(24) How is New Age related to environmentalism? New Age and environmentalism are not the same. By environmentalism is meant an attitude and practice of caring for the health of the natural environment and its capacity to sustain life. It is true that New Agers tend to see all reality as a whole, and therefore see human beings as related to the natural environment, and in a sense, forming part of it. Environmentalism is an important concern of most New Agers. Nevertheless there are many persons committed to environmentalism who are not New Agers. One does not have to be a New Ager in order to support environmentalism. Moreover, some New Agers propagate an exaggerated kind of environmentalism that considers all living creatures to have equal moral value, and therefore in principle equally entitled to survive and to thrive. For example, a tree, an ant, or a dog would have moral worth equal to that of a human being. This kind of environmentalism suffers from the error called biocentrism. Catholic Christianity cannot accept biocentrism, because it recognizes the special dignity of human beings, who are created in the image and likeness of God to a degree more than that of other creatures on Earth. But Catholic Christianity also rejects anthropocentrism, another error that considers human beings to be the center of earthly creation and so exalts human beings over other creatures to the extent that other creatures are seen only or mainly as resources to be used for the purposes of human beings. Within Catholic Christianity the emerging consensus in theology and spirituality in relation to the natural environment has taken on a direction of commitment to the preservation or the recovery of the integrity of creation-the God-given complexity of creation and its capacity to sustain life. In such a framework of theology and spirituality, human beings have a dignity superior to that of other earthly creatures, but such dignity carries with it the duty to give proportionate respect to each creature and to work- for the preservation or the recovery of the integrity of creation- This framework- of attitudes and ideas is in harmony with thephilosophical position called ecocentrism, which can admit the special moral worth of human beings within an emphasis on the moral duty to promote the welfare of all creatures by defending, preserving, or bringing about the recovery of ecosystems and of the entire biosphere and their capacity to sustain life.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 03:14:44 +0000
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