There’s general agreement that the Bible has a word or two to say about man’s relationship to the environment. The most commonly quoted verse is from Genesis, 1:28:
...Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth (Gen. 1:28).
This can be read as God giving mankind free reign over every living creature, environmental consequences be damned. The more moderate view argues that man must act as responsible stewards for the earth and all its creatures. Both interpretations assume that Man, through the auspices of God, knows what’s best and that there’s a certain alignment between the notion of man’s continued ‘fruitfulness’ and a healthy environment.
But is that the case? What if man’s effort to ‘be fruitful and multiply’, to seek a stable food supply and to protect his species through the modest means of agriculture are actually what is causing (and has caused) environmental crisis after environmental crisis? Most available evidence indicates that’s exactly the case.
continued at Daily Kos...
