ABSTRACT
Lynn White is widely considered the pioneering scholar who criticized Western religions for the current ecological problems in the world (1967). The summary of his argument is as follows. Humans have tampered with nature unlike any other species, e.g., the Romans cut the forests to build their ships and the British built the Aswan Dam. Similarly, deforestation and erosion resulted from mining for potash, sulfur, iron ore and charcoal. Population explosion, sewage deposits, and garbage deposits are other major problems that continue to impact global ecology catastrophically. According to White, descendents of Northern European peasants turned out to be the biggest exploiters of nature with their scientific and technological progress in modern times. The transformation of humans from being part of nature to exploiter also coincided with another major shift in the human psyche in Europe. This was also the period when Christianity was “destroying” pagan animism there. According to White’s interpretation of the Bible, God made humans in his image and they are supposed to dominate nature for their proper ends. By transferring all the divinity from nature to a superhuman God in heaven, “Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects” (1967: 1205). Let me now analyze some of White’s conclusions.
