Volume 3, Issue 4, April 1995


HUMAN ARROGANCE

"We will first destroy all of the larger animals, either for meat or because they compete with us for space, together with those which may be intolerant of our activitis because of their specific natural specializations," declares John A. Livingston, naturalist. "Extinction of nonhuman species, without replacement, will continue at an accelerating rate, until the only nonhuman living beings remaining will be those who are willing to share their squalor with us - rats, gutter curs, and parasites and micro-organisms which thrive in times of environmental dislocation."

The ancients when they killed an animal for food enacted a religious ceremony that the animal might be replaced in nature's realm. Today we hunt for sport, often indiscriminately. We cut down trees and do not replant for each one destroyed. Hectares of arable land are covered with parking lots and housing developments without thought of the need of the land for food. World famine is a reality, blithely ignored. Even in Canada, where our land mass is the second largest in the world and we have a relatively sparse population, we have only a hectare or so of food land per person. Ontario cannot feed its own population but depends heavily on imports. Our arrogance towards nature is sinful.

Our responsibility is to protect our environment.

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"Religion NOW" is published in limited edition by the Rev. Ross E. Readhead, B.A., B.D., Certificate of Corrections, McMaster University, in the interest of furthering knowledge and participation in religion. Dialogue is invited and welcomed.