29. Where Did We Go Wrong?

Nature :: Spirit — Kinship in a living world

How did Western culture get so disconnected from nature? Some people point to the scientific revolution of early modern Europe, with its quest to control nature. But where did those early scientists get the idea to conquer nature? Today we look at the famous theory of historian Lynn White in 1967—that the creation stories of Genesis taught medieval Christianity to “subdue nature.” It’s a theory that people still repeat today, even though most of White’s evidence has been refuted. We look especially at how centuries of Jewish teachers interpreted Genesis—as a cautionary tale about what happens when humans fail to take moral responsibility. If two religious traditions can read the same creation story in opposite ways, what does that say about how creation stories actually work? And where, again, does that urge to conquer nature come from? Notes and links following the transcript.

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