From reading the Naess article on self-awareness I have formulated a hypothesis as to why we separate ourselves from nature. That reason is fear. When we really look at nature and wild animals we see death and destruction of life forms for food for others. I believe our ancestors saw this and for the sake of safety felt it best to separate ourselves as much as possible. Thus when modern religion developed the founders tried to eliminate nature, because they wanted to beat death. That is what religion is all about: beating death, beating nature. Think about it. Have you ever heard of a religion that preached about a deity (i.e. excluding atheism) that taught that when a person dies, they just die? NO, in almost every religion and/or mythology their followers are taught that there is an afterlife for them. They are taught that to not worry about death, because when you die you’re just gonna go somewhere else. We are taught that because of our advanced thought processes we are superior to death and thus nature. That is also why animals do not go to “heaven.” The animals and their lifestyles are exactly what we are trying to separate ourselves from through religion. So why would we include the very thing we are trying to escape in our utopia?
So I want to know from the class: What do you think about this? Does this sound logical? Am I completely off base? Or was the already completely obvious to everyone else?
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I don't know if I would consider fear to be the reason we separate from nature. I honestly think it is an ego thing. Humans are intelligent and have developed enough to medically save our own kind. I think this development and population growth factor has a great deal to do with it. I see your point about fear. Maybe humans never want to go back to the way things were when we were hunted and not always the hunter or were less in numbers than we are now. However, I feel that we allow this sense of power and greed to come over ourselves and let it take over. We want what we can't have and what better way to prove that we are dominate than taking over mother nature? I don't know, I could be wrong also.
ReplyDeleteI think that you're on to something here, Morgan. It's interesting to note that the most ancient religion was animism, the belief that everything was a spiritual entity; including rocks. Primitive humans lived in constant fear of a world beyond their control. With the advent of civilization, we began to gain a little bit of control over our situation and religion started to reflect this. In polytheism, we could possibly appease some deities (which became more anthropomorphic) to our advantage. Then monotheism came about in which the deity was on our side. We had control over nature, but only if we denied our connection to it and submission to the creator. So I do think it was a combination of fear and a desire of control that drove us to separate ourselves from nature.
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