Do religions know ecology?

Do religions know ecology?

21 July 2015 Off By Naginder Sehmi

Man devised religions to conquer nature -3

Am I going to upset the hornets’ nest? I can imagine the defenders of faiths scrambling to their scriptures and frantically looking for a word that might mean ecology. The term “ecology” does not exist in the vocabulary of sacred books.  Until Pope Francis’ recent laudable announcement, followers of religions detested scientists and other freethinkers. In order to defend themselves they blamed the scientists including ecologists  for all the ills of the world.  One can imagine each one of them now trying to contort the meaning of words and frantically trying to prove that his or her holy book provides for the conservation of the environment and ecology better than all others. The fact is that the religions do not want to know nor preach the revelations that modern scientific prophets have made.

Under the bleak socio-religious conditions Pope Francis’ encyclical defending the cause of ecology is a much too long-awaited  but  welcome historical landmark at least in the Christian world. People listen to the Pope.  I pray that his global influence will impact the decisions of the  Climate Conference 2015 in Paris. I hope Christian fundamentalists will not thwart his first effort.