[goldstategop]

What differentiates Judaism and Christianity from paganism and its modern secular offshoot, the environmental movement, is in its declaration that God is divine, not nature. It is God who is meant to be the sole object of worship, not the world around Him. God's values are the antithesis of what happens in nature. That is why those who believe in the Judeo-Christian tradition believe the purpose of life is to exalt God and improve on the law of the jungle.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[USMMA_83]

God is everywhere...even in Nature. Even in a burning bush, or the rainbow over the rockies. God exists in the breath you take and the beauty around you.

[Lonely Bull]

G.K. Chesterton wrote:

'If you want to treat a tiger reasonably, you must go back to the garden of Eden. For the obstinate reminder continued to recur: only the supernatural has taken a sane view of Nature. The essence of all pantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic religion is really in this proposition: that Nature is our mother. Unfortunately, if you regard Nature as a mother, you discover that she is a step-mother. The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate.'

BTW, the rest of this paragraph is less relevant here but still interesting:

'This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity. Nature was a solemn mother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved.'

[Carry_Okie]

God's stated purpuse for man was to care for His creation, as stated in Genesis 2:15 (see tagline).

If that isn't a responsibility for environmental stewardship, I don't know what would be.

[taxesareforever]

In ancient Egypt, for example, gods included the Nile River, the frog, sun, wind, gazelle, bull, cow, serpent, moon and crocodile. Then came Genesis, which announced that a supernatural God, i.e., a god who existed outside of nature, created nature. Nothing about nature was divine.

Then came Genesis? I do believe Genesis came before the Egyptians.

[DeweyCA]

Good points. We must also remember that what we see and experience today is not what God originally created or intended for mankind. Today nature is "fallen", cursed by God in Genesis 3. Also, the world has been devastated by Noah's flood, and finally from the folly of man's continued selfishness in not being a good steward of the earth.

Many people think that God is in everything. But according to the Bible, that is not correct. God is everywhere, but He is in only the believer, Christians, in the form of the Holy Spirit. We are all God's creatures, part of His creation, but only Christians are His children.

[jennyp]

The mistake isn't in worshipping the wrong god. The mistake is assuming that nature is some kind of person in the first place. It's a fallacy of anthropomorphism, similar to thinking of the ultimate in abstractions - the cause of the universe's existence - as if it had to be a person of some kind.

It makes no sense to speak of "worshipping" any thing that's not a sentient being or an abstract concept. You could appreciate such a thing, try to understand it, learn how to deal with it, but not worship it.

[John Locke]

Among the most radical of these differences was the incredible declaration that God is outside of nature and is its creator.

Hardly radical or incredible. Xenophanes of Colophon said much the same thing. So did the Egyptian account of the creation of the world by the pure will of Ptah, which is of predynastic origin, ie before 3200BC. The creation account in the Indian Rig Veda is similar: the universe was created by Purusha, "the being beyond all others".

The supposed exceptionalism of Genesis claimed in this article is simply not true, as any study of comparative mythology will show.

[bondserv]

Ping!

[bondserv]

Related to our prior discussion!

[biblewonk]

Evolution was called idolatry in the OT:

Jer 2:27 Saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth: for they have turned their back unto me, and not their face: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us.

28 But where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.

[Tribune7]

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