The Good in Nature and Humanity

by Kellert, Stephen R.

• ISBN13: 9781559638388
• ISBN10: 1559638389
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Island Pr

Summary

Scientists, theologians, and the spiritually inclined, as well as all those concerned with humanity's increasingly widespread environmental impact, are beginning to recognize that our ongoing abuse of the earth diminishes our moral as well as our material condition. Many people are coming to believe that strengthening the bonds among spirituality, science, and the natural world offers an important key to addressing the pervasive environmental problems we face.The Good in Nature and Humanitybrings together 20 leading thinkers and writers -- including Ursula Goodenough, Lynn Margulis, Dorion Sagan, Carl Safina, David Petersen, Wendell Berry, Terry Tempest Williams, and Barry Lopez -- to examine the divide between faith and reason, and to seek a means for developing an environmental ethic that will help us confront two of our most imperiling crises: global environmental destruction and an impoverished spirituality. The book explores the ways in which science, spirit, and religion can guide the experience and understanding of our ongoing relationship with the natural world and examines how the integration of science and spirituality can equip us to make wiser choices in using and managing the natural environment. The book also provides compelling stories that offer a narrative understanding of the relations among science, spirit, and nature.Grounded in the premise that neither science nor religion can by itself resolve the prevailing malaise of environmental and moral decline, contributors seek viable approaches to averting environmental catastrophe and, more positively, to achieving a more harmonious relationship with the natural world. By bridging the gap between the rational and the religious through the concern of each for understanding the human relation to creation, The Good in Nature and Humanityoffers an important means for pursuing the quest for a more secure and meaningful world.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
Acknowledgments	xv
Building the Bridge: Connecting Science, Religion, and Spirituality with the Natural World	1	(8)
Timothy J. Farnham
Stephen R. Kellert
Part I. Scientific and Spiritual Perspectives of Nature and Humanity	9	(128)
Introduction to Part I: Ethics and the Good in Nature and Humanity	15	(4)
Richard J. Wood
The Contribution of Scientific Understandings of Nature to Moral, Spiritual, and Religious Wholeness and Well-Being	19	(10)
Ursula Goodenough
Spiritual and Religious Perspectives of Creation and Scientific Understanding of Nature	29	(20)
Calvin B. Dewitt
Values, Ethics, and Spiritual and Scientific Relations to Nature	49	(16)
Stephen R. Kellert
Religion and Ecology: The Interaction of Cosmology and Cultivation	65	(26)
Mary Evelyn Tucker
Gaia and the Ethical Abyss: A Natural Ethic Is a G[o]od Thing	91	(12)
Dorion Sagan
Lynn Margulis
Religious Meanings for Nature and Humanity	103	(10)
Margaret A. Farley
A Livable Future: Linking Geology and Theology	113	(10)
George W. Fisher
Alma De'atei, ``The World That Is Coming'': Reflections on Power, Knowledge, Wisdom, and Progress	123	(14)
Jeremy Benstein
Part II. Linking Spiritual and Scientific Perspectives with an Environmental Ethic	137	(76)
Introduction to Part II: The Search for Harmony	141	(4)
William H. Meadows
Work, Worship, and the Natural World: A Challenge for the Land Use Professions	145	(16)
Robert Perschel
Leopold's Darwin: Climbing Mountains, Developing Land	161	(14)
Strachan Donnelley
A Rising Tide for Ethics	175	(8)
Dave Preble
Carl Safina
Hunting for Spirituality: An Oxymoron?	183	(16)
David Petersen
The Idea of a Local Economy	199	(14)
Wendell Berry
Part III. From the Perspective of the Storyteller	213	(30)
The Garden of Delights: A Reading from Leap	215	(16)
Terry Tempest Williams
The Mappist	231	(12)
Barry Lopez
Notes	243	(18)
About the Contributors	261	(6)
Index	267