The Oromo Conception of Life: An Introduction

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-76
Author(s):  
Workineh Kelbessa
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Artificial Life ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Personal Observation ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Special Place

This article examines the Oromo conception of life. The Oromo believe that Waaqa is the creator of all things and the source of all life. Accordingly, the concept of “artificial life” does not exist in the Oromo worldview. Life is a sophisticated system and can only be created by a perfect being. Human beings are not above other creatures and cannot despoil them as they wish. They are part of the natural world that is given a special place in the diversity of the cosmos; they are endowed with the intelligence that enables them to understand cosmic events. Thus, God requires humans to responsibly cohabit the Earth with other creatures. This study relies on literature review, interviews and personal observation.

Identity, Affirmation, and Resistance in the Exeter Riddle Collection

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Catherine Barajas
Keyword(s):  
Human Service ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Natural State ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
Active Voice ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Inherent Worth

The Exeter riddle collection imagines voices for the Earth community. The bird riddles (6 and 7) exploit similarities between human and avian behaviors to affirm the intrinsic worth of the Earth community even when it makes humans uncomfortable. The horn riddles (12 and 76) give voice to other-than-human beings celebrating their participation in heroic culture: these riddles imagine that animal-objects find pleasure and purpose in their “work”, despite removal from their natural state. However, the wood-weapon riddles (3, 51, and 71) reveal an awareness that conscription into human service is not always in the best interest of the other-than-human. These thematic clusters suggest an interest in the inherent worth, active voice, and purpose of the non-human natural world.

scholarly journals Ecology and Society. Impacted Ecosystems. Part I

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 7-29
Author(s):  
Marina Frontasyeva ◽  
Alexander Kamnev
Keyword(s):  
Social Indicators ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
Exponential Population Growth ◽  
Great Acceleration ◽  
Economic And Social Indicators ◽  
Exponential Population

Abstract The Earth has existed for more than four billion years and has sustained life for three billion. Human beings have existed for just 200,000 years, yet our impact on the planet is so great that scientists around the world are calling for our period in the Earth’s history to be named ‘the Anthropocene’ - the age of humans. The changes we are now making have exacted a heavy toll on the natural world around us, and now threaten the planet’s ability to provide for us all. Problems of Ecology and Society in the new geological era as the Anthropocene - ‘the age of humans’ - are overviewed. The name is widely recognized as a useful classification of the period in which human activity has created and continues to generate deep and lasting effects on the Earth and its living systems. Examples of the interrelated effects of exponential population growth and massively expanding consumption of natural resources called Great Acceleration are given. Updated ‘planetary dashboard’ of environmental, economic and social indicators charts the trajectory of the Anthropocene are briefly summarized.

scholarly journals Conserving Natural Values to Mitigate Environmental Degradation in Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-90
Author(s):  
Mark Omorovie Ikeke
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Anthropogenic Activities ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Ocean Pollution ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Food Shortages

One of the gravest predicaments that Africa is suffering from is environmental degradation. Environmental degradation implies the diminishment of the beauty, quality, goodness, and viability of the earth and its ecosystems. Environmental degradation is precipitated by massive deforestation, desertification, drought, forced migration, war, food shortages, atmospheric and ocean pollution from mining and exploitation of natural resources, human insecurities, misappropriation of environmental funds, global warming and climate change, etc. Many of these that lead to environmental degradation are anthropogenic (caused by human activities and behaviours). Anthropogenic activities that degrade the environment are often informed by systems of thoughts that see no intrinsic value in nature or the earth. Nature is simply seen for its utilitarian and human satisfaction purpose. The earth is simply seen as existing for human needs and purpose. Nature exists to benefits human beings. Humans are at liberty to use the earth as they desire. Other organisms have no purpose except for the good and welfare of human beings. The interests of other non-human realities do not count. This paper argues that there are values in the natural world. Beyond the benefits that nature provides for humans and the entire ecosystem, nature has intrinsic value. While humans are to make use of nature to sustain themselves like other organisms in nature, humans have a responsibility to conserve the intrinsic values in nature. The degradation and deterioration of nature takes from it religious, spiritual, aesthetic, intrinsic, ecosystemic, and other values in nature. The paper will use a critical analytic and hermeneutic method to traces various theorists on the value of nature. It will examine the situation and reality of environmental degradation. It will equally present what can be done to conserve natural values. The paper finds and concludes that conserving natural values will help to mitigate environmental degradation

scholarly journals The limits of a Lockean Environmentalism: God, Human Beings, and Nature in Locke's philosophy

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Henrik Skaug Sætra
Keyword(s):  
John Locke ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Religious Aspects

God gave us the Earth, to use and enjoy. So says the Bible, and so says John Locke (1632-1704). The individualism and liberalism in Locke’s philosophy makes it decidedly modern and appealing to us today. However, he often uses God as a source of truth and premises in his arguments. This undermines the modern appearance and leaves us with a philosophy that is at times contradictory, at times brilliant, and at all times fixed to the anthropocentric rail that guides his philosophy. In this article, the element of Locke’s philosophy that concerns humanity’s relationship with the natural world is examined. Particular attention is paid to the value and nature of both biotic and abiotic nature. I argue that the religious aspects of Locke’s philosophy cannot be fully purged in an effort to create a pure rationalist, and this leads me to focus on how the religious aspects relate to Locke’s rationalism, and in particular what implications his combination of philosophy and theology carries for the prospects of a Lockean environmentalism. I conclude that such environmentalism has clear limitations, while still providing certain foundations for the idea of sustainability and scientific conservationism.

scholarly journals “I Have This Kind of Grief for the Earth”: A.S. Byatt’s Ecopoetics in Ragnarök, “Thoughts on Myth” and “Sea Story”

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-67
Author(s):  
Alexandra Cheira
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Environmental Concerns ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Species ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Organic Community ◽  
The Mind

Abstract A.S. Byatt has expressed deep misgivings regarding the role which the human species has played in mis/shaping the natural world due to the wilful blindness which guides human behaviour in this respect. In fact, Byatt has focussed on the destruction of the planet caused by greedy and environmentally-unaware human beings in fictional texts such as Ragnarök: The End of the Gods (2011) or “Sea Story” (2013), as well as in critical pieces such as “Thoughts on Myth” (2011). Hence, I am particularly interested in investigating how Byatt’s texts have been shaped by environmental concerns, as expressed in both her fiction and her critical work. My reading of Byatt’s ecopoetics will therefore be set within the theoretical framework of ecocriticism. Finally, I will also examine Byatt’s argument that in a way her early fictional work was “a questioning quarrel” with her former Cambridge teacher F.R. Leavis’s, whose “vision and values” she nevertheless “inherit[s] and share[s]” (Passions of the Mind, 2) in light of Leavis’s discussion of “the organic community” as proto-ecocritical writing.

scholarly journals Odpowiedzialność człowieka za przyrodę w ujęciu Bazylego Wielkiego

Vox Patrum ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 331-343
Author(s):  
Ewa Osek
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Perfect State ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
New Creation ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Human Condition

According to St. Basil the human condition and the State of nature are always the same. The histories of the mankind and natural world are closely connected, because of his conception of the nature, conceived as the whole of which a man is a part. St. Basil basing himself on the Scriptures divides the word history into three stages: 1) the Paradise age, 2) the times after the Fali, and 3) eschatological timeless future. The first age of history - the Paradise - was the time of perfection of human race (represented by Adam and Eve) and of incorruptibility of their natural environment. There was no death, no desease, no disasters. The human condition was very high, because Adam was the king of the nature. His dominion over the earth and the animals was very kind and gentle. The first people were vegetarians and they didn’t kill animals. The Paradise man’s perfectibility corresponded to the perfect State of Paradise plants (for example, a rose had no thoms), to the gentleness of all the animals, and to mildness of the climate. The origin of death and all disasters was the Fali of Adam. St. Basil said that the duty of Adam was everlasting, never-ending contemplation of God, whose novice Adam could hear. But Adam ceased his ascetic practice because of temptation of boredom and sadness. Immediately after the first Adam’s sin started the times of imperfection, corruption, and death. The age of the Paradise happiness has gone, and now, in our times, everywhere there is pain, illness, pollution, climatic anomalies, etc. Man is not already the king of nature: now he is just a steward of God. The good stewardship will be rewarded by God after the Last Judgement and the prize will be eternal salvation or return to the eschatological Paradise. But succeeding generations of people sin in much more terrible manner then Adam, and their crimes, called progress, waste the earth by causing further degeneration and pollution of environment. These bad stewards will be punished in Heli among the lightless fire and the worms eating their bodies. The sins of bad stewards will cause condemnation of some part of nature with them, because the human beings won’t can exist without their natural environment even in eschatological endless Heli. The consummation of the world won’t be the end of existence of nature. After this eschatological event nature will be still exist in some transfigured and spiritual “better shape” except for the lightless fire and worms going to be punished with the reprobates in the Heli, parallel to the higher State of human souls (called by St. Paul “new creation”). Then, man’s responsibility for natural world can be called eschatological or eternal.

STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AMONG SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN RELATION TO THEIR GENDER AND ACADEMIC STREAM

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-265
Author(s):  
Dr.Navdeep Kaur
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Environmental Awareness ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
School Students ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Stages Of Learning ◽  
The Masses

Since its evolution environment has remained both a matter of awe and concern to man. The frontier attitude of the industrialized society towards nature has not only endangered the survival of all other life forms but also threatened the very existence of human life. The realization of such potential danger has necessitated the dissemination of knowledge and skill vis-a-vis environment protection at all stages of learning. Therefore, learners of all stages of learning need to be sensitized with a missionary zeal. This may ensure transformation of students into committed citizens for averting global environment crisis. The advancement of science and technology made the life more and more relaxed and man also became more and more ambitious. With such development, human dependence on environment increased. He consumed more resources and the effect of his activities on the environment became more and more detectable. Environment covers all the things present around the living beings and above the land, on the surface of the earth and under the earth. Environment indicates, in total, all of peripheral forces, pressures and circumstances, which affect the life, nature, behaviour, growth, development and maturation of living beings. Irrational exploitation (not utilization) of natural resources for our greed (not need) has endangered our survival, and incurred incalculable harm. Environmental Education is a science, a well-thought, permanent, lasting and integrated process of equipping learning experiences for getting awareness, knowledge, understanding, skills, values, technical expertise and involvement of learners with desirable attitudinal changes about their relationship with their natural and biophysical environment. Environmental Education is an organized effort to educate the masses about environment, its functions, need, importance, and especially how human beings can manage their behaviour in order to live in a sustainable manner.  The term 'environmental awareness' refers to creating general awareness of environmental issues, their causes by bringing about changes in perception, attitude, values and necessary skills to solve environment related problems. Moreover, it is the first step leading to the formation of responsible environmental behaviour (Stern, 2000). With the ever increasing development by modern man, large scale degradation of natural resources have been occurred, the public has to be educated about the fact that if we are degrading our environment we are actually harming ourselves. To encourage meaningful public participation and environment, it is necessary to create awareness about environment pollution and related adverse effects. This is the crucial time that environmental awareness and environmental sensitivity should be cultivated among the masses particularly among youths. For the awareness of society it is essential to work at a gross root level. So the whole society can work to save the environment.

Religion in the Age of the Anthropocene

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arianne F. Conty
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Risks And Benefits ◽  
Human Exceptionalism ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
Forms Of Life

Though responses to the Anthropocene have largely come from the natural and social sciences, religious responses to the Anthropocene have also been gaining momentum and many scholars have been calling for a religious response to complement scientific responses to climate change. Yet because Genesis 1:28 does indeed tell human beings to ‘subdue the earth’ monotheistic religions have often been understood as complicit in the human exceptionalism that is thought to have created the conditions for the Anthropocene. In distinction to such Biblical traditions, indigenous animistic cultures have typically respected all forms of life as ‘persons’ and such traditions have thus become a source of inspiration for ecological movements. After discussing contemporary Christian efforts to integrate the natural sciences and the environment into their responses to the Anthropocene, this article will turn to animism and seek to evaluate the risks and benefits that could ensue from a postmodern form of animism that could provide a necessary postsecular response to the Anthropocene.

Living within Limits

1993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garrett Hardin
Keyword(s):  
Population Control ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Population Problem ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Garrett Hardin ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Free Flow Of Information ◽  
Flow Of Information ◽  
Original Thinker

We fail to mandate economic sanity, writes Garrett Hardin, "because our brains are addled by...compassion." With such startling assertions, Hardin has cut a swathe through the field of ecology for decades, winning a reputation as a fearless and original thinker. A prominent biologist, ecological philosopher, and keen student of human population control, Hardin now offers the finest summation of his work to date, with an eloquent argument for accepting the limits of the earth's resources--and the hard choices we must make to live within them. In Living Within Limits, Hardin focuses on the neglected problem of overpopulation, making a forceful case for dramatically changing the way we live in and manage our world. Our world itself, he writes, is in the dilemma of the lifeboat: it can only hold a certain number of people before it sinks--not everyone can be saved. The old idea of progress and limitless growth misses the point that the earth (and each part of it) has a limited carrying capacity; sentimentality should not cloud our ability to take necessary steps to limit population. But Hardin refutes the notion that goodwill and voluntary restraints will be enough. Instead, nations where population is growing must suffer the consequences alone. Too often, he writes, we operate on the faulty principle of shared costs matched with private profits. In Hardin's famous essay, "The Tragedy of the Commons," he showed how a village common pasture suffers from overgrazing because each villager puts as many cattle on it as possible--since the costs of grazing are shared by everyone, but the profits go to the individual. The metaphor applies to global ecology, he argues, making a powerful case for closed borders and an end to immigration from poor nations to rich ones. "The production of human beings is the result of very localized human actions; corrective action must be local....Globalizing the 'population problem' would only ensure that it would never be solved." Hardin does not shrink from the startling implications of his argument, as he criticizes the shipment of food to overpopulated regions and asserts that coercion in population control is inevitable. But he also proposes a free flow of information across boundaries, to allow each state to help itself. "The time-honored practice of pollute and move on is no longer acceptable," Hardin tells us. We now fill the globe, and we have no where else to go. In this powerful book, one of our leading ecological philosophers points out the hard choices we must make--and the solutions we have been afraid to consider.

The Measure of Greatness

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Moral Nature ◽  
Complex Trajectory ◽  
The Many ◽  
Human Excellence ◽  
Ethical Perspectives

Magnanimity is a virtue that has led many lives. Foregrounded early on by Plato as the philosophical virtue par excellence, it became one of the crown jewels in Aristotle’s account of human excellence and was accorded an equally salient place by other ancient thinkers. One of the most distinctive elements of the ancient tradition to filter into the medieval Islamic and Christian worlds, it sparked important intellectual engagements there and went on to carve deep tracks through several later philosophies that inherited from this tradition. Under changing names, under reworked forms, it continued to breathe in the thought of Descartes and Hume, Kant and Nietzsche, and their successors. Its many lives have been joined by important continuities. Yet they have also been fragmented by discontinuities—discontinuities reflecting larger shifts in ethical perspectives and competing answers to questions about the nature of the good life, the moral nature of human beings, and their relationship to the social and natural world they inhabit. They have also been punctuated by moments of controversy in which the greatness of this vision of human greatness has itself been called into doubt. This volume provides a window to the complex trajectory of a virtue whose glitter has at times been as heady as it has been divisive. By exploring the many lives it has lived, we will be in a better position to decide whether and why this is a virtue we might still want to make central to our own ethical lives.

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