Religions

On Thursday I learned about a lot of different religions. Each group did a great job explaining the environmental beliefs in relation to religions such as Hinduism, Daoism, Judaism, Buddhism and Islam. There were many things that I learned from these presentations. If we really do follow any religion (and even if we don’t) we are taught to use the environment but at the same time we must protect it.

Each religion values the environment. They believe it is our place to live and should be used with care. In the Jewish religion the Genesis teaches that God created the Earth and gave human the rights and power over it. However, one should remember that everything (even the birds, mice and other creatures) came before humans in the order of creation. So there is a balance.

In Islam, the religion prohibits needless and cruel killing of animals. Animals are to be killed a certain way as to cause least pain as possible. Other religions, like Hinduism, prohibits the killing of cows because they are sacred. All religions teach the people to respect the environment and everything in the environment including animals, trees, water and much more.

I really liked the presentation on Doaism. This is because I didn’t know anything pertaining to this religion. Even though these people don’t believe in any God they still have respect for the environment. Amazingly, in this religion every creature on Earth is of equal stature. This was different from the other religion since most of the other religions believe that they are superior and have a natural right to use the Earth. We should all think this. Why are we superior and how can we prove this? If we are superior than we should be able to lead the way in protecting the environment. Instead we are the leaders of polluting the Earth and causing all the destruction to it. This is something we should all think about….