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Example research essay topic: Industrial Revolutions Christian Theology - 2,202 words

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Lynn White Having written his famous article "The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis" in 1967 Lynn White placed himself among the first environmental ethicist's, who successfully criticized and caricatured Christianity. Some scholars and critics even now still do not know how that article should be considered: as an ecological appeal or as religious one. This single article woke up all the Christian community up and provoked a lot of talks on this matter. This process became even more complicated because all the Christian theology was written completely by scholars and exactly for the scholars. And the significant peculiarity of the work by Lynn White is that it forced theologians to think about the implications of their writing in the conditions of the modern age. However, not all of theologians were interested in looking inside White's criticism and they simply started defending the Bible against his charges with their inherent passion.

A dispute was that Lynn White argued about the Bible's advocacy of a despotic role of humans regarding the natural world, while theologians were trying to convey an idea of biblical stewardship for understanding the human relationship to nature. However, that Christian focus on the corruption and sinfulness of the present humanity and simultaneous "re perfection" of people by God reflected an idea that Christians became "so heavenly minded as to be of no earthly use. " Moreover, Biblical scholars were not able to apply the Bible as a tool in those environmental disputes. In all respects Lynn White's article is not totally intended to encourage all the Christians to be obsessed with ecology, but to be active and look inside the causes of our present day problems. "Unless we think about fundamentals, our specific measures may produce new backlashes more serious than those they are designed to remedy. " (White 186) The Christian theory neglected through all its history the physical aspects of the world, however its main problem was refusal to consider and perceive the nature and absolute concentration on God as something isolated from humanity. He also insists that the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions contributed to such a context being the products of Christianity. However, in this case an opinion of Martin Heidegger that revolutions of the above were mere a result of contemporary philosophy sounds more convenient: What is the ground that enabled modern technology to discover and set free new energies in nature? This is due to a revolution in leading concepts which has been going on for the past several centuries, and by which man is placed in a different world.

This radical revolution in outlook has come about in modern philosophy. From this arises a completely new relation of man to the world and his place in it. (Heidegger 50) Considering the Scientific and Industrial revolutions to be determining points in European history, White claims that the real development of these revolutions can be found much earlier. Specifically he believes that the Industrial Revolution started in about 1000 AD with the beginning of using "water power to industrial processes other than milling grain" (187). That invention led in the 12 th century to the use of wind power and other labor saving devices, including an automation, an apotheosis of which became an invention of the mechanical clock in the 14 th century. This tech advantage soon gave Europe a possibility to conquer countries around the world.

However, it is obvious that Christianity was the mother of science, and probably this was the only argument where Lynn White did not miss. In all respects it seems White, blaming Christianity for being "the historical roots of our ecologic crisis" is likely to oversimplify things. The world now appears as an object open to the attacks of calculative thought, attacks that nothing is believed able any longer to resist. Nature becomes a gigantic gasoline station, an energy source for modern technology and industry. This relation of man to the world as such, in principle a technical one, developed in the seventeenth century first and only in Europe.

It long remained unknown in other continents, and it was altogether alien to former ages and histories (Heidegger 50). It is very hard to resist unavoidable things, such as progress and White should have been familiar with that fact. Indeed, being a very developed part of the world Europe still remained geographically small and due to the things such as scarcity of the resources it had to expand. The determinants of expansion were not greed, the desire for power or boredom, but likely curiosity, scarcity and simply need, at least at the beginning. In this particular argument Martin Heidegger is more likely to be correct. Another point of Lynn White, which can be considered to be a key point, is that the most significant step in relationship between humanity and the earth was made in the 7 th century with the widespread usage of a plow to work the ground.

The friction of this plow with the soil was so great that it normally required not two but eight oxen. It attacked the land with such violence that cross ploughing was not needed, and fields tended to be shaped in long strips. In the days of the scratch-plow fields were distributed generally in units capable of supporting a single family... to use the new and more efficient plow, peasants pooled their oxen to form large plow teams...

distribution of the land was based no longer on the needs of a family but, rather, on the capacity of a power machine to till the earth. Man's relation to the soil was profoundly changed. Formerly men had been part of nature; now he was the exploiter of nature. (188) While started using this kind of plow a human began to dominate the nature, he became a user and exploited it for own means. However, one could argue that such things always happened in the history of the mankind: the earth was the first provider for human needs and by the way in most times it was his one and only concern.

The very purpose of the earth and land is to use it in various ways, otherwise it does not have a value. What people do about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves in relation to things around them. Human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny - that is, by religion. (188) As far ad Lynn White believed the destruction of paganism could be considered as a significant spiritual revolution in the history of humanity. As a result we obtained a number of principles, which limit our worldview up to the present day: progress was set up as positive feature, the concept of time was introduced as linear, but not cyclical according to the seasons, that the world was created only to serve the needs of the humanity (Genesis 1 - 2), the creation of humanity in Gods image (Genesis 1: 26) and the distinguish ability between nature and God. In antiquity every tree, every spring, every stream, every hill had its own... guardian spirit (189).

White claims that paganism carried some kind of nature-protected function, which was an essential part of religions. However, having destroyed paganism, Christianity again started the earth exploitation. And again Lynn White does not consider the fact of the existing progress, although he put it as one of the axioms of Christianity, which would result in a fact that pagan cultures start exploiting the earth and nature more and more as soon as their resources become scarce. According to White Christian theology empowered science and technology and gave mankind powers which, to judge by many of the ecological effects, are out of control. (191) Moreover, He claims that most of technological solutions and scientific achievements were built on unhelpful premises. One can wonder if the author possessed such an interesting data in 1967 and what were his resources All his evidence ends up in a very emotional statement: Despite Copernicus, all the cosmos rotates around our little globe.

Despite Darwin, we are not, in our hearts, part of the natural process. We are superior to nature, contemptuous of it, willing to use it for our slightest whim (191). According to Theodore Roszak, Christianity could hardly be considered as dynamo-machine of the history of mankind since many times it (Christianity) could not afford itself to become wiser, ruining everything was achieved with such an efforts. (49) From the 13 th Century onward, up to and including Leibnitz and Newton, every major scientist, in effect, explained his motivations in religious terms. Indeed, if Galileo had not been so expert an amateur theologian he would have got far less in trouble: the professionals resented his intrusion. And Newton seems to have regarded himself more as a theologian than a scientist.

It was not until the late 18 th Century that the hypothesis of God became unnecessary to many scientists. This is one more example of subjective evidence since Lynn White could not know for sure what would happened to those inventions if those scientists as well as many others did not believe in God. There could be dome cases where religion, not church, could represent a certain limiting force, but in this example personal belief systems could not carry such power obviously. The widespread opinion on the matter that in the east, where Christianity was always more concerned with inner life of the individual, the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions could not emerge as effectively as they did in the west is very mistaken since both the revolutions were suppressed by solely internal factors, such as poor economic and social position of the countries and remains from the past. (Robert Royal 132) Despite everything White said about Christianity, he has always been very careful in judging the whole history of it.

He never blamed Christianity completely for the problems and difficulties we have today. Throughout the history, there have been individuals who recognized the accuracy of Gods creation. Whites essay is concluded with the mentioning St. Francis of Assisi who, set up a democracy of all God's creatures (p. 192).

St. Francis believed that the purpose of the whole creation was to glorify the Creator. He also accepted the idea of the physical creation, known as the Incarnation... we shall continue to have a worsening ecological crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man... Both our present science and our present technology are so tinctured with orthodox Christian arrogance toward nature that no solution for our ecological crisis can be expected from them alone.

Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not' (p. 193). Because Whites essay touches very important issues for many people, it has caused different reactions and attitudes towards itself. The essay has been given a credit for providing a new view on the Christian theology, for viewing it in a new light. However, the opponents of White criticize him for being too narrow in judging the Christianity and considering it guilty for all the ecological problems there are today. It should be mentioned that there are countries in the world where Christianity has never been widely followed, and yet these countries contribute to the worldwide pollution and bad environment for example, Japan. Moreover, Christianity is very particular on distinguishing one group of people from the other, because all the humanity was created in the image of God (Genesis 1: 26).

A number of years ago, Michael Jackson recorded a song called the Earth Song. The video of it shows different people trying to put the Earth together again. This is very easy to picture when thinking about some kind of mystical and monistic religious traditions, but Christianity, on the other hand, would generally view this as idolatry. Lynn White is right saying in his essay that if the humanity does not change its attitude towards the earth, our environmental problems will never cease.

The Gaia Hypothesis suggests that nothing lives apart on this planet. All creatures are interconnected and inter-dependent (including humans). It is tragic that we can only appreciate the destroyed rainforests now by using the CFC sprays. Despite of that, the human attitude has not changed very much. We still are seeing ourselves as being the most important creatures in this world, we are centering the nature around ourselves and our, sometimes, unnecessary wants.

However, whether such an attitude is caused by the two thousand years of Christianity remains to be a question. It seems s a bit harsh to blame one single religion for our modern problems, and far more realistic to see them as a result of human greed, pride and self-importance. Bibliography: This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature and Environment, edited by R. Gottlieb p. 184 - 193 (essay Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis by Lynn White reprinted). Heidegger, Martin. Discourse on Thinking.

New York: Harper & Row 1966. Roszak, Theodore. The Voice of the Earth. New York: Simon & Schuster 1992. Royal, Robert.

The Virgin and the Dynamo. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1999. Internet sources: web web web


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Research essay sample on Industrial Revolutions Christian Theology

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