Learn to live in harmony with each other and nature. Living a thoroughly loving joyous abundant life is your God given right. Nature is abundant. Live according to the universal law, universal principles such as Brother/Sisterly Love, Universal Peace, Individual Freedom and Prosperity for all.
— James GillilandIn the vision of universal interpenetration, one of the Mahayana flowers of the Buddha's teaching of Conditioned Co-production (pratitya samutpada), we have a basic insight into our relationship with nature. This vision is exemplified in the simile of Indra's Net: High above in heaven, on the roof of the palace of the god Indra, there hang innumerable jewels interlaced in a great network. As the light reflects off these multifaceted gems not only does each jewel reflect the whole cosmos, but also every other jewel in the net, including all the reflections from all the jewels, the reflections of the reflections, and their reflections.
In this beautiful vision we can begin to connect imaginatively with the mutual interdependence of all processes. Bringing this insight down to earth it becomes clear that by harming nature we are in fact harming ourselves. There are plenty of examples to demonstrate this in the current media: acid rain, the greenhouse effect, the ozone hole, radioactive contamination, to name but a few. These reactions of nature to our carelessness harm us not only physically but also psychologically, as we face the threat of our environment becoming increasingly inimical to healthy human life.
There are very strong Biblical directives to care for God's earth. Articles and theological treatises [on creation care] were often prefaced by the statement, "the Earth is the Lord's." It comes from Psalm 24:1, "The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; the fullness and everything it contains."
Most of the Biblical teachings [on creation care] have to do with three principles: earth-keeping, fruitfulness, and Sabbath.
The Qur'an' and the Hadith are rich in proverbs and precepts that speak of the Almighty's design for creation and humanity's responsibility for preserving it. For many Muslims, citing these is enough to prove that Islam has always embraced a complete environmental ethic. Others are more critical. They readily acknowledge that the guidelines are all there in Islamic doctrine. Tawhid (unity), khilafa (trusteeship), and akhirah (accountability, or literally, the hereafter), three central concepts of Islam, are also the pillars of Islam's environmental ethic. But they add that Muslims have strayed from this nexus of values and need to return to it.
— Islam and Ecology, M. Hope & J. Young: http://www.crosscurrents.org/islamecology.htmWords like "Nature" change meanings in important ways over time. Right wingers and left wingers, for their opposite reasons, like to say our Founders disliked democracy, never ever mentioning that the word meant something different at the time they wrote than it means today, or that James Madison defined the American republic exactly as we now define representative democracy (a term that did not then exist).
The word "Nature" has the same problem. As used during that that time "Nature" had a strong survival-of-the-fittest flavor, with conflict and struggle being the primary value within life. People argued over the units that competed and struggled, from Social Darwinists who initially emphasized individuals to Hitler and the Nazis who emphasized races. Nazis justified their violence in part by claiming it was in keeping with "Nature."
There is no evidence of awareness of symbiotic relationships being particularly important, though Peter Kropotkin had drawn initial attention to them. He was largely ignored at the time, but today we know symbiosis (cooperation) is fundamental to evolution. "Nature" like so many important words can only be understood in context and with sensitivity to the times.
Curtis Yazzie: “Once Peabody takes all the coal out, it’ll be gone. Solar would be long-term. Solar and wind, we don’t have a problem with. It’s pretty windy out here.”
— Navajos Hope to Shift From Coal to Wind and Sun, NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/science/earth/26navajo.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1
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