the vehicle for eventual perfection of the spirit and ultimate unity with the deity, or godhead. The main scriptures (the "Veda," the "Upanishad," and the "Bhagavad-Gita") teach tolerance and respect for life. The ancient Hindu religion continues to shape life in India and other Hindu cultures.
Eastern insights
We must look to these Eastern religions for insights, because they enable more openminded approaches to the dilemmas of existence--especially environmental ones. One difficulty with looking East for enlightenment, though, is that understanding Eastern theologies is not easy. The extensive writings of Watts represents a resource noteworthy for making Eastern inscrutability accessible to the Western mind. Employing prose that stands up and performs poetically, he allows us to know something of Zen Buddhism, for example, without devoting a lifetime to unraveling its subtle paradoxes. While Buddhism and Christianity may differ greatly in form, they share many basic principles.
A similarly engaging contemporary meeting of Eastern and Western minds can be found in The Monk and the Philosopher, a tete-a-tete on metaphysics, morality, and meaning between French rationalist philosopher Jean-Francois Revel and his son, Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk who works as a translator for the Dalai Lama. As the two men meet in an inn overlooking Katmandu, Western modes of thought take in Eastern modes of spiritual experience. The bond between father and son helps to bridge the gap, as they straggle to find commonality between Western theology and Buddhism concerning humanity's search for meaning.
One Eastern philosophy barely mentioned yet is Confucianism. In Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West, Washington Post Tokyo bureau chief Thomas Reid explains the relevance of history to contemporary Asia. Confucian moral values still live throughout the East (not only China) and undergird responsible social behavior, ecological sensitivity, and the work ethic common to Asian societies. Even after 2,500 years, Confucius' timeless values of respect for elders, rising above sociopolitical hardships, group responsibility, and personal integrity, matter greatly. Reid emphasizes how similar are the moral statements shared by the ancient Greeks, Confucianism, and Christianity.
Hinduism and Taoism are the other Eastern religions vital for broadening the Western perspective. Since Western logic is vulnerable to the fallacy of single cause, the Occidental mind always wants to single out one factor causing a given result to occur. Westerners want to know which Eastern religion (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism) is the real answer to their problems. That they are all heuristic for the task strikes most Westerners as evading the question.
One of the most broad-minded Western scientists today is biologist Edward Wilson, who condemns the tunnel vision characteristic of those who stay within the comfortable boundaries of single academic disciplines. His highly interdisciplinary approach remains praiseworthy, but his faith in science may be excessive. Wilson pays homage to monotheism's Biblical tradition as the wellspring of Western science, and he laments Oriental philosophy having missed the scientific boat: "It abandoned the idea of a supreme being with personal and creative properties. No rational author of Nature existed in their universe; consequently, the objects they meticulously described did not follow universal principles." This condescending attitude belies the blind spot of even the most eclectic Western scientists, such as Wilson. Maybe he has it backwards; maybe it is really the West that has paid too high a price for its strident scientism.
Similarly trained in Western science, physician Andrew Weil nevertheless manages to go beyond those intellectual parameters, advancing an intellectual paradigm that he calls "integrative." Weil traces how fundamental differences between Eastern and Western philosophy manifest themselves in the science (and art) of medicine. Owing to a proscription against cutting up cadavers, for thousands of years Chinese medicine focused on function (immunity, potency, energy) and developed means--like herbalism and acupuncture--to help the body's natural healing properties do their work. Western medicine concentrated on structure (circulatory system, liver, skeleton) and developed means, like surgery, to remove infected tonsils or cancerous tumors. Both approaches offer benefits, and Weil's eclecticism enables him to segue between Oriental and Occidental techniques in ways that unidimensional healers of either stripe cannot.
Weil's eclecticism in medicine understands the luminous insight derived from ecological studies in recent decades--everything is linked in an organic whole. Such holism needs to saturate the triptych where religion, science, and ecology converge if what passes for philosophical eclecticism is to grow beyond its Western blind spot. Such expansion, one might argue, will blossom from Western consciousness grounding itself in Eastern religions since they embrace nature as a living whole wherein everything must fit. Despite failing the test for a green conscience, monotheism's track record for flexibly adapting to new human needs is impressive, which provides reason for hope. Today, humanity's changing needs begin with valuing nature as a sacred trust.
Michael J. Strada is professor of political science, West Virginia University, Morgantown, and West Liberty (W. Va.) State College.
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