Christianity_Encourages_or_Discourages_the_Conservation_of_B

Christianity Encourages or Discourages the Conservation of Biodiversity The idea for this research project derives from a class seminar early in the quarter in which students briefly pondered whether Christianity encourages or discourages the conservation of biodiversity. The instructor’s enthusiasm regarding this question was self-evident and provided ample impetus to pursue an answer – not for obsequious reasons, but for reasons of instrumentality: when baking a pie for the county fair, choose a fruit filling to which the judge is partial. According to the rules of academic honesty, I must mention that I embarked on this research project with a vivid awareness of my own personal bias against religion, in general, and against Judeo-Christianity, in particular. I had hoped to hammer my bias into a reasoned polemic against what Erich Fromm (1976) called Judeo-Christianity’s “life-negating tendency” to fixate on redemption and the afterlife. Supporting me in this venture would be Nietzsche (1888), who argued similarly that Judeo-Christianity’s mission was “[to] reverse the whole love of the earth and the earthly…” If I could demonstrate that Judeo-Christianity’s preoccupation with death creates a mindset in believers facilitating the devaluation and/or subjugation of nature, I could begin to argue that Judeo-Christianity thwarts the conservation of biodiversity. eco-theology, judeo-christianity, nature, judeo-christian, environmental, fromm, biodiversity, 2001, theological, necrophilia, order, nietzsche, life-negating, enlightenment, theology, liberal, judeo-christianity’s, ethic, death, conservation, white, regarding, necrophilic, moderate, life, genesis, evidence, dominion, conservative, character, according, about, theory, social